Arms, Armor, and Week Two

Greetings, one and all! This week our focus has turned from writing new music for the Nine Isles project toward refining and revising what we wrote back when we first started and didn’t know what we were doing. It’s been a slow process, but fortunately we’re all on the same page about what needs to be done.

Next up, we’re working on finishing more blades for the prologue sequence, specifically crafting the grips and attaching them to the blades. Next up, shaping and staining. On top of that, we did another materials scout for set building, and then turned our attention to making patterns for the new body armor for both the prologue and a certain tech conglomerate’s security force.

Lastly, the team came together in a very straggling and haphazard way to begin day 2 of training the new stunties.

Despite people arriving at wildly different times, we still somehow managed to teach a mostly coherent lesson, and have everyone up to speed by the end. Everyone did quite well, and we’re looking forward to next week.

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

New Designs and New Recruits

Greetings, one and all! Real life continues to be difficult, but thankfully we still move ahead. Thoughts have turned toward set design again, and we had a brief outing to see what materials lay in the local area. After that, we followed up with a reading with another actor.

Work has begun on the remaining blades needed for the movie, and the stunt dagger for a major character has received its grip, now it just needs final detailing.

Lastly, the full team was together for the first time since Christmas, and we also had some new faces.

The newest recruits went through the accelerated Day 1 training, and despite various difficulties and questionable weather, all completed it with time to spare.

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

Resolution and Beginnings

Greetings, one and all! Well, the glut of real life issues to deal with have continued, and only let up just in time to get sick, so that was fun. Despite that, we still managed to get a fair amount done. First off, we have finally dipped into the last remaining scene that hasn’t been composed for, so it’s only a matter of a few weeks at most before everything gets passed back to me for the tech processes. Syncing, adjusting levels and figuring out how to get everything exported at the highest level of quality possible, whilst still being read by the final piece of software that will combine all the pieces into a full feature film.

Next up, lots of casting work, with lots of messages being written and delivered. We’re slated to have some new stunt team members arrive this coming Sunday, as well, which sounds like it’s going to be entertaining, when you realize that it probably has the widest age range spread of any generation thus far.

Speaking of the stunt team, now that they’ve gained some experience, we re-read several of them for different parts, and followed that up with some dagger choreography.

These exercises showed their development in both areas, and made me somewhat optimistic for the project we have ahead.

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

Readings and Review

Greetings, one and all! How naïve of me to think that last week was busy with real life stuff. Well, it was, but this week quickly became a cascading time sink of issues that needed to be resolved. For all that, we still managed to get several things done, starting with casting and recruiting, all wrapped around a first pass copy edit of the revised script. All the work yielded us one reading by the end of the week, with hopefully more to come.

The stunt team met again on Sunday, and this time brought the last recently absent member back up to speed, this time with short sword drills and choreography…

The absence made for a rusty start, but they were back up to par by the end, which was a dramatic homage to the swashbuckling epics of the 30’s and 40’s.

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

Design and the Short End of the Sword

Greetings, one and all! This week was a bit slower on the production side, but far busier on the “real life” side of things. On the props side I spent way too long trying to get the color on a prop that’s only in one scene just so. After that came armor design, and (thankfully, given the schedule of this week,) two full music sessions.

Next up, casting, which ran into several obstacles, but thankfully we have a couple leads that we now need to follow up on.
Lastly, the stunt team starts to return to full strength, but sadly the meet day was inundated with heavy rain. So we worked indoors, choreographing more short sword duels for the prologue sequence.

We logged eight short sequences before shifting over to some unarmed training, making it a surprisingly productive day.

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