My senior film was a space western that was centered around virtual production, combining media, and a heavy set design. I grew up watching a lot of action movies  that brought fantasy worlds to life, playing sandbox games where I could create worlds from scratch, and playing with legos where I could make anything I could imagine. As early as middle school I got involved with stage craft and building sets for plays and preference on campus. At home I would help whenever a bedroom needed to be repainted or a bathroom needed to be remodeled and later on I did most of the landscaping in our front yard for fun. So when I heard that the FMX department was getting a LED volume, I knew I wanted to build a fantasy world entirely from scratch. 

After coming up with the idea of Space Boy I started going through concept art, prop building tutorials, and assets in Unreal Engine. This made the pre-production pretty flawless considering I did most of the production design on my own as I worked with my DP Steven Nye to come up with the shot list. I was most excited about production design as I painted and weather nerf guns, talked with my old stage craft teacher Douglas Grinn to get the cockpit we built, worked with Alex Amyot to get barrels and set pieces from the prop house, and thrifted a handful of outfits for my actors. 

I shot on the green screen in the black box and after that Warren Cockerham notified Dan Westcott and I that we could collaborate with Vu and shoot on their 270 degree volume. This was an amazing opportunity for us, our crew, and the school to tighten our connection with Vu and to get hands-on experience with working on a LED volume. Dan and I rented a U-Haul tuck and most of the equipment from the cage from Monday through Thursday. I had a lot of experience with packing equipment and going back and forth after growing up in my grandfather’s carnival, so this was familiar to me. Dan shot his film, “Aware” that Tuesday which prepared us for my shoot on Thursday. The most valuable lesson I learned was to have multiple departments working efficiently at the same time. Then it came to shoot “Space Boy”.

The shooting process went well even though the computer crashed at one point and all things considered but more importantly, I think this was extremely valuable to the school and our students and have a better understanding and what it’s like to be on a virtual production. I am aware that Vu uses their space for commercial and more traditional shoots, so it was an honor to be able to create something different, break the norm, and show Vu what we can do. While I am satisfied with how my film turned out, I think the whole process was beneficial to everyone involved and more.