The Nine Isles: A Pause

Greetings, one and all! Well, here we are. The first blog post in over 15 weeks that doesn’t feature at least one shoot day. It’s crazy, because it’s like we’re done, but not quite. We still have to costume and shoot the entire prologue, but because it features none of the same cast, it almost feels like a different project.
We're slowly packing up props and costumes, returning the ones we’ve borrowed, and have begun tearing down some of the sets. The walls that were made out of cardboard are getting the treatment not a moment too soon, as torrential rains hit directly after we’d wrapped, and have certainly started to take their toll, even with protective coverings.
Special mention should also be made of all the stunt weapons we built for this project…

Yup, all of those cut, shaped, sanded, painted, stained, and lacquered by hand. What’s more, that’s the minimum be could get away with. Most of the non-character items were used more than one person, often in the same scene. So it seemed only fair to give a tip of the hat to these unsung workhorses of the production, that saw hundreds of man hours poured into them, and most of which only had seconds of screen time.
This, of course, leads to the other tip of the hat to the most important players in this production: The Stunties. Unlike other productions, this stunt team really does it all. On top of choreographing and performing the fight scenes, they put quite a few of the man hours into those weapons, not to mention all the work they put into helping build sets. They did makeup and effects, they were grips, gaffers, BTS cameramen, actors, and extras. They were troopers, earning disbelieving admiration from guest actors for weathering the absolutely brutal heat of this summer without batting an eye. I also want to thank those in the team who were part of the cooling squad that kept us from fading due to heat exhaustion during the dungeon fight scene. Ladies and gents, we can now say we’ve achieved the impossible.

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