I went over the footage pretty quick this morning and snagged off the backup tape most of the lost footage. I guess the "technical problem" was sort of twofold. At a point in taping, things were going pretty fast, I had mistakenly been paused while recording and recording while I should have been paused. So I missed a couple things completely. The other part was I believe the cord from the storage drive had come loose.

So what did I lose, not too much, not so much you'd even notice really. We did a couple quick shots of the guys battling invisible demons - I lost about 2 of them, luckily we redid shots of all of them so I do have quick shots of all 4 of them, not enough to do several shots, but enough to do one of each. Ah well. It was added stuff, not scripted.

So here's some shots:
















So that's more or less it. Should make an alright scene for the most part. I should take this time to point out, the costume (the cloaks and the jerkins on Draper and Tim) were made by Kim Bradford - thanks Kim. The rest of the costume pieces were made by me, cobbled from stuff here and there. The only things that were bought were the belts and the boot tops. The boot tops were really bright and shiny originally so I had to really scuff them up to make them look good.

Thanks to Rick, Draper, Tim and Dave for getting all dressed up it was a fun shoot.

2 more scenes down

It was a long couple days, but well worth it. I'm pretty tired and sore right now and can't wait to go to sleep, I think I'm might actually get some sleep after all this. Although it wasn't a completely problem free shoot, I think it went incredibly well. We kept the the schedule pretty well (which is always a huge plus), and we didn't run into too many problems.

One small problem that was easily fixed was one of my actors had to drop out near last minute due to being ill. It happens, thankfully he had enough foresight to call me on Friday and let me know he thought he was getting sick. So I was able to run through a few names and get everything back on track.

Originally a friend of mine, Reg Clark was to play the 4th member of the original Brotherhood, so in a pinch we got Dave LeBlanc in, a friend of a friend sort of deal. He was great, although when he started swinging that axe around everyone stepped pretty far back. Everyone did an awesome job, it was pretty spot on. There was a technical glitch with the camera and we almost lost some footage, luckily the I can recapture it from the tape I'm still not sure what the glitch was and it does me me a little leery about this camera - thank god I'm so close to be done.

Now in case you're not aware what we shot today, it was the Brotherhood Flashback scenes, or the 60 second Lord of the Rings stuff. and to prove we actually did something that looked really cool:

Left to right: Partick Poirier, Draper Bulger,
Tim Gormley and David LeBlanc.
The four original badasses.

I think what the best part of this was that for a little while it felt like I was finally getting to shoot something different, this is totally unlike anything else in the movie and in some ways it really doesn't seem to fit until you get to see it in context - which won't be any time soon probably.

Rick

Draper
Tim and Dave

We managed to shoot everything pretty quick, the lighting wasn't the most awesome, but I'm doing a lot of color correcting so hopefully it'll be taken care of easily. Funny that the few times I'd been out there before, Fort Amherst, there wasn't a soul around - today, 2 cars when we arrived, and about 3 or 4 more over the course of while we were there.

A few folks watched for a bit, realized it was only so interesting and left. There was an older couple who I noticed as soon as we wrapped, they asked a few question and seemed pretty amused by it. Then just as I was taking some pictures and getting ready to leave there was this girl that appeared and asked up if we were with a re-enactment group, we said we were just making a movie, and it turned out she was from the Society for Creative Anachronism and from somewhere in Europe at that. She actually didn't even know anyone from PEI, why she was there and at the moment just seemed really odd. If you don't know what that society is, look it up online, you'll get why it was strange.

Then we headed back to town for some much hearty grog!

Nothing like a big tankard of beer-like substance
after a hard day of monster slaying.

And the grog came with it's own bar wench! It's actually Dave's girlfriend,
whose name I cannot for the life of me remember. I so suck at names.
She was a pretty good sport and just happened to volunteer at the last minute
as an extra in the scene.

And here's our table of weapons.

In case you're wondering where this awesome set came from, I built it myself...Well, that's not entirely true. It's the private room in the basement of Sim's Corner. It's an awesome looking place, perfect to something like this. Cost's $100 to rent for the night, pretty well worth it.

Overall it went well, despite the technical glitch. I have yet to go over over all the footage, I know what's missing and I hope I can salvage it from the backup tape. I've seen the more crucial missing shots on there, they look perfect, it's just some of the more fun stuff I may or may not be able to use I was really hoping turned out. We'll see, let's hope for the best, I'm too tired to deal with it tonight.

So I'll leave you with this, while I was taking pictures of the guys I accidentally took a video with my camera, so I figure why not post it.

I'm near brain dead

It’s been a busy week if you’ve been paying attention. We’re so close to wrapping up filming, and everything is going as well as it can be. 5 scenes within the next month seems pretty doable.

One thing I made another little breakthrough in is my comfort with the prosthetics and doing the makeup. This is the first project I’ve ever even thought about playing around with such stuff, and it was a great learning experience - although I have to admit I still have a massive amount to learn.

I spent the day pre-painting all the prosthetics for next weekend. I have 5 people to do makeup on, 6 technically if you consider greying hair and slapping on a tattoo a serious makeup job. I wish I’d known enough to think about doing this earlier on, but I’ve been making a lot up as I go in this. I realized it’s so much easier and efficient to make up the prosthetics long before the shoot, you get so much more detail and shading - you still have to blend in with the actor, but that’s a small part of the process.

I finished roughing up the costumes for Sunday’s shoot, trying to arrange a small shoot for Thursday, pre-painting the prosthetics, checking out some music for the movie, going over the CG character for next Sunday and setting up my shots for the Flashback scenes. I still have a good chunk of work tomorrow, I’d like to relax a bit Sunday morning before I dive into what could very possibly be one of the most overboard things I’ve ever shot.

The closer it gets, the more I think about it in context of screen time. The amount of time, money and effort that has gone into these costumes is a little crazy actually. It’ll total no more then 3 or 4 minutes on screen - at best. It will so be worth it though I think. I've said it before, but it really hasn't hit home until now - it's going to be a very simple, but I think pretty cool scene.

I’ve spent the last couple days watching the “behind the scenes” documentaries for Lord of the Rings. Okay, so it’s a little arrogant to feel like there’s any close comparison - but think of it for a second from my point of view. We’ve past the 2 year mark of shooting, and actually nearly past the 3 year mark of pre-production and this thing keeps snowballing. Literally. It’s getting bigger and bigger each couple months. Not that it’s getting out of hand, it’s getting much more clearer actually.

This is all stuff I could not have ever done back when I started this. This isn’t enough stuff I could’ve thought I’d be capable of doing back when I started this. For me this has been a pretty long journey and while it still has some time yet to go, the main part is close to an end - the rest is just a massive beast sitting there waiting for me to notice it...I’m not sure what it’ll do once I have to start poking it and moving past it.

In any case, it’s getting late, I’m getting tired. I thought I’d post two pictures to justify all this work until Sunday, so here you go:

Here's Draper more or less in costume for Sunday.
Pretty impressive once you actually see it all together.

And here's a pile of makeup.
A forehead, a couple faces, some ears in that box on the left
and even a couple horns if you look really close.
The envelope under the mask on the right is
filled with Derek's tattoo's from the movie as well.

Well, here's hoping it all goes well over the next month.

Getting ready for Sunday

Finally all the costume pieces for this Sunday, the Brotherhood Flashback scene, are all in. I'm spending the next couple days adding any last minute little pieces here and there to hopefully add a lot more to the scene. Trying to distress vinyl to make it look more like worn leather is a long process it seems - not really hard, it's just time consuming.

The only sort of looming downside is that the long range forecast says it's going to rain on Sunday. Heavy rain and the scene is a no-go. I'm hoping that the forecast is wrong, as it sometimes is. Even light rain, I can protect the equipment and still shoot.

Either way we'll get to do the Tavern Scene, which is the new opening to the movie. It'd be nice though if it all comes off well and I can move on from this. After that will be next Thursday, the new lead up to the Final Battle Scene. And then onto the next Sunday, the 4th of November to the scene with Pyre and his harem.

We seem to be running at a pretty good speed and getting most of what I think I need. The sudden realization I can lighten up my darker shots, which were a result of some unforeseen technical problems, has really helped my outlook on the final version of the whole project. It was kind of one of those things that always nags at you even though it's too late - although in this case, and some others, the nagging helped to finally fix the problem.

So after the 4th there will only be 2 scenes left. I'll probably take a 2 week break, before I dive back into those scenes. One should prove to be pretty simple, the other is the Boardroom Scene with the council of demons - lots of makeup, can't wait.

Anyway, I need to get back to work and eat actually, I don't think I have yet today. Hopefully we'll have some awesome looking shots to post on Sunday.

Vanya the Gypsy

It was actually a pretty easy shoot tonight, other then the smotheringly warm costume I was wearing. I was getting a little worried something might go wrong and completely bugger everything up, although I haven't watched all the footage, I'm reasonably sure everything turned out.

We shot this scene at the Haviland Club. It's my first time dealing with them so I wasn't really sure what to expect, so that's where I was looking for any problems to arise. Since I had to do makeup beforehand, I gave them a rough time of between 7:00 and 7:30 to expect us. I hate doing that, but these things can be kind up in the air as to how long they'll take.

We actually arrived on time and it took only 2 hours (rather then my estimate of 3 hours) to shoot the scene. The scene itself was very simple: Grayson pays a visit to a gypsy named Vanya, who supposedly possesses a dark magic spell that he needs to properly translate an ancient prophecy before it's too late. You know, the usual stuff.

It's just another dialog scene, normally I've been doing these up a little bit to get more mileage from them. This one I left alone though. I wanted a very simple, straitforward scene with no CG. I might have to clean some stuff up and colour correct, but that's pretty much it.

I added myself in as a minor character, no lines and it was really only done to make the scene work a little better and to insert yet another demon in there somewhere. Since I was in front of the camera, I had Moe come in to operate the camera for my shots.

So with all that being said, here's some stills from the scene.

Before you say, "Hey, it's crooked." I mean it that way.

Grayson enters...

...and shows off his funky scroll case.

Vanya doesn't look really impressed though.
And if you're thinking this character is familiar looking,
it's a minor little thing I threw in to add something to the story,
so you'll have to watch it to get it.

And and lot of blah, blah, end of the world kind of talk.

It's Harkness, Vanya's demon assistant.
The name is a Doctor Who reference, or a
Torchwood reference depending on what you like better.
He's never referred to by name in the scene though, you'll
see it in the end credits as that though.

And it's the sinister tablet of sinisterness.

And that's it. These shots had a little postwork done on them already. Derek had mentioned to me a while back that some of the shots seemed a little dark - it's partially in how you have your TV or monitor set, but I figured I take a stab at lightening them. Or at least I thought I'd see if I could.
It makes a huge difference, and it's really simple to do. At some point I may do a little "this is how it's done" sort of thing. But I have a headache and I'm hungry, so later.

I also wanted to give the scene a slight green cast, since the scene itself was meant as a bit of an homage to another movie - the set and a few little other things were sort of a reference to the infamous "blue pill/red pill" scene from The Matrix - hence the slight green cast.


Anyway, I'm pretty happy with the way the lightening thing turned out. I can do it with a lot of older shots that might appear a little too dark. It doesn't seem to lose any details, gives the colour a little boost, and is incredibly easy to do. And the shots all look awesome, so it's a matter of editing now.

I want to point out one of the reasons the shoot went so fast was that after my worries about something going wrong, it turns out the folks at the Haviland were really awesome to deal with. The guy who was there even said if we ever need the place again, they'd be more then welcome to it. It's a great location for certain things, so you never know.

And the other reason it went so fast was the both Derek and Kim had their lines down near perfect. All that stuff adds up to a really great, painless shoot. And hopefully resulted in a decent little scene. So that's it, thanks guys, it was a good night of filming.

Getting ready

The next couple weeks are going to be a little busy. I'm shooting every Sunday for the next 3. I also have a few other things to shoot in between these scenes.

I met with a couple of my actors today, just to let them in on what they're in for and make sure they're good to go in the costume department. I also had to make my own costume for tomorrow evening's shoot. I'm playing a demon named Harkness, but I don't speak and I'm only in a couple shots. In case you're wondering where the name comes from, it's my Doctor Who reference for this movie.

I've also been trying to tie up dozens of little loose ends to make sure things go smoothly for the remaining scenes. Friday, Rick and I took a drive out to Fort Amherst to make sure it'll be what I need for the shoot on the 28th. Assuming the weather holds, it should be awesome. The weather on Friday was great. I snagged some photos while we were out there.

My freakishly long shadow.

These are just from my digital camera, I was more or less
testing some of the angles I intend to shoot from.
I kinda wanted to see just what I could get from the area.

That last shot will be the main wide shot with the four characters who are facing off against the army of demons. The background will have to be redone for the actual scene, and they'll have to be facing the other direction. That entire horizon line along the water will be filled with demons in the final version. Should be cool.

In the midst of all my cluttered headspace I haven't even had a chance to see Heather since she's had her baby - in case some of you who didn't know were wondering, she had it a couple weeks ago. I don't really even know if she's up for company, I'm sure she's a little busy right now.

Tomorrow morning I'm doing some storyboards for the evening's shoot. Since I'm in front of the camera for this scene I'm getting Moe behind the camera for my shots at least. It should be a simple enough scene, but you never know who things things will work. There's very few props, very minimal equipment needed and is just 3 pages of talking...so based on that, I'm ASSUMING it will be simple. I'm not taking any chances though.

So there should be some images to post tomorrow evening hopefully, until then I'm going to kill monsters and try to think if I'm missing anything.

The Rant Aftermath

So after watching several episodes of Buffy and doing some work on the movie I began to feel less annoyed about the ass-clown guy. Not completely unannoyed, but less annoyed.

In other news though, things are progressing pretty damned fast with the rest of the movie, which is causing some stress I have to admit. It's like herding puppies trying to keep it all together. You get one thing settled and another goes off, you fix something else and two things go flying off somewhere and you finally wrangle all that and the first thing that was settled suddenly is nowhere to be seen.

I think it's all calmed down to a decent workable point. I'm juggling 5 shoots over the next 2 weeks, each one of them is fairly elaborate in it's own way and involves renting a location - which is always fun to do when you have to find a time 5 or more people can all agree on. And then to nail down all the little details of each of those scenes.

We're shooting all the Brotherhood Flashback scenes, so I have to make sure the costumes are good and ready (hence the ass-clown irritation). I'm been insanely busy adding all these little pieces to try to make each character fairly unique. I've still got a few things to do before that shoot on the 28th of this month.

Then I'm doing 2 more scenes with Derek Martin, one should be easy enough, but it's 3 pages of dialog and I had to push the shooting date up to this Sunday the 21st instead on Thursday the 25th. That was because the location I wanted, I was told the only available night was Thursdays, when in fact every Saturday and Sunday is available as well and this Thursday is booked. Kind of annoyed by that, but it forces us to get it over and done with. The set up for this scene is minimal, but I need a camera person since I'm in the scene. We'll see how it all goes.

And the other scene I'm doing with Derek is the scene with Pyre, the big fat, bedridden demon with his harem of wives. I have 7 people I have to wrangle for this scene and all of them require makeup. I'm shooting it at an Inn, thank god they are being so accommodating, this would be a nightmare if they weren't.

Despite all the people and all the makeup, the shoot should actually be pretty painless since only one actor really has any lines. Pyre is CG, so I just have to shoot an empty bed for a minute or so and he's done, then a couple version of closeups on Derek and that's it. There is a bit of a leadup to the scene, which was a problem finding where to shoot, but the Inn is giving us the entire floor so we can do it in the hallway like it was actually originally written when we were shooting this at the Delta.

I'm adding in some shots of all the wives, making sure they each have some screen time and some weird little thing they can do.

And finally I'm arranging right now to shoot the lead up to the end of the movie. That should be relatively painless, I need to secure the location with UPEI, I'm hoping that won't be too much of an issue. That'll be done in the next couple weeks as well.

And then it's just 2 scenes left. All interior shots, one is going to be incredibly elaborate, the other not so much. I'm hoping we can get to these scenes by mid-November. And then that will be it, it's on to post after all that.

I'm not sure how much I'll be posting stuff here once shooting is all over and done with, but you never know. I'm sure there'll be lots of little CG things and visual effects tests to show you, but it's going to be a very hectic and hopefully picture-filled month until then.

I should mention there is one more scene to shoot after all this, it's a secret scene more or less. I've told a few folks about it though. I won't say anything here about it, we'll be shooting it outside in the winter though. Should be a horrible day, I definitely want to get some picture of that to post here. I may even post that entire scene here once it's down. We'll see how it goes.

The Rant

I debated about posting this, but it's just been one of those days so I figure I'm annoyed enough to finally rant about it here. Some of you might have heard this before, so it'll be written in red for 2 reasons: (1) so you can skip past it to any good stuff afterwards and (2) so you can see just how pissed off I am about it.

I ordered some costume pieces a little while ago, nearly 4 weeks ago now, from a company called All Things Renaissance. Not to put too a point on it, but THEY SUCK. It's supposedly a family run business that boasts:

All products offered on the All Things Renaissance faire market online web site come with a satisfaction guarantee. If - for any reason - you are not satisfied with your order, send it back and we'll refund your purchase price. Or, contact us and we'll do our best to make it right! This is our pledge to you - by our honour!

As well as the fact they usually ship in 48 hours, or as much as a week if they're really busy. They also claim to ship USPS Global Priority, which takes 6-10 business days.
So far that sounds pretty damned good, doesn't it? I figured I'd rather give a small business my money then some big factory type company...Yeah, brilliant thought process. I figured even if something goes wrong, I got 5 weeks before I need the stuff from them.

I won't bother going into what the stuff is, it's for the 60 second Lord of the Rings looking flashback scene though. I sent the order through PayPal and everything seemed cool. Little did I know I just gave my money to the one monkey in the zoo that can't even figure out who to peel a banana it's so stupid.

I sent an email asking if the order has been processed and whatnot, because I never received any confirmation from them directly, just the PayPal receipt. No response. Two weeks go by and I've sent 3 by now and finally I get a response to the very simple question of "Has my order been processed or shipped yet?" . And bear in mind this is a US company, the response was this:


"Did you pay for overseas shipping?"

Yeah, I did, because there's that big sea between US and Canada. What the hell kind of a answer is that? Well in case you don't know, that's not an answer to anything other then maybe: "Hey, can you ask me a completely retarded and pointless question that will undoubtedly piss me off?"

I sent another couple emails, trying to be polite, asking for a simple straight answer to my question - and if the answer was no, I wanted my money back. Remember that little pledge from before? Money back guarantee - I would assume it would hold if I was unsatisfied before my order was even shipped.

Nearly 2 more weeks went by. I ordered on the 20th of September and here it is the 16th of October. I decided PayPal might be good for something so I filed a dispute with them over this idiot-stick. I got a response from him pretty quick and while you might think the response would make me happy...you'd be wrong, it made it worse.

I asked several times, by the way, about a tracking number, since Global Priority has one. And here's the response - this is cut and pasted too:

"This item shipped international first class on 10/10. Please let us know if you got it yet."

There's 3 things wrong with this sentence, each one more annoying and moronic then the last.
(1) "International First Class"??? That's not what he advertised and not what I paid for. Not good.
(2) "Sent on 10/10"...??? 3 weeks later? And a week after I asked for my money back? Nice.
(3) "Please let us know if you got it yet"? Yes, I did thank you. I just filed a "Non-receipt" dispute because, by golly, it's the most funnest thing ever. I'm beginning to wonder if this really isn't a monkey I'm dealing with.

Needless to say, by the time I get my order it'll probably be too late. And I think it goes without saying that I will never deal with this braindead ass-clown ever again.

That's it. I'm still annoyed. I'm going to watch Buffy.

Some good news for a change

I had a pretty productive and eventful (in a good way) sort of day.

I was able to order the rest of the last few items on the list of things I needed to finish off the movie. Although I never really mentioned it before, but one of the problems with the flashback scene was the characters footwear. There aren't really too many decent looking cheap alternatives, I got that taken care of today as well.

Got some scheduling taken care of as well for the next couple scenes, nearly right up to our last 2 scenes of the entire project. Managed to secure a location that's been a major pain in the ass, I've lost out on two really great potential places up until now. I just happened to drop into another place, the first of several on a long list, and after a long chat it was nearly all settled.

They showed me around the place, room after room, had no issues with us doing some outdoor filming at the place either. I just got a phone call from the manager of the place and everything is 100% all set to go. We'll be shooting at the Inn of Great George Street - they have some really nice rooms by the way if you're ever needing a place.

That's pretty much it, there's quite a few other minor details that all seemed to work out really well...Let's just hope it stays this way for a little longer.

Stuff

It's amazing how many little details you skip over, don't think about, or forget until the last minute. I think I caught them all though...I think. I still have time at least.

We have 4 scenes left, officially speaking. There are 3 more otherwise, one's the 60 second Lord of the Rings flashback scene, another is some extra footage for another scene and the other is a secret for now. Nearly everything is taken care of, but having more time is always a bonus.

For instance, there's one scene that we were scheduled to do this coming Thursday. We're pushing it back a couple weeks - normally I'd have a problem with that, but there were so many little up in the air elements that shooting anytime sooner then 3 weeks was a little iffy. I personally have no issues with pushing something back ever, unless it's for a really bad or silly reason - and so long as it's the actor's choice. I hate pushing things back and thinking the actors are being annoyed at having to wait to get things over with.

And having this extra couple weeks gives me time to solid up some other things. We're still working in the costumes for the Flashback scene, I've made a few alterations to them. Nothing to make it more complicated, it's actually easier and little nicer looking. I'm hoping we'll be able to shoot that in about 2 - 3 weeks time.

So far the costumes are looking great, thanks to help from Kim Bradford. I have to admit I wasn't really sure it'd be so easy to create 4 fairly decent looking period type costumes. Perhaps because I wanted them to look a little ratty is why they're working so well. That's not to insult the look of the costumes or imply they look like crap, they just look authentic in some way.

I was also going to rant for a bit about a company I just ordered some costume pieces from who are being total wankers, but I don't think I'll bother. It's kind of a long and drawn out story that isn't really over yet. Maybe I'll mention it if it turns out to be worse then it seems right now, but I'm hoping for the best and this week should wrap up my dealings with them.

Otherwise, things might not be going according to schedule - they rarely do. So that's not something to get upset over, it's just par for the course. On the other side of that coin, when we are getting stuff done, it's coming out really well. Let's hope it stays that way for a bit.

The next couple weeks might be a little quiet here. I'll be working at getting as much done as quickly as possible, so unless I make a breakthrough with something I can't see there being much more to write about until then.

Another lost location

Seems that no one wants to house Pyre and his little harem of wives. After waiting to hear back from a really great location for over a week, and given a fairly positive initial response, I write them and was told - "Nope, we don't feel it would be appropriate."

Now, I can't say I disagree with them. It's their business, their call. Although it is pretty inconsiderate not to inform people immediately if you're turning them down. I have no issues if someone wants to say "No, you can't film here" - but I would like to know right away so I can move on and try to find something else.

It's pretty obvious though when they don't get back to you right away that the answer will more then likely be "no". At least that seems to be a 90% reliable trend. Still it's a pain in the ass, if you're so unsure that you can't give an answer right away - then say no right away. Ah well, it's hardly the end of the world, just means I might have to rethink this scene once again.

In some ways it's a good thing. There always has to be one thing that's causing issues with a project, I'd rather it be something I can see then something I can't.

Remaking props

Well, just one prop really. In the downtime between shoots I’m sort of looking ahead to little things for upcoming shoots. There’s a prop, I think one of the first ones I made for this movie, that's going to be used soon. It hasn’t been seen yet though.

I was going over the upcoming props and I pulled this one out. It’s a tablet that Grayson gets from Vanya - it’s supposed to be some dark magic spell that can only be used once. It’s nothing overly special, just some Das with some weird looking letters. It’s alright, but looking at it and comparing it to some of the newer stuff, I decided it had to be redone.

The original tablet

See, nothing special. It works just fine for what it needs to be, but I just didn’t think it would stand up against some of the other stuff I’ve thrown in there. So I redid it.

The new tablet

This is pretty much just another sculpting test. It’s not the awesome or anything, but it’s much weirder looking then a simple clay tablet.

This is actually part of a test to see just what I can do with a little effort. This only took an hour or so of just playing around. The drying and painting obviously took some major time. Because it’s more or less one-sided, it makes it really easy to test molding and doing a resin cast of it. From there using some ideas I’ve gotten from the book props I’m purchased for the movie, I think I can do my own now.

At least that’s the idea. I don’t have time for anything to appear in this movie, it does open the door a little bit wider for me doing my own props for future projects - or for whatever reasons I feel like at the time.