Filmmaking Basics/Making the Props

{| cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" style="margin:0em 0em 1em 0em; width:100%" Painting the movie poster
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Making the Star Wars poster
[[Image:StarWarsPosterPainting.jpg|frame|This is a movie poster prop for the movie set of "Seduced by the Dark Side!" created with the free  ArtRage 2 demo.

This artwork was created by placing real posters from Star Wars in a tracing layer which can be enlarged and centered as needed. Then I use the very natural painting tools of ArtRage2 with a Wacom tablet to trace pieces of the original artwork to make a poster of my own design. Because ArtRage2 feels so natural and organic, this poster was fun to create even though I am not an artist. I highly recommend this program and you can download it immediately for either the Macintosh or Windows PC. Best of all, this working demo version is free. Use it today! FREE!

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We need a poster for our movie set. It must be very simple. It should look good when reduced to only 285 pixels wide (like the example to the left.) This is an ideal project to do with ArtRage2 FREE.

Screen shot of the free version of ArtRage2. Here, I am working on the Star Wars poster in the template layer.

Step 1 · Download ArtRage 2 FREE (The free version)

 * Highly Recommended !!!


 * ArtRage 2 is a fun painting program simulating simple artist tools. Ambient Design is a New Zealand based company founded by Andy Bearsley and Matt Fox-Wilson who came from MetaCreations Corp.  They offer a free version of ArtRage 2 which has only some of the features of the full version.  Still, the free version is more than enough to do this project.


 * ArtRage2 is one of those programs which needs no instructions to begin using. Almost everything is self explanatory. And it is fun!


 * Note 1
 * ArtRage 2 requires a graphic tablet since a mouse is not a good painting tool. I tried using a mouse and could not do it. You must have an artist's tablet attached to your computer to get the benefit of pressure sensitivity.

Step 2 · Download Star Wars Posters from Internet

 * There are a lot of Star Wars movie posters on the internet. Since you are only using it as a template, it does not have to be very large.  I used the file named "StarWarsMoviePoster1977.jpg".  (Google it.)

Step 3 · Create a new page in ArtRage2

 * Create a blank drawing (a blank canvas) in ArtRage2 which is the correct size for a poster. If possible, make this as small as you can.  For a movie prop, it must NOT have much fine detail.  If you create the poster at 285 by 425, then when it is blown up, it will have clear details.

Step 4 · Import the template

 * Put the Star Wars poster from the Internet into the tracing layer.


 * The great thing about ArtRage2 is you can move the artwork all around the tracing layer and enlarge it as much as you want. To create the sample drawing to the left, I used the same original poster as a template but you will see that I took different parts of it at different magnifications.  This is amazingly easy in ArtRage2 (specially when you compare this feature to other painting programs.)


 * For my sample drawing (seen left), I use the images of the to actors at one magnification and the words "Star Wars" at another magnification.

Step 5 · Create the poster

 * The free version of ArtRage2 has a limited about of brushes and tools but these are more than enough to create wonderful artwork.

Step 6 · Save your work

 * Save your work and then export the artwork as an PNG or a JPEG file. You can upload the PNG or JPEG file to Wikiversity or email it to me.

My email address

 * Hopefully, you have my email address by now. If not, please send me a message.  @undefined.  [[Image:Crystal Clear app xfmail.png|32px]]


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{| cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" style="margin:0em 0em 1em 0em; width:100%" Let's look at a useful filming trick for motion pictures
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The next page

 * Now we continue learning new and useful things about filmmaking. Matte paintings is one of the oldest tricks in filmmaking.  It is useful to know and we will need it later for our movie.


 * Go to Understanding Film Dailies.


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