The Crawl and the Wall

Greetings, one and all! Well, we’ve finally passed the first week since the big event, and life has certainly been turned upside down. With way less sleep than we’d like, and new challenges to learn, I’ve completed far less film work this week than I’d like. That said, it’s probably far more than anyone else was expecting for the first week after you have a kid, so I’ll take what I can get. For all that, it was important work, as we fleshed out yet more of the soundscape, particularly around the automaton, and did a pretty extreme edit of the third to last scene. There are two major effects shots that still need to be completed, but both are waiting on their models to be finished.

Sunday was interesting, because events conspired to give us a full complement of veteran stunties, but no new people to train. As this is still in my paternity break, the organization was seconded to Zach, who spun it off into “the Wall” exercise, followed by a time where the team could just have some fun…

So, all in all, the week has progressed better than expected. Hopefully progress will accelerate when we get more sleep, as there’s only a few things left to do…

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

Tipping Points

Greetings, one and all! So… this has been a momentous week. Starting off, concurrent to the blog going live last week, the weather cleared just enough for us to get in an extensive afternoon of Foley and ADR work. It’s actually kinda amazing how many gaps we could fill in with those recordings, and we were getting very close to finishing cleaning up and integrating the audio… then came the weekend. Saturday my wife gave birth to a beautiful baby. For their privacy that’s all the details I’ll be publically announcing, but needless to say we’re now a little short on sleep.

That said, I miraculously had enough energy Sunday to give my blessing to the stuntie training, with David and Zach heading up the fall and roll training and recertification. After shoulders became suitably sore, the team diverted to some basic blade drills…

So in the end, we’ll be progressing with our work as fast as limited sleep will allow, and the training will continue apace, but with various team members leading for the next few weeks.

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

Stuntie Progression and Effects Resolution

Greetings, one and all! After doing test renders through the entire movie, I was finally able to compile a list of everything that needed to be changed or finished, then broke that down by the type of work that needs to be done. We’ve already made good headway on going through the final visual effects, with the most challenging one thus far being hiding the evening sun that blazed through a crack in the set.

With all the rain and snow lately, we are still waiting on an opportunity to do our next big pass of Foley work, which should include things like rams on stone doors and an attempt at wolf snarls. We’ll see how that one goes.

Last but not least, the stunt team met again, and we picked up where the hail cut us off last week. After a review, the veterans finished the choreography they had started, while we put the new stunties through parrying. After the veterans finished their part, we combined the two groups, and had them run the exercises together. This eventually spiraled into a game of one stuntie fighting blind, while the others try to tag him.

This was a lot more difficult for the people who could see than you might think…

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

Initiating in a Hailstorm

Greetings, one and all! Well, third time’s the charm. After a month of trying to swing it, our new batch of stunties was finally able to join us this week. While a few of us gave them the Swordplay 101, the rest of the stunties choreographed a very specific scenario. All of this was interrupted by a hailstorm, so we pivoted to shooting some effects plates for the Nine Isles project, and then when the hail turned to snow, it was back out to train in parrying…

I’ve gotta say, all in all, this has been a fairly unusual winter for the stunt team.

The rest of the week has been filled with the thousand things one needs to do to finish the last ten percent of any movie, including but not limited to yet more soundscapes, and long lists of new sounds to record. In the end, all the footage that was shot this week got integrated into their respective shots, and will probably undergo some minor adjustments between the time of writing, and the blog going live.

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

Ships and Spears

Greetings, one and all! So this week we have a bit of a preview. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you one of the first images of the work-in-progress ship in a storm…

On top of that, more scenes have been rendered and analyzed for what needs to be changed or added. Some blocks are better than others. Block 5 (each block being about ten minutes of run time) has fourteen changes that need to be made, but Block 6 only has one shot that needs to be finished. Many of these issues have already been resolved, with mostly only obscure sound related issues remaining.

Lastly, yet more scheduling hiccups led to the events of Sunday, but in the end we did a spear focus day.

Some love the spear, some hate it, but in the end it was energetic, and a workout for all concerned.

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