Fun Film Design Using Illustrator

A problem I found is since the original size was 18″W by 5″ H I have a film strip that does not fit into the document.

It would be real nice if you would complete this tutorial for those like me that are trying to learn.
I have finished the tutorial 5 times and still come out with a film strip cut off at the top and bottom because the original size was to be set at 18″W by 5″ H.
How do we get the finished product like your example above???

FANTASTIC!!!

This is very useful tutorial. I like it very much. ThankYou

wonderful steps, you can do it with photoshop, but it takes time. thank you so much for these simple steps

After Step 7 not able to create a Symbol as mentioned in Step 8, it shows an error as “A Symbol definition cannot contain a linked image”

Nice tutorial. It would be nice to see transparent sprocket holes so that the background showed through, and maybe lower opacity of images slightly, again so that background showed through. Great stuff anyway. Thanks.

verry helpful thank you for this phantastic tutorial

A little tip.

A 35mm film got 5 holes for each picture and at the same time there are 3 soundtracks (left, right and digital) between the holes and the picture.

okay, Im a nerd but in case you want realism

Great, thanks! Recommend using the white squares to delete the spaces in the reel rather than just make them white.

Nice tutorial. Took me some time to figure out the new surface I’ve created to join to the film symbol, but that give an excellent result.

@ Gopalakrishnan.B,

Make sure that when you place your image, you uncheck the link checkbox in the window.

Blue

At what point was the image flipped and can I control it?

gostei do tutoria mais achei mais facil fazer com mask pois do seu modo não fez de jeito nenhum

worked great BUT the pic got distorted. the girl’s head looks like an alien’s head in the bottom two!

fun, easy tutorial. thank you.

I loved it, I was able to repeat all your steps. Thanks for the great work.

I cant do it! I end up having a stroke in the correct shape but my actual filmstrip is still horizontal.

Nice Tutorial…

and easy to implement…

Like other readers I have finished the tutorial a number of times but at the very last point when I change the wireframe to no shading all I get is the top portion with the rest cut off. Please advise, otherwisw the tutorial is very useful.
Neil

Actually, 35mm MOVIE FILM has 4 sprocket holes per frame, not 5 as the self-proclaimed ‘realism nerd’ stated earlier. But very nice tutorial, just the same.

Its wonderful. Thankz a lot.

did not try, but looks great

I am using a single image but unable to create symbol: it shows an error “A Symbol definition cannot contain a linked image.”

a litle tip
if an image is distorted it helps to trace bitmap to vector

it is realy sooooo goooooooooood.
goooood joooooooooooooob.

I have gotten through all the steps but when I go to the wire 3D and then put the artwork (symbol) on the path, what it is showing is that it follows the “size” of the stoke. The only way I can get any image is to increase the size of the stroke. Therefore, does the stroke size matters

I am like several others. I get through the entire tutorial and get nothing. Is this tutorial for Illustrator CS2?

Thanks for this tutorial, it’s very good. I’ve some image distorted, but I learned new things with this, thanks a lot!!!

wow. simple way to make great things…

I’ve gone through the tutorial, but at the end my image does not appear on the film strip. What am I doing wrong?

He did say to make sure the link option is unchecked in the place dialog. Otherwise, when you’re all finished, choose to embed the links.

Fantastic !
Now, how would you animate the film so that it gives the impression that it’s constantly turning ? In flash ?
I have really no idea how that could be done !

very nice tutorial
i had done, but the film strip is not coming with the black color
just come the film bend is outline otherwise inside pic coming and its also cut off.,.
but its very useful to make good design and we can use the menu and ideas
thanks somcuh

i like it!! very helpful

IT VERY NICE TUTORIAL,THANKS A LOT I LEARN SO MUCH.

Well I did everything like they said, I got some mistakes, but I came back again and again until I fix them. It was excellent tutorial, if any one needs help, how to get it right, I am available to explain, just let me know!

Great tutorial but didn´t work for me…i did something wrong but i did this a lot of times already and all the time is wrong..the image doesn´t fit…

it happened the same with me…the image didn´t appeared in the filme strip

awesome

Thanks for the tutorial, but it doesn’t work for me, i have tried about 10 times and all i get is the color of the stroke i made, and no mapping of the symbol, even though the symbol image i made was available to choose from the Map Art section, which did go into the box and scaled to fit too, so I’m not sure what’s happening here

i made a larger strip with gradient frames instead of pictures.
The final result is just a line, no 3d effect…

Amazing!!! Thanks a lot.

Thanks; someone suggested “see thru” on the filmstrip holes. I think the eraser tool might work (use it to make the holes).

The tutorial was VERY helpful, btw. I got it to do the filmstrip but had trouble making it curve; still, it was helpful

AWESOME …

I think I figured out why some people can’t get this to work. I had to go through the steps several times before I caught my mistakes. My mistakes were in the Map Art dialog box. Before you choose the film symbol make sure the front surface is selected. The surface option is right next to where you select the symbol. Click through the options and notice that a red line(s) appears in the preview box. Make sure you have the front surface selected before you choose the film symbol. The other thing that might cause trouble is if your line is too wavy. If you have more than 4 or 5 surfaces to choose from that could be your problem.
Also I had to scale my symbol while still in the Map Art dialog box even after I clicked scale to fit. Use the handles on the preview of the film to click and drag until it is within the grey box.
Hope this helps those having trouble because the end result is worth it.

would LOVE to make this. have tried multiple times. once getting thick red 3d stroke and PART of the filmstrip complete.

first of all many thanx for the great tutorial
@SEGRAN PILLAY: 10x dude! that was exactly what was missing in the tutorial – surface selection – I have multiple surfaces, applied object to every surface, one after another, and the final result (with a little of fine tuning) looks great!

Sorry, not Sergan Pillay, LAURYE is to take all the credits

thank u for providing so nice tutorial

After several attempts I got a perfect one, I then deleted it and went on to replicate, problems now for every time I try to replicate:
Patches of cut out from the original film.
Anyone know what I am doing wrong?

Oh! A super tut and great big shout out thank you to Laurie for making a full day of head scratching go away with a very helpful hint [=

Ok—Having tried to replicate the film strip after a successful go of it, I began using the paint tool vs. the pencil took which worked the first time. I have since repeated the task with the pencil tool and there are no torn film strips in the finished product.
Not that familiar with this program, can anyone explain why that may have happened with the paint tool?
Thanks!

Another hint I discovered that may help the newbee (like myself) with this tutorial:

double click on the pen or pencil tool, which ever you are using, set the Fidelity to 20
and smoothness to 100%

What I have discovered is the least amount of anchor points contributes to the best image, and you can draw your shape with much more curves and no distortion to the symbol image you apply.

ah…learning…love it!

thanks boss very very super…….

After Step 7 not able to create a Symbol as mentioned in Step 8, it shows an error as “A Symbol definition cannot contain a linked image”

you should have the source files.. it is a good tutorial, but what would help if we have the files so we dont have to do the work.

Attention!!!

all the people having problems with the film strip not filling up the path as a whole image, make sure your path has a “BLACK STROKE” NOT a “BLACK FILL” actually it dosent make any difference what color you use. And with the linking error, you cant have the clipping masks in your layer when you try and make it a symbol, what i did is export the illustrator layer to photoshop and used the clipping mask as a selection and did a reverse seletion and deleted the area around my pictures then took the pictures back into illustrator and layed them over my “clipping masked” pictures and once my photoshop edited pictures were alignded i delelted the clipping mask and my old pictures. Hope all that makes sense

thank you soooooooooooooooooo much!!!

Hi everyone,
I am hoping you can help me.. I tend to make things more difficult then what it actually is and don’t see the simpliar things sometimes. I am new to illustrator and was wondering about what the size of document should be when you first open it up? I know how to set the size of the rectangle for the filmstrip but unsure of what the right size is for the new document should be all together.. Should I just set it the same size as the filmstrip? Like I said I am making it more difficult I am sure but would like to know what you guys have set yours too. I obviously can’t use the tool unless I have a new document open. Thanks again

Would be nice if it worked, but it’s nowhere’s near useable. I used to teach Illustrator back in the day, and you have to learn how to WRITE a tutorial, there’s obviously about 50 missing pieces of info, otherwise it’d work perfectly.

i loved it and it worked perfectly. As far as greg above, he may need to learn to read a tutorial too. Look at link check and surface area and it will work exactly as shown. Fantastic job!

Awesome. I just looked this up to fix an error.

Great tuto but Laurie saved the day for sure, couldn’t get it to work before picking the right surface.
Anyone else have trouble with the power used for this, I have a pretty big new computer, but she does not like this.