Producing and Newbies

 Greetings, one and all! This week fell pretty solidly into the “producer” side of the spectrum, as we spent a lot of time communicating with people, writing messages, doing research, and a wide assortment of other kinds of desk work needed to make a production run. On top of that we had little bits of prop work, and we managed to get a reading in before the end of the week. Also, we managed to get in two composing sessions as well. 

As for the big item this week, we’re trying it again. After life pulled our last batch of new stunt team recruits away, we’re starting over with a new batch. We officially planned to only do a couple things, but the trainees went on to surprise us, fairly quickly grasping the concepts we were teaching.

So we were able to warm them up by marching, follow that up with the basic back fall, then go into longsword guards, and we were also able to get all the basic cuts in before the session ended. As the day wound down, people broke into spontaneous groupings, discussing various aspects of the training, or working on exercises. All in all, a very good day.

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

Pivoting Practice and Preparation

So… False Spring officially ended, and the temperatures went in exactly the wrong direction for painting, even throwing in some snow for good measure. So we turned to preparing yet more props, including staining the hilts on the new stunt blades, and reaching out to yet more potential actors and stunt team members. Even when you have a base message, modifying it for even more specific audiences takes way more time than you’d think.

On top of all that, we managed to get in a couple more composing sessions that finished off another pair of scenes. Lastly, the team met on Sunday, and attempted a spear fighting practice.
 

I say “attempted” because after about 45 minutes the wind got so cold that we had to retreat into the shop for a defrost and a spot of improve gaming. We also discussed our incoming trainees, new actors to try out, and the logistics surrounding that.

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

Readings, Rebuilding, and Reactions

Greetings, one and all! This week saw yet more fun with band saws, rotary tools, and five minute epoxy. Specifically, filling gaps and reinforcing parts of a couple of the weapons props, then adding the final pieces. Now, once the epoxy finishes setting and the temperature gets back above 60, the painting can finally begin. With any luck I’ll have a couple more pieces to add to the pile by then.

Next up, reaching out to old contacts yielded very sudden results, as we added a couple readings to the end of the week. On top of that, our composing session fleshed out an action scene, and made it my favorite piece for this project thus far.

Last but not least, the stunt team. A round of archery was followed by a workshop in selling the hit, in which we learned that one of our stunties can’t frown.

This led to us all trying out different kinds of reactions that don’t activate the frown lines, the bunching of the brow. That was oddly fun, and resulted in a viable repertoire of reactions.

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

Crafting and Stabbery

Greetings, one and all! This week saw a spot of good weather, which meant that we could run back and forth between the shop and the house much more easily, and our fingers wouldn’t freeze while working the tools and machines. Thus this week saw a lot of prop work, or specifically prop prep, as we begin to turn the base elements into whatever we’d envisioned for the film.

We also had another composing session this week as well, focusing on the Cairn sequence, specifically the interior.
On Sunday the stunt team met again, and did some script reading experiments. After that, they rolled into yet more fun with daggers.

For some reason stabbing each other at very close range leads to a lot more grinning than one would expect. Perhaps we should look into that…

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