The Nine Isles: Week 15

Greetings, one and all! Well, we did it. We finally wrapped the last days of shooting with our leads! This came just as the torrential rains hit and started causing our sets to slowly disintegrate, so perfect timing in that respect.
In our finishing blitz, we sewed up the beginning of the Cairn sequence (not pictured), shot the last parts of the big fight scene, and finished with two more street sequences…

Now we have a smattering of small pickups, and the radically different prologue sequence to shoot, but we will have to go into a miniature pre-production for that. So principal photography wraps after fifteen weeks that were filled with a considerable number of challenges. But, for all that, we made it, and now we only have two more scenes to go.

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

The Nine Isles: Week 14

Greetings, one and all! Fall being what it is, the combination of the school year and torrential rain has slowed production to a crawl. Despite that, our lone shoot day thus far did manage to encompass a series of pick-ups, inserts, cutaways, and an actual completely new scene!

We’ve got a string of shoots lined up, one not too long from when you’re probably reading this, and hopefully we’ll be able to wrap on all but a couple scenes by the time the next blog comes out.

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

The Nine Isles: Week 13

Greetings, one and all! Wow, what a week. While we’re shooting some new scenes, a lot of the shoot days are pickups for everyone who couldn’t be at the different shoots, for various reasons. We opened with a string of street scenes, introducing the Protectorate guard, amongst other things. Then we breezed through a bandit camp, before picking up scenes with two very different characters…

As crazy as the process has been, we’re making good headway. Now if only the weather would cooperate when we need it, we may actually get this movie shot before October.

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

The Nine Isles: Week 12

Greetings, one and all! It's been a bit surreal for us, this week. We finished up the major finale sequence with our leads, then actually managed to shoot the character introduction scene that had already been rescheduled twice. Yeah… getting through that was probably the most surreal thing of them all. It’s the single biggest hurdle we had to cross, featuring more named characters than any other scene. But it’s done now, and we can return to much more sensible shoot days.

A highlight of the shoot was the fact that most of the cast has a band, choir, or musical theater background, so down time featured a mix of harmonies, sea shanties, and Queen covers. Kept the mood light during a tough shoot. So now that school has officially started for our younger actors, shoots will be a bit less frequent, and intense. We have a handful of scenes left to do, and hope to knock about half out this weekend, along with a lot of pickups, but time will tell…

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

The Nine Isles: Week 11

Greetings, one and all! My, but we’ve been busy. After the forced hiatus, we’re truly back with a vengeance. Different people’s quarantines expired at different times, (thankfully no-one got sick,) so we had to get creative, shooting around absences. This will increase the number of shoot days, but thankfully we can get most of the people who have school wrapped before the year starts. In the intervening week, we’ve had four shoot days, encompassing twelve scenes. To go into detail would be mind-numbing, but in summary we’ll say that there’s been gambling, a con, rescues, escapes, backstories, and a fair amount of fighting for your life…

So we’ve survived week one of crunch time. One more to go, then a string of small scenes and pick-ups, wherever we can squeeze them.

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