My second feature film, Pasquale Dickinson, made its debut at Floralee Hark Cohen Cinema in Charleston, West Virginia today! Pasquale Dickinson is a stop-motion animated supernatural comedy feature film. I wrote it, directed it, edited it, produced it and animated it all by myself on zero dollars, literally! All I had was art supplies, leftover paper and a makeshift animation table to make it. I even composed the music and the Foley art. The main titular character (voiced by me), is an overachieving, but nervous middle school boy who knows his little West Virginia town is being infested with flamboyant monsters, his girlfriend (voiced by a woman my mom works with) is secretly a monster herself, a vampire to be exact. My mom brought snacks to the event and my family and three other people came to see it.

If you're very low on cash in order to make a film, that's okay. You can work with what you got, for example. #1. Forced Perspective: If you have the camera in the right angle and your actor far away enough, you'll get what looks like something unbelievably huge up against someone normal size. You could make a toy dinosaur seem like a regular dinosaur, you could make a sandwich look like it grew to the size of a mattress and you can make a toy car seem like a real car. #2. Costumes: Make the costumes with clothes you already have or recycle a Halloween costume. #3. Props: Make the props as recycled crafts.

 Today, I decided to create a fantasy short on a shoestring budget. It's about a wizard student who was sent to a dark forest as punishment for using his magic improperly. The short was filmed at a park next to my old middle school.

 Welcome to the first film lesson on my blog: In this lesson, you will learn that making a film, whether it be live action or animated, can be really, really obvious as long as you have the right stuff in four parts. First Part of The Lesson: The Camera- No movie in the world can made without a camera, your best bet to find a camera is at your local retailer, but unless you're making a found footage film, those kiddie digital camcorders won't do it. You need something more like these: It can take professional, cinematic photos and videos and with the lenses, you can change the lighting, no need in a spotlight. Second Part of The Lesson- Software- No movie can be made without editing software, you need something proper and crisp. I'd suggestion this. Splice, an app on Google Play Store and the App Store, it's super easy-to-understand and it's even free for your notebook computer. Third Part of The Lesson- Live Action or Animation?- You gotta figure what type of film ...

Yeah, you read that title, I don't know what caused my fascination for the illusion of art in movement. I know SpongeBob SquarePants and Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy were my favorite cartoon series growing up, my favorite LEGO stop-motion animators started my love for stop-motion, Shrek and Toy Story were my favorite animated films and I used to make flipbooks. But the start of my love for the art of animation is a mystery. I have no clue, I just assume it was Disney.