WikiU Film School Overview

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!

Try it today!

Lessons starting in 2006 from Course #1

The purpose of this course is to make two motion pictures (one animated and one live action) titled "Seduced by the Dark Side!" which teaches one of life's important lessons.

The course will runs from 2007 through 2008. The animated version will be complete in 2007 and the live action will be completed in 2008.

Here is what will be covered in the first few lessons of this course.

Step 1 • Formatting the Script · (Click here to start this lesson.)

$\;$Every motion picture starts with a story. Even though our story is very short, we still have to cut it down to the bare bones for our movie script. And as we do this, we must type the script into a standard format which all people in Hollywood will feel comfortable with.

Step 2 • Thumbnail Storyboards · (Click here to start this lesson.)

Once the script is ready, we immediately make the movie... on paper. The rough storyboard, which is done with stick-figures in tiny frames no bigger than your thumb, is all of the visual elements of the movie. But this still does not give us the timing for the movie. To do that, we need to make a movie of the storyboard (called an animatic). But that cannot be done until we have the rough music and the recorded dialog for our movie.

Step 3 • The Rough Music / The Temp Score · unfinished

Our movie will have background music and narrative music. The narrative music will be just like another actor in our movie. Therefore, we need to leave room for the narrative music when we create our animatic. That is why we begin our film scoring early. (In the meantime, (to learn the basics of creating music sound effects, click here.)===

Step 4 • Recording the Dialog for the Animatic · (Click here to start this lesson.)

When we create the animatic (movie of the storyboards), we need the storyboards, the narrative music, and the recorded dialog (voices of the actors). This can be rough since we will record the dialog for the animated movie using professional actors.

Step 5 • Edit the Animatic · unfinished

Once we have the storyboards, the recorded dialog, and the music, we will use an editing program (such as Final Cut Pro) to create the animatic (the movie of the storyboards.) Only then will we know if this movie will be a success.

Step 6 • 3D Storyboards · FrameForge (Click here to start this lesson.)

For our animatic, it would be nice to have high quality images from a 3D storyboard program. Therefore, we will offer this lesson for people who want to gain skill with this very interesting program.

Step 7 • 3D Storyboards · DAZ Studio (optional)

Another option for 3D storyboards is DAZ Studio.

Step 8 • How do they do this in Hollywood? · (Lesson #002-unfinished)

An optional tour of movie sets in Hollywood to see how scenes are broken down into a series of shots and then filmed. (Not free.)

Step 9 • Decisions about the making of our movie

As we progress through the making of our motion picture, we make decisions and record them in this chapter.

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