Cardboard Warfare – The Interview
OK, so we all saw how cool and fun Cardboard Warfare was earlier this weekend, so I tracked down the filmmaker to answer some questions for PCN. The first thing to know is that the dude is only 18 years old and that he’s only owned the camera for about a month. His name is Clint Jones and he currently lives in Atlanta.
PCN: What inspired you to feature cardboard in your short film?
CJ: To start from the beginning, my friend Tyler gave me a call about a year ago saying, “Dude, how cool would it be to build a life-size tank!” After thinking about the various ways of building the tank we decided on cardboard, because it’s free and lightweight. So about a year later the tank was finally completed. (We built off and on.) Then the idea, “What if we filmed a short film with a cardboard theme? Cardboard weapons? Cardboard everything?” was brought up. So Tyler and I got right to building these cardboard weapons. Each weapon was painstakingly traced out on cardboard and cut out up to 6 times for added stability. It took about a month to make all the guns, including the minigun, and grenade launcher. I must have gone through 12 box cutters!!!
PCN: Was there a budget for Cardboard Warfare?
CJ: Not at all, the only money spent was on water for the people who helped out that day. There wasn’t even any food to eat either! We were all starving!
PCN: What is your past experience making films?
CJ: I started making films about 3 and a half to four years ago. I always loved action movies and visual effects, because with visual effects the only thing holding you back from doing anything is your imagination. I mean think about it, if you want to create an alien land in a glass dome at the bottom of the ocean … in space, you can do so. As for schooling and whatnot, I’m self taught when it comes to film making and visual effects. I’ve never been to film school or anything like that. But I’d have to say that the most important thing I’ve learned in my high school video class was shot composition.
PCN: Was there a story board and can we see it?
CJ: No storyboard at all, it was all improv and written as we were on set.
PCN: How many hats did you wear for this production – Producer, Director, DP, Editor, Visual Effects etc….
CJ: For this short film I was the writer, director, DP, camera man, editor, sound designer, and visual effects artist. I pretty much did everything besides act. I nearly died from so much work though!
PCN: Is this the first time you worked with HDSLRs to shoot a project?
CJ: I’ve filmed two other things with the Canon T2i (my first HDSLR) both weren’t short films, but merely visual effects shorts that were about a minute each.
PCN: Which lenses did you use?
CJ: I used two cheap lenses that came with the camera: an EFS 18-55mm wide-angle lens, and an EFS 55-250mm zoom lens. No filtering. I’m told that I need to save up for an L lens.
PCN: Did you set the look in camera or shoot flat and correct in post?
CJ: I adjusted the exposure a little depending on the shot, but really I just shot flat and did correction in post.
PCN: Did you use any support rigs or aftermarket attachments like from Redrock Micro or Zacuto?
CJ: No, I couldn’t afford any after buying the camera. I need to save up for one because some of those shots were pretty shaky. We built a home made camera dolly with PVC track. We lugged 20, 10ft PVC pipes around all day, but didn’t use them! My original idea was to set up 100ft of track in front of the tank and have the actor run up to the Abrams as the camera glided along behind him. Let’s just say it didn’t work. We ran out of time and it was way too bumpy.
PCN: How did you capture sound on set?
CJ: I didn’t have any mics for the camera, so I just used the built in mic, which we all know is pretty bad. About 98% of the sound in the cardboard short was done in post. The actors talking and maybe a couple of footsteps were the only real sounds.
PCN: What was your workflow once you shot the footage?
CJ: Well first I imported about 14gb of footage to my desktop and then proceeded to import the shots into Adobe Premiere. Once the shots were imported I began to edit the shots, not worrying about any of the sound. Once the entire video was edited I went onto visual effects. I started from the beginning and scrubbed through asking myself, does this shot need VFX? No. This one? No. This one? Yes. So if it did, I would go into Adobe After Effects and grab the source file and just focus on the frames that needed VFX. Muzzle flashes, shells, smoke, bullet holes, explosions, dust, gun slides, dirt hits, sparks, ricochets, blood, or anything else were all considered. When I was finished doing VFX for that clip I would save it out as a full quality uncompressed QuickTime file, import it back into Premiere, and then repeat until all 26 VFX shots were finished.
Now once I had 26 shots imported and lined up in premiere, it was lagging pretty badly. So I had to save the video out as one file and make a new Premiere project, I’m working on a pretty old system. Then it was time for sound. First I would set the ambient sounds, like the bugs, the wind, etc. Then I would move up to footsteps, then sounds made by the actors like doors closing or opening, people falling, or hitting things. Next I would go to guns and explosions, ricochets and near misses, and then special sounds such as a reverse gunshot turned down before you hear the gunshot, same goes for the explosion. I love doing sound about as much as I love doing VFX. It’s like painting. You start with one layer and slowly add layers on top. Once all of my sounds were placed I went through the entire video and started leveling out the sounds, because they were WAY too loud! And once that was done I finished up with some color correction. One of my favorite techniques when it comes to CC is to use color balance. Make the shadows blue, highlights yellow, and midtones green, add a 30-40% tint to it and it will look pretty rad.
PCN: Pros and cons working with HDSLRs?
CJ: Pros: You can get that “picture” quality on film. Interchangeable lenses, depth of field, 1080p footage! Tons of manual settings, and my favorite, NO MORE CAPTURING FOOTAGE!!! Drag and drop baby! I’ve never had a camera like this so all of these things are new to me, zooming with a wheel instead of a little switch, as well as focusing. It offers much more control.
Cons: HDSLRs are pretty small so a stabilizer is very much needed. The center of gravity isn’t spread out as much as it is on a traditional video camera such as the XH-A1. The built in mic is pretty bad, and you can hear the camera processing in the audio track, or what I like to call, “The sound of the camera cookin’ up a video.” The camera overheats so I turn mine off after every shot. I have heard that the image will slant if you pan back and forth fast enough. I haven’t experienced this though. But trust me, there are WAY more pros then cons with these cameras.
PCN: Tell me about your day job. I take it from your Youtube profile that it involves special effects.
CJ: Well, on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday I work at a Japanese Hibachi Restaurant. I only make about 200 a month so that takes care of my gas and car bill. But I make most of my money from doing video work for people. I do intros, logos, VFX, 3D modeling, texturing, photography, and editing. Pretty much anything having to do with video. I work for a company in California called Synapse FX. They do lots of on set work such as pyrotechnics, blood and gore, makeup, robotics, and environmental effects. But they also do visual effects work too and that’s the department where I work in. I haven’t made too much money on Youtube yet, but hopefully that will pick up soon.
PCN: The effects on Cardboard Warfare were so realistic. Can you talk about how you achieved such a high end look?
CJ: I owe it to Action Movie Essentials 2 from videocopilot.net. If you don’t have it you better head over there now and get it! It’s one of the most useful things I have. I’d be willing to delete all my stock footage besides AME2. But as for compositing you need to keep some things in mind. Match your blacks and whites, (contrast) make sure the scale is realistic, ADD MOTION BLUR!!! MOTION BLUR IS THE KEY TO EVERYTHING!!! Depth of field if you need to. If you’re motion tracking, don’t just stop at the first couple tracks. Keep tracking until its perfect!!! I always like to think that there is ALWAYS a set of points and coordinates that will make your VFX compositing PERFECT! You just have to spend the time to find them, that’s all. Another thing to keep in mind. A lot of people get lazy when it comes to doing the same thing over and over or adding detail. To make it look realistic consider EVERYTHING! Take a gunshot for example, study footage of someone shooting the gun your firing, how often does a muzzle flash occur? Not too much at all. If one does occur, then will it cast light onto anything? How much smoke for this gun? How big is the shell when it flies out and how long does it stay in the air, does your gun have a slide that can come back? If so make it slide back and add motion blur. EVERYTHING needs to be considered with every effect you do. Detail is KEY!
PCN: Which effects were physical and which were done in post?
CJ: All the effects were done in post, nothing was done on set.
PCN: How did it feel to see your short mentioned on Attack of the Show and how has that changed the viewership traffic patterns.
CJ: It was unreal. I couldn’t believe our video made it on G4TV only after 2 days of it being on the net! We all must have watched it 10 times. As for viewership, I’ve gotten about 450,000 views so far, 4,000 subscribers, a couple offers, and about 10 bucks. =]
PCN: Did your truck ever recover?
CJ: No, Tyler’s truck remains in his front yard, longing to see the road once more.
PCN: What’s next?
CJ: Maybe a cardboard mini series, maybe Cardboard Warfare II, and maybe Cardboard Warfare T-Shirts, depending on how many people would buy. I’d like to thank everyone who helped out in this video; I couldn’t have done it without you guys!!! And thank you for the interview. =]
