TREE PROP TUTORIAL???

Not that I can´t find my own way to do this, but is there a good tutorial for making a cheap TREE PROP (Mid size)? For a tree house part in a film f.e. if not and if I´ll make such a, i will do a tutorial...

 

If you wanted to know how to make a large styrofoam tree prop that looked convincing on film and could be broken in half in a big fight sequence, I could help you, but for this........maybe CG, or miniature compositing, I dunno.

Course, you could always follow this one:

1. Find seeds

2. Find ground

3. Plant seeds in ground

4. Wait ten years

5. film in your new tree prop.


-Matt

 

If you don't need to interact with the tree and tree house very much, you could go to a hobby store. They sell little trees and bushes and other such things for train hobbyists that often times look very realistic.

 

Frankly, the money you spend building a tree prop, you could probably just buy a fake one or even a real one. SHOP AROUND.

 

Buy a real one? Heh. Not quite. Have you ever bought a sapling? They're pretty pricey. What about a full size tree? Ridiculously costly.

I remember in high school when a couple of kids cut all the branches off these two huge pine trees at our school. When they got caught, their parents (they were 16) had to pay to replace the two full size trees with comparable ones. I don't know the exact cost, but it was many thousands of dollars.

 

If you can't make a real tree house in a real tree, there's always chicken wire and paper machet!

 

You know, in the film I am "eventually" planning, there is a guy who lives on a forrest moon (like the endorian moon) and he managed to make a room-size house out of junk from a few former science labs on the moon... and to express, that this house in 20 meters of hights is really between two or three trees, i wanted to involve a PART of a tree. Like here:
http://www.hr-online.de/fs/servicewohnen/img/baumhaeuser_020618.jpg

And it should be a big part... Well I could do a steelframe building or sth- like that... Surrounding it with paper and I use a few of my personell SET-EFFECTS, good lighting, good painting.--- We´ll see

 

Never thought I'd say this, but...maybe you should film in a forest?

 

I can not build up a scenerie like this in a forrest without having it be destroyed

 

really now.. who is going to run up and smash a treehouse and set it on fire. c'mon now. at least make a reasonable response. i mean, unless your on someones private property without permission and they know about it. gee mighty christmas.. find someone in the neighborhood with a tree for criminy's sake. if you really cant find a tree, how do you plan on making a treehouse?.. consider everything.

 

Did I ever tell you guys the story of the RowBoat that was up in a tree in my old neighborhood. Seems a guy had been building it for a project, and some kids didn't like him, so they stuck the boat in a tree. How, you ask? Lord knows. They got in big trouble for it, and the guy got a b on the project. It is now apparently the floor of a tree house a couple of kids finished.

This is the good thing about Florida forests. Nobody touches them until there's market value to be found, and then they're turned into apartment complexes and condo's.

The bad part is all the frickin' palmeatto bushes. There frickin' everywhere. You can't film a good medieval forest scene with palmeattos everywhere. Then you KNOW it was filmed in Florida. Next time you watch "The Truman Show" (good movie), check out the shrubbery. Palm trees and Palmeattos give away that they're in florida. Big houses, a clean environment, and beautiful women at libraries give away that it's Seaside, Florida, which is a pretty nice place to be.

But please, please, please, stop moving down here people. More and more people move down here and let their punk kids romp around acting like they own the state. Most people complain that they want to go back home, because the prices and environment of parts of Florida are too much. IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT HERE, MOVE!! IT'LL MAKE LIFE EASIER FOR ME!

-Matt

 

go buy a few bonsai trees and erect a treehouse with popcycle sticks and furniture from a doll house... film the actors on a blue screen and you're all set!

 

about the florida thing... people really dont like people coming down. Two friends of mine went down and were walking on the beach at night, doing nothing, about 9 or 10 older guys came up and kicked the crap out of them. The were really hurt. What is up with that/

 

you may find this surprising, but i'm actually gonna post a response to your question...

HOW TO MAKE FAKE TREE PARTS FOR YOUR FILM:

actually it's not really all that hard, and you can make it relatively cheap, depending on the method you use, which i will give you a couple here.

this will be a two part tutorial in which we will manufature a BASE FRAME for your tree, then i will give you some alternates on how to "flesh it out"

in order to make your BASE FRAME you will need to following:

CHICKEN WIRE- this can be purchased at your local hardware store. it doesn't need to be fancy, you can buy the cheapest stuff they got, and it'll cost you between $5 and $10 a roll, depending on how much you need.

TWISTY TIES AND/OR ZIP TIES- this will hold your chicken wire to shape. twisty ties can either be purchased by the roll, or you can snag some from your box of garbage bags. Zip Ties, or handcuffs, as i like to call them, can be purchased in bulk at your local Costco or at Walmart or some similar store. these are handy to have around anyway, so the cost is acceptable.

WIRE CUTTERS- self explanitory... you're gonna use these to cut... you guessed it... wire.

this is how you construct your BASE FRAME:
take the chicken wire and basically form a tube, thicker at the base and tapering at the tip. use the twisty ties or zip ties to hold the tube together, and then shape the tube in any way you desire, bending and twisting it so that it looks "branch-like".
this is the base. from that you can make smaller tubes and have them branching off of the main tube... kind of like... well... branches...

now you are ready to apply a skin to your branch, and as i said there are a couple of different methods for this, depending on your time and money.

METHOD ONE: PULPAPALOOZA- this is the more time consuming method (and more costly unless you have a week's worth of newspaper lying around) for this method you will need:

NEWSPAPER- simple everyday newspaper. if you don't have any, go clean out a newspaper dispenser.

LIQUID STARCH- good old VANO brand liquid starch is excellent and can be purchased at most supermarkets.

PAINT- spray paint is fine, but for the finer details i would recommend either tempra paint or some old white housepaint mixed with some tempra (this allows you to do more with the colors you've got)

now, for this method all you have to do is cut the newspaper into strips about 2" by 12", dip them in the liquid starch and start covering up your base frame. once that is dry you can paint the whole thing up however you desire. i recommend using tempra or Latex paint because you can texture it better. just take an old sponge and dab the paint on to get a nice "bark-like" look.

METHOD TWO: TRASHAYYY- remember when i told you you could snag your twisty ties from your box of garbage bags? well for this method you can just make use of the whole box! here's what you need:

GARBAGE BAGS- you know... glad, hefty, whatever cheap low budget bulk stuff you get from the $.99 store... that stuff...

BOX TAPE- a roll of that clear box tape that never seems to stick to anything else but itself... you know what i'm talking about... well, i've found that it sticks to trash bags pretty darn good also.

HAIR DRYER- don't ask, i'll tell ya later.

PAINT- same rules as with the last method.

now here's how you do it:

take them trashy bags and cut them open so you have a single sheet of plastic, rather than a bag. now drape that bad boy over your base frame nice and sloppy like, so you get wrinkles and saggy spots and folds. you know, the way your mother told you she NEVER wanted to see your bed... make it nice and sloppy. now use the tape to hold it onto the frame and go plug in that hair dryer.

set the hair dryer to it's highest setting and very LIGHTLY run it over the plastic. you will see that the plastic will begin to kind of shrink up around the base frame, giving you an interesting texture. do this to your liking, but be careful not to get it too close or linger too long in any one spot as

 

ScaPaCamem

The senior citizens of Florida are very aggressive. Especially the Orlando bikers, who are mostly all over 60.

-Matt

 

Hey! Those old timers can throw their teeth pretty hard man!

Sage H.