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!

A Running Start

Greetings, one and all! We took off running this week, starting with an assortment of prop work. First off, we used some of the new items acquired over Christmas in the process of filling the screw holes in a modded nerf gun, using an old model maker’s trick of baking soda and super glue. It’s a careful process that required a fair amount of sanding afterwards, which didn’t do my wrist any favors. So after giving those blasters a basecoat of paint to see how well the filling job went, I experimented with a different filling method, which sadly wasn’t quite as good. In the middle of all this, we also finished the hand light props, and gave them a basecoat of paint.  

All of this was a multi-day process, so interspersed into the dry times of paint and adhesives in the winter was the process of early casting. First, finding anyone in our circle who might fit the parts. Second, making informative and eye-catching flyers for our team members to distribute in their circles. The latter is taking a bit more time than hoped. A piece of paper to sell a film before it’s been made is a challenge all its own.

Lastly, a small subset of the stunt team met again this Sunday, and worked through a fight scene from the newly revised script.

Despite the rain, tiredness, and rustiness from the three weeks of vacation, we still managed to rough in the short but technically complex sequence.

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

Into the New Year

Greetings, one and all! Turns out there was a modest bit of work that was completed before the Christmas mini-break. We managed to get in another music session, for starters. Next up, scene breakdowns for the new version of the script, so now we know who is supposed to be where and when, along with what else needs to be there.

The last big project before things got really crazy was working on modifying the light props that will be used in one major sequence, trying to get them to look more appropriate to the universe.

We also celebrated a birthday, and the decorations provided us with the best opportunity for pictures that are in theme with the nerdiness of what we do around here, so I’ll give you a sampling…

Also, more important to the work, but less eye-catching for the blog preview, here's a picture of one of the work in progress lights... 

Now that the holiday has ended, our minds turn to both the normal life issues that had to be put on hold, as well as casting for the next project. Hopefully some progress will be made in that field in the next few weeks. Next week will also mark the return of the stunt team, so we look forward to that with great anticipation.

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

On the Eve of Christmas

Greetings, one and all! Even with the preparations for the Christmas celebration ramping up, and most of us still being sick, we still managed to get a remarkable amount of work done. First off, we managed to nail down the music for a couple scenes in Block 9. Next up, the revised script was reviewed in its entirety, notes were given, and another pass was made, which includes writing a completely new scene, and rewriting another to eliminate the vestiges of earlier rewrites, and refocus things back onto the main character motivations.

On top of that, after a lot of props experimentation, we made good progress in crafting the stunt version of a worn prop, so that we hopefully won’t replay the disaster of the Stormborn shoot, where a similar prop got torn up, and had to be superglued together in the middle of a shoot, when the actor fell repeatedly during the final fight scene.

Here’s a look at it mid-process, beside the original prop from one of our shorts. With the fast motion of action scenes, small discrepancies are less likely to be noticed, however things like shape and position of elements are vital, as well as anything that's going to cast shadow or bounce a highlight, as those will read far more in the moment.

Between the writing, music, and prop work, we stayed quite busy. We’ll have a few more days between writing and when this blog will be released on Christmas Eve, so hopefully we’ll make some good progress before the extended weekend.

Well, that’s about all for this week. Until next time, wishing you all a Merry Christmas!