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!