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.

One more scene down

It was feeling a little rushed and hectic coming on the last few hours before this shoot. I've spent the last week or so checking and rechecking everything to make sure I'd leave nothing to chance...I forgot something. Luckily it wasn't the end of the world and wasn't even going to be seen anyway. Normally Derek's character has a tattoo on the back of his hand, we forgot the tattoos. In a way, big deal.

The scene we shot was a flashback scene where Grayson in the 1980's visits a Shaman by the name of Jarrill. We shot this scene before when I looked at it afterwards I really wasn't impressed - this time, it looks pretty damned cool. The most prop heavy scene in the movie and, to be honest, you miss a lot of the finer details in it.

We shot it out at an antique shop just past Bonshaw, I forget the name of it. I will mention it should I remember. He's closing up shop in a couple weeks for the winter though. The guy who runs it is a fellow named Richard, never caught his last name, but he's a really nice guy. He was really open to us taking over and shooting there. Not that it's a rarity that someone is that cool to deal with, but when you're filming way out of town you want as few things as possible to go wrong. The guy who owns you location is the very last thing you every want going wrong.

So we showed up, set up and started to shoot. The lighting was pretty cool - we actually lit it with an item from the shop, this crazy looking surgery lamp. It gave off just the right amount of light too, would've actually been too dark in there otherwise.

I took some pictures myself this time, Moe was sadly absent - a little disappointing given all the cool props. But I did my best.

We cleared off a table and I set all this crap up.

I did those scrolls myself, not that you ever really see it in the movie.
The designs came from another scroll I saw someone selling on eBay.
Didn't see the point in buying something I could make myself.

And finally this is what Kim looked like for the scene - you don't get to see her crazy ears here, but you do in the scene itself. And again, since it's a dark scene, the tattoos aren't really prominent. Originally the tattoos where much larger and kinda just cluttered up her face. This was a little cleaner and looked so much better on camera.
Now onto the scene itself. I didn't even bother with a shotlist, it's just 2 characters talking. I knew I wouldn't have room to maneuver around in there so I decided to just keep it simple. A couple angles on each character and that's really it. I'll be doing a little extra post to the scene to change it a bit.

In case you're wondering that the large,
fluffy thing behind Derek is...
It's a stuffed buffalo.

Just a cutaway to show a little of the clutter,
don't know if I'll even use it though.

Jarrill (Kim Bradford) looking all like a crazy elf.
I love those ears. They felt so delicate, but those buggers were
tough and it took a fair bit of yanking to get them off.

Just a wider shot of the whole place.

And another.

And I added this, I'm thinking I might do a quick little cutaway
to show some weird little bug, or lizard crawling over the book.

And that's it. The scene looks so much better then the first attempt. And also, I should point out, the 60 second Lord of the Rings looking flashback is embedded into the middle of this scene. That part will hopefully be shot in about 3 weeks time. There will definitely be some great pictures from that shoot.

Our next shoot is in about 2 weeks time. It's the present day version of the Jarrill character, she's now a gypsy calling herself Vanya. I'll explain better what that means whenever I post stuff from that shoot. It's going to look way different.

It was a good shoot, ran pretty quick. Thanks to everyone involved - all 3 of you.

Some last minute stuff

I just realized it's been over a year - by a couple days - since I started this blog. I really didn't think it would go on this long. I've mentioned this a couple times I believe, in some ways it's good, in some ways it's bad. Bad really only in the sense of continuity - people and things tend to change over such a long period of time, whether they want to or not. And good in many way, I've had so much time to rethink things over and over and finally to death.

The scene we're filming this Sunday is a pretty damned good example of that. Originally it was alright...well, actually it was pretty pathetic. Not because of the actors, just in that it was hard to find what I wanted so I settled, now here we are over a year later and we're finally reshooting and it, and it's going to look night and day different.

It should be a relatively smooth shoot, there's no action, there's really only a few little things I'm concerning myself with as far as a shotlist goes - I'm making it up as I go pretty much. I know the space well enough, but not how it'll look once it's lit and all that, so I'm just assuming how it will look. And how I can fix it, if it does look just right.

In the meantime I'm tying up all sorts of little loose ends with various props and costumes. I spent the evening painting horns. Sounds like fun, doesn't it? Well, there's all sorts of prosthetics that have sections that don't need to blend with makeup, so I'm pre-painting them. Mainly all the horns, 8 of them in total tonight. As well as another rather ugly looking prosthetic that hopefully you'll see soon enough.

Pre-painting them not only saves a little time, but I can put more detail and time into them, and it's a lot easier then trying to paint with the grease makeup once it's on someone - I'm painting them with acrylic paint right now. It doesn't harm the prosthetic at all and it really does make them look a little nicer in places.

I also painted some symbols on some bracers for the flashback scene. Since the four guys in the flashback are supposed to be the original Brotherhood, I took the symbol from the tattoo on the back of Grayson's hand and painted it on all 8 of the bracers. Looks pretty good, you probably won't ever see them up close, but it's a nice detail.

I also had to design my own belt frogs - yes, that's not a typo. They're the things you attach to your belt to carry a scabbard, or dagger. They're pretty simple, not too cheap to buy though. I has some extra leather lying around from another project so I hacked it up and it should work pretty well.

And finally we come to the end. Where I post a couple pictures of a prop I just finished this afternoon and am infinitely proud of. Not because it's beautiful looking or an artistic masterpiece, but because it's freaking huge and insane looking.




It's not meant to look realistic, it's a little cartoony element I wanted to add in the flashback scene. Rick's character will be carrying this thing. It's pretty lightweight, but it's fragile. It's a prop and nothing else, it was never meant to whack people with.

The hammer itself is about 2 and half feet long, the whole thing is about 3 1/2 feet tall. It took quite awhile, but it was one of those little touches that cost me nothing other then the $4.99 I spent on the plaster.

There's also a medallion I'm sculpting for this scene as well, I'm not really thrilled with it right now, but it's is my first attempt. It may look alright in the end, who knows.

That's it for now, tomorrow I'm off to hunt down a couple locations. Drop off a script to one of my actors. Hope that the couple things I ordered today are processed soon. Do a little more on the medallion. Secure a van for the shoot on Sunday. And who knows what else.

It's getting closer

Things are moving along pretty well right now. So far so good, I think I've said that a million times. Once more hopefully won't hurt too much.

First off, the bad news. The room at the Delta I was hoping to get isn't going to happen. They debated about whether it'd be worth it to give me the room for free over possibly renting it and guess which won? Obviously me, otherwise it'd be good news. So unless I get rich again soon, we're moving on - so if anyone has any bright ideas, I'd love to hear them.

And now for the better news.

We nearly have a confirmed shooting date for our first scene, it'll be later next week out at the antique shop. It should look pretty cool out there. All the props are ready to go, and there's some cool ones, I have pictures of a couple.

These are some handmade books I order ages ago and finally received - the guys who makes them might be a little slow to finsih sometimes, but it's so well worth it. I have his website linked on the side there - the Stygian Depths - check it out and get ready to hear Sam Neill going on about the end of the world.






They're pretty large and pretty heavy, the lighting in my apartment sucks for taking good pictures, these don't do the books justice at all. They're about 4-5 inches thick, the backs are just as detailed as the fronts. I didn't measure them, but they're about 9" wide by 12" tall.

I've actually made a few props for the upcoming scene as well, so it'll be a nice array of weird items. As well I'm still working away on the Flashback scene, it's coming along, not as quickly as I'd like - but that's par for the course. Right now I'm finishing up the massive warhammer prop Rick's character is going to use. It's perhaps a little freakishly large.

And in addition to that prop for that scene I'm trying my hand at sculpting a prop as well. The warhammer is plaster over a form I made, it just requires some sanding and painting. The sculpting is for a small medallion that's used in open the portal to the astral prison - because that's what's commonly used for such things.

I drew up some designs today, spent some time online learning about the right way to use the materials that I have and whatnot. It's a pretty simple design, because I need to do a CG version of it. It'll look pretty funky I think when it's all done, there will be some images I'm sure.

As well there's always other little details that are working themselves out along the way. That's it for now.

A little more progress...

...not a lot, but a little. Better then none.

Overall it was a productive weekend so I can't complain. Still muddling my way through the costumes for the Flashback scene. Made some major progress with the animated project with Dan, and a little leap in my CG work in general. Made some minor progress on another project I'm helping someone else do. And I shot something for The Monkey Rodeo last night and got myself an actor for the part or Pyre's fourth wife.

What I shot was one of those aside things. It's in a scene where Malice sits to watch TV for a second and a report comes on about all the missing people. So we shot the reporter on the scene going on about all the missing people and how the police are blaming it on Satanists. The reporter was played by Amanda Gallant, who I robbed banks with in another movie a long time ago.

Amanda as the intrepid reporter

We did about 4 takes, and in two of them we had a security guard from the building behind us wander past in the shot. It actually kind of makes it work a little better. Of course in the end this will be seen on a TV, and will have all sort of "news show" crap on the screen.

We were talking about the movie afterwards and filling in the blanks about what it was about and all, then I realized why not ask her to be the fourth wife? So I gave her the rundown, she seemed pretty amused by it - and there we have it, another thing wrapped up and ready to go.

Now, at the same time almost I got the idea to add another element to the movie. Nothing hard to do, but when Malice first turns on the TV I want a show on, she turns the channel to see the reporter. So we need a show. I'm not sure exactly what it'll be, but it will star Draper Bulger in his 7th role in the movie. It might be something minor and stupid, we may try to make it look like a snippet from a full TV show or movie - who knows.

That's all for now. I have to work on another project today and I'm hoping to do some costume work this evening if I can.

I hate my fridge.

It's around 11:20 or, I've had a very long, extremely productive day and I hate my fridge - it's been doing this annoying buzzing thing all day, but it seems to be quieting down at bit. Anyway, that's just an aside for a moment.

The main point of this, hopefully, short post is an update concerning the Flashback scene and the whole internal debate of renting over making - I've been having incredible luck so far with creating the costumes. Everything has been falling into place pretty well, I went shopping with my costume guide tonight (I'm calling her that because that's pretty much what she's doing) because I was looking for materials and some advice.

The material I was looking for is for the cloaks. I didn't want some crappy thin ratty looking shit, I wanted something rather nice. Well, turns out rather nice is also rather expensive - who knew? But I lucked out totally, even moreso then I originally though. In total I needed 12 meters of fabric for these cloaks - what I wanted was about $20 per meter...yeah, not going to happen.

What I found was $3 per meter, not too shabby. Then I found out that the sale they were having was actually %75 off on that price. So the cloaks cost me $9 all together. And while it's not perfect, it's a decent material that should work really well.

And the other pieces are coming along pretty well. Almost everything is purchased right now, I hope to get the rest tomorrow, and a small shipment in next week, and that'll be it. I think overall this little scene is shaping up to be a lot better then I originally envisioned it.

We got some cool looking weapons, including a massive handmade warhammer. Some of the design elements are actually based off real period designs - which actually helped do things cheaply. So far so good with this part of the project. Hopefully in a week or so I'll have some pictures to post.

The unending movie

I’m not sure if this is really a good or bad scenario going on here. Now if you’ve been paying attention you’re probably well aware of all the additions and whatnot going on already. This last one is sort of being more of a bugger then usual.

The Brotherhood Flashback Sequence. The background to this I’ve already mentioned, but there’s been so many confusing changes that I’m not going to bother trying to wade through. I went from a sort of colonial look with 5 characters and moved to a more medieval/fantasy look with 4 characters (don’t ask why, it makes my head hurt). I was in contact with a costume rental place in Truro at one point (for about 2 days) and then decided against that.

So now I’m adding a new credit to list - costume designer and...maker? Something like that. No, I don’t sew, I don’t really know anything about creating costume patterns or anything. But it’s a choice I made when the prices and quality of the shop in Truro didn’t meet my expectations or budget

At first I thought I could work with it, add a few pieces made by myself (or some other poor unsuspecting soul) and be happy with it. I sat on the costume fence for a bit, then fell off on the DIY side. No offense whatsoever intended to this as yet unnamed costume rental place - the price just isn’t worth it. I reckon with the resources I have that I can do this scene more justice by doing this myself - so that’s the road we’re heading down kids.

I spent the afternoon analysing the basic costume pieces from Lord of the Rings and the easiest way to replicate them. So far so good. And after a lot of mulling over different ideas and whatnot I’m pretty damned sure I can pull this off a hell of a lot cheaper and a lot better looking then anything I could rent.

I won’t go into the costume detail specifics. So I'm putting this picture here:

This is pretty much what I’m basing my ideas off of. Now there will be some variations of course. And as it stands right now if I compare what my cost her actor would be (with rental and my own additions) - we're looking at close to $150 per. That's freakish when I won't even own the whole thing. Now, I roughly added up what it'll now cost if I do this all myself - $60 approximately for each one. The choice is pretty easy. The plus side is I will able to customize the costumes a touch more and I'll own them.

I'm starting on these this week, I should have most of the basic parts ready to go in about 2 weeks, so I'll definitely be posting some images of how these guys are going to look soon.

The One Man Monster Squad

I've been sitting here watching Samurai Jack: Season 4 for most the day while I've been creating various pieces for another project, I've mentioned it before: Mr. Toesley and The Love Powered Space Machine. It's kind of on the opposite end of the spectrum of The Monkey Rodeo, but it's all CG. And I've been working away on some of The Monkey Rodeo demons off and on as well.

I don't know if I'm on a roll, having a streak of good luck or just what the hell is going on, but I managed to come up with another pretty decent demon design - The Librarian character. I spent a little more time fiddling around with it and I've managed to make some more improvements in my realistic character creation (don't know if I could do a human, but demons are pretty easy it seems).
There's still more work to do obviously - he needs a body, which will be a robe, the only other visible flesh on him will be his hands. I'll be creating a very low-res body to interaction with the robe - which will be done as a cloth simulation. So his robes will flop and flap about fairly realistically.

The upside of demons is they don't need to fit any pre-defined parameters. Like a human needs to look and move a certain way obviously to be believable as a realistic looking human if it was done as a CG character. So it makes their design and final creation a little more fun. The downside, however, is that they will never look truly realistic.

The only time I've ever even kind of gotten lost in the fact that what I was watching was not a real actor, but a CG actor was in the case of Davey Jones from Pirates of the Caribbean. That was without a doubt some the best CG I think you'll see for some time, in part because his performance was an exact duplicate of Bill Nighy's performance in motion capture. And if you're familiar with the actor, you can really see all his little quirks in the CG version of him. And the fact that Davey Jones' eyes look exactly like Nighy's really help.

I don't have the luxury of motion capture or Bill Nighy unfortunately. That's not to say I think my characters will be lacking - I am comparing my work to some of the best work ever in the CG industry, it's not a fair comparison - nor do I think that I'll be blowing people's mind with my most excellent special effects. But really I think for the first time I've been doing this, I'm actually creating some really decent visuals.

Now there are definitely some elements to the movie that might be lacking, I would never be so arrogant to believe otherwise in fact. I am, however, pretty damned confident that some of the newly created CG characters will be rather outstanding and really help the movie overall. I never really thought I'd get to the point with computer animation that I'd actually impress myself, but I sort of have. Now I just have to hope my animation skills are up to it.

Pyre and other things

Things are shaping up really well for the remainder of the shoot. I've got a new location that's damned near perfect. Thanks to Kim Bradford, Jarril the Shaman now has a home - it's really an antique shop in an old church.


This is of course bright daylight and not dressed for the movie - but it gives you an idea. The table you see in the first picture will be the main area and will be lit only by candles and perhaps a few little glowing ornaments, and will be shot at night. So you'll only get a sense of the clutter in the background. Should be cool.

In Pyre news, there's been some pretty good leaps and bounding type progress made. A small setback was fixed, sort of. First off the actress playing main wife character has moved away, leaving a sad gap in Pyre's harem. Luckily it was filled very quickly - although this fill caused another gap I'm trying to fill. Originally the actress lined up the play the "ugly wife" has some makeup/skin issues - and since she's not really ugly at all she is now moved into the "has to be pretty" role. Did that make sense? I should really draw little pictures to explain some of this stuff.

Three of the four wives has been cast and costumes completely, are enough to make any other harem owning demons jealous. The main wife character, the 88th daughter of Jarrill/Vanya has been filled by Jordan Berzins. She'll have bright yellow eyes and funny demon ears like her mother, as well as some minor facial tattoos. Kim Johnston is the 2nd wife, she'll be sporting some funky little horns and have some spots here and there. And finally as the token Vampire wife, we have Nikkie Gallant.

Sadly enough the 4th "ugly wife", the kind of gag character, is still wide open. I can do without her if I really have no other choice and it won't affect anything, but it would be fun to have her in there.

Still waiting on the location for this, I hope to be able to secure it soon. I'll be emailing my contact at the Delta and see if they've come to a decision of any sort.

And of course finally we have Pyre himself. After all my ranting about issues with designing characters, changing them and blah, blah blah - I finally got it without any doubts. I had a few designs in my head, none fleshed out in anyway - just some vague images. I sat down and try to solid the ideas up a bit and it just came out. And it was perfect. I immediately set to transferring these ideas into the 3D world and it just got better.

With a few little technical issues over and done with, I've finally gotten my first really solid demon design done for the movie. There's still a lot of work to do on him, mainly in the texturing and the body itself. Otherwise I thought I'd post a quick image of how the big guy looks so far.


So far so good. I'm beyond thrilled with the progress on him so far. It's a pretty good omen I think for the rest of the CG characters for the movie. What you're looking at right here is the base model combined with what's called a displacement map and a starting texture. The displacement map is what's giving all the little extra folds and wrinkles in the skin - that would be impossible to model. I'll be working on the texture over the next little while, that'll give him more definition, discoloration here and there, maybe a little tattoo or something, a scar or whatever.

Still left of the CG character front are The Titan (although a good reworking is in progress), the Librarian and finally of course Mal'Vash himself. Mal'Vash I have a basic concept in mind I'm pretty happy with, it's just the details I'm sorting out. The Librarian I'm waffling on. I have some vague ideas, but nothing solid. I really want him to have as much character as Pyre currently does.

Vocally and dialog-wise Pyre and the Librarian are definite characters, it'll be up to the actual 3D model and animation to really sell them as if they were right there onset with the actors. So of course I'm being picky, so far it's paid off.

That's it for now. I've a lot more to work out. some minor rewrites of the scenes. Some props still hung up in manufacturer limbo. A single location still up in the air. A few costumes needed. It's not a lot, but when you're dealing with it all at once it's gets a touch frustrating at times.

First of the extra footage

Like with any production, or so I'm assuming, there's always the chance of needing some new footage after you think you're pretty much done. This is the first time I've really encountered that, and perhaps it's because it's the first time I can do it.

Tonight we shot some new Bile Demon footage, nothing that will completely change the already finished scene, it'll just add some extra Bile Demony goodness to it. Since things are usually rushed feeling, and the original shoot was no exception - it was a 7 hour + shoot - in our haste to get it over and done with, we didn't have the mindset of getting more footage of the demons themselves.

I set up the lights, a black screen and Draper came over, we redid the makeup (the prosthetic was still in near perfect condition) and we just ad-libbed some stuff, some stuff I had ideas of how it would work with the existing footage. So we got probably 20 or so new shots, maybe 5 will be used.

My main reason, as I mentioned before being in a hurry, I kinda wished after seeing the final edit that I had more cutaways and closeups of the demons - so that's what we did. The lighting was a little more setup, the shots we spent more time on - getting certain looks, reactions and all that. I just wanted to really show off the makeup and the contacts, I spent the money, I'd like to see it onscreen really for all it's worth.

I got a couple screenshots here to post, not all will be in the final piece, but they're cool looking.







Of course, if you're wondering right now, "Hey, it's pretty obvious he's just standing in front of some black curtain" then you haven't been paying very close attention. I have enough footage and enough brilliant digital manipulation savvy to insert new backgrounds to match the original on set shots.

So there you go, now you have a slight idea of just how much effort I'm putting into this...god, I hope it doesn't suck.

Cthulhu Jr.

As I mentioned in the last post, I’ve been working with some new software and trying out some new techniques to make the movie’s CG characters looks a little more realistic and whatnot. The first one to be worked on has been a character I’m calling Cthulhu Jr – an H.P. Lovecraft reference for those of you not entirely sure.

He’s not in the movie for very long, only a couple shots in the Council of the Brotherhood scene as one of the Council Elders. The setup for him will be a live actor in a costume with a large hood, the actor’s face will be removed and replaced with a computer generated head – and all the usual post work will be done to finalize him. This is actually the first time I’ve tried combining a live actor and CG to make a single character.

So I thought in the meantime I’d post an image of the CG head as it stands right now. There will more then likely be a little more done to sort of some details and whatnot, but I’m pretty happy with the way he’s progressing so far.

The eyes are just temporary for now, although they will look pretty much like this in the final version, just a little more real hopefully.

Finally got the movie poster printed

As the title of the post suggests I've finally had the movie poster printed up - and it looks awesome. I went with the white version, there's a picture of it somewhere around here if you look around.

I had it done with an online company I'd discovered, called IcePoster.com. They have a pile of stuff, mostly celebrity pictures they offer - but they also allow you to upload your own pictures that they will print. the only down side is there's a border around the edge, I got around that by having the poster more or less white so you can't see it.

And the coolest part is that they also print on canvas. Their normal paper is actually a really heavy photograph stock that comes from Kodak (so I assume that can't be cheap), but I've seen what their canvas prints look like and I'm pretty impressed.

Anyway, that's it. Nothing really huge to report - it's just kinda cool to see a big movie poster for this thing finally done. There should be some more stuff really soon since I just started working with some new software that'll aid in making the CG models look 10 times more realistic and allow me to do a lot of really fine details within the model itself - so there will be a post regarding that, with some images, coming up soon.

New scene for movie...

Man, I've so got to finish this movie soon before it become longer then Lord of the Rings.

I've been doing some rewriting on the last few scenes, tightening up the dialog so it makes a little more sense, doesn't meander and all that. I have most everything done, cut out a few things here and there, but one scene in particular was causing a bit of trouble as I looked it over this morning.

As I've mentioned before, these scenes are the explanation scenes - without them you won't know what's going on, who the bad guys are and why they're doing whatever it is they're doing. So they're pretty important and need to really explain what's going on very concisely.

This scene involves on 2 characters, so it's an easy rewrite as far as that goes, it explains the origins of not only The Brotherhood, but the main villain as well, or at least his motivation. I ended up turning it into more of a narrative from one of the characters, explaining this one point in history that this all stems from. And as I wrote it I realized it might be better served with a visual.

It was at this point I realized I might be going overboard and really need to finish before I start doing way too much. The scene being narrated involves the few minutes before a potential all out war between a handful of humans and a massive demon army. Well, I'm going to shoot it.

I've got to get some period costumes, find about 5 - 6 actors, take them out into a field and have them banish an entire demon army. Simple enough.

It'll be done as kind of a flashback while the story is being narrated. It's actually a very important part of the movie, since it's actually where everything begins hundred of years ago. The humans are actually a group of demon hunters who become the Brotherhood, and the demon army is lead by Mal'Vash, the big bad of the movie. So I figure the extra effort is worth it. I could pass it off as just a story being told, but why not show it as well. I could be wrong, but in seeing it in my head it'll add just that much more to the overall movie.

So befire anyone freaks out and thinks, "But I thought I was finished filming." You are. This is a single scene within itself, it has no ties other then historical to the rest of the movie. There are no reoccurring characters in this scene.

That's it, nothing earth shattering. Although it's something, I think at least, that should be a really cool visual. I'm going to try to hide the actual look of the demons, so they'll be more implied, or seen from a huge distance. But trust me, it'll be an army of them.

Final Movie Poster

It's finally done, and being printed as I write this. I should get it on about 2 weeks time assuming there's no problems with the image quality or anything.

I'll let you know how it turns out.

That was rather sketchy

I just had a very sketchy experience with one of the companies I've been dealing with for getting stuff for the movie - specifically contact lenses. I've dealt with them before and up until now they've been rather good to deal with, anything over $100 they ship FedEx, 1 day for free - shipping tends to add up when you're buying as much as I have over the last 2 years.

So I ordered some contacts for an upcoming shoot, everything went fine, and then I get an email with the subject "FW: AUTHORIZATION" from the "credit risk" department of the company. Okay, no big, so perhaps something went wrong with the card, I've had a few problems with it not processing right away.

The email just simply said they needed to verify it was indeed my card - despite the fact this is my 3rd or 4th order from them and they have me on their mailing list. Still, doesn't seem like a big deal. Then I read the form they want me to fill and and fax back to them. They wanted me to fill out the entire order over again pretty much, all my card info, how much the order was for and some personal info as well. This seemed a little odd - I still don't see how that proves anything really.

And then I noticed they also wanted me to fax them an image of my driver's license...That seemed a tad sketchy. So I emailed the company, not the person who sent this email and mentioned how sketchy it seemed and if it was genuine. The response was simply "You'll have to fill out the form and supply the necessary information."

That didn't sit very well, and even moreso when I read what the "necessary information" was again - they actually wanted me to fax them an image of BOTH SIDES OF MY CREDIT CARD??? Yeah, that seems totally legit.

Obviously I never bothered with them again after that. Out of curiosity though I asked my bank if this was even anything close to above board - and not surprisingly the response was a rather horrified, "No."

I've no idea what this all adds up to, other then even if it was a genuine request it's way beyond what any person with an ounce of intelligence should be expected to respond accordingly. Had the email response I received even mentioned just what this request was for, or even tried to explain the situation I might've believed it was a reasonable request - although I still wouldn't never supply the info they wanted.

Ah well, so I moved on. It's actually hard to get contact lenses now. A federal law in the US now dictates you supply you optometrists info or get them to supply the order and have a prescription and blah, blah, blah. I guess some of the more generic and cheaper lenses had become a bit of a fad amongst school kids who had no idea swapping contacts was a bad idea. Most of the generically produced ones are no longer being produced, everything is else nearly $80 plus per lens, which I suppose technically puts them out of the financial range of kids...supposedly.

I had to try and find a new supplier. Found one today. Spoke to my optometrist and they said they cold order them for me if it came to it, but it didn't. I was a little put out at first because I was kind of counting on having them for 2 characters left to shoot and thought I might have to do without. But I don't...and I actually got them cheaper in the US then I wouldn't if I'd gotten them in Canada.

So that's it. You can see I've added links to some of my suppliers on the right side of the blog, the folks I was talking about aren't on that list obviously.

At last count

I started thinking about just how much crap went into this movie, the numbers of it all basically, and here’s what I came up with.

Special effects shots: 300-400 at this point, that covers everything from masking out areas, digital backgrounds, touch ups and adding in CG actors.

Digital matte paintings: 8 (could be 9 or 10 depending on certain things in post production)

Locations: 15 (a few scenes were shot on the same location, as well as various smaller scenes were shot all about Charlottetown)

Weapons: 13 different ones, 15 in total featured in the movie.

Props: Somewhere over 50 different props throughout the entire movie. I never was good at keeping track of this sort of thing.

Actors: 32 main, supporting and extras (I could be wrong on this, I keep forgetting certain smaller roles)

Computer generated/digitally altered actors: 7

Human characters: 12

Non-human characters: 35

Individual roles in total: 47

(The numbers don’t exactly add up because a few folks play a few different characters)

Prosthetics: 18 pieces (various foreheads, ears, horns and foreheads, I could be under by 2 or 3 pieces)

Contact lenses: 7 pairs, 1 single lense

Wigs: 4 (more then I originally planned actually.)

Costumes: I can’t even begin to count this. There were some that were just “come as you are” other were planned out and purchased - I’ll have to check this.

Overall this adds up to a buttload of work I don’t think I was expecting to encounter. That’s not to say I’m annoyed at it by any means, it’s just a little overwhelming when you start too look at it like this.

In other news...

I'm finished work for the time being so I'm starting in on getting the rest of the shoot organized. I have to sort out The Boardroom and Pyre's Lair scenes, there's 14 different extras in those scenes I need to outfit and almost all of them will be turned into demons of some sort. I have to suss out what prosthetic will best go with what actor and then see if any additional costumes are needed. Fun indeed.

So far good. Most all the new makeup is in, should all be here by next week. Also, I just bought a new digital camera for myself - don't worry, this doesn't mean Moe is out of a job by any means, it just means more random, possibly pointless pictures.

Like this: a pile of prosthetics. The last folks I ordered from shipped everything in funky little boxes, normally they're just in sealed bags. There's about 8 more pieces on the way too. These are for The Council of The Botherhood, and a couple are for Pyre's Wives.
Funny, I never thought I'd ever end up doing something like collecting weapons, but this movie has sort of gotten me into it big time. When I first spoke to Graham about his part as Gortch, Pyre's hired muscle I asked him what kind of weapon would he like. And this is what he requested - I should point out I didn't get this JUST for this one small part in the movie, but that's how I justified it.

It's just a replica, the barrel is actually solid about 4 inches in and there's a screw sticking up into it if you can manage to peer into it. The action on it works though, so that's kind of cool. It's about a foot in length I think.


And to prove just how pointless and random my pictures for the duration of this blog will be now, I give you this:

There's a reason Doctor Who Season 1 costs so much, it not only is fun to watch, it doubles as an awesome cat pillow. I hope Season 2 is this good.