Rig to fly actress

Industrial Design student, Adam Napoli, fabricated a rig that will suspend our actress in the air to make her look as if she is floating. By shooting her against a screen we will crop her out, and composite her onto another background of our choosing.

Another Short

We are on the verge of shooting another of the stories, which is relatively short in comparison to the previous one we filmed, and will only take a day of shooting. We've been progressively working on the costume for the sole character in this story

The steps involved in making actor's Gelatin Prosthetic:

Alginate mold with plaster poured in for the face cast.

Failed first attempt

Successful cast ready for sculpt

Base sculpt ready for detail work

Getting ready to make second negative:

Building walls for mold.

Plaster for second negative solidifying

Poster

Filming in the Smokies

The crew and talent arrived on Thursday 28^th April, to be ready to shoot on Friday.

Our weekend was riddled with little hiccups. Changes in the weather kept us on our toes and prevented us from filming for the most part of one of the days. A sudden downpour of snow affected the look of our film dramatically and the temperature plummetted. Snow and rain on one night iced up the roads and led to a road closure that prevented us from reaching one of our locations. We spent most of that morning figuring out what and where else we could film until, it was announced that the road opened up at noon. For the most part it turned out to be an adventurous experience!

A 45 minute treck to one of the locations!

Arriving at the Smokies

On Wednesday 26^th March, at 4 am we arrived at the highest accessible point in the Smokies, to capture footage of the full moon. With 28ºF temperature and sharp gusty winds it was freezing outside. After about 5 minutes of handling metallic equipment our hands and fingers went numb, despite the gloves we were wearing, and our thermals hardly helped keep the rest of us warm. Another gentleman who happened to have the same idea as us to capture the moon, seemed more aware of how low the temperatures could fall and quite at ease as he went back and forth from his vehicle to his camera setup to check on his photography. For the most part we remained outside, since we struggled for a while to attach the tripod head to the sticks, because of a stripped bolt! We successfully pulled the shots off and after packing the equipment, warmed up thanks to the heating and spent the rest of the night sleeping in the van.

The schedule for the shoot depended very much on the weather, and although we were constantly checking it daily, it was an anxious affair relying on forecasts that failed to predict, to any degree, what the following day would be like.

The original plan was to shoot early mornings and evenings when the sun is not at it's highest point to avoid the harsh light in the middle of the day and work with diffused, even lighting. A cloudy day that blocked out the harsh sunlight, however, would also be perfect to allow us to film. This was more ideal since temperatures in the smokies were unbearably low in the early hours of the day, as we had already experienced.

Costumes

Costume for the Girl completed by Merline Labissiere. The shoes were designed and worked on by Zain and Janice Camacho.

                                                 

Costume for the Creature character, in progress. This one has taken a lot of time, and effort to construct and would not have been possible without the help of Dan Freyermuth, Nathan Bishop, Gwendolyn Polich, and Janice Camacho.

 

Beginnings of the Creature.

Camera test of the Creature's skin.

Stilts in pieces ready to be put together. Looks easier than it actually was.

First steps.

Taron tells us how he feels wearing the stilts

                               

Final adjustments made.

At the Smokies

Last weekend we finished filming for one of the short stories up in the Great Smoky Mountains. We headed up on Wednesday 27^th April, a 7 hour journey from Savannah, GA, before the crew and cast to previsualise the scenes on location. When we were location scouting earlier this year in January we saved costs be sleeping in the van. To put it mildly, it was an interesting experience! Below we've posted some images we took while we were location scouting at Amicalola Falls and the Smokies.