Jack the Robot – Case Study and VFX Work

About 2 summers ago one of my friends and I started making a short film called Volition. This project is still in the editing room due to its 200 some odd effects and our busy lives. Part of the reason it’s still in the works is because of this little guy, Jack the Robot. 

Building Jack was an interesting process because many of the techniques I used to build him I hadn’t used before. I used EVA foam before but not much else. Back then I hadn’t heard of things like sintra or pepakura, and didn’t have the means to cast and mold parts. So I decided to take a crack at something referred to as trash can armor. In this case it was a robot, not armor, but the process is still the same.

Essentially, I bought a plastic trash can and used tin snips to cut it it to shapes based on the design my friend drew. After that I used a heat gun to form it. Then I also used a knife and a ball-peen hammer in combination with the heat gun to make the scratches and bullet holes.

After that I look all the pieces I created and bolted them together. I also took an old peanut butter jar and and attached it to the inside of the plastic shell. I then drilled a large hole in the jar and mounted an old camera lens in place.

I then gave It a few coats of black and silver paint. At this point I could then add all of the details. I busted open an old radio, an airsoft gun and some other old electronics and mounded them to the shell with more bolts and hot glue.

Lastly, because Jack is a flying robot I added a PVC coupling to his underside so that we could carry him on a pole.

The only thing to do at this point was to add visual effects. Originally we were going to key out the pole like you would on a green screen, but because of the inadequate lighting and the greenery in the background we ended up having to mask it by hand. Then adding a “heat wash” effect to look like he was flying and a lens flare glow for the eye and he’s finished.

This was definitely an awesome project to work on. It really taught me a lot about working with plastic. Though I would most likely choose a different type of plastic if I were to do something like this again due to the fact that it wasn’t the easiest to work with. It ended up turning out alright though because Jack is supposed to look like a hunk of junk and the misshaped plastic worked for him. I would also add practical lights rather than ones in post production. I would probably even make more connection points for his pole so he could be held different ways.

Here again is a link to some more pictures of him. 

Thanks for reading!