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.