Sites, Trailers, and Flow

Greetings, one and all! Well, this has certainly been a week of big steps. First off, as the film is finally locked off, we've been arranging a small premiere showing, which entails setting a date, and some tech tests at the location. With a few settings tweaks, we've brought things to a very pleasing look and sound. Now we begin to get the word out... Well, after figuring out what a fair ticket price is for a small indie feature, anyway. 

Next up, the trailer is out! Follow the link below to watch it now!

The Nine Isles: Chaos Crown Trailer

In conjunction with that, we've also updated the website, and finished up the Chaos Crown movie page. If you're interested, you can take a look here: Chaos Crown Movie Page

In the midst of all that, we've been checking schedules with actors, writing up copy for flyers and posters, working on the graphics for said posters, and probably a few other things that I've forgotten.

Last but not least, the stunt team met again on Sunday, and this time worked through some highly energetic flow exercises, where they choreographed a fight, but focused on momentum and the flow between strikes. This was followed by a new twist on an old exercise...

In this variant of the game we've dubbed "Twisted Ninja", (after its similarities with the games "Twister" and "Ninja",) anyone who falls in combat swaps weapons with the person who took them down, and respawns on the opposite side of the arena. This led to some very interesting tactical considerations, and one weapons set in particular being swapped between all the players over the course of the exercise. All in all, a very good day to cap off a busy week.

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

Web Work and Parrying Practice

 Greetings, one and all! Okay, so it turns out that there were still a couple glitches in the Nine Isles renders, so we got those sorted out. Hopefully this will be the last revision, because we're already deep into release plans. With the first feelers being put out for a premiere, my job turned to the release of the movie itself, which starts with updating the website. There's nothing to see, yet, but I've already spent a few days working on pictures and copy for the Nine Isles: Chaos Crown page. Things slowed somewhat after I messed up my shoulder, but thankfully it seems to be healing.

Sunday the team met again, and the somewhat smaller group (still thanks to sickness,) ran through a number of drills for sword and shield, as well as single sword. Specifically, the focus was on the strike and counterstrike process. 

Capping it all off, the models for the mock trailer have received their first weathering pass, and the paint is now curing. We shall see how these new techniques turn out.

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

Trailer Technicals and Drop Shuttle Details

Greetings, one and all! Well, now that the Nine Isles movie has been finalized, our focus has pivoted back to releasing it. A lot of research has gone into the different avenues, and people are talking about a premiere, but first comes the trailer! Specifically, me rebuilding the trailer with the newly improved footage.

There were way more technical hurdles to cross than I'd expected, but in the end, we finally locked it off. Well, everything except the end card with the movie release info.

Sadly, this was a week where a lot of team members got sick, so there was no stunt meet, but on the plus side we took the drop shuttle model all the way through detailing, basecoat, and primary paint scheme before the torrential rain of the early weekend.

Next up, all the weathering: grit, grime, and burn marks. Let the games begin...

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

Scripts, Shuttles, and Spears

 Greetings, one and all! This week opened with some very deep contemplation of themes in the current working script, and how best to highlight them. For all the work we've put into it, there's still something that's not quite there, so now we dig deeper into what that may be. Plus side, at least the casting issues of the last couple summers have allowed us to refine the final product.

Next up, we've turned to creating the slightly alien drop shuttle for the mock trailer...

The basic form has been completed, along with the panelization of the bulk of the hull, now we just need to finish the underside and rear, then detail and paint the whole thing. Hopefully we can do that before the temperature drops below safe curing levels.

Lastly, the team met again, and this time focused on training in the primary combat techniques of about five thousand years of human history. Specifically spear/sword and shield. As this is a very technical process, ironically the best way to learn it, after you understand the basics, is lots of full speed sparring.

While even the veterans were challenged by spear and shield, as it has been largely absent from the curriculum of more recent generations, everyone progressed a lot in their capacity over the course of the day. Even those who have something against shields got into the flow by the end. All in all, a very solid training day.

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

Fixes and Fictional Fatalities

Greetings, one and all! Well, this week was... full of emergency fixes. After finalizing the ship model, we checked the hopefully final renders of the Nine Isles movie, only to find some serious artifacting and color banding (where a gently diffused gradient of color instead comes out as multiple hard bands of distinct colors). So a last minute meeting to fix the renders was set up and we turned out new copies of the movie.
Directly after that we tried to paint the first ship before the weather go too wet and cold, but the second coat was put on at the wrong time, turning the whole thing into a goopy mess. Cue us spending the next two days trying to get it cleaned up again, and then repaint it. The basecoat is now on, but I'm a little hesitant to do the next layers after what happened last time, so for now we let it cure.

Next up, the team met on Sunday, and the weather was predictably unpredictable, so we ran a training exercise that could be transplanted into the shop at a moment's notice: rival assassins guilds...

A fun framing device for choreography because it provides some interesting constraints: Don't wake the target, and don't alert the guards. The team was firing on all cylinders, and collaborated really well to make a complex and highly energetic fight scene.

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

Fists, Feet, and Greeblies

Greetings, one and all! This week saw us reach a couple milestones. First off, the final phase of color refinement has been completed. Now all that's left is figuring out how to get the various elements to play nicely together, and make the movie a reasonable download size without creating any grievous compression artifacts. 

Before I get to the next milestone, we'll turn to the stunt team. Sunday saw the team training in the most intrinsic of the martial arts: Unarmed combat. Ranging from teaching the newest recruit, through brushing up technique for the intermediate and veterans, all the way into having our relatively newly minted veteran do some teaching. 

In the process of that, I think we also may have accidentally invented a new training game.

On to our next milestone, this week also marked the first time I have attempted the classic modelmaking techniques called chipping and greebling by the ILM modelmakers. The former being adding even smaller pieces or "chips" of styrene to the model to break of the flat surfaces, and the latter being the use of parts from other model kits in unorthodox ways to add detail and provide some scale. 

It's been a slow but incredibly rewarding process that really makes the design pop. There's still a few more pieces that may need to be added, but after that it's the basecoat that will tie everything together.

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

Ships, Hordes, and Spears

Greetings, one and all! Well, this week certainly didn't let up on the crazy. But, for all that, we still managed to get a fair amount done. For starters, the first starship model is about half done, with the basic shape laid in, and the detail panels added. Here's a quick shot of it pre-panelization. 

Next up, the market research was updated to see what avenues were still viable for getting the Nine Isles project out to the public. After that, still more color correction work on said project.

Last but not least, the team met again on Sunday, and opened with a "Hero versus Horde" choreography exercise, before finishing up with some spear and dagger practice.

This last exercise led to a lot of near-miss strikes that made for a training session that was just about as entertaining as the choreography.

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