That's a Wrap!!

That is a wrap on production for the first episode of Foam Fighters.  We shot 12 pages in two days in 100+ degree Texas weather.  And I feel extremely blessed.  I could not have hoped for a better cast nor a better group of troopers.  I say troopers because that's what these guys are.

Ivy And Jason playing with their sticks.

Ivy Koehler held her own with the boys.  She was always smiling and willing to do what needed to be done.  Harold stepped up to the role of Darrius and made it his own.  Hope became the uber-nerd ... trendsetter?  After a while everyone on set was walking around in glasses with green tape wrapped around the middle. 

Guess who the uber-nerd is?  Anyone?

I was impressed with how the Annihilators all became a team.  And a team that was believable.  They exceeded my expectations in every way.

Sir Ron and Mortimar being awesome!

Trent Lockwood.  This guy is a warrior.  Tough as nails, not only did he have to wear a 5 pound chainmail coif in 100 degree weather and deal with rusty sweat dripping in his eyes, he also had to fight.  And flip onto his back a couple hundred times.  He was not a happy camper.  But out of breath, heat exhaustion setting in and stumbling sideways when trying to walk straight, he wouldn't quit.  At least not until we forced him to.








All in all the shoot went well.  Well, actually that's a lie.  After the first day, we were one scene behind.  After dumping the footage and losing the data on one of our cards, by 2AM Sunday morning, we were now 2 scenes behind and about half a battle sequence.  Great!  Now not only did I get no sleep Friday night, how am I supposed to get an ounce of shut eye at 2AM when call time is 7AM and I just found out we lost a good 20 mins of footage?  Well, Sunday's call time comes around and I am still trying to get that out of my mind and concentrate on the things I have going on that day.

Show-off!

Sunday was great.  It was overcast all day which made the lighting consistent for the most part.  I would have opted for having more control over the light but with our budget and our minimal equipment, and with all our extra scenes to pick up, I am happy for small favors.  So, thank you God for our overcast day!

So we started off the day and just zoomed through the scenes I wanted to get before lunch.  They went by so fast, in fact, that I was able to squeeze the two scenes we needed in before lunch.  That only left what was scheduled after lunch and all the fight scene stuff we needed that could not include Hope or Darrius because they weren't there.  But by the end of Sunday, we had shot everything we needed and even had time to teach Ivy a little sword combination and shot her in the distance as she danced her sword dance as a silhouette.

In the end, I was happy with all we accomplished.  We had a stellar cast and crew.  Though crew side was a total of four people including myself, we worked with what we had and we made it work.  And though there was lots and lots of room for bitching and complaining, no one did.  They all did their jobs and did them well.  I do not know how to repay everyone for their work on this project, but I will definitely make it up to you.

Now it's time to edit all this together.  There's about three hours of footage to rename and sync before I can start editing ... this should be fun.