How to Create Muzzle Flashes, Explosions, etc.

Here's a little bit of neat trickery for you fellow aspiring filmmakers. If you're working on something that involves gunfire, explosions, or other types of action effects out of your budget, it's not too hard to create the effect in Final Cut. I did a gunfire muzzle flash in my film and it looks pretty sweet (a "muzzle flash" is when there's a burst of light or fire when the gun shoots...very common in film; not as common in reality).

First, check out this website: Detonation Films. They've got loads of sweet muzzle shots and explosions you can purchase cheap. Thankfully they also have a free page, which is where the link above will take you. You'll find that all of their effects occur against a black screen. After you import the clip into your Final Cut track, simply right click the clip and select composite mode, screen. That'll make the black mostly transparent. Then in image control, you can adjust the brightness and contrast until the black is all gone. Here's their tutorial on the effect, which again, is very easy.

Next you'll need your gun shot sound effect. A great site for sound effects of any sort is Sound Dogs. You can preview any sound right there. You'll be tempted to just use their preview clips since they're free. DON'T. The preview clips are not good quality at all. I bought a firing sound for just under $4. You can choose the type of file you want (.aiff for me), and the sample rate. Now I have a gun shot in my film that I wish I could share here, but that'd be giving away too much.

That's it for this mini-tutorial. Let me know if you like these types of posts and I'll do them more often. Also today, I cast a new character who will be in the pickup shots we do in April. I'll announce it soon.

Comic Sorting Hat

Now you can own your very own "Comic Sorting Hat!" I added this and a small handful of new items to the online shop. Remember, you can choose which color you want to get your "Purgatory Comics" T-shirt in. The blue and red ones appear in the movie. The Comic Sorting Hat does not appear in the movie...it's actually based on a concept that Jonathan (Berner) came up with when we were trying to figure out how to cover his head during the pickup shots day. Sort your comics in style!

Movie Logo, Misc.

Long ago, I wrote that the "Bagged and Boarded" logo on the web site was temporary. And it was. So on the site now is the new one...the one we'll see on posters and promotional material in the future. It was designed by my go-to graphic designer Rafael Rivera. To see the logo as it appears on the site, click the banner below!

Like I wrote in the last entry, we're going to be doing a little more shooting in the future. Actually, what I'm really kind of doing here is planning to do a small scene that appeared waaaay in an early draft of the script. This may include additional casting. I put up a small casting notice on [redacted for Blogger TOS] just to see what comes up.

Shooting Pickup Shots, New MiniDoc

Last Friday night, Mike the DP came back out to Long Island to help get the film back on track. We watched the entire current cut of the movie (while drinking some much needed Jack), and assessed the situation. Mike's the first person besides me to really have seen the entire thing at its current stage, and we both brainstormed a little on how we can improve things.

The next day was our day to shoot some pickup shots. These are just little shots I need to fix some edits or add to the film. I needed Jonathan for this so I picked him up at the train station that morning. But there was a problem (there's always a problem). To find out more, enjoy this all new Side Panels minidoc!

So as you can see, things turned out okay in the end. We headed to the comic book store and shot a little bit of footage. It was a piece of cake because there was really no audio or lighting involved. We kinda zipped in and out. I was able to get a few of my friends in the store to be extras. We also grabbed a couple of more extras from the gaming store that's next to the comic store (always a good source of last-minute extras).

I forsee a second and final day of pickup shooting in the future. I can think of another scene, outside of the comic store, that will really benefit from some extra footage (b-roll, as they call it in the biz). Plus I'm also strongly leaning toward adding a new silly scene, which I can't write here because it will give away too much.

It's good to have my motivation back. And man, I should really hand out a couple of congratulations here. Congrats to Garreth the AC for getting hitched! And congrats to Tim the lead male for having a beautiful baby girl! I hope both of you guys are doing great.