Kicking butt

Yesterday some of us met to work on some fight choreography. Geoff (director), Tina (lead actress), Noelene (photographer), and I headed over to Mike (producer)'s house. We started off the night by watching fight and chase scenes that Mike selected from various action films to help inspire us. We saw scenes from the entire Bourne trilogy, Hitman, and a few others. We got some good ideas, especially from the Bourne movies. We also enjoyed seeing some insanely absurd fighting scenes.

We were there to specifically work on a fight scene that involves Tina and I. Geoff had a very specific idea of how he wanted the fight to go. He walked us through it step by step, practicing each one, bit by bit. We borrowed one of Mike's guns at first (completely unloaded), but we were worried about dropping it on Tina's sandaled feet. It'd be a shame to cripple your star a few weeks before filming.

As we went through the fight, Noelene photographed. Once we had learned all the steps, we went over it, again, and again, and again (ad nauseum). Geoff filmed our practice so that we could watch it later, and find places to improve, and such.

It was definitely shaky at first. But we caught on pretty quickly, and while it's still not perfect, Tina's gotten pretty good at disarming me, and slamming into the wall.

I think our practice last night really exemplified much of the production process. We haven't really been getting everything quite right, right away. But as we work more, and get closer to our deadline, everything's starting to really materialize well, and take a very good shape.

Chugging Along

Well, I figured it's time for me to talk about the production. My job in Delilah is … um … I do the … uhh … well, it's all very important.

The production is doing very well. We've had a few auditions, and casted all but one of our roles (yours truly is playing one of the goons). In my role as …, I sent out casting calls, organized audition times, and notified those who were cast, and generally was sort of the director's emissary to the cast, like an assistant director (or at least, assistant to the director).

For the past few weeks, I've been heading up the effort to get the squibs working. This involved playing with chocolate syrup, tubes, air pumps, balloons, condoms, fishing line, super glue, and duct tape. As Geoff mentioned in a previous post, we finally got them working as we combined several ideas and resources.

On Sunday, our location scouting went fairly well. My group scouted several public places for crowd scenes, and public meeting scenes. We looked at a local hospital (and played on the helipad), the Capital building (and had to pass through a "Save Darfur" concert to get there), a few buildings downtown, and the Business School on campus. At the Business School, Tina (our star) and I somehow got ourselves locked in a stairwell, and had to leave through an emergency exit. Luckily it wasn't one armed with an alarm.

We found a few good spots, some really great windows and hallways in the Capital, and a stained-glass window in the hospital. We tried to get into the Convention Center, which we think may work perfect for one of our crowd scenes, but it was closed.

On the Hunt

Yesterday was location scouting. Seven of the crew came, so we split up into two groups and explored what Austin had to offer us. Both parties were on a mission to find the right locations for certain scenes. This film requires a specific look and feel, and if the locations don't fit right, it will ruin the film. I need the backdrop of this film to match, to compliment, to supplement, to make the picture whole. One very important location is the abandoned building where Copperfield is interrogated by Saul and his men. Arthur, Russ, and I searched and found some very suitable places. Our first was an abandoned building that we saw on our way to another place. It took us forever to get there because it was in the corner of several loops and turnarounds. It was an abandoned building alright. We found a way in through a side door, and tentatively walked around. It brought me back to my high school days when my friends and I would go urban exploring at night through creepy buildings. This one was rather decrepit and ripped up, it had a very "I am Legend" feel to it. But it still wasn't quite right. The next destination was provided by Arthur, where an old abandoned elementary school was, this place was eerily amazing. It was several buildings/classrooms in an open green field, (very akin to "The Others" village in LOST), and it was dead quiet, no activity anywhere. We would went through some of the buildings, these provided a better look than the last one. But still not quite what I wanted. It had a heavy post-apocolyptic look, school supplies, children's drawings, and the like were scattered in the rooms, like everybody just got up and left. I was so impressed with the whole place that just from the location, it inspired me with a feature length movie idea--"Zombie High". Yes, I indulge myself sometimes. it was a great place, a good back up, but still not good enough. Our last stop was a building that I just found a couple of days ago, near campus. It was an old abandoned shoe shop, we found an open door, and it was perfect! The naked floor boards, dusty windows, and stained walls just oozed Ezekial's "cloudy and dark day"(34:12). We're in the works of contacting the property owners, wish us luck in getting it locked!

location scouting

Well the good news is we found a zombie infested high school. It was a school for the deaf... they never heard it coming. We had to break into a few places to get to the locations we wanted but in turn we found a couple of great spots, (including a few that we see every day but never really thought about) Somehow through a wierd twist of fate both the groups ran into each other unplanned on south congress, I guess south congress really is that cool.

And it starts . . . in the middle

Much like this film, I start this production blog in the middle, in the midst of everything. I’ve been meaning to start this blog ever since pre-production started, which has been underway for about three months. Tina, the co-writer, and just finished the fifth draft fo the script, which is under the scrutiny of revision from outside parties. This is really the first time we’ve let the draft out amongst other writers. Right now I am writing on my lab top out at the “shop” which is Mike’s, our exec producer, garage. Tonight has been one of our best pre-production workshop nights yet. I say that because everyone is heavily engaged with different aspects of the film. Right now, I have Jake, a crew member, reading over the script, critiquing it. Arthur, the AD, and Russ, gaffer, are drying the spackle that they just applied to the “bullet-hole wall”, a practical effect that we have puzzled over for months, and as of last week, finally mastered the concept, thanks to the hard work of Arthur. We now are trying to figure out the squibs, we’ve already done several tests tonight, but to no avail. This squib is made of tubing, with a valve, connected to an air compressor. We’re filling the tubing with chocolate syrup, and then releasing the valve. The problem is that the “blood” is spraying out, instead of bursting out like a gunshot wound. So we’re fiddling with different settings.

I’m the luckiest director right now, cause I got a crew that is dedicated to get this film, and making it the best it can be.
A recap on the end of the night--
It was nearing the end of the night, and we had done several tests with the squib, still to no avail, it was a mixture of the wrong pressure, the wrong size hole, the wrong amount of syrup, etc. It was getting late, and we were going to do our last test for the night, not really expecting it to work, but giving it one last shot before we try again next week. We made some final adjustments, and it worked BEAUTIFULLY! TRIUMPH!! We all celebrated, it was awesome. Then we went to Dan’s to watch the return of the office!!!