A fan-made Star Wars video.

A

Aspiring Mogul

These effects look pretty good for a fan film. The standards of performance are rising all over the world, in every industry, and film-making will be no exception.

Can someone give me a cost estimate on how much this video would cost an aspiring mogul? Mussonman?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Z2Xpj64Z2w
 
1 Person with a camera and someone who does decent tracking, but still very basic shading and animation plus some ok to less convincing visual effects. And an editor, although it seemed more like a collection of shots instead of scenes.
The cost: I don't know.

Technology gets more accessible every day, but it will still take skills (and time) to make it look like the real thing.
 
He drove around L.A. Getting shots. $40 for gas.
He used several free, off-the-shelf explosion effects. $0
Not including capital expenses like the editing and effects software
I'd estimate he took 80 hours doing this very basic animation and
compositing and that cost $0.

So if an aspiring mogul were to pay someone to do this:
Two days shooting, one camera person – from $160 to $500. The
low end would get you the poor shots you see in this piece.
80 hours (maybe more) for editing and efx - $800 to $2,500.
So this could be done for $40 up to $3,000 (and higher) depending
on how many people an aspiring mogul uses and how much they are
paid.

I know a guy here in L.A. who can do a considerably better job with
the modeling and animation. He's the one who gave me the 80 hour
estimate. Told me it would take him three times that - but that it
would actually look good.

That said it's a nice little showcase for a beginning efx artist.
 
For starters, I wouldn't say that looks very well made. It's all pretty basic stuff. I don't think the camera needed tracking, I think they shot it stationary, then digital zoomed and added in the shakes after all of the effects were finalized. The explosions are just awful and a lot of the colors don't match up with the raw footage.

Plus, they don't properly (or at all) blur things that are placed in the distance, especially in that last shot.

Having that mini-rant out of my system, directorik's estimations are spot on. Those explosions and 3D models are free online. It wouldn't take ME that long to make this, but again, it's pretty basic stuff. I'd attempt to make it look a hell of a lot better, too, even though my track record for CG work has been to just do what I have to for the purpose of my story (I've gotten better at VFX and CGI and would not consider this passable if I were making a video that needed these effects)

It would take a while for renders. It could also take some time looking for well-made models online, most of them are pretty bad (but with how fast some of them are moving, with some good motion blur, you wouldn't even be able to tell)

Most of the hard work in this is just in the sound editing, so in total, it could take 80 hours to make this, and it all depends on what you're paying people per hour.
 
Last edited:
Aspiring Mogul said:
These effects look pretty good for a fan film. The standards of performance are rising all over the world, in every industry, and film-making will be no exception.

Can someone give me a cost estimate on how much this video would cost an aspiring mogul? Mussonman?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Z2Xpj64Z2w
Click to expand...

Being that the plates were most likely shot on a DSLR by one single person, and you download Blender 3D for free, and purchase Video Co-Pilot Action Essentials for $250, I'm going to go out on a limb and say you can accomplish the majority of what you see for about $250, plus the cost of the camera.

You can download the Sound Effects easily with a simple Google serch.
 
directorik said:
He drove around L.A. Getting shots. $40 for gas.
He used several free, off-the-shelf explosion effects. $0
Not including capital expenses like the editing and effects software
I'd estimate he took 80 hours doing this very basic animation and
compositing and that cost $0.

So if an aspiring mogul were to pay someone to do this:
Two days shooting, one camera person – from $160 to $500. The
low end would get you the poor shots you see in this piece.
80 hours (maybe more) for editing and efx - $800 to $2,500.
So this could be done for $40 up to $3,000 (and higher) depending
on how many people an aspiring mogul uses and how much they are
paid.

I know a guy here in L.A. who can do a considerably better job with
the modeling and animation. He's the one who gave me the 80 hour
estimate. Told me it would take him three times that - but that it
would actually look good.

That said it's a nice little showcase for a beginning efx artist.
Click to expand...

Hi, Rik,

So up to $500 for such shots. Don't forget, of course, that an aspiring mogul has to start somewhere, and, as you said, try it and learn from the experience. Of course, adding other actors would add to the cost, but I'm looking, for now, at the cost of a space fight scene. So, according to you, the cost of a space fight scene (without the extra actors, dialogue, and so on) would be up to $500, but, to do something better, up to $2,400. Am I correct?



mussonman said:
It's all pretty basic stuff. I don't think the camera needed tracking, I think they shot it stationary, then digital zoomed and added in the shakes after all of the effects were finalized. The explosions are just awful and a lot of the colors don't match up with the raw footage.
Click to expand...


Hi, Mussonman,

I presume you can do it for $500? I'm really looking for something basic, to start, and I don't want to waste anyone's time and energy on my grand schemes.

For what it's worth, I think the shots are great, but what do I know?
 
Now the question is: what do you want to acchieve with making that spacefight?
Don't make it without narrative context like this Star Wars video, because that's just a funny gimmick at best.
There have been more exciting invasion shorts:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dadPWhEhVk

So maybe you should consider having at least one person in it to add 'drama'?
 
Last edited:
WalterB,

The space fight is part of the larger story, of course. And, as I write this, I'm thinking we may even be able to do away with that altogether, because the scene deals with the interactions of the crew and, at the end of the fight, with the commander of the enemy convoy.

The focus is on the story, not the sfx. Again, this is going to be a learning experience.
 
Say, I've been watching that video, and I like the shots, but the professionals here say it's not that great. If I may ask, what's wrong with the shots of those spaceships flying about destroying everything? Is there a better product that I can compare it to?

Please remember, however, that, for me, sfx is second to the story, as it should be in sci-fi, if not all other genres.

Mussonman, Rik?
 
Sound, performance, music, sfx, it's all secondary to the story.

For the VFX, the shadows, coloring, motion blur, animation motion, even depth of field being incorrect. There are many ways that the audience can be pulled out of the suspension of disbelief. While the audience may not know what's wrong, they will often "feel" that something isn't quite right.
 
Aspiring Mogul said:
For what it's worth, I think the shots are great ...
Click to expand...

Great compared to what? Compared to the average hobbyist and the star wars fan films of the past, yes the shots are great. Compared to reality or what reality would be, then not so great; the VFX/CGI objects lack detail, the lighting/contrast is poor, as is the depth of field/focus and the explosions, smoke and other VFX scream super-imposition/CGI.

Aspiring Mogul said:
The focus is on the story, not the sfx.
Click to expand...

Whose focus, yours or the potential audience's? If you're talking about the audience's focus, then you have to focus on the quality of the sfx so that the audience believe them. If the audience feels that something's not quite right or a little "off", poof, there goes your suspension of disbelief, your audience is now focused on the fact that something doesn't feel right rather than on the story.

Obviously; sound, music, actors' performances, etc., all have this potential to make a scene/shot feel "not quite right" and therefore you, as a filmmaker, have to focus on all of them.

G
 
AudioPostExpert said:
Great compared to what? Compared to the average hobbyist and the star wars fan films of the past, yes the shots are great. Compared to reality or what reality would be, then not so great; the VFX/CGI objects lack detail, the lighting/contrast is poor, as is the depth of field/focus and the explosions, smoke and other VFX scream super-imposition/CGI.
Click to expand...

Thanks, APE, but I have poor eyesight - still, they look fine to me. But can you give me an example of better work?



AudioPostExpert;395397Whose focus said:
The focus for now would be me, to give me experience in producing films. Later on, of course, the focus will be on the audience.



AudioPostExpert said:
Obviously; sound, music, actors' performances, etc., all have this potential to make a scene/shot feel "not quite right" and therefore you, as a filmmaker, have to focus on all of them.
Click to expand...

True, but I want to start from simple short films or vignettes and, over the course of my career, work my way up to increasingly-complex films.
Click to expand...
 
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