The Return of the (Twisted) Ninja

 Greetings, one and all! So, this week has made some decent progress. We dove into a bit of the Block 6 edit, as well as working on the sound sync for 5. As mentioned before, the fight scene was indeed at the end of 5, and that’s where we are right now. The six interlocking scenes were shot in a very nonlinear way, so the sound sync is proving to be as interesting as expected. First you have to find what takes were used in the scene, then you have to do the cleanup, then run up and down the timeline to find where that take was used. Even after that, you still have to sync it up, and this is a scene without much dialog, so visual syncing is even more difficult. So, it’s slow, but we’re making good headway.

On Sunday the team met again, and got to do a dance with the changing weather. In the end, we settled on an an old exercise that could be adjusted for different spaces. A little combat game the stunties dubbed Twisted Ninja, after how you call the moves like Twister, but have limited mobility and actions in your strikes, like Ninja.

We opened with short weapons in a very tight space, then moved outside when the rain and hail slowed, and went with the longer swords.

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

Asymmetrical Experience

Greetings, one and all! So we made some good production progress, this week. The refining edit was finished on Block 4, and the rough edit on Block 5. Sure enough, the first fight scene was sitting right at the end there. It also just so happens to be intercut with three other scenes, and was also shot extremely out of order. This was partially due to actor availability, and also prop failures on the day. For all that, it turned out fairly well. Just a slow process to assemble it. I have no idea what sound syncing is gonna look like… 

The stunt team also met Sunday. It was a smaller group, but they certainly got their workout. Each member was given randomly assigned kit, and then faced off in a series of duels. This was shortly followed by a best out of 3 2v2 session…

As you can see, the combinations were eclectic, with the shield and dagger being the most challenging combo, once they got past the dueling scenarios. It seems there’s always at least one stuntie out for sabotage…

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

Defining Blocks, and Definitely Blocking

 Greetings, one and all! So, I’ve been asked what the editing “blocks” I’ve been referring to mean. To reduce the strain of a long project in the editing software, particularly once effects are added, I’ve broken the edit down into blocks that represent about ten pages of the original script. As it was a ninety-nine page script, that gives us approximately ten blocks to work with. So, with that in mind, when I can now say that I’ve finished the sound sync on Block 4, and the rough edit for Block 5 is a little over half complete, you’ll know that we’re nearing the half way point on the edit. Which is crazy, now that I’m thinking about it. There’s so much that happens in the second half... Though our first major fight scene will likely be in Block 5…

Anyway, on to other things. Now that just about everyone has recovered, the team met again, and this time shook out the knots in their muscles with some good old fashioned skirmishing.

We opened with a scenario where each team picked the other team’s weapons, followed by one where your own team outfits you. In retrospect, we probably should’ve seen the team members sabotaging each other coming a mile away. Ah, with friends like these...

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

Editing Yourself

Greetings, one and all! The rest of life is definitely encroaching into filmmaking, but we’ve still made progress. The plates we shot last week have been integrated into the edit of the first block, and more shots have been added for proper emotional context. Block three has gone through the refining edit, with a few added shots like we did for block one.
On top of that, we’re neck deep in block four, where I get to edit the first full scene where I played a major role in front of the camera.

While I try to avoid acting as much as possible, there’s always a character that we just can’t find an actor for. Invariably I will have to step in for some portion of the shoot. However, this was the first time I’ve had to play a character that’s in a third of the scenes in the movie.
Editing yourself is hard. It can be difficult to tell which of your thoughts on your performance are accurate, and which are just excessive self-criticism. So, thus begins the uncanny journey of seeing my own face way more than is healthy. :P
Let the games begin…

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