This week's Club of the Week is ready for action!

Hit the Lights!

With the excitement of the upcoming first ever, There Film Festival, I decided to help the beginner film makers by introducing you to one of the most prominent film makers in There.

 I was fortunate enough to catch him for a few moments to let you peek into his club and perhaps give you a few tips to how to get started in movie making in a pixilated world!

Mackie: When did you first find There?

Francis_7: Back in 2003 during Beta.

Francis_7: My roommates in Sims On-line told me about it and I signed up for the beta right away. It looked very interesting, though it took me a while to get in There.

Mackie: What is your favorite thing about There?

Francis_7: The persistent geography and a real feeling of place. I have flown hover boats around Caldera Island so much that I rarely ever need to look at the map to tell where I am. I know all the landmarks and neighborhoods. That and all the great friends I have made.

Mackie: What was your first video?

Francis_7: My first video was in the There Action News filmed on the closing night of There Beta. It was a last minute project, but an incredibly fun one. It was thought up and filmed in the last four hours before There closed for the end of Beta. It was released during the following day when There was closed.

Mackie: How did you get started making videos?

Francis_7: I have been working on amateur videos since the 1970's when I got my first movie camera as a Christmas gift. I was inspired by movies like Star Wars and TV shows like Lost in Space and the Monkees to create interesting and unusual movies.  In college I continued making several well received Doctor Who episodes as well as quite a few original short films.  After college I really had no outlet for my film making hobbies. Arriving in There I realized this was the perfect place to make some short fun films! 

Mackie:  What would you tell a member interested in learning how to do it?

Francis_7:

10) build all your sets in advance and have the PAZ's ready to drop when your cast arrives.

9) Have a nice script or at least an outline or story board of what you want to accomplish. 

8) Access to the script via web page is a must. Makes it easy to past it into an IM for people to read on set, or link on a book or sign.

7) A small cast is best.  If you have more than 4 main characters getting them all together can be difficult, and getting them back on multiple days is even harder.

6) Create scenes or sequences with 1 or 2 main characters and a third character who appears only in that one scene.  Makes your cast looks larger, lets a person show up for only a few hours and have a decent part.

5) Don't shoot on weekends.

4) Create a short shooting schedule and get people who try out for parts to agree in advance to it.

3) Arrange shooting days so the most number of people are there at the start and then as you go later, shoot scenes with fewer and fewer people.

2) Don't shoot on weekends!

1) Every minute you spend planning out what you are going to do will save you hours and hours of time on set

Mackie: What format do you record in?

Francis_7: I use a vide output on the back of a second computer to send the video out to a mini DV camera. The Camera records the footage on tape. This method has too advantages over using recording software like FRAPS.  First it is not processor intensive so I don't get the slow frame rate that is often seen in FRAPS movies, and secondly I do not have to worry about a hard drive crashing and loosing all the footage.  The footage is then edited on a Mac in iMovie.  This is great for making DVD's out of my movies.

Mackie: How do you suggest others to do it to get started?

Francis_7: Try the FRAPS route. It’s a lot less of an investment, but you need a pretty fast machine to make it work well.  Find some good friends and go out and make your own fun!   Remember short is good, and funny is good, but short and funny is best of all!

Mackie: What is your favorite video created in There?

Francis_7: I think Tiki Trek, which was first done as a live stage play for ThereCon 2005 is my favorite.

Mackie: What do you spend most of your time in There doing?

Francis_7: I spend a large majority of my time making props and sets for movies in G-Max.  I love designing things. I often stop by Zona Island and welcome new members of There.  I also love Trivia, and taking new people on hover boat tours.

Mackie:  How do you get inspired to do a film?

Francis_7: Sometimes it just occurs to me.  One day I was flying over the neighborhood on a hover pack and  it occurred to me that the building looked like the ones at the beginning of a Mr. Rogers episode.  I had to get it out of my system quickly, and that was how Mr. Tiki's Neighborhood got made the following day. Other times I see a themed event with really cool looking objects and thing... Hmm these people spent all this time making all these buildings and such.  It would be a great place to shoot a movie.  That's how There Wild Wild West got made.  Sometimes Disky makes a really cool outfit and it just has to be in a movie.  Other times she spends a lot of time designing specific costume for a specific production like Tiki Trek.

Mackie:  What are you working on now?

Francis_7: A project for the upcoming There Film Festival as well as a cool spy project with Rick_Slick and of course Wizard of Lag is still... Well lagging in post production.

Mackie:  What is Miracle Pictures?

Francis_7: Miracle Pictures Movie Production is a club for both people who want to be in There movies and want to be invited to see premiers of movies as well. It has been around since the middle of 2003.

Mackie: Does your club have meetings?

Francis_7: We occasionally have casting calls for upcoming productions.  Club members also get invited to movie premiers.  The club also has a clubhouse which doubles a movie theater. It is located at Paradise 006

Mackie: Does your club help support the productions of the movies?

Francis_7: There is no cost to be in the club.  All of our productions are volunteer work only. No one gets paid for being in a Miracle Pictures production. Its just a great way to have fun.  Happy to take donations as some of our movies have budgets well over a million therebucks.

Mackie: How do you find actors/actresses for your film?

Francis_7: We often have casting calls for large productions.  Extras and smaller parts are selected at these. At the end of a day of production I make a note of who stuck around till the end of the day. Keeping people on set for any length of time is difficult, those who stick it out the longest often get asked to play larger and larger parts in future productions.  Most of the main characters in Miracle Pictures movies have gone this route. Rick_Slick showed up for a casting call on Killboat as he said he was willing to hang out as long as it took to finish shooting.  He has been doing that on most of our movies ever since, even writing and rewriting scripts for many of our movies.  Recently I got the chance to produce Rick Slick's script for Mission: Slightly Difficult.  Rickpa (star of There Wild Wild West and a major character in Mission Slightly Difficult) got his start as a Sleestack extra on Land of There Lost. I myself appear in every production as I am always available when I want me to work. I rarely get in a hissy fit and walk off my own set. And, most importantly of all, I work cheap... for myself at least.

Mackie: Anything you’d like to add?

Francis_7: Making movies in There has been a great way to meet new people and have a lot of fun (when I am not pulling my hair out that is) and I hope to be making movies for many more years in There.  It really is the most interesting on-line environment to shoot movies in.

Thank you so much Francis_7 for taking the time for this interview, I am sure lots of up and coming film makers will learn a lot from your experience and kindness!

Mackie