Back on Target

Greetings, one and all! Well, it seems this week has been comprised largely of writing. Spending many hours at the keyboard, some extending late into the evening. Though I’m not a fast typist, when things are flowing I can conceive of dialog as fast as I’m typing, so it works out in the end. The things I have been learning over the last couple months have really helped with getting back into a flow state with writing. Characters are appearing and interacting almost of their own accord, and thoughts about where each scene will go from here hum busily in my mind while I’m doing other things. I haven’t gotten this much enjoyment out of the process in over a decade.

Life intruded on stunt meet this week, as it does from time to time. Thus we only had half the team, and one of them was semi-incapacitated. Thus we turned to some training that doesn’t require much movement: Archery!

We ran various levels of practice, padded vs target, field point vs target, and padded vs a moving target. The latter became its own comedy routine when people tried blind firing.

Well, that’s about all for this week. Until next time!

The Full Page and the Empty Hand

Greetings, one and all! So just about everything on the Nine Isles edit has been finished, save the music, which means that, for now, my mind has turned to writing. They say that screenwriting is one of those jobs that gets harder the better you are at it, which seems to be true, but then maybe it’s more like the martial arts. As a beginner, you can do some surprising things on instinct, but as you learn you now have to think about form, technique, momentum, etc. It’s only once you’ve achieved mastery that you can stop thinking about it again, and just do it. Needless to say, when it comes to writing, I’m nowhere near mastery yet.

Sunday the team met again, and, in preparation for an even larger training project, they set about reviewing unarmed strikes and reactions.

This was followed by an hour of unarmed choreography, where they each did unique things with their scenario. The stunties going wild with their ideas was fun to hear, and even more fun to watch.

Well, that’s about all for this week. Until next time! 

Balanced Audio and Imbalanced Matches

Greetings, one and all! Well, after life spent some time getting in the way of productivity, this week saw us experience the thrilling world of audio leveling. In short, since the multiple smaller projects will be combined to make one feature length product, I must make sure that the voices are in roughly the same range between scenes and projects. Given that our audio recorder started breaking down during the shoot, this is easier said than done. Still, the first pass is completed, and the final pass will be done once we have music, so I know how much further I can push it.

Sunday saw the return of the full stunt team, and as it was a special day for at least one of the members, I let them pick the teams and weapons combo we would be practicing with. Hilarity ensued.

Not surprisingly, duel wielding is a lot more complicated to choreograph, but there were some pretty cool moments, and they got through the exercise with minutes to spare.

Well, that’s about all for this week. Until next time!

The Artist and Learning Through Creation

Greetings, one and all! It’s an interesting thing when you learn that other people are learning the same lesson you are, at the same time, even if they’re living thousands of miles away. This last week a self-educated film group I’m a part of held a live stream on screenwriting. Later in the session one of the attendees asked if anyone else had noticed that writers sometimes write scripts or novels that teach a lesson that they, the author, needed to learn. Several of us said yes, and the host noted that rule three of Pixar’s original rules of storytelling was “Trying for theme is important, but you won’t see what the story is actually about ‘til you’re at the end of it. Now rewrite.”

That was interesting because I had just been thinking about our didactic nature as Christians, how we always feel like what we create has to be useful, how it has to teach something. Apparently that’s a consequence of our distinctly Calvinist roots in America, to the point that it’s not just a Christian thing anymore, but that’s a topic for another time. See, we think that we have to teach, but I’m not sure we ever stop to consider that maybe we’re the ones who are supposed to learn something.

There are rabbinic schools that believe that the creative act is an aspect of the wisdom of God. Thus, it would be logical to assume that, if you are creating a thing with a focus on Truth, you will be taught by the act of creation, and what you create will have more impact because it didn’t come from your own mind, but rather from His. However, if we go into it having decided what it’s all about, we short-circuit the learning process, and we force the story to mean and say only what we want it to. But there’s another word for that.

In a lecture on creative thought the speaker said that art is an exploration of an idea, you learn as you go through the process. But if you go into the process knowing what the message is going to be, that’s propaganda. In a funny way, he was saying exactly what we had been learning. Art, done with the right heart, teaches the artist as well.

So, with that in mind, I have been trying to approach my writing with an expectation of learning. It’s really quite freeing when you don’t have to agonize over how your work will be useful to its audience, what lesson it should teach. I’m actually kind of excited to find out what I’ll learn from making it, and discovering what it was supposed to say all along. Because if I am willing to be taught, to be flexible and listen to His guidance, then maybe I'll be more effective than I ever was before. It should be an interesting adventure.

Well, that’s about all for this week. Until next time!

Research and Mass Duels

Greetings, one and all! So this week has less flashy news, mostly lots of research, but I suppose that is progress in and of itself. Learning new tech after so long with the old stuff pretty much feels like starting from square one, as the core assumptions about how an effects shot functions are different. Plus, the rest of life intruded on at least half of the work days. Still, we press on.

The stunt team met again Sunday, and this time rolled the lessons of the last two weeks into one giant group fight, while still maintaining the dueling format.

It’s quite remarkable the progress everyone’s making after such a short time. In the rare moments where they were all practicing simultaneously, pair after pair stacked up in a row, the result was very Three Musketeers in its look.

Well, that’s about all for this week. Until next time!

New Shots and Moving Even Faster

Greetings, one and all! This week saw a fair bit of progress when it comes to preparing the Nine Isles edit for the final phase. Footage gets changed or added, and in some cases manufactured. The highlight was a scene that needed to be lengthened for pacing and clarity. This required that I remove an actor from some different footage, and fix the part of a cloak that they had interacted with. Fairly simple stuff with more modern toys, but I’m still working with tech that’s about 16 years old, so… it was a challenge, but one that we pulled off remarkably well.

Thankfully, as we come closer to the end of the edit, the changes required have been getting fewer and further between, so the pace has picked up considerably.

Sunday the team met, and continued with the exercise from last week, getting more speed into their fights…

This time we also decided to standardize the weapons, so there’d be a more even comparison. While the sudden onset of a few warm days drained the stuntie stamina faster than expected, they still pulled off the required move count with style.

Well, that’s about all for this week. Until next time!

Smoother Scenes and Higher Speeds

 Greetings, one and all! This week opened with inspiration for how to resolve a glaring continuity issue that came about due to changing location access. With the right sound effects and a fake stone column, everything came together quite well.
This was followed by an attempt to salvage a rather awkward scene that ended with us just shooting an insert to replace it instead. Pro tip to all of the stage actors dipping their toes into screen acting: Just because you don’t have to deliver your entire script in one go does not mean you can learn your lines the day of shooting. While that may work for tests in school, it’s not gonna fool a camera that’s watching you from four feet away. Plus side, this was the scene that taught one such actor exactly that, so at least it was a short scene…
Radiating from this fix were several other color and timing changes, which have kept me pleasantly busy these last few days.

Next up, the team met again, this time with a full complement, and they set about using a trick I learned from stunt master Nick Gillard to get more speed and energy into their fights.

Despite at least one very strange weapons combo, they did quite well, and hopefully this will be a stepping stone to what’s next.

Well, that’s about all for this week. Until next time!