"Have Gun Will Travel reads the card of a man / A knight without armour in a savage land..."

Well, I've decided that after losing five hours of tedious, backbreaking rotoscoping work on a shot that I would start all over, get a couple of frames done, then take a break and finally write about filming my new flick. :D

I whistled the tune to the above theme song lyric as Chris Cline and I trudged down a bit of disused train tracks by Payne Park for the final martini shot for "A Hammer Fell in Jerusalem: Anathema." If one didn't notice the palm fronds, one would absolutely think they were on their way to see a dead body with three of their closest friends outside of Castle Rock, Maine... It was a simple shot and was to be done in one take, but I'm getting a bit ahead of myself.

Our first day's shooting was on SUNDAY, 21 DECEMBER, 2008 -- the garage and the alley. it was also the first time I was meeting three of my actors: Eon Song (who played Laurel), David Walker (who played Tango), and Michael P. Miller (who was Milton). I found them / they found me through an advert I posted on the Sarasota Craigslist which was then reposted to various talent agencies and actor's sites in Florida. Eon drove down from Tallahassee and Michael came from Orlando. David is a local. Also joining us was Rick Sharpe (as Batraal), but his stuff this day was filmed in a green hoodie as I was going to do some funky special effects and had to try and make it match a costume that was coming for him later in the week.

Shawn McBee and I met everyone outside the theatre and immediately went to our first location, a nearby alley, for the first shots of the day. There's a certain sense of freedom in knowing you don't have to worry about sound: it's a silent fantasy movie (no dragons, none of that stuff, but I don't know of any other genre it really fits in) and though I shot it in colour, the final output will be in black and white.



Those are just screen caps taken as I was editing, not truly indicative of the final product. :D

Our wonderful and patient hairdresser and make-up person, Miss Alana Goldman (who was recommended to me by Kick Ass Hair for Kick Ass People's Summer Daniels), came out and hooked us up with some fantastic make-up. Make-up for black and white output is hard, but she was fantastic.

The first day went extremely well and we were done well ahead of schedule, which was nice. We couldn't exactly use it to our advantage as the other actors weren't available, but it was nice to feel that sense of accomplishment. After the shoot, we all ate lunch at Applebee's (close and open on a Sunday afternoon) and then Rick and Eon came back to my house to check out some of the footage and talk about their characters. I had a sore throat by the end of the day; I'm not a particularly social person, I don't talk very much, so I'd spoken more that day (and really every day of the shoot) than I have since middle school.

MONDAY, 22 DECEMBER, 2008 -- at the Cock and Bull:

Frank, Dawn, and Howie of the Cock and Bull need a special thank you here as they allowed us to come in before they opened to shoot our scene. Thank you, guys!!

We only had one scene to film this day and a very limited amount of time on the location in which to film it so the night before I made absolutely sure I had all the notes and shot lists and storyboards I could have before walking on set and got to filming as soon as I possibly could. This was Chris Cline's first day on set, he's playing the Priest and he's bloody perfect for the role.

Again, we were extremely fortunate and got everything in the can with about an hour to spare! Then we went to Sugar and Spice for dinner - a good local Amish restaurant. I hope we didn't frighten the customers and staff too much, this ragtag group of guerilla filmmakers. :D

SATURDAY, 27 DECEMBER, 2008 -- on the private property of Dr. Marguerite Barnett:

This day started off badly with the seamstress being unable to make the costume in time and Michael had car troubles and wouldn't be able to get into town until after David needed to head to rehearsals. I postponed their scenes until the following Sunday and shot the parts of scene 19 that we could get, which were parts with Chris and Eon. The fake blood wasn't co-operating and I hadn't considered how to mount the half-knife to Chris' chest -- Shawn rigged something up that I'm happy with, but I would've have been just as happy with my other idea, too.

On the whole, while we got a lot of stuff in the can that I'm happy with, I was not so happy with the day on the whole. It wasn't the actors or anything, it just wasn't a good day. I was pretty depressed when we went to dinner, but I started cheering up immensely and was absolutely positive that the next day's shoot would be spectacular even though we had a LOT of work ahead of us.

~~~~~

I need to stop here so I can get ready to go to work. The final two days and post-production will follow in the next couple of days. :D

Day Four of Five Completed!

Yesterday, we finished the fourth day of our shoot. Other than a couple of bumpy areas, it's been going like gangbusters (to quote Shawn McBee) and I thought that in advance of our last day of filming (January 4), I'd post all of the photos we've taken so far.

I was sad that we didn't have a whole lot of photos from the first shoot and resolved that on my next flick there would be as many as possible and set Shawn to the task of taking them. This time, I'm so happy! We have over a hundred photos!! With one day's shoot left, too!

After the pick-ups, I'll post about the shoot as a whole, but for now, enjoy the photos!

Photos and updates and lots of bandwidth-eating stuff....

I uploaded my proof-of-concept greenscreen build photos today and remembered that I never shared the links to the Modesto trip! Sometimes, I have a fantastic memory. Other times, not so much. I know, you've all been holding your breath for these photos!! lol

First of all, here is my latest eye test. This is about one and a half steps from what I want... My usual complaints, the blinking, the tracking...blah, blah, blah. I've had some ideas, but I've put aside the effects tests so I can focus on the homestretch of pre-production on the new flick.



Here is a slideshow of the p-o-c greenscreen build:



And here is a slideshow of my trip to Modesto!

Cause and Effect

As the start date for my new short flick looms ever closer, I find myself torn in millions of directions whereas even a week ago, it was only a hundred or two. I'm not a fan of the Producer part of this level of filmmaking. This one is far more complicated than anything I've taken on before, even as just a camera person for my friends's flicks. I'm talking about the effects. The digital stuff. I prefer practical effects, but at my level, there's just no affording such a thing. I hope to have some practical effects on this one, but I'm not counting on them as I only know one local effects artist, but I don't have his number and one who is a friend of one of my actors is busy with a zombie flick in Tampa. As a zombie fan, I say, "ZOMBIE FILM MORE IMPORTANT!!" Thus, I'm learning how to do some stuff digitally.

If I can, I will be doing some of the practical effects myself. I'm no professional, but I gotta try. However, for everything else...I have to go digital. I have one character who is barely going to be on set except for actual interactions with other people. For him, I will be doing greenscreen work. (see my test for greenscreen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=340Dg2uiHcg) Several of my characters have special eye effects. Two of the characters aren't complicated, but two of them are massively complicated and I've been doing a series of tests involving the eyes (all of which can be found on my youTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/KimyooFilms).

I'm getting closer, though, going by a test I did today.



This is getting pretty close to something I can be happy with. Originally, I wanted something more organic and was going to try to recreate the replicant eyes in Blade Runner. I know the theory behind how, I've read snippets of what the late Jordan Cronenweth, ACE, has written about the eyes, and I've tried it several times, but so far I haven't done it. Even after I finish the film, I'll keep trying because it looks so darn cool, but I don't think I'll be able to figure it out in enough time for the shoot.

Meanwhile, I keep going over in my head how I want certain things to look. My storyboards are...lacking in that department because I use stick figures. Once I'm in post, I'll put them all up on my Flickr account so people can point and laugh (I know I giggle every time I look at them), and I'll do a special storyboard-to-scene comparison, too. I always see these amazing storyboards for movies, it'll be awesome to offer up my stick figures!

As for the practical side of things: actors, locations, my crew, I've adopted a strangely serene attitude. If it happens, it happens. If it doesn't, it doesn't. One can't force Ka, if one were as geeky as I to reference Roland of Gilead. I'll take my geekiness one step further and quote him: "There will be water if God wills it." I just have to try and apply that to my feelings about the effects.