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Visual Effects

Images

The Making

Harold and Burns (2007)

Harold and Burns was based on a short children’s story I wrote for a class in high school, Harold and the Humungous Egg. Harold was a young boy who found a giant purple spotted egg in his refrigerator that eventually hatched into a calico frog. I chose to adapt this story to a short film for my thesis. The kids had to become college students (available resources!) and the frog became a rabbit (cuter and easier to CG.) It was the ending that gave me the most trouble. In the book, they let the frog go after it ate everything in his house, but that ending never really seemed to work for the movie.

After several drafts, I settled on this script. In one draft, Harold was eaten by the rabbit and digested through a bizarre fantasy world. In another, the rabbit tried to steal Harold's girlfriend when he wasn't looking, pretending to be a normal rabbit in his sight.

The primary challenge for me was to write a movie that was possible to shoot and complete the effects for while taking a full class load. So I decided to shoot it in a single location and limit the story to four characters. I also dumbed them down from a previous script, relying more heavily on generic conventions to enable as much story as I could in the 12 minutes I had available.

We shot over two weekends in a former student house on Wesleyan's campus. Essentially the entire place was decorated from Goodwill. We used the HVX-200 and shot in 720p. I did all the editing and effects work on my computer in my house. The result is Harold and Burns! Feel free to contact me with any further questions. I'm always happy to answer them.

 

Special Features From the DVD

Below are four sample special features from the Harold and Burns DVD, which you may or may not find interesting. The three VFX clips are intended to give a hint at the type of work that goes into an effects shot, but are by no means comprehensive.