Father spent 4 years creating Robot Attack starring his kids
Some time ago, Simon was browsing Vimeo when he came across an astounding iPhone action film shot by a dad and his two young sons. Since then, we’ve been following his behind the scenes posts on social media and just got more and more amazed by what Brian Vowles was able to achieve.
Now, four months later, our jury decided that this film has to be a part of MoMo ’19 and it will be screened on May 11 at Kosmos in Zurich.
Notes from the MoMo Jury: “Reminds me of my childhood with my brother. What a gift to watch.”
I got sucked down that black hole of, “Should I get a better camera?”. I did loads of research and the more I read, the more I realized that I didn’t have the knowledge to operate a better camera. I knew my kids attention span would be limited and I needed something with no learning curve, that could take nice clean footage with decent amount of resolution. – Brian Vowles
Interview with Brian
What is the story behind your film?
I’ve wanted make a short film for a really long time. In the late 90’s, I saw a short called 405 that blew my mind and I always wanted to try and make something like that.
On a snowy day in 2012, I made goofy little movie in the backyard with my two little boys. I shot it in about fifteen minutes and later that day I was editing it together. It was so much fun.
A couple days later I had a cute little movie with some simple visual effects in it, the kids loved it, and that’s when the gears started turning…. Could I make a short action film with the kids…. full of cool visual effects…. on my phone?…….
Robot Attack was born.
What were the steps which led you to make it?
I think it was a few things aligning. I had been doing freelance VFX work on other peoples short films for a couple years and I learned a lot doing that. I also got tired of executing other people visions.
The kids were a bit older now, and I thought they would and be able to take simple directions. Finally, I didn’t need to buy or rent an expensive camera….. I could go out and capture really nice footage with my phone.
Why did you choose a smartphone to film with.
In the beginning of the project, I got sucked down that black hole of, “Should I get a better camera?”. I did loads of research and the more I read, the more I realized that I didn’t have the knowledge to operate a better camera. I knew my kids attention span would be limited and I needed something with no learning curve, that could take nice clean footage with decent amount of resolution.
What equipment did you use?
I shot with an iPhone 5s. As I got into production, I started to discover all kinds of other toys that could help make the movie look better. The first thing I picked up was my Moondog Labs Adapter. That lens really gave the short a bigger and more epic feel.
Shortly after that I found out about Filmic Pro. Up until that point I had been testing using the default iPhone controls, which was not ideal. This was the early days of Moondog, but around that time, the adapter became a preset inside of Filmic Pro and that streamlined the process even more.
I picked up a small stabilizer at the beginning of the project but It was too light and I found it impossible to use. All of the test footage was horrible. In the end I went with a bigger DSLR stabilizer and that made all the difference. I looked into some sliders but they were all pretty expensive at the time. So I just did some research and built one out of an old weight set my neighbour was throwing out. It wasn’t amazing, but there are a few shots in the film that used it.
All of my editing was done in Adobe Premiere on my Mac Pro (Trash Can model). As for the visual effects, all of the robot work was done in MODO, and the compositing was done in NUKE.
How much did you know about filmmaking before you made this film?
I’m an animator so I know the CG version of filmmaking pretty well. I’m pretty used to working with storyboards, composition, performance, and most of those things transfer nicely to the real world.
However, nothing could prepare me for the painful unpredictability of live action filmmaking. The weather, the lighting and the locations were always letting me down. I was utterly clueless as to what was involved.
What did you like about filming with a phone? What were the downsides, if any?
If I had really expensive camera on set I would have been terrified that it would get destroyed. The iPhone made everything move faster and I didn’t have non-stop “equipment value stress”. If I tried a cool shot and dropped the camera by accident it wasn’t a huge deal. We didn’t have big heavy equipment to move around and that kept things moving, kept it fun.
The biggest drawback for me was storage and battery life, especially on the cold days. The kids always wanted see the shots after we did them, but we had to wait until we got home because battery life was so precious. I only had the 16GB iPhone at the time and it filled up pretty quickly. On the longer days where I wanted to shoot a lot, I would take my wife’s phone as well.
Has making the film changed your life in any way?
For sure. I’ve met some really great people because of it. Over the years I posted episodes on the making of process, and so many people would write to me and say things like “This is a cool project….. I hope you finish it”. It’s been amazing to get support from people I don’t know, on the other side of the planet.
I’ve had so many ideas and half finished projects over the years that I was starting to feel like a bit of a loser for not completing anything. I think finishing this has been really good for my brain.
How successful was the film, personally and in gaining an audience for your work.
My big worry was that I took too long to finish and the kids had grown out of it. When we started this project, they were so small and impressed by everything, but since then, they had seen Transformers and The Avengers and our movie is obviously not that. So I was worried they were going to watch it and think…“This sucks”… but I’m happy to report that they still love it and watch it all time.
Overall, I’m happy with how it turned out. I still see all the mistakes but that’s just crazy artist talk. The online response has been great and people have been so supportive. I get emails once in a while from people saying they “watched it with their kids and had blast” and that’s the best.
This world is constantly fighting for our eyeballs attention, and so I’m grateful to anyone who’s given me ten minutes of their eyeball time. Ten minutes is a big commitment nowadays.
Looking back on the movie, is there anything you’d have done differently?
The one thing I wish I did was use a green screen for all of the tree replacements. When we started filming the battle, it was late winter, but ten weeks later all the trees had grown in and everyone knows there is no foliage in the apocalypse.
So we had to reshoot all the backgrounds the following winter. Cutting the kids out of the spring footage was a nightmare. It was hundreds of hours of work that could have been avoided with a green screen.
Looking back is tough though because every time something went wrong on this project, the outcome always made the film better.
How important are film festivals that give these kind of films a platform for you?
I never thought that my film would play in a theatre with a real, popcorn eating audience. I never thought that a film made on my phone would be accepted to any festivals because it wasn’t a “real” movie shot with a “real” camera or crew. So the fact that my little short is going to be playing in a theatre, the other side of the world, with a bunch of other mobile films is truly amazing. I’m so happy to be a part of it.
Read Next: The Mobile Motion Film Festival.
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Brilliant, and really inspiring!