Classic Choreo

Greetings, one and all! Let’s see… This week real life intruded with a bit of cleanup from storm damage, but beyond that we did a few things. First off we designed the lower jaw for the ratman headpiece. Now I must decide what the official material for the heads will be…

Next, on Sunday the team met again, but since most of the new people were otherwise occupied, we focused on choreographing two more pieces of the big finale fight.

One bit was something of a duel, and the other was double-teaming a larger creature. The first bit was quickly locked off, but the second runs in the background of all our previous choreography for the scene, so that will take some time.

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

Practice and Prototypes

Greetings, one and all! So, let’s see… Well, this week has been a continuation of the ones that have come before, save a couple significant points. First, we’ve been working on prototyping the structure for the head of a rat-man, which is a creature that will feature prominently in this upcoming project.

Trying to keep the head proportionate to a human body, while making sure all the elements of the head stay proportionate to themselves has been a unique challenge, but I think we’re making good headway.

Next up, the team met again, and we divided up into two teams. The veterans worked on a remote corner of the big final fight, while we taught the new recruits the basics of swordplay.

It was chaotic, but we made good progress on all fronts.

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

Generation V

Greetings, one and all! This week has been… well, interesting. While we just try to soldier on and do our work, there’s no denying that the strangeness that erupts in the real world does affect us as filmmakers. Sometimes in exaggerated ways, as compared to people with relatively normal jobs. All that aside, we still managed a fairly productive week.
A lot of our time is spent in the process of finding people, contacting them to see if they would be interested in trying out for a part, and arranging the readings. We had a couple more readings this week, and are scheduling more for the next.
Along with that, we have further weapons designs for combatants from three different species, and multiple different eras, plus an entirely new costume design for one of the soldier groups.

Last but not least, the stunt team has reconvened, this time with three new members! While it’s good that the veterans are now good enough at what they do to teach the new people, it means that I’m dashing from one group to another, quickly troubleshooting the work, then dashing off to the next call of “Jon…!!!” Consequently, this was the most tired I’ve been due to a stunt training session in a long time…

With this group we broke with tradition regarding a regular approach to training. As everyone needed a good warm-up before they started hitting the mats, we trained them in marching and group spear maneuvers, before starting on the most basic falls, and a wee bit of stabbing and dying.

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

Casting Actors, Casting Rays

Greetings, one and all! It’s actually kinda amazing that, for all the production work we’ve done this week, there’s relatively little content for the blog. This week consisted of a lot of readings, and the general work of keeping a very complex project organized. (You know a good reorganization is in order when you have four lists governing the same thing.) Anyway, the readings were good, and kinda fun. However, this means that there’s lots of video from this week, but almost no photos.
That said, on the experimental side, our props department has been working on converting decorative lanterns into something more useful for a medieval fantasy world.

Here you can see the use of velum as a light diffuser, along with the first coat of paint being applied. After that the velum will be weathered to make it look like candles have burned inside them for years.

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