Just outside the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam is a small bridge where the key break-up scene happened in the past. Scientists have been constructing a gigantic dome and a lot of equipment around it to ensure they can reconstruct the past there perfectly… or is it a time machine? Image by David Revoy!
(Concept art is 6 days old, things are evolving into exciting directions, involving robots – for sure! Stay tuned!)
Yesterday Ian signed off the script as final! This means no further changes happen unless he gets the full team (or me at least) to support it.
He’s been rewriting scenes a couple of times, shuffling events around, adding/removing characters and playing with a lot of angles for telling this short story in the best way. I really like it how Ian now focused on filming a relative compact event, with a group of cool characters doing really fun stuff, with a lot of cinematic & design challenges!
But don’t worry, it’s still about a really crazy breakup in Amsterdam, causing the future to go haywire with robots. We’ll update you guys on this here soon as well, but I think it’s fair to first go over it with the team itself.
A final script also means we can start-up the casting process: the current script has 2 young characters (late teens), and five older characters in the future (warriors and scientists) and a bunch of extras. We also will target at getting our locations (around Oude Kerk, Amsterdam) arranged.
This Friday and Saturday the rest of team will arrive: Kjartan, Francesco, Nicolo, Sergey and Sebastian. (Jeremy will arrive March 13). We will do a final presentation of story/artwork/storyboards here Saturday 1700h! Sunday is day off, on Monday we’ll start a 5-day workshop – meant to deliver a short film as proof-of-team-spirit by friday 17h. Stay tuned!
-Ton-
Sebastian Koenig – our masterful 3d camera and motion tracker – is currently finishing a new training DVD for the Blender store. It has been written with a general audience in mind – also filmers with no real experience with Blender should be able to learn how to track and match. And blend!
As usual for Blender Open Movie Workshop titles, all the content will be free to share and spread as CC-by, and all revenues will help out realizing Blender Foundation projects. Like this movie :)
Today meeting with Joris Kerbosch (Director of Photography) and Ian. We went extensively over the script (“Ian, what’s this film about, for real?”), and already discussed plenty of practical filming issues – Joris brings in so much experience! Joris also had his wishlist of important people to add to his crew. On the top of his list: the Focus Puller!
Me: “So… eh, focal pulling can’t be done by some local monkey?”
Ok… now I’ve learned that there’s much less good focus pullers than decent DP’s around. He’ll not only “keep things in focus” but will be operating the camera itself in general; with Joris also running around to work with gaffers (light) and grips (cranes, dollies). Assuming we can find all of these… luckily there’s Rob Tuytel – our Film Academy connection!
Joris and Ian will be meeting next week again to visit some locations in town. I can only give Joris final answers on crews in 2 weeks… when we know a bit more about final budgets.
So we decided that, unlike Sintel, we’re not going to wait to post blog updates until we have things like, “Good Reasons”- we’re gonna post whatever, just to keep you guys in the loop, and show you what’s really going on. We’re not going to be nearly as worried about secrecy (that said, we’re also probably not going to bend over backwards showing you everything :P).
This is good news for me, because otherwise the concept of frequent blog post ‘presentations’ to the blender community would be totally exhausting/intimidating!
David (arrived saturday!) surprised us this morning with a complete storyboard of the first three scenes. It’s A_M_A_Z_I_N_G! Here you see Ian and David going over the shots. It’s so much fun :)
The script in its core (premise) is still the same, but it has been condensed to be more centered on events in future Amsterdam; removing the scene in space with a battle fleet. More you won’t hear from me now :) This week David and Ian get full freedom – just make it awesome! Next week we’ll get real and will start planning.
-Ton-
Ju
st a quick post! today Ian arrived safely from Seattle. I have installed him in his (awesome!) apartment now , where he probably collapsed in bed to recover from jetlag. Tomorrow evening David Revoy arrives, and then we have two weeks to get story and storyboards final :-)
For an original film scroll credit you have to purchase the DVD on the 15th end of day (UTC) latest! Per 16 February DVD pre-orders will still get a credit though, but only on the website here and on the dvds. Gold/Platinum/etc sponsors can get a film credit up to a week before we’re done!
Mango official start is soon! I’ve composed a press release text and a .zip with artwork sketches and banners and the Mango logo. Help us out to spread this info to websites or use it to post on your own!
http://www.blender.org/bf/press-february.pdf (press text, pdf)
http://www.blender.org/bf/mango_press.zip (images, logos, banners, 58 MB)
Camalot AV Facilties is Netherland’s most renowned digital film camera rental and servicing business. One of the owners – Philippe Vié – today confirmed we’ll get their full support for equipment and services. Having worked with our Director of Photography Joris Kerbosch before, they’re confident we’ll make a good use of their Red Epic cameras :) (same camera as being used by Peter Jackson for the Hobbit, delivers 5k)!
Thanks guys, this helps us tremendously!
