Brushes on the Town

Greetings, one and all! So, despite a sudden cold that slowed productivity, we still managed to finish detailing all the buildings, and actually roof most of them. On top of that, we took some of the paint we used on the original sets and used it on the wattle and daub part of the miniatures. While it looked quite bright in the direct sun, it’s really amazing how brown it is in indirect light.

 After that we finished and sealed the roofs. Next up, detail painting and weathering, along with a spot of window-making.

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

Bringing Things Together

 Greetings, one and all! This week has covered a small spread of filmmaking tasks. From concept art to detailing and shingling the city houses, production has continued apace. Sadly, I currently have no pictures of those phases, but I have it on good authority that footage of them will be making it into a BTS reel, at some point…

On the stunt side of things, this week the team combined what they’d learned these last two weeks into one package.

This led to them cycling through partners as they practiced a series of short “fight and die” loops that they choreographed. All in all, I must say they did a very good job.

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

Strikes and Stones

Greetings, one and all! Continuing in the theme of shoring up that which has been missed, this week the team met to work on the aspect of flow in their fights, focusing on momentum, daisy-chained actions, and smooth transitioning.

Yes, it sounds boring, but the end result makes them look far more impressive.

On top of that, the week has been filled with plots and plans, as I revise scripts to figure out what we’re shooting this year. On the post-production side, the models are slowly coming together. The roofs and supporting crossbeams are on, as well as some of the detail work. This includes carving out stones with a ballpoint pen.

I don’t even want to think about how many hours it took to do that…

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

Misses and Mass Production

 Greetings, one and all! So, we had a bit of... fun this week. Appliance failures led to us spending far too much time fixing things instead of making things, but in the end the walls still got attached to their backings, and the rough structures assembled. On top of that, we rehabilitated a previously made structure, and started on the basic detailing. (As in full-sized construction, the trim was sometimes used to hide things that weren’t a perfect fit.)

On top of this, the team met again, and this time worked on an exercise neglected with this generation of stunties: Missing. Thus, the team broke up into pairs, and worked on maintaining proper distance while executing full strikes.

Last but not least, we closed this blog week out by reading an old cast mate from The Nine Isles for this new short of ours…

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

First Scripts, Fine Structures, and Fight Scenes

Greetings, one and all! While most normal people take the weekends off, I tend to spend them working on projects that aren’t directly related to the main one on the table. It just so happens that this weekend saw the creation of a short two page script that’s a bit of a concept piece for a much longer script that’s been percolating for a long time. But this is the first time the ideas have come together all in one place.

To that end, the stunt team promptly met the next day, and choreographed a fight based off of that script.

On top of that, we also read whoever had acting inclinations for a couple of the parts.

Back on the Nine Isles side of things, I realized that we needed a lock on exactly how many of which kind of buildings would be in each shot. So I set about making detailed storyboards for those shots, and from that determined what templates to make, and started turning out the basic shapes needed for the most time sensitive structures. (They need to be shot in a similar lighting condition as the original live action plates, so a high late summer sun is needed, not a low winter one. Hence the rush.)

We now have a couple stacks of Medieval house walls that will need some structural backing before we can start assembly and detailing.

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

Updated Tech, Unfinished Shots, and Underground Action

Greetings, one and all! Well, here we are again, hard at work on VFX for The Nine Isles: Chaos Crown. The list of effects shots is so long that I actually missed some of the ones I was supposed to do in the block last week, so that’s what I’m working on here.

On top of that, we’ve finally updated our audio recorder to something that was manufactured in the last decade.

We still have to run tests to see what its limits are, but I’m appreciating the thought of a recorder that uses four batteries per session instead of eight.

So that we could make it to our reformed rockstar step-grandfather-in-law’s surprise 79 1/2th Birthday party, (yes, really,) the team met in a slightly different locale this week, and worked through a bit of an underground choreography scenario…

It made me realize that certain people are mooks way more often than not, so we should probably give them more experience being the centerpiece of the choreography.

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

A Blaze of Axe and Blade

Greetings, one and all! This week opened with Blender work, in which we successfully created a glowing ice crystal, and failed to create a flamethrower-like effect, so back to the drawing board on that one. After that, I shifted to more compositing work, disappearing wires, stuff like that. I’m fairly pleased with the flaming sword effect…

On Sunday the team met, and we split them up into teams with very specific marching orders. Each team was to choreograph a very specific scenario for our potential shoots this summer.

They both did well with their radically different assignments, and now my mind turns to plotting the actual shoots…

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