Tired and sore, but well worth it...

Well, it's over...

Not the movie, but tonight's shoot. It was a hard week of prep, very long and tiresome, but in the end - damn, if we didn't pull it off. First off, I really...REALLY have to thank everyone. Man, I've done a lot of films over the years and have expected a lot from my actors, but tonight was one of those nights were everyone pulled through 38,ooo%.

Heather, thank you so much for enduring the way too long shoot. Can I actually say here why you now need a stunt double/stand in?

Draper, the ultimate energizer actor - literally takes a beating and keeps on ticking. I put the poor bastard to the test, stuck him in prosthetic makeup, in a way too cumbersome costume and made him take a beating from a woman.

And Jordan, the newest and last minute addition to the project (and Heather's stunt double/stand-in) did an awesome job, it was a total trial by fire and she passed like I really don't think anyone else could have.

As a quick aside, can I say Draper has the most awesome job in the world - and without pay?!? Who else gets to be mauled for 5 hours by two beautiful women for no good reason?

So what we shot tonight was The White Room scene. A scene where Malice has her final showdown with The Resurrectionist. It was bascially a pretty brutal and one-sided, fight scene. I'm not a fight scene director by any means - this was one of the hardest and most tiring things I've ever done in the last 9 years of filmmaking. I've not yet edited the footage, it's pretty raw looking right now and will require a lot of editing and post work, but I'm pretty confident we got it.

I've got a few pictures, not as much as usual since my usual photographer is on the road doing a documentary right now, so I had to make due. I took some stills from the footage and some stuff from the cameras that I had friends taking at certain points, I'm posting it here - BUT! I'm not showing the face of The Resurrectionist right now, you get a pretty good impression of what he might look like, but for some reason I really wanted to keep it out of sight for now.

So here's how it all progressed:

I've been working on the basics for a couple weeks, trying to choreograph a fight scene and all. I'm busy with other work too, so trying to juggle all this is a task in itself - luckily I can pick the greatest actors in the world, so I'm good as gold on this. I got a location, a nice empty, large room to shoot in. We shot against 2 10x10 backdrops - which help the post process to really bleach out the shots.

It don't look like much, but it did the trick.

From there I sussed out the fight itself, it comes from a very popular TV show and is meant as an homage (but not in that annoying Tarantino kind of way). Draper and I plotted it out, I did storyboards until 3 last night, spent about 5 hours on it. Sorted it all out as best I could. Met with Draper around 2:30 this afternoon and from there we went, we talked about it, had coffee and whatnot then started in on the makeup. That was fun.

Here's Draper coming along in makeup.

First off, the contact lenses...What a bugger. They're huge and irritating, but we forced them in, as much as Draper is unaccustomed to having his eyes poked, we did this in about 15 minutes, maybe less. Oh, and then we dyed his hair.We got him in costume, because pulling on the shoulder piece would ruin the makeup, so he sat in this for a very long time.
I'm going to refrain from showing the makeup progression in order to "hide" the look of The Resurrectionist.

We arrived on location a little late, about 20 minutes late - but still before shooting time, so we're still kinda good. Heather and Jordan showed up right on time - thanks for being patient while we setup and you waited, by the way.

These are some stills from the footage. Bear in mind, there is an immense amount of post to be done to these images. I was hesitant to show them, but I thought it's been awhile since I posted some filming pictures, so I'll do it with that disclaimer and hope for the best.

2nd shot of the night, Heather looking to kick some ass.

Pulling a punch..

And beating down the bad guy...Actually, this is a pretty quick shot and I will point out: that's not Heather. This is Jordan doing her best to beat the crap out of evil.Ooh, he's pulling his hood back finally!

Don't touch me! We have a very strict sexual harassment policy.
Well actually it's more like an encouragement, if you know what I mean.

Punchy, punchy.

And more punchy, punchy. It was a this point we realized we can get
away with sloppy editing and fight choreography so long as there was a butt shot.

End of the night, a quick posed shot of Draper and I.

And Draper taking a quick suckerpunch from Jordan.

That's pretty much it, I'd like to show more, but it's getting late and I'm near dead. Overall, it was a great night. Thanks again to everyone, you all did a great (and even that's not a good enough word) job. It was a hard shoot, and a lot to expect after a bit of a hiatus, however we managed it. It's done, that hump has been...um...gotten over, we'll just say that and be done with it. We're done with this.

It's unusal for me to be so tired and actually feel like I accomplished something, normally I'm tired because I ate breakfast - in this case we really went to the mountain, and ended up kicking it over and beating the ever loving crap out of it.

Heather, Draper and Jordan, thanks guys - awesome job from everyone. It's all uphill from here...yes, I know what I just said. We're way more then 3000 miles from Graceland, iffen you know what I mean.

'Night kids. This blog was brought to you by FireBall.

And if it made no sense, still and even moreso...brought you by FireBall.

Keep in touch, I'll be updating in the next few days after editing. And please, although I'm not a "comment" kind of guy, I'd like to see how many are reading this blog, so please again, post a short - hell, even blank - comment if you will after reading this. And forgive the sloppy typing, really my grammar is okay, my typing not so much.

Good night, and may you be in bed and alseep before crappy late-night TV comes on.
FOX