Filming

Filming was amazing on Friday night!
I was completely blown away by the entire experience, everyone did an incredible job.  It really reminded me that mediocrity really doesn't exist in our team.  Every single member is an expert at their specialty.

FILMING:
When I arrived on set, Ben Disinger, our film maker from the School of Film and Animation, was with a crew of about five people that he assembled.  They were in the middle of setting up for filming, which included a track for the camera, a huge black curtain for the background, four spotlights, two rim lights, a fill light, and a special HUGE light filter that they built themselves out of PVC pipe, some white flame retardant cloth, and a short black curtain.  When it was all finished, the lighting looked amazing.  I was very impressed that they were able to light the actors and their black uniforms such that they could be easily distinguished from the black background.

The first half of the final sequence is just the two actors fighting, and the second half of the final sequence is all special effects shots.  I was concerned because our 3D team had camera angles laid out for the special effects portion, but no ideas for the rest of the sequence.  I was very happy to find that Ben Disinger had some amazing ideas for opening shots, and his team had even already laid down some tracks for a dolly.

DIRECTING:
During the filming, Ben acted as a director.  He kept his team organized and was great with guiding the talent to get the best shots possible.  I did some directing of my own in the sense that I had a better idea of what we needed to capture than Ben.  Occasionally I would ask the actors for specific poses, actions, or fighting speeds, and occasionally I would ask the film makers for certain camera angles.

ACTING/CHOREOGRAPHY:
The actors were among the last to arrive on set, though we still had plenty of time to rehearse before the film team was finished setting up.  It's a little unfair to simply call these men 'actors', because that barely begins to describe their contribution to this project.  These men are in their 30s and 40s, are black belts, have been doing Kuk Sool for a significant portion of their lives, and are instructors at a dojang in Webster.  These men are amazing at martial arts, fun to work with, and very willing to help us to get the shots and style we're looking for.

A related anecdote regarding their skill that comes to mind is when Ben and his crew were pulling focus for a certain shot.  Ben and his crew had set up marks for focusing when the actors move toward and away from the camera, but expected that the film crew would have to adjust the focus slightly as the actors would not likely land in the same exact places on each take.  Ben was surprised to find that adjustments were never needed, and exclaimed "How do you do that?" with regards to the actor's precision.

The actors had a routine for set up for us, that we discussed when we met with them last week.  Rachel invited a guy named Andrew (I don't know his last name), who's specialty is martial arts filming and editing.  Andrew worked with the actors to help make their moves look more pronounced on camera.  I will admit that I was not actually expecting him to be there, but was impressed with the quality that he added to the fight sequence.

COMPOSITING:
I am thrilled to see how invested Joel has become ever since he started on compositing work for the sequence.  He did a lot of research and showed up very prepared for making sure that we're able to track the camera and actor's arm using tracking software.  Throughout the filming Joel walked around with a tape measure and notepad taking various measurements.  Under his direction, we set up tracking marks on the background for the camera tracking, and even filmed some shots with tracking marks on the actor's arm.

PRODUCTION:
Indirectly, none of this could have happened without Rachel.  She spent a lot of the evening sitting in the background, so to some it may be easy to forget everything she's contributed so far, and I want to stress what she did for us.  Rachel found us an excellent  film maker, two great actors, and an experienced choreographer.  All of these people had a significant impact on the look of the final sequence, and none of it would have been there without Rachel's help.  She was also nice enough to split the cost of three pizzas with me for everyone on set.

MODELING:
There wasn't all that much that really needed to be done in terms of modeling, but it was still nice to see Evan show up and see what's going on.  He was taking some reference photos and movies, which is great.