Another One of Those Weeks

  Have you ever had a week that played good news-bad news with you? This was one of those for me. Just as a small sampling, the props shipment arrived yesterday, (Yay!) but the sword had been packed tip-down in the helmet and, over the course of five days bouncing across the country in the back of  truck, worked its way through the plastic tip guard and the top of the steel helm! Yeah... I'd best leave it there to avoid a whine-fest. :-P
  On the plus side, one of my stunt guys can fix it and we are on schedule to shoot a massed battle tomorrow (Thursday) afternoon and a smaller scene (with horses!) Saturday morning. I've also been in talks with a young local actress. If all goes well we may soon be reporting on the outcome of screen tests. :-)

Have a great week, thanks for reading!    

Refinement

  Tuesday night we engaged in a three-hour ADR session with one of our actresses. An entire two-plus minute monologue was re-dubbed for cleaner sound. Apparently sitting by a stream generates more noise than one might think. While long, it went extremely well. Weather changes will probably delay one of our shoots and the late shipping of two very important props will delay the other until sometime next week. Subtle edits around the title-card and some voice-over work has smoothed the transitions between scenes. All in all a productive week.

War and Peace... or the Calm Before the Storm

  Hey, all! The next couple of posts here promise to be smaller, due to our final filming being pushed back to later next week. That said, costume elements are either on order, or being created as we speak (er, write.) We also ran tests this week to ensure that our army could be multiplied convincingly. The first thing I'll change is make sure that the shadows on the white costumes don't come out blue on the camera. Not normally a problem, but in front of a blue screen (used so we don't accidentally key out the grass) it's somewhat... problematic. 
  The title card for the teaser is also in the works, and can be seen below. Not shown in the screen capture here is the mist that will be wafting across the screen and curling around the logo. A still image is far too dull. ;-)

I'm also pleased to say that the season 1 script is receiving positive reviews, even from my best critics. Now to find the funding... :-)

A Hero Awakens

  Hello everyone, and welcome to another installment in the Gatewalkers teaser saga. I remember when things like this were supposed to be simple. I'd shoot a scene with cutaways to illustrate the point, and that would be it. This is more like an episode all its own, Episode Zero, if you will. It currently clocks in at about 4:48, but in that time, we will be witness to the fruits of treachery, armies will be called to war, and a desperate cry will be heard across the worlds-realms. Meanwhile Erin, a chipper, spirited teen, goes for a jog. Little does she know that the familiar path will to lead another world entirely...

 Monday we shot the Erin scenes with the amazing Annie Tunstill. First I should say that it was preceded by us wandering around in somewhat less amazing circles for about twenty minutes trying to figure out the best angle for a multi-layered shot. In spite of that, the shoot took off, and we actually captured extra material that makes a solid end cap to the teaser. For those few hours, Annie truly became Erin.

Three shoots down, two to go!