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. :)