Jailbreak Day 2

Greetings, one and all! I’m just going to start off by saying that thankfully the smoke from the past couple weeks cleared up just enough to get our most complicated shoot in before the clouds and rain came. The color scheme for the scene was also pretty solid, and the helmets, for being salvage jobs, actually look pretty good with the final paint scheme. Real life did get in the way a bit this week, but we still managed to get everything together in time for the big shoot.

It went fairly well, with the usual hiccups associated with shooting in the blazing sun, but we finished the shoot pretty much exactly when we expected, so I guess we are getting fairly good at our job.

On top of shoot work, I also had the opportunity to get a little writing in. After so long the prose is pretty stiff, but the words are coming, and the characters are working, so I guess the second draft will just have more work to do than usual.

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

Preparing Within the Haze

Greetings, one and all! Well, after the heat, we then got the fires and smoke, which have added a new wrinkle to the shoot prep. But for all that the costumes are being completed, the helmets are getting painted, and the stunt team launched into the increasingly smoky fields just long enough to block out next week’s fight scene, before heading to cleaner air.

It was a pretty fun day with the team, among its highlights was finding out that one of our stunties had taken First Place in the Novice category of the local Highland Games just the day before. Congratulations, Nathan! All your hard work paid off.

As this new short is also supposed to be a way to learn how to work with new technology, I’ve also been spending the week researching how to solve some basic problems that have cropped up in the footage (for example, the ever popular hot pixel,) using the new editor and comp software. So far, so good.

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

Jailbreak Day 1

Greetings, one and all! This blog week saw our first shoot day, as Saturday we filmed the primary dialog sequences in the short. Thankfully it only required costuming for two characters, and we managed to cobble together a set from pieces of previous projects. Some elements like the blaster and its holster were scratch built, while others like the comm unit were made from various pieces of junked tech and then painted for weathering and consistency.

We had to race the oncoming heat wave, which isn’t expected to drop out of the “extreme heat” zone until after this blog goes live, to get this much done. It’s also not projected to dip down into temperatures where I can safely PlastiDip the new armor pieces until this weekend, so things are slowing down for a bit, but I guess that gives me more time to work on the helmets.
I must say it’s good to be back on location again. It’s strange that something that can be very stressful is actually good for my mental wellbeing, but there we have it. I guess there is a certain level of peace that comes from being where you’re supposed to be.

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

Preparing for the New Shoot

Greetings, one and all! Well, wow… this week really launched off. After finishing off the lightning and whatnot, we jumped into a work day where we started building a handful of the props and armor we’ll need for the short shoot. Or, in some cases, picked up where we left off now that we have a better idea of what we’re doing.

Sunday a small section of the team met to do costuming for their parts, as well as practice choreography for the shoot.

Shortly thereafter, we realized that a subtle shift in one person’s availability led to a cascade effect that means we may well be shooting far sooner than we expected. This has led to a mad scramble to figure out what we need for those first shoots, and prioritize them so that they can be done in the few days we have left. So likely just before you’re reading this we will have had yet another prop and set building day, focusing on what’s needed for the newly nearest shoots.

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

Refining Past and Future

Greetings, one and all! So, what did we do this week? Well, more fiddling with the edit, we even shot a brief close-up insert to better convey the importance of a particular moment in the plot. Though we did have a stuntie stand-in, in lieu of the actor.

Next up, the short script was further revised, and we now have a more solid finish. On top of that we’re working on characters for a long form script related to said short. To top it all off, the stunties met and ran a choreography session for part of the short before breaking out into a very entertaining sword and shield exercise…

My personal favorite moment was when the fight literally went aerial as two combatants made strikes and counterstrikes while parallel to the ground. All in all, a good week.

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