Philip Heinrich is a high school senior who attends Blue Valley high School in Kansas.  He is 18 years old and hopes to get into filmmaking in the future.

Black Turtle Media: What kind of experience do you have with filmmaking?

Philip: I’ve made quite a few videos.  I’ve been making videos since I was pretty young and I’ve been really interested in stop motion.  I started doing some stuff with Legos and stop motion animation.  And then I found brickfilms.com which is a website where a lot of people do stop motion with Legos.  So I found out that I wasn’t the only person doing that.  A lot of people are using stop motion made with Legos. 

Black Turtle Media: What kind of equipment do you use?

Philip: I use a Canon Powershot A620 which is a still digital camera; it’s all you need for stop motion because it’s just a series of stop images.  And the Powershot line of cameras is good for stop motion animation because they’ve all got manual controls. For example, you can control focus on aperture and everything.  And then I had a cheap USB microphone and some Legos.  I had to order some green helmets and some green arms from a website to form Master Chief because I did not have those pieces.  As far as software, I use Carrara Studio which is a 3-D animation program for special effects and then some other shareware programs for editing. 

Black Turtle Media: How long did production take?

Philip: I was kind of planning it out in my head for several weeks beforehand and I did some of the CGI shots beforehand.  It was about four days of filming and a little bit more to finish up all the editing and music. 

Black Turtle Media: How did you find out about Black Turtle Media?

Philip: On Brick Films there was a guy who had made a submission for the iPhone contest and he was asking people to vote for him.  And so I clicked on the link and saw the other contests.

Black Turtle Media: How did it feel to get the winning news?

Philip: I was pretty excited.  And my parents were excited.

Black Turtle Media: Do you plan on producing more films in the future?

Philip: I plan on making a career out of something like media, digital media, or filmmaking.    I’m going to college next year.  I don’t really know where yet.  I still haven’t heard from all the colleges. 

Black Turtle Media: What kind of advice do you have for others looking to create winning videos?

Philip: First you have to, especially if its animation, you have to start small and figure out what you’re doing instead of trying to start with a three hour epic, because that will make it very easy to get discouraged and give up.  They take way too long and they’re not very good until you’ve make a lot of short experimental films.  You’ve got to hone your skills.  The internet is a good resource if you’ve got ideas.  You can read a lot about photography and digital effects.  Also there are a lot of online communities which give you feedback like www.brickfilms.com and www. Fxfilms.com 

Black Turtle Media: Anything else you’d like to add?

Philip: Stop motion just takes a lot of time, especially with animation you have to have a lot of patience and be able to not give up.  It’s easier if you start with smaller projects and work your way up because that way you kind of learn what you’re doing before you start up early.