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.