Overviews and Tiny Fights

Greetings, one and all! Since I finally succumbed to the bug that’s been stalking my family of late, this week started off a bit slowly. However, by the end I had enough brain cells to do a rough script breakdown. Not as granular and scene by scene as a true breakdown would need to be, but as I’m still not entirely sure which ending the script will use, it serves its purpose. This way I can eyeball what sets would need to be made, what kinds of costumes, how many speaking roles there are, etc. This will help in prioritizing where work and resources should go, when the time comes.

On Sunday the team met again, and this time ran a far more whirlwind exercise… The opening scene of this latest script involves a mass battle sequence, so we set the team the goal of choreographing small vignette fights, ranging from three to six beats, that would be used for the opening clash. This way we can give relatively new people their small scene, and they will be able to memorize it fairly quickly.

The team had a lot of fun with the process, and actually got far further than expected, starting on the second wave before their stamina flagged. All in all, a good day.

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

Tandem Fights and Continuing the Story

Greetings, one and all! As I tend to write scripts visually, assembling the cinematic elements, and then running the film as I write, this week opened with a bit of production development. In this case, that means designing various ships and locations that will be introduced in the first thirty or so pages of Part/"Episode" 2 of our most recent script. This was then followed by a bit of writing. But beginnings are delicate things, and so we were on Version 3 before page 10.

Capping off the week, the stunt team met yet again, and this time they worked on a 2v1 tandem fight.

I must say, the sync and flow between the fighters was beautiful, and the drama they built in was pretty much spot on. I really enjoyed the entire process, and the result was quite impressive, if succinct.  

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

Prop Acquisition and Cinematic Dueling

Greetings, one and all! I want to go on record as saying that Ebay is a great source for props, if you’re willing to dig all the way to page 45, that is. The more expensive options tend to be on the first twenty or so pages. I’m trying to make the most of the handful of months we have that allow paint to dry properly, so I used a bit of my pocket money to acquire the foundation elements for a few prop weapons. We’ll be experimenting with these to see if we can make them look good on camera, and appropriate in-universe.

Next up, the script received yet another edit, this time to the ending. Hopefully this should punch up the drama a bit. Plus, now part of the old Script 1 is the new beginning of Script 2…

This week the stunties met again, and worked on the aesthetics of duels. One pair improvised their narrative, whilst the other decided to try a scene from the latest script.

Good work all around, and I look forward to seeing the film duel in its final form!

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

Learning, Logistics, and Long Blades

Greetings, one and all! This week has been an exercise in self-education. As we start contemplating the viability of shooting the new script, my job becomes largely researching, seeing what the sources are for various materials, and the price tag, learning how to do new and interesting things in both model-making and tech, etc. Funny enough, sometimes learning new things means taking a deep dive into some old things that you can now understand better with your new experiences.

Sunday, the team braved the extreme heat and laid out the framework for one of the fights from the script.

We employed the method from our recent trainings, and choreographed in blocks that were then strung together. This allowed us to do the work in about an hour, just when everyone’s brains started to get hazy in the heat. We then sat down and brainstormed a bit for our team’s next long-form improve game. This was a return to the old team development process that we haven’t seen in almost a decade.

On top of all that, the script is receiving another refinement, as one of the major scenes that shifts the perspective forward about a decade wasn’t blending well with the scenes around it. Hopefully that’s now fixed.

Last but not least, in a bit of the miscellaneous category, a couple weeks back we took a little location scout along the north shore of a local reservoir…

We shall see if these locations turn up in anything in the near future. Probably not the north-west side, though, the poison oak was a bit thick…

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

Drafts and Boarding

Greetings, one and all! It is with great pleasure that I announce that we have a working copy of the newest script! I say “working copy” instead of “final draft” because final drafts are notorious for having suffixes like “v3g2 Final Final Draft”, so it’s less awkward this way. What a working copy means is that the major beats, locations, characters, and events are all locked off enough that we can make production decisions based on this script, even if details like dialogue and blocking might change.

Flowing directly from that, this Sunday the stunties developed a hypothetical boarding action, using the technology of the universe.

Working through this process showed us a lot about the practicalities of using the different pieces of tech, and even random things like why a marine in-universe may be required to use low profile power cells… All in all an insightful and entertaining experience. My thanks to the stunties for helping frame in the thought process for future fight scenes.

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