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!

Sightseeing Props and Starfaring Pirates

Greetings, one and all! Wow, okay, this week was… quite the mix of things. For starters, on the prop side, the stunt dagger was painted, and now is curing for a week before we apply the protective lacquer coat. Two other pieces of tech were also completed, specifically the sci-fi version of binoculars. One was purchased nearly complete, and only needed paint, detailing, and weathering. The other had to be assembled from scratch, utilizing the slides from a pair of Nerf guns, a couple plumbing parts, EVA foam, and the remnants of a sandwich box. This was also painted and weathered, and now they both await their own curing and protective coat.
The last item on the props end of things was turning a training hatchet into a stunt weapon, chiefly by cementing a foam “edge” to the perfectly flat training blade, and filling the gaps with plumbers caulk that had been tinted with acrylic paint.

Next up, the nutshell presentation was completed, and delivered to the interested parties. Now, we wait… and by wait, I mean design some more props, and work with the stunt team.

Surprising absolutely no one who’s ever been in a play before, the stunties whose show wrapped last week started this week very sick, which led to a smaller stunt team this time around. But not so small that we couldn’t get things done. The change to the script required us to re-choreograph a fight scene for a new location, so that’s just what we did.

Changing the location from a forest to the bridge of a small pirate vessel altered the fight from a running confrontation to one of tactics and maneuver. The team blocked this out quite well, and we’ll revisit it at a later date to refine and polish the results.

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

Forming Ideas and Finishing Touches

Greetings, one and all! This week opened up with the follow-up meeting to the one we had in late November, regarding how to take the next steps toward gaining support for our work. This led into me working on an even more distilled pitch.

On top of that, we painted the security team weapons, let them cure, then did touch-up, and dry-brushed weathering onto them and the other recently completed armaments.

Alongside these examples, you can see the shape of the unfinished stunt blade from last week, which has now been shaped and sanded smooth, in preparation for painting.

As the weekend approached, a couple of us went to see a local production of Murder on the Orient Express, both to support the team members who were acting in it, and to scout the potential talent.
As a result of this exhausting theatrical run, we opted to take the following Sunday off, so that people could recuperate, thus we have no stunt team pictures for this blog.

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

Assorted Props and Training

Greetings, one and all! This week opened with the distribution of recruitment flyers, closely followed by an early music composing session. Directly following that, the filling, sanding, refilling, and resanding of the screw holes in the security team weapons, followed by detailing. An attempt at making another prop resulted in irreparable damage to one of the four identical pieces needed, but fortunately the remaining parts worked even better for the aforementioned detailing, so they were shuffled over to security team detail.

On top of that, we designed, prepared, and cut a new stunt dagger for a major supporting character. In the midst of all of this was an assortment of recruiting messages being sent back and forth, but nothing concrete has come of that, as yet.

Lastly, the stunt team met again, this time to fill some gaps in training. Specifically, bow for our other newest member, and dual wielding for everyone.

Things went fairly well, but eventually the bitter cold of the weekend caught up with us, and we were forced to retreat.

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

Sound and Flurries

Greetings, one and all! This week saw us begin the final phase of composing for the Nine Isles movie. Specifically, the block dubbed Tavern Music and Finale. We have three scenes remaining to write music for, and then the credits sequence. They are a mix of diegetic (existing within the world,) and mood or thematic pieces, often in the same scene, which makes the whole process interesting.

As the week was exceptionally wet, propsmaking took a back seat to other tasks, though we’re still hammering away at the problem of finishing a trio of security team armaments. A quick shopping trip will have hopefully given us the pieces we need. On top of that, we finished troubleshooting the recruitment flyers for the stunties to distribute.

Seizing the opportunity before the window closed, we did an ADR session with one of the actors from last summer’s short…

As some of you may remember, there was a scene where the neighbors’ tractor drove us out of location, but it also wrecked the audio of the scene for a little while before that. This was the attempted patch job.

Lastly, most of the team was back this Sunday, with one still suffering from illness, and we scraped off the rust by opening with a series of 2v1 sparring matches, and ended with a very kinetic Lord of the Rings inspired choreographed fight scene.

The scene was very fun to watch, and the team was in good spirits by the time the day was done.

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