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Nathan sent this tip in via the comments:

"Hangar No. 5": The story of two treasure-hunting teens sneaking into an abandoned military base looking for a rumored gold cache. Once inside, they accidentally activate a top secret relic of the Cold War - a huge mobile weapons system bent on protecting the base from all intruders. Cut off from every exit, the pair must fight to survive.

Running 11 minutes, this live-action short was produced entirely by undergraduate students during fall 2007 and spring 2008. The film contains 110 visual effects shots, all of which were completed by the film's visual effects supervisor using the open-source animation software Blender for all 3D work Apple's Shake compositing software for 2D work.

The varied effects in the film include a fully CG robot, CG set extensions, green screen replacement, extensive rotoscoping, wire removal, 3D camera tracking, image based modeling and lighting, volumetric lighting effects, and particle effects. All CG models,
textures, and other assets were built from the ground up.

Pretty cool video, death dealing robots, racks of automatic weapons, conspiracy, great special effects, mounds of gold bullion, clever story and a cliff hanging ending. For more information, check out the project's site. They set up a funding mechanism where people can contribute to the producers of the film before downloading it.

How do you like working in groups? What is the best thing you have created in school or university? How does a collaborative project help prepare you or your students for life and work in the modern world? How do you plan on funding your projects? How important is money to your projects? What have you or your students created with Blender? Share your thoughts and projects in the comments, and pass along your photos and video to the MAKE Flickr pool.