Greetings RPF, fellow movie prop & theme park enthusiast here.
The reason I am writing today is to offer a long over due apology for my past wrong doings. & I completely understand if my actions warrants me being banned from here, which would totally be understandable. I just wanted to come here, come clean, start anew, & make things right.
I am the guy who stole all the Jurassic Park props from here & sold them on a Ebay a few years ago. & on top of that, what was even worse, is I lied about it when confronted about it from members here sending me messages on Ebay. I am truly sorry, I was totally wrong, & deserve every name in the book in this thread. & believe me when I say that my actions has caused more pain & harm then good, all though some good has come from it- Ill get to that in a minute.
So I just wanted to offer an explanation to my actions, & give everyone here a chance to let it all out, just let me have it, get whatever they want off there chest, I am all open ears.
Not that it excuses my behavior or justifies anything, the reason I did this was really out of panic and desperation, & therefore caused me to act in ways I normally wouldnt succumb to. It was at a time where I was unemployed & had a real hard time finding a job for months, & all of my emergency living expense money was running low, so of course, Im thinking- "How else can I make money?"
Now with being a big fan of movies, such as Jurassic Park, Back to the Future, The Matrix, & on & on, I have seen on Ebay for years people selling Back to the Future stuff. I thought, how cool is that to be able to find & make your own movie props as a cool fun hobby, but also to make a little extra bit of money from it as well. So I thought, there is obviously money there, as I saw it all the time. So Im thinking, they obviously got the images from somewhere on the internet, downloaded the pics, printed them, & put them up for sale. I never gave it any thought as to where most of these images even came from. I guess I assumed they came from pics/scans of the actual props. I didnt think- "Hey, an individual spent hours on this & made this file & put it out there for free." I just took it all for granted. I ignorantly thought- "If its out there free on the internet, I'm free to do whatever I want with it, just like all these other sellers do." I wasnt aware of any prop making communities or forums, all though my curiosity & research of course did eventually lead me here.
So combined with the stuff that I found here as well as other sources, I began my digital collection of paper props. So my thinking was- "Everyone is doing BTTF, what other movies can I make props from to sell that isnt as saturated as BTTF? So I started doing J Park & Total Recall.
So it goes without saying, that at that time I had no kind of photo editing software, let alone knew how to use it. So I'd just print out whatever print file I can find.
Looking back though, I gotta say, because of this lazy & immoral approach, I wasnt selling high quality products. From anything I did find & steal, I just assumed that everything was screen accurate, so I didnt even bother to compare the items I was selling to how accurate they were on screen. Or the images were really low res, of which I was even called out on on one of my feedbacks. & I am usually way more maticulous & picky about things like that. But again, panicked & desperate, wasnt thinking. I just needed to make money FAST, so there was very little "quality control". I was just focused on speed and QUANTITY, on top of being ignorant to stealing & selling other peoples work. Again, Im sorry.
Just as an example of how embaressing & terrible this was, just take a look at my very first set of'JP auctions. The map came from here with the super poor & blurry low res text, as well as all the badges, none of which even APPEAR on screen in the movie. & I placed the badges inside Staples badge holders- which had the Staples logo embossed on the backs, & I printed the blurry low res brochures onto 8x11 brochure paper, making, well, really tiny crappy low res maps. REAL GREAT QUALITY! Oh, & the SUPER inaccurate jeep tag, yuk!
Then fast forward to when I started getting messages from people from here & pointing out how what I was doing was wrong, putting the heat & pressure on me to stop what I was doing. I was really at a cross roads here, because I knew it was wrong, but the other part of me saw that I was making a decent enough of a profit, so that if anything, I did see the REAL potential in being able to earn some decent extra money in exchange for offering a good, honest product.
So this was both bad & good. It was bad that I resorted to stealing other peoples work for profit, but good, as I was bitten by the porp making bug & I was now motivated more then ever to finally get a program so I could start learning and making my own props from scratch, as now I COULD be more screen accurate to my liking, as well as have all my print files be in a much superior format & resolution, having the pride of being able to honestly say I made it myself, as well as not have anyone else be able to claim that I'm using someones work anymore. I now know more then ever what it feels like to put hours worth of work into something & be proud of your creation, as yes of course, I would be just as upset if someone took something I made & tried to claim it as there own, & I give everyone here the upmost respect.
So I did finally start making & selling my OWN stuff I made & sold those for awhile, again motivated by being called out on what I was doing & so no one could say Im using there stuff anymore, including a Child's Play paper prop set, as I hadnt seen anyone else doing anything like it, as I wanted to create and sell props that no one else is making, as well as props that I wanted for myself, & to sell, where I wouldnt have any competition. I want to make my job selling easier, not harder!
So after awhile, karma got me, & my Ebay got terminated, which of course was devastating & discouraging to say the least, quite a depressing experience. It wasnt related to me selling the movie props, that's a whole other long story. So needless to say, I gave up on it altogether for years. I was still bouncing from job to job. But I have since found a job that I have been at for 5 years now, & things are doing good. So now I'm no longer motivated by panic, desperation & fear.
So I was fortunate to in fact get another Ebay account, & decided to start from ground zero, & re-polish the few things that I have made & sold, as well as a work on a bunch of new projects, & creating the highest of quality & originally made props. Now having a steady job, nothing will need to be rushed anymore, and I am having a blast getting back into it.
So now my NEW process for making props is as follows, which I know is already how most of you do it anyway, & probably not necessarily in the same order-
STEP 1
To first go through the movie I want to make props from in my video editor & get every single screen grab of every inch/angle of whatever prop it is I want to make. The movie itself will ALWAYS be my FIRST source for references from now on, & I will have seperate folders dedicated to my collection of movie stills & get saved to multiple hard drives. Im currently in this phase, as I have been doing it for two weeks straight now whenever Im not working at my full time job- Ive done up to 20 movies so far, & its exhausting!
STEP 2
Go search the internet for pictures/videos/scans of the screen used props, especially from sites like Screen Used or Prop Auction. I dont need to tell anybody that sometimes pictures from these sources are better than screen shots, as sometimes you dont get to see the whole prop in a movie on screen, & these pics can sometimes "fill in the gaps" so to speak.
STEP 3- LAST RESORT
Only when after doing step and two, & Im STILL falling short on not being able to find all the info I need on a given prop, will I look at other fan made versions of the prop for further references & inspiration, but of course NEVER to just straight up copy & steal. & if it turns out after all this I STILL cant make the prop on my own, Ill just scrap it & move on, as I have HUNDREDS of props I will still be able to make. Again, quality this time, not quantity.
So anyway, I know this isnt much, but figured Id share some stuff here that I have worked on. Feel free to do whatever you want with it, including selling.
So to wrap up, I am again really sorry. I am not expecting for everyone to just brush it off, forgive me overnight & become my best friends & welcome me into the community with open arms. But I hope it helps at least a little to say that from the start, I didnt have any malicious intent. In other words, I didint go DELIBERATELY go searching for other people's work I could steal. Again, I was ignorant, & again just assumed wrongly that if I could download it for free, it was all fair game. & Im anything BUT like those other recasters who will go as far as to actually BUY items that someone else is selling with the intent of not only re-casting it, but then selling it &, undercutting the original creator AND not even giving credit.
& the nerve of that one guy I read about, Merlin, who would flat out DEMAND people to do work SPECIFICALLY for him, & them turn around & sell there work. Now thats low! The last thing I would want to happen is to be lumped into is THIS group of people.
But if by a miracle I dont get banned, I can promise that I will never recast anyone ever again & will have the most upmost respect for this community no matter what happens, & would like to contribute here wherever I can. Not only is it wrong, but I dont need to anymore anyway now that I know how to do this stuff myself, even though I might need help here & there, but I would never expect for someone to just do the homework for me & hold my hand every step of the way, as I would never expect something for nothing. & I know to get respect & trust you got to give respect & trust.
So I hope to make up for it by giving back- giving tips & advice from things that IVE learned to the newbie here or wherever who is where I was, not knowing where to start. So whatever fate awaits me, I humbly accept whatever the consequences may be. Thank you for your time.