FEATURE: Rise of the Beast-the new feature from STARS Pictures

Went out to the dollar store today and picked up a bunch of candles and candlestick holders. The idea being that the crew has to watch how much power they're using if they want to continue living off the grid. I got two six packs of emergency candles where each candle burns for 5.5 hours. For $2, can't complain!

I also mixed up a small batch of blood to use in the fight scenes. My special recipe which is based off the karo and food coloring, except I add an extra ingredient to make it less clear and thicker =D
 
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Dollar stores are amazing. See if you can find some of those long water canon sticks. Take the plastic covering pointy tip off and spray paint the whole thing black and put some kind of small plastic cap on the top and you have an instant baton. (See photo). Sadly,my dollar store is all sold out. I used the plastic as a sheath for my handbo and stuffed the bottom. I use a lot of Superglue as you can imagine which is sold two tubes/bottles for a buck.

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-Nate
 
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Tomorrow the fun begins! Almost a year of planning has led to this. My apartment is dressed, I have all my gear, actors are good, and the script rocks! People say third time's the charm. Let's hope it's true. God has been doing some awesome things on this project, opening doors, and giving us what we need. Maybe not always what we want, but we have everything needed to get the job done and make it look and sound good. Please keep us in your prayers.

Production Journal
http://starspictures.wordpress.com/2010/07/26/production-journal-3/
 
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I'm surprised no one asked but what are you lighting with here? Are these all candles or what. I would like to do something like this for Damious when he's in his sanctum (if we do sanctum shots). I would say make it maybe bit brighter. Have you looked at this on an HDTV yet? It looks very professional. Different TVs will show the image lighter or darker.

-Nate
 
Thanks Nate!
This is the same setup from the pic on the previous page. Two Halogen worklights on their stand (both lights on the same one) and my shower curtain diffusion. The candles are just there for look. I can see about repositioning my kitchen lights to make it a bit brighter, but I'm going for the dark contrasty look. I haven't seen in on an HDTV yet, just my computer monitor.
 
Day one of feature three is complete! Had a minor snag, but we worked through it. I'll give more details in my blog shortly.
 
The color looks good. The image looks very rich. But still seems a bit too dark, even for a dark scene. I could be my monitor. You can brighten it a little in post right? Have you thought about a China ball or maybe put a two 250 watt photoflood lights in a some basic lamps and putting the shades back on them to mask them. Maybe even just one 250 watt light. I know you're using work lights, but try the photoflood bulbs or maybe something as simple as moving the light closer or bouncing it differently.

-Nate
 
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Just got done assembling the two scenes we shot last night. So far, we're at about 7 minutes of edited film. As I mentioned in my journal, we're shooting much slower than last year, but it's showing in the footage. We won't be shooting tonight so we'll continue tomorrow night.
 
That's some real Pacific Blue stuff right there! I used to love that show. It also reminds me of when I used to skate (before pk, I was all about aggressive inline). Cool vid man, thanks!
 
Hooray for pictures!

First, our three in one camera rig. Here it is in it's full shoulder mount glory. It can also be a steadypod and a boring tripod. And yes, for those of you wondering, the weight of the legs is a perfect counterbalance for the camera.
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Next on our list is a before and after grab of Alexander J. Bonds/"Shane". Those of you lucky enough to have seen "Leap" will recognize the character. Since this movie is set two years after the first, I had him grow out his hair and go unshaven to make him look older.
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I can't help it! If Robert Rodriguez ever sees what I'm doing, I hope he's proud. lol
BTW, I love the shoulder rig so much that I've shot everything so far with it. Unlike the steadypod, the LCD screen is right in my face so I KNOW if the shot is in focus. Fortunately, the shoulder look also works for the style of movie I'm doing. I'm dreading Sunday. We're shooting the greenscreen portion of the car chase which means I'll have the camera locked off. I could use tracking markers, but they'll only slow me down trying to make sure they're visible.

EDIT:
I came up with a name for this rig: The El Director Shoulder-Pod. I know, original right? So I've got a tripod, steadypod, and shoulder-pod all in one. Gotta love it!
 
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