We’ve covered Robopocalypse before. It’s a book I very much enjoyed reading, and when Iwas told about the contest to create a short (30 or 60 second) video for the book, well that was something I had to share. Now we have a winner. You can consider this person to be the first person to create a movie about Robopocalypse – even before Steven Spielberg.
Doubleday Books Announces Winner of Robopocalypse Video Contest
When it came time to create a promotional video for Daniel H. Wilson’s novel Robopocalypse, Doubleday turned to the web. In April the publishers announced a contest soliciting short videos from filmmakers, amateur and professional alike.
The contest organizers received received dozens of submissions from around the country in response to the call for submissions, but in the end top entry came from 21 year-old Stephen Lunsford of Valencia, CA, who was awarded $750 for his winning production.
Lunsford said that he’s been making films and acting since he was eight years-old, starting with a Stephen Spielberg Lego Movie Maker set. While he remains enthusiastic about film, he has since moved on to more sophisticated equipment: he used Final Cut Express for the editing, Adobe After Effects for the special effects and a Canon T2i for to create the action-packed one minute short.
“The definite inspiration for the short was the Alien (1979) trailer; in my opinion it’s the best movie trailer of all time,” said Lunsford. “While I would have liked to have had more shots to add to the film, ultimately my cast/crew was mostly unavailable save for one afternoon and night. We shot the whole thing in about four hours in Toluca Lake/Burbank. My friend Colby Mann thankfully helped with most of the filming”
Lunsford said that the filming wasn’t easy on the actors or crew, with temperatures on location peaking at 93 degrees.
