SAN DIEGO — If you've ever watched the visual effects in a movie and thought, "How do they do that?" It may not be as hard as you think.
In this Zevely Zone, I took a wild ride with a local company in Kearny Mesa called ProductionCrate.
Chris Kelly, the company's founder, went to college at San Francisco State where he fell in love with making movies with visual effects. At a young age, Chris figured out he didn't need Hollywood to make his movies pop.
"I can add explosions, I can add muzzle flashes I can add aliens," said Chris.
From his dorm room, Chris not only wanted to make blockbuster movies, he wanted to share his visual effects with the world.
"I made a website myself which was a terrible website I have to admit," laughed Chris.
But terrible or not that website and his movie explosions started blowing up. "Word got out and YouTubers started to use it and the website started to generate some traffic," said Chris.
Not just traffic, those special effects started generating one to two dollars a day which to Chris at that time was college burrito money. "Exactly, I was buying a burrito and a coffee, and I was bragging to all of my friends," said Chris.
Chris named the website ProductionCrate. The little website that could now has around 950,000 users.
"We are not going to quite break one million signed up users in 2020. I think we are going to do it next month, but we are so close," said Chris.
That's where I come in. Chris invited me to his corporate headquarters for ProductionCrate that looks and feels more like a dorm room. "Thank you, I'll take that as a compliment," said Chris.
I see lawn chairs, a couch, big-screen television and a skull telephone. "Yes, this where I take all of my phone calls. Ha, ha," laughed Chris.
On the wall hangs a plastic skeleton to symbolize their bare-bones budget that allows users to get their hands on 10-thousand assets for just $49 per year. "There is no other company that is doing this kind of thing," said Chris.
So back to the point of this whole story. Chris and his crew, Niko Mokalis and Adrian C. Jensen invited me here for action. They are hoping you see what their service can do and subscribe. I asked, "Is this safe?"
Chris looked at me with a long pause and responded, "Is it safe? Ah, yeah, sure."
At this point, I am lost as you are and feeling quite nervous. I am told to stand in front of a camera and a gigantic green screen. The next thing I know I am transported to another world through the magic of VFX. Within 52 seconds I used a lightsaber to defend against a laser attack, got attacked by a shark, survived a dog fight in a plane, became the superhero Thor, became Harry Potter, and yes, for the grand finale I ran for my life from a fire breathing dragon.
I had so much fun and although it sounds like I am pitching this company - I want to point out you can create a free account to download thousands of professional-grade files for free.
You can follow ProductionCrate on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook. If you'd like to learn more about subscribing to the service, visit their website at productioncrate.com.