From Students to Teachers

Greetings, one and all! So let’s see… Well, this week was a lot of prep for Sunday, and the arrival of new people. This was interspersed with more music composition, and people getting sick. On the plus side, we now have half a dozen fine new wasters (wooden practice swords) in our arsenal. Thanks, Zach!

When Sunday finally rolled around, various events whittled down the number of newbies fairly significantly, but the team swung into action, and the more individualized help wound up being good for the trainees.

The stunties were able to customize training techniques to each trainee, and really focus on their individual challenges. The students have become the teachers, and it was marvelous to see.

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

Gathering the Elements

Greetings, one and all! While the rest of life did interfere with production work a fair bit this week, we still managed to get a few notable things done. First, we ran our first recording session where we attempt to integrate real time instrument recordings into the digital workspace. Now experiments are being run to make them sound right in the environment of the other instrument samples.

Next up, the recruiting efforts have finally borne fruit. After a tiring three weeks, we finally have confirmations from a half dozen or so individuals. While there’s usually a fair amount of falloff after the first three weeks, the number of potentials is high enough that we should end up with a reasonable number of stunties when all is said and done. If all goes as we hope, you will be seeing their faces in the blog this time next week.

Lastly, the stunties met again, and had a little fun before their jobs turn to training new recruits…

A traditional combat exercise, played out with a wide variety of weapons. A fitting level of chaos for the students who are about to become teachers.

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

Scattershot and Honor Guards

Greetings, one and all! So… I’m not sure exactly how to frame our work this week, as mostly it was a shotgun blast of trying to meet with people, sending messages, and in general getting our foot in the door again. This time we’re actively recruiting for the stunt team, so we have a fairly clear target. In between all that, we had a couple composing sessions where we sought to apply themes and techniques we'd developed to different scenes.

Lastly, realizing that I’d missed a part of the opening fight scene in the script, the team leapt back into that, and choreographed our prologue hero versus the honor guard…

Despite a late start, we got the whole thing finished just before the torrential rains struck. The fight was intricate and entertaining, just what I’ve come to expect from these group fights. A hearty well done to everyone involved.

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

Shining Up, Reaching Out, and Locking in

Greetings, one and all! The first step this week was painting the stunt blades we’d spent the previous week or two creating. The trick to painting stunt blades is, first, a gloss black basecoat to make the subsequent metallic layers shine, and second, waiting a week for the paint to cure between each step. Thus, this process will be ongoing…

Next up, as we are coming into a new period of production, and a lot of our stunties now have full time jobs, we’re reaching out through our different avenues, looking to recruit the next generation of fight performers. If all goes well, we should see the results in the next few weeks.

Lastly, the most veteran stunties met yet again, and this time broke into two teams, who set about choreographing the remaining fight sequences for the new script.

We definitely picked the right people for each fight, as they really played toward the strengths of the characters they represented. One team, strength and intensity, the other, precision and agility. Both were very fun to watch.

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

Plotting and Shaping

Greetings, one and all! Following the current pattern, this week opened with still more composing sessions, where we managed to lock down a couple themes, and provided the mood music for a few scenes.

Next up, the stunt team met again, and this time applied their single sword skills to an old exercise, where thinking through your moves is paramount…

Lastly, as higher brain functions seemed to have flown, we capped off the week with cutting a new blade and shaping the rest.

Final smoothing should be happening at any moment, and we will hopefully have the first coats of paint on before the rains come.

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

Blanks and Revisions

Greetings, one and all! This week opened with a couple music meetings, where we explored concepts and instruments for different Nine Isles character themes. We should be following up on that in the next few days here.

Next up, swords. Specifically, laying out the patterns on high density polypropylene, then carefully cutting them out of the sheets. We still have a few shape refinements to do (aka. “sanding”) before we can add the bevel and start painting. As a good cure on these things takes a couple of weeks, we thought it best to start them early, just in case.

Lastly, the stunt team met again on Sunday, and used their new single sword skills to revisit a choreography we attempted a couple months ago.

This time around, the result was much smoother right off the bat, with good energy and momentum. Next up, revisions…

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

A Note on Notes

Greetings, one and all! So this week features two significant highlights, which took up far more time than their entries suggest. First off, we’ve finalized the latest version of the new Script 1. This, in turn, has allowed us to begin breaking things down by scene, location, what is needed where, who acts with whom, and so on. In the end, making a movie come down to a lot of lists, charts, and schedules. Everything gets planned on paper before you ever see and images.

Meanwhile, on the other end of the production cycle, we have begun experimentation with composing music for the Nine Isles movie!

Granted, this is a first for us, and there’s no telling how it will go, but we’ve hit a few promising notes (pun intended), and given the current budget, it’s at least worth a try.

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

Alternate Endings, New Patterns, and Continuing Duels

Greetings, one and all! So, despite the entire family succumbing to a fun little cold this week, we still managed to get a fair amount done. First off, we wrote a couple alternate endings for Script 1, and are in the middle of a third draft of those. Thankfully a review of the script also picked up artifacts from previous versions that needed to be changed, so we dealt with those as well.

Next up, as the photos of these last few months have hinted, just because the new script is more sci-fi that does not mean we won't be using melee weapons. Thus another project was designing patterns for the blades to be used in the movie series. Thus far we have four designs, and I'm pretty sure we'll use three of them.

Next up, the team picked up where they left off last week, brought those who weren't there up to speed, and choreographed a couple solid single-handed duels.

The speed of the style takes some getting used to, but a couple of them seem to be enjoying it. Though that does also make it more of a workout, especially for your lead leg...

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

Single-Handed and Double the Work

 So…. Wow, that was a whiplash week. After hitting the halfway mark with the second script, I realized that it would make a much better ending. So I experimented with making it the new end of script one. After a few days of paring down, we had managed to eliminate several unnecessary characters from the script, but then I realized that this new end was tonally very different from the first script. This, in turn, led me to realize that it should probably be the end of the second script, but that act three of script one could use some extra kick. So now we go back to the drawing board, where we touch up the end of script one, and build a longer climb to the big reveal at the end of script two.

Sunday, a somewhat smaller team met and worked on something that will be very important in this new project: Single-handed sword technique.

While the techniques are different, the fact that they already have several other types of sword experience means that they picked up on it fairly quickly, enough to turn out a decent old-school duel after only around an hour of drilling.

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

Spotting and Striking

Greetings, one and all! First off, this week saw a big step forward in the music department as we started to run spotting sessions. This is where you sit down and decide where music needs to be, what the mood is, etc. By the time you’re reading this, those sessions should be complete.

Second, while things have slowed again due to narrative timing questions, (literally “could X do Y and get back to Z in this time?”) we are now around half way through the first draft of the second script. Writing a cohesive multi-part narrative is certainly its own kind of fun… especially when your characters run the show. Certainly gives the ol’ brain a workout.

Lastly, the team met again on Sunday and incorporated the exercises of the past two weeks into one choreography session…

Each pairing took up one half of the first duel between major characters in the script. Next, we’ll spend some time reviewing it, and try to see how we can bring the styles together seamlessly. Then we run another iteration of the fight scene, refining the various elements.

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