Wednesday, October 27, 2021

Brawls Part Deaux

Greetings, one and all! Here we are again with a brief update from the world of filmmaking. As we climb out of a couple weeks of people being sick, we turn back toward general team activity. The stunt team met and ran another choreography practice session, this time focusing on feet and fists. Sadly, high winds and torrential rains meant we had to run the meet indoors. The power outage that came with those high winds means you get mostly silhouette shots…


 The aforementioned torrential rains are making things challenging, but at least that means no fire danger this year.
Anyway, costumes are coming together for the prologue, so hopefully we’ll have news on that in a couple weeks here.

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

Wednesday, October 20, 2021

Great Goblin Gear

Greetings, one and all! Well… I’ve been sick this week. Thankfully nothing major, just long. However, so was half the costuming team, so this was a slow week. That said, we’ve been working through the logistics required to edit a feature project in full HD, as this is the first project of that length since we were shooting in standard definition a decade ago.

Due to people being sick, we had no stunt meet this week. However, just for fun we’re going to do a throwback to one of the stunt team projects from this summer: The goblin war masks. Due to supply chain shortages, we were unable to get all the goblin prosthetics that we needed, so we went to plan B, and the stunt team crafted a wide assortment of masks for the shoot.


But one of many things the team did for the project, this highlights the breadth of creativity from each of them, as they crafted the masks from scraps left over from making other armor.

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

Wednesday, October 13, 2021

Bottles and Bludgeons

Greetings, one and all! So… this week was a stack of metaphorical bricks that got dropped on us. Thankfully none of it is movie related, but sadly I can’t discuss that right now. That said, there was a spot of good this week. The stunt team met and got to participate in their dream choreo session: A tavern brawl.





They took to it with zeal, and their trademark level of humor. This event also featured the first appearance of padded drinking ware…

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

Wednesday, October 6, 2021

The Nine Isles: A Pause

Greetings, one and all! Well, here we are. The first blog post in over 15 weeks that doesn’t feature at least one shoot day. It’s crazy, because it’s like we’re done, but not quite. We still have to costume and shoot the entire prologue, but because it features none of the same cast, it almost feels like a different project.
We're slowly packing up props and costumes, returning the ones we’ve borrowed, and have begun tearing down some of the sets. The walls that were made out of cardboard are getting the treatment not a moment too soon, as torrential rains hit directly after we’d wrapped, and have certainly started to take their toll, even with protective coverings.
Special mention should also be made of all the stunt weapons we built for this project…





Yup, all of those cut, shaped, sanded, painted, stained, and lacquered by hand. What’s more, that’s the minimum be could get away with. Most of the non-character items were used more than one person, often in the same scene. So it seemed only fair to give a tip of the hat to these unsung workhorses of the production, that saw hundreds of man hours poured into them, and most of which only had seconds of screen time.
This, of course, leads to the other tip of the hat to the most important players in this production: The Stunties. Unlike other productions, this stunt team really does it all. On top of choreographing and performing the fight scenes, they put quite a few of the man hours into those weapons, not to mention all the work they put into helping build sets. They did makeup and effects, they were grips, gaffers, BTS cameramen, actors, and extras. They were troopers, earning disbelieving admiration from guest actors for weathering the absolutely brutal heat of this summer without batting an eye. I also want to thank those in the team who were part of the cooling squad that kept us from fading due to heat exhaustion during the dungeon fight scene. Ladies and gents, we can now say we’ve achieved the impossible.

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