Day 2: Special Effects in Exchange for Call of Duty

This is a story from my 2nd Feature, Mousetrap 2. The script called for a car crash on the main highway running through my town. Obviously our $1700 budget could never afford to do this practically so I started looking into doing it with special effects or CGI (Computer Generated Imagery). I started emailing companies asking if they could help me out. No one really responded because I was practically asking them to do it for free, but I did get a hold of one company and the email conversation is hilarious. I email them telling them everything they need to know about the shot and here is what they send me back.

$12,300-$15,000 for a shot that is around a second long!! The entire budget for the film was $1700. I respond back with this.

He hits me back with an insult saying I should find some student to do it with pirated software. This guy is pretty much telling me that only an idiot would help me out. I tell him thanks for his time and start to think about this more. I start doing research and watch a lot of YouTube videos. I start to think I could learn how to do CGI and figure this out on my own, but after a lot of research I decide I need help. I come across a YouTube video.

Yes! That is the exact video I saw a couple years back. I contact the guy who did it immediately and tell him about my project. He agrees to help for the small price of 2 video games, Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty. I agree over email and start to question where this guys lives. He tells me he lives in Algeria. I am stunned. Suddenly my small, no budget film is being made by people all over the world. Anyways, he gets me the crash and he does an excellent job on it by the way! I send him the video games and I doubt he even pirated his software ;)

The lesson I learned is you don't have to be fancy and expensive to be professional. This VFX artist who only charged me video games saved me thousands of dollars and his work was excellent. I'll never forget what this man did for me and for my film!

-Ethan Clerc