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.

Piles of stuff on the way

I just finished placing several orders with some online companies for a whole pile of prosthetics for the movie - about 12 different pieces, mostly foreheads, a few ears and a couple different horns. Most of this is for the Boardroom Scene coming up in a couple weeks. All I can say is, it's going to be a freakshow.

As well, I have some more props on the way as well. Three custom made, Lovecraft inspired books - in look, not text. I don't know if there's actually any text in the books, but it's more about the visual of the books then anything. They're made by the same guy who made the book I've already used in the movie in the Library Scene - and these ones put this little guy to shame. I think the description said one of the books is almost 20 pounds it's so huge...I could be wrong there, not sure but I should be finding out soon.

I'm even getting a flintlock pistol for one scene - luckily it's coming from Canada so no more pesky customs problems. Although I actually have a pretty good in with customs now should I be ordering any more weird stuff from across the boarder.

As far as other props, I'll be making a bit of a roadtrip in about 2 weeks to go looking for some more odd little trinkets and things to fill out the Shaman's Lair scene. Since I'll be done of work in about 2 weeks this is my vacation time. I'll be back to the movie, as well as making a bit of a dive into Dan Caseley's movie.

So that's it for now

Until August

So, work is going well. Extremely well...I think. And then I started thinking about what I'd shoot next for The Monkey Rodeo, then I got all fuzzy in the head and passed out, woke up several hours later only to be assaulting some small,balding man and screaming "Screw you, DeVito", and that got me thinking that I shouldn't be considering anything else right now...Okay, that didn't really happen, but it could. Trust me.

I had a few little things I wanted to get shot for the movie, but right now I'm thinking it's not going to happen. Not because of lack of time, but because of a fully functioning brain. As I said, work is actually going well. At least I think it is. I've made some pretty good progress in the last week, better then I expected and I'm doing the whole trying-not-to-jinx-it by wearing the wrong pair of socks sort of thing. Not that I haven't changed my socks, it was a analogy...or simile...or whatever the hell it was supposed to be.

I recalculated the amount of work I figured I should have to do over the next 20 days, it's gone from 58 5/10 second animations to 50 5/10 second animations - now we're at 37. Possibly less. I'd like to have more done, but it's proving in some cases to be more a pain then I thought in originally.

In any case, aside from the paying gig, the movie has been put on yet another little postponement. Nothing major, nothing unexpected even - and certainly nothing bad. In fact while I've been sitting for nearly 12 hours a day in front of the computer I had a few new ideas come to me - nothing that will make my life more complicated once I resume filming, but will hopefully make it work better.

I redesigned the Titan once again...After all my redesigning and settling, I've think I finally got it. I've been playing around with the design a little bit in 3D over the last week, I even started a pretty decent model and I can say it's very unlike the original designs I posted here awhile back. Still the same concept, a massive living statue - however very, very different looking. I'm really impressed with the results to the point where there is no doubt that I finally got it right.

After filming the last 5 scenes, the opening, will be the first to be done. I'm thinking as a little preview I might post a tiny segment of the opening by October or so. By December I'm thinking I'll have enough done to post an actual trailer.

This is just hopeful however, things could change. In any case, that's it for now.

Not much going on

The title says it all.

Been busy with work in the real world, no monsters or anything going on there - perhaps metaphorically speaking there is, I haven't been paying attention too much to notice.

I've been thinking a little bit about what's left to shoot. A couple little things through the month of the July, nothing too serious or difficult or even worth mentioning. However the last 5 major scenes with Derek are proving to be rather entertaining in the planning.

Two scene in particular are getting more attention then the others. The Brotherhood Boardroom scenes (yes I said scenes, originally there was one, I wrote a 2nd this morning - more on that in a minute) and Pyre's Lair (or Hotel Room, or even Pyre's Den of Women).

The Brotherhood Boardroom (originally just referred to as Crais's Office), is going to rather easy to shoot, since the set is already exactly as I need, lighting and all. So we're looking at a hopefully simple sit down and shoot kind of situation. The importance of this scene is that it introduces the character of Crais and now the Council of the Brotherhood. Previously there was no Council, at least not that you'd ever get to see - and that was because there was no location I felt was appropriate enough to bother. However, with the new location I can properly show off exactly what The Brotherhood is.

After all the compromising I've made, it's nice to be able to elaborate on a scene rather then cut back. And this morning I was thinking Crais and the Brotherhood are actually a very important aspect of the story but both have very little screen time, I might need to do more with them - it won't really change the story at all, add to it a little maybe but that's it. Now without giving away some integral plot points, there was a part of the story I was worried might not work, it was something that was just spoken about, not visualized. I wondered how that might feel like you missed something.

So I decided this morning, why not show it. I have the boardroom, I have the Council - no reason why I can't tack on a fairly short scene that will hopefully make the movie work a little better. It should add that twist in the third act that will leave the audience confused for a second as to just what the hell is going on - and then only to have it explained later. Originally, as I already mentioned, there was just an explanation, so this should tie it all up a little bit better and perhaps cut back on some clunky exposition dialog.

Also the visual of the scene should make a pretty good impact. I wouldn't call it shocking, but I will say it comes out of nowhere - hopefully.

And then we have Pyre's Lair. If you're following all this or are involved in the movie, you've heard me mention it before on probably several occasions. This is another scene that originally was quite simple and straightforward and more then likely visually boring as hell since it's an exposition scene.

Over the last month I've been thinking of different ideas to make all these 5 scenes work better on a visual basis, since I have the time and mental freedom to do so now. This scene really didn't have much going for it other then the presence of a giant, computer generate slug demon that speaks in a demon language and is therefore subtitled. It has changed drastically, and in fact Pyre is no longer a slug demon, at least not in the obvious sense of what a giant slug demon might look like.

The only other character in this scene besides Grayson (Derek Martin) was to be Pyre's wife, actually the 88th daughter of another character in the movie...yes, it's a weird movie I know. This was kind of just a Buffyesque (Buffy the Vampire Slayer in case you're wondering) sort of scene in the beginning, and maybe even a Jabba the Hut reference. The giant inhuman looking monster with a beautiful woman perched next to him. Over the last little while it's become a little larger and more campy as well.

Starting with the introduction of a mercenary/thug-for-hire demon named Gortch. To be played by Graham Putnam and written in specifically since he had to bow out of a previous scene do to a beard and a potential role in a viking movie. Grayson arrives at a hotel where Pyre lives in the penthouse, perhaps it's a sort of demon hotel, who knows. He encounters Gortch as he steps off the elevator, and of course there's a history between the two characters so an brief standoff ensues.

Grayson is then lead to Pyre's room where he has not one, but 4 (or more) wives, all milling about the room. The hard part is trying to find 4 (or more) women all worthy of being supermodels to prance around a hotel room pretending to be the harem of a CG demon...Yes, I am well aware of how strange this sounds - imagine having to explain this as I ask around at hotels if I can shoot it there. I don't think there's any way I can make it sound above board either.

"Yeah, I need a hotel room for a couple hours to shoot a movie. It'll just be me, another guy and 4 or 5 women."

And then further explaining to make it sound non-sketchy:

"See, they're the wives of a giant computer generated demon whose so fat he'd bedridden, they're all just kind of hanging out and whatnot."

Luckily, I find it amusing to do this. It's part of the fun of making movies - seeing people's reaction when you inform them a CG Demon and army of supermodel wives will be invading their hotel. I think the only reason I get permission to do this sort of thing is because most folks are so thrown and/or intrigued by what I'm suggesting they say yes just see if I'm serious.

Anyway, as far as Pyre himself goes, I changed his basic slug form into more of a big fat bedridden creature. He'll actually have arms now, whereas before he was literally just a giant slug. I'm thinking if I actually secure a room somewhere to shoot, I'll build a form that will slide under the covers of the bed to represent his body and all I have to do is add in an upper torso and head in post. That'll give the actors a better idea where to look and what they're dealing with. Plus it look pretty cool I think.

And of course all the wives will look fairly peculiar in their own way. the main wife (the 88th daughter) will have yellow eyes, strange elf ears and some facial tattoos (just like her mother who is featured in 2 scenes with Derek as well). The others I'm still trying to suss out. Perhaps some minor makeup, nothing too serious since doing makeup before a shoot tends to draw the day out and make nailing down an exact shooting time pretty difficult.

I have access to quite a few funky looking things to make it all work. There's one idea I have that will give the scene another added little element of strangeness, and should get a bit of a reaction from everyone - I won't go into details since you'll probably get to see something of it once it's shot.

This is probably the last you'll see here for a couple weeks, work is busy and I need to start organizing myself so I'm not doing 5 different thing at once. In the background I'm taking time to sort out all the little details of the last 5 scenes. Come August I'm hoping to take time off work, 2 months, to finish up some of my own projects, then come October it'll be back to work for some time.

So that's it for now.

Editing Update

Well, I got home, did a rough edit and I think we're pretty good. Some of the shots that needed work I ended up not using - some just didn't cut together very well or really weren't needed in the end. A new problem popped up, should be fixable, and it was my fault. One of the reverse acting shots was done wrong - but with a little effort I can redo it to make it work with no problems.

Looking at it all now, I kinda wished I had more Bile Demon closeups, mainly because they looked so good on screen and it would've been nice to have something to cutaway to at a couple points. Ah well.

All things considered though. It's roughly a 4 minute 30 second scene - not bad at all actually.

And now some Before and After shots of some incredible feats of de-pregnatization! This first shot is going to be easy to fix, Heather just walks in from the right side to this point, about a 6-8 second shot maybe. I have an empty version of the background already, no shadows are being cast near where I need to slim her down - so I just make a mask to remove Malice's suddenly pregnancy.

BEFORE

And AFTER

This one is going to be a little tricky, there's lots of movement in this shot, this is the clearest image that's obvious. I won't explain how I'm going to fix it, but it should be seamless in the end. And the darkness of the image really helps. Also, this was just a test and was done in about 2 minutes, so if you think you spot some flaws - congratulations! You get a gold star and a donkey punch.

BEFORE

And AFTER

The 2nd one is going to need a lot of work, but it's an awesome shot - I won't tell you want it involves, but it's one of those shots that I would spend weeks on cleaning it up it turned out so well. I had originally intended for this to be a body double shot, but we tried it with Heather and I shot it a little too wide - each take was perfect though, so I decided I'd take the time to work on it.

That's it for now again. I feel I accomplished more then I intended to already today so I'm off for more coffee and see if I can't track down the new HellBoy animated movie that just came out.

On Editing Bile Demons

I'm writing this while I'm down at Cafe Diem having coffee and doing a rough edit of the footage from the other day.

So far so good. With a few exceptions however - there's always those. It was rather dark and hard to see sometimes just what I was getting in the frame, so because of that there's a few shots where I'll have to see if I can slim down Heather. Not the end of the world, just a bad oversight on my behalf. Luckily she's wearing all black so there's no obvious wrinkles or patterns in the her outfit that will show, I can just remove the pregnant part and suddenly she'll be a little less so.

I was aware that this was a possibility, and in some shots it's VERY obvious - but you learn to live with a lot after a fashion.

And of course there's the burned out pixel to contend with again. You might be thinking, but hey, wasn't that on the camera that got stolen? And why didn't you notice before? Well, everything we shot until today was fairly bright, so it wouldn't be noticeable. In a dark basement however - pretty noticeable. No worries, I know how to fix it.

I have pretty much everything sorted through for editing, might be a little clunky here and there, but I think overall it'll be really awesome looking. The only reason for the clunky is because we shot out of sequence 4 times. We shot with Heather, we then did a pass with Jordan, then we shot all the Bile Demon shots that were left over and finally some hand closeups with Kim (since Jordan had bright pink or red nails and Heather didn't) - there there was room for a massive amount of error - however, we encountered only some minor things. I won't be able to really see any problems until I get down to editing.

The reverse and slow motion shots we took should work out great. The forced perspective shot looks awesome. And the Bile Demon costumes and makeup came off really great - so overall one of the better shoots we've had in awhile - especially considering the amount of time and energy that went into it.

And the best part is, it doesn't look like we missed anything. So now, on with some pictures. I'm not writing amusing little captions today, not really in the mood.


So that's it and there you have it. Bile Demons galore. I'll probably edit this together over the weekend, should be pretty cool. Funny, while shooting it I was pretty impressed at how little post work would have to be done with this scene...and looking at it now, there's a bit to be done.

Obviously a couple shots with Heather need to be tweaked, no worries there. There's a symbol on a wall at one point - always knew about that part and was well prepared for it. Some parts just need to be cleaned up in general, the burned out pixel, some lights got into the background of some shots - things like that, no real problems there either. And some light effects need to be added.

The biggest oversight however was the lack of proper Bile Demon footwear. I never intended too many full body shots of them. But things ran long and we all got tired and whatnot, so when that happens you tend to get sloppy and not notice things. There's at least 1 shot at the end when the Bile Demons all pile into the room after Malice - we can clearly see they're wearing jeans and sneakers...I suppose it's very possible Bile Demons might've snatched them off some hapless victim, but I don't think so. A little cleanup is required there, not the end of the world though. In the end you probably will never even notice the difference if I hadn't mentioned it here.

So that's it for awhile. I have a couple little snippets of shots I'll be taking in the next week. A new lead up to the final scene with the Security Guard character and some entering and exiting of the scene with Jordan and a news report cutaway from another scene.

I hope to get around to doing something with the documentary footage Andrea shot soon. I'll post it here once it's done.