Hello there, and welcome to Diablo Productions.

My name is Chris Hetherington, I'm 16 years old and I am currently living in the beautiful area of Malvern. For the last few years, I have had a real passion for film making, especially in the special effects side of things. This website contains all my best work and is a great opportunity for me to share my work with the world.

Where it all began

I began film making a few years ago almost on a spur of the moment. Being a big fan of Starwars, I really wanted to have a go at making my own lightsaber fight, just to see what it would look like, just for a bit of fun. The whole thing was filmed on a digital camera and I then broke the whole clip down into frame by frame photos. I then loaded all the photos onto my computer and got to work loading each one separately into paint and drawing on the lightsaber. It took a very long time however at the end I was relatively pleased with the result and so I decided to do another, this time longer.

When I had finished that one I decided to look on You Tube to see if anyone else had tried a similar sort of effect. They had, and it was much better. I had to know how these people had done it so I tracked down one of their websites to see just what programs they used. I then did the tricky part of convincing my parents to let me get the programs and that is where it all began.

Feel free to watch my videos and give me any feedback on what you think and any improvements I could make.

The links to my videos are below, so ENJOY!!!

 "Logos" This is pretty simple, in here are a few logos i have created for myself, some of which are rip-offs  but as I don't intend to make money out of them then that's ok... isn't it?

"OurWars" That's right, not StarWars, OurWars!!! Yeh, its pretty much the same but I'm not the sort of person who likes getting sued. Anyway, by clicking on the link, you will be transported to my OurWars blog from which you will be able to watch any OurWars video I have created and uploaded. I won't write anymore here seeing as you're probably not bothering to read this.  See you in a galaxy far far away...

"Harry Potter" Moving on, we have Harry Potter, you no, the wizard, the guy who survived an attack from a big evil guy obsessed with taking over the world. Wands, broomsticks spells etc... you no.

"Cloning" Clones! That's right, there's two of me!!! The concepts simple but getting the timing right is tricky so I hope you like it!!!

"Lightning" Lightning!!! Yeah!!! Lightning is cool!!!

 "Miscellaneous" In here are the random things which don't fit in any other catogries. Basicly there probably the only things where I haven't stolen the idea from somewhere... or maybe I have, anyway everything else is in here.

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The Bradford Film Festival

 The co-operative Young Film-Makers Festival based in Bradford was a fantastic experience which allowed me to take part in several workshops and get professional feedback on my work.

The festival was spread over two days with a wide range of workshops to choose from including ‘How to get your foot in the door’ which was a presentation giving young film makers a bit of insight into the world of professional film making and explaining the do’s and don’ts of breaking into the world of film and TV.

Probably the best workshop in my opinion was the TV studio workshop. This gave us a clear idea of how chat shows such as Richard and Judy or GMTV are put together and gave us the chance to have a go at making our own programme. This course ran for 3 hrs and at the end we were each given a copy of the programme we had put together.

The most exciting experience by far was having my film "Cyclops" shown on ‘The big screen’. This allowed me not only to have the pleasure of viewing my own film but also see the standard of all the other films. All the filmmakers who had their films screened were awarded certificates and had their picture taken.

The event took place on the 12th and 13th October at Bradford's National Museum of Photography, Film and Television. Only 100 entries were chosen from more than 220 productions entered by young film-makers, schools, youth groups, arts groups, colleges and video workshops from across the UK and beyond.

The 100 films, all under six minutes long, were shown over nine screenings throughout the two-day event and included drama, documentary, animation and comedy films along with music videos.

Overall the Bradford Young Film-Makers Film Festival was great fun and I very much look forward to pursuing my career in Film Making.

Visit www.youngfilm-makers.coop for more information about the festival.

Richard and Judy

In early 2007, Richard and Judy announced their new competition OurTube which was inspired by a Starwars film they had found on You Tube. They were offering £1000 to their favourite spoof film made by the general public.

About 10 minutes after the competition was announced, I was already emailing them a link to my film "Harry Potter and the Twisted Duel", that being my best spoof at that time. A few days later, I got a reply from the show asking if they could show my work on the TV. Obviously I said yes and I eagerly awaited my moment of fame.

Harry Potter was shown along with two other films. One of them was a spoof of Rocky Balboa and the other was my "Starwars bullets" film. I have no idea how they got a hold of that film, but when they played it they gave the credit to some guy called Matthew Trumble. From what I found out afterwards, this is a real person and they messed up by showing my video instead of his. Sorry Matt.

Anyway, in the end I didn't win, but it sure was cool to have my videos shown on the TV.

If you want to see the clip of Richard and Judy then the video is just below.

What software and equipment do I use?

I've come along way from the boy who sat for hours on end breaking down videos into frame by frame on his digital camera. I am now using Adobe After Effects and Premiere Pro both of which are fantastic programs and although the effects still take time to do, the outcome is much better and much more rewarding.

I do all my work on my laptop, and I film using a Sony digital 8 and a HD Hard drive Recorder. I have also recently come to possess a green screen and lighting set which have already played a part in my film Space Battle.

Work I have done for other people

Since I started filming, I have been hired a few times to film, edit and produce a DVD for local groups and friends. Being a young leader in scouts, I took my video camera to our 2006 annual summer camp and spent most of the week with it glued to my hand filming the scouts as they played games, ate and just did general activities. When we got back, I spent a few weeks editing it all together so that the parents could watch it and also for the scouts to enjoy watching themselves back on film. They seemed to like it as they asked me to do the same again last summer and it turned out even better than the one before.

Another friend who asked for my filming assistance was the local magic man, The Bizarre Ollie Mealing. Ollie came to me soon after I had done the scout DVD and asked if I would make him a show reel for his magic so that he could send it off to pubs and restaurants to see if they would offer him work going around entertaining customers. Soon after, Ollie put on a magic show at the local village hall and asked me to film it for him so that he had a record of what he had done. Believe me, he's good.

Filming for Ollie, as well as being fun, did give me a good break. It just so happened that a member of our local amateur dramatics group was sitting in the audience and saw me there. She had the idea that I could come and film some of the shows they put on in the village so that, like Ollie, they could keep a record of the shows they put on. Like the scouts and Ollie, they liked what they saw and asked if i would film for them again.

 "Cyclops" This is one of my longest films to date in which the character is walking home at night in a thunderstorm. He is struck three times by lightning and passes out. When he comes too, he finds he has the power to fire lasers from his eyes. Anyone notice the conection to x-men here? Anyway, enjoy.

  "Photo Magc" is one of my all time favourate clips. Some of you may recognise the effect from an advert a few years ago and i'm planning on re-doing the effect with better lighting some time in the future.

 "Shooting" This is a short film which i made with my brother Nick whilst we were with an animation company for the week. It involves no computer graphics what so ever but it is still quite cool and well worth a watch.  

 "Death by Spatula" is another very short film which my brother and I made with the same animation company. Its a very quick clip where i throw a splatula at my brother and it sinks into his chest. (No humans were hurt in the making of this clip)

 "Skin" is quite a short clip and i'm not overly impressed with the result. It is a simple clip where the guy in on camera has a blue face, and thats about it.

 "Balthazar" I'd wantd to work with fire for ages, and here I finaly had my moment. Notice that my face and hand are illuminated by the flame, its only a small detail but it realy helps to make the effect realistic.

"Super Speed" I was realy pleased with the way this clip turned out, even though the actual effect lasts less than 2 seconds. In this, the character is happily admiring the view when he notices he is late for a meeting or something. He then proceesd to run at super human speed, similar to the effect used in the searies "Smallville."

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  "Electric Click" This one i filmed ages ago but i wasn't good enough to use the lightning effect properly. Now i'm nuch better and heres my first propper shot at lightning.

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 "A quick clone" I made this for a Englsh speaking project on special effects, its short but its good.

  "Mess Up Face" This was my dads idea and its not actualy cloning, its more of a trick with reflections but its got the same concept as cloning.

"Mirror Mirror" Same sort of idea as Mess Up Face but this was my idea, its more complicated and took much longer but i'll let you decide for yourself which is better.

 "Clone Pass" This is a much more complex use of cloning where I  pass an apple to my twin, or James as i have come to call him, and... thats about it but believe me it was hard to pull of. Actualy, I showed this video to a girl at school and we managed to convince her that James was a real person. She still believes it even now... poor Sam.

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 "A Hero is Born"  I didn't realy expect to put a video to this, and i only did it so that i could do the matrix rain which yes was made by me. The video itself is only a short clip in which i practiced some slowmotion stuff. Its not amazing, but hey we've all gota start somewhere.

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 "OurWars episode I" I made this video way before i bought my special effects programs and it is done simply with a digital camera (not a video camera), paint, and Windows Movie Maker. Needless to say it's rubbish but it just shows how much i've improved from when i first started out. Btw, this is my first special effects video EVER!!!

 "OurWars episode II" this is prety much the same as what i wrote above but this is the second video i ever made and it has my first attempt at force lightning. Don't worry it's much better now!

Now we're getting somewhere. This is the first video i made with my special effects programs and i only did it to try them out. It turned out much better than i expected and it is one of the best clips i've ever made. Later i added sound and music and here it is... "Bullets Adapted"

 "OurWars episode IV" Here they are, my cousins... with lightsabers... a dangerous combination. Now i'm sure your wondering what happened to episode III, good question, i'm sure its around somewhere or i just never finished making it, but nevermind. Anyway like i said, this video stars my cousins and we had to flip a coin to decide who was gona get killed!!! who do u think its going to be???

 "Force Jump" This clip was great fun to film. It shows the character looking up at the roof of his house and then using super powers jumps to an amazing height onto the roof.

 "Space Battle" is one of the best clips I have ever done. I spent three days animating tie fighter after tie fighter to shoot at me but in the end it was definatly worth the work.

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"Diablo Productions" This is my main logo which i designed as my profesional logo, the others are good but they are either rip offs or... well i can't think of a word for it but you get the idea.

"Roaring lion effects" This one was fun to make, and its never failed to get a laugh. It basicly tells people that if was my special effects which were put into the video.

"Chris Hetherington Presents" Ok, i can't denie it, this one is definatly a rip off. Bare in mind though that the only bits that arn't made by me are the music and the castle itself, and even that was only a single frame. The zooming is all me. 

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