Joey Pruitt

Most of my work is 3D and VFX and I get "how do I start" questions often. For a no money approach, download blender and go to turbosquid to download a weapon model to play around with. Theres enough tutorials out there to get you started.

Ive shot scenes like this by just diffusing the window light(tissue paper), dropping the exposure a bit and white balancing through an orange gel sheet... Instant night time. Its quick, cheap and works OK for DFN shots....

Are you talking about caustics or something else? You should get a copy of the special features from the movie Deep Star Six. Also, the Stan Winston book has some information about how they shot a lot of that.