Launch!

It is with great joy that I announce the launch of the official Brightsword Productions website!

http://www.brightswordproductions.com/

Here you'll find project pages, cast bios, trailers, and the cast and crew requirements for the Gatewalkers project, as well as some basic ways to support the effort. I must say that I'm personally fond of a couple of these pages, especially this one:

http://www.brightswordproductions.com/cast--crew.html

Here you can meet our four leads and learn a bit about them (and their characters.) Also, the Gatewalkers landing page was fun to format.

http://www.brightswordproductions.com/gatewalkers.html

In other news, we had a special catch up session today, focusing on skills unique to Annie's character of Erin. Fun was had by all, even the trainer who was forced to fight with his weak hand to give his trainee a feel for fighting 90% of the population. Ah, the trials of being a leftie...

Stance review.

Parrying drill.

This is why you parry outward. No easy shot to the ribs.

Knife fighting, easily the most frantic event.

Two hours later... rest.

Thanks for reading! Until next time...

Countdown

 Hey everyone! Yes, the blog is late thanks to a couple of interesting weeks, capped off by a very good but tiring training session yesterday. Our young leads are making good progress. Elijah is only on his second training day, but has proved a very quick study and is rapidly closing the distance in his understanding. Zoe is proving to be someone who always ups the game and never gives up, often requiring her instructor to escalate the conflict as well. All in all, this leads to very educational sessions. Annie is always game to try new things, the more violent the better, and is also a fairly quick study. Paris has two things going for her. One, she is definitely warming to the physical aspects of her role, willing to keep pushing until she gets it right. Secondly, she has developed a very elven attitude for her character of Gwynmareth, and inhabits it very well. Viewing them together, and watching their readings and acting workshops, I'm glad to see that we've found the right people for these parts. They embrace their roles wholeheartedly and, most importantly, work very well together. For being such radically different people they fit together extremely well. Which, in my humble opinion, is the basis of a great team.

The madness of the last couple weeks has come in many different flavors, with two of them linked directly to the series. First, the Brightsword Productions website is close to launch! That's been quite the job, but very educational and fulfilling in the long run. Secondly, We've been brainstorming which audiences would most like to see this series made and how we would get the word out to them. This has led to my current job of crafting letters to webmasters and bloggers, presenting the project and hopefully piquing their interest enough to get them to present the project to their audiences. Unless something really takes off, that will be my full-time job for the next two months. If it does take off, my job will then be to manage the influx of questions. Either way, long days on the keyboard.

Thanks for reading. Until next time!

Life, Death, and Drama

I want to start this blog with a special note. This week marked the passing of a long-time family friend and a part-time member of the Othersight team. Jeff Kropf died Monday afternoon, when the plane he was in lost a wing and crashed. Jeff was a pilot and helped us get the aerial shots you will see in the film. He contributed a lot to the community and will be missed by all who knew him.

Wednesday we had our first opportunity to train with Elijah. He's a quick study, and makes a good action hero. After the training we ran through several scenes, acting them out as we could. Unfortunately there were few clear pictures from the dragon scene, as it was most entertaining. The interaction between our leads is spot on, I can't wait to see what it will look like when we start principal photography.

  
Thanks for reading! Until next time.

Of Throws and Thanks

Hello everyone! Happy Thanksgiving to one and all!

Ordinarily I'd contemplate taking the day off, but as it so happens, we have more shiny pictures for y'all to admire. These are from last week's meeting, where I had the privilege of playing crash dummy for all my heroes in training. So maybe I will cut the blog short and just give you the pictures.
 

As an added note, the Othersight project is rolling again, with major revision of the soundtrack coming down the pipe.

Thanks for reading!

Until next time.

Do You Read Me?

 Well, Sunday has come and gone, bringing with it some of the happiest news thus far. All of our leads got to meet for the first time! As hoped, they work incredibly well together, even going so far as to break out in a spontaneous rendition of "I'll Make a Man Out of You" from Mulan. What are the odds of finding an entire room full of strangers who know the lyrics to that song? The read-through of just their scenes clocked in at almost two and a half hours. Factoring in the other sixty or so scenes we didn't do, and subtracting the time we took for commentary, revisions, and elven pronunciation, all together it promises to be a healthy season length. Afterwards we focused on specific scenes, working in more of the acting versus just dramatic reading. The dynamic between Zoe (Kate) and Annie (Erin) is particularly strong. Almost makes me sad that they [SPOILER] in Season 2.

All in all, I must say I'm very pleased with the results. The fact that they have another six months to get even better makes me all that much happier.

Thanks for reading! Until next time.

Of Hordes and Homepages

  Another week, another adventure. This past week plus we've been working on the Brightsword Productions website, which will feature things such as write-ups and media for our projects, as well as profiles on our actors, among many other things. It's been a challenge to make navigation of a multi-layered site as simple and intuitive as possible.
  Also, we are attempting to arrange the first read through with our four leads. Hopefully it will be this Sunday afternoon, but only time will tell. Everyone is very excited about this opportunity, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it turns out. Watch this blog for more details! 
 This week was also our fifth training day, in which we focused on spear fighting, a little archery, and tactical melee combat. The last subject was considered the most fun by all involved, but unfortunately we don't have any pictures because absolutely everybody was involved. A text description will have to suffice. In short, we took our trainees and put them in a situation similar to what their characters would encounter in the series, then walked them through the best way to resolve the situation. Or rather, we let them try it out in real time (with padded weapons,) then walked through how to improve their performance, such as developing a staggered battle line to better cover the flanks. Anyway, here are the pictures from our training session. Enjoy!

"That's it. Now you die."

Spear Fighting 101: The Pointy End

Shall we dance?

Sword and Dagger: The Art of Killing with Sophistication.

"Come closer and say that. Er, on second thought, just hold still."

Tandem Fighting: How to make and exploit opportunities.

  After the training, we read through several scenes from the Season 1 script, focusing on high-tension ones between Erin and Kate. That was fun for me as the director, and them as actors. I get the feeling that they love to argue, just cutting loose and letting their emotions fly.

Thanks for reading! Until next time.

Delayed Update

Due to our training schedule running later today, we are going to be posting a new update tomorrow.

Thank you all for checking in. :)

Four of Four

Hello everyone! Another week, another blog. But this time, we have a special bonus. Not one, but two news items. We have both a training update with lots of shiny pictures, and the biggest news of the month. That's right, the Gatewalkers are now together. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Elijah DeVyldere to the role of Mike! 

After trying out several different people, some with considerable acting experience, we still hadn't found anyone who felt like Mike. In spite of having never read for a part before, Elijah really got the character, making Mike come to life before our eyes.

 

Elijah, welcome aboard! 

Training Day 4

I may have to review my directorial style, my actors seem to have way too much fun trying to kill me...

This week we did a quick recap of last week, followed by intensive short blade training. The focus was on both fighting with and defending against a knife or short sword. After a basic explanation of the principles we ran through various scenarios, helping the trainees think through how to overcome each situation as it was presented.  

The peanut gallery.

Methods of subduing the "superior" reverse grip.

Turning the sword against its owner.

"You want to go home and rethink your life..."

"Unarmed" is not the same as "helpless."

As you can see, I was the punching bag for this one. No complaints though, they really enjoyed themselves. Which, once again, is food for thought...