It's been a while since I left a blog here, and for good reason. Davin and I have been really busy prepping for Paper Trail.
My first week here was incredibly busy. The very first day Davin and I went outside and refined our fight choreography that we had come up with seven months ago. I'm happy to say that we've worked in a sequence which involves breaking a large window...should be fun.
Day 2 we went into the script and literally went line by line, word for word and discussed character motivations. Along the way we streamlined the script making it that much better. I also went to all our locations and measured out the rooms to create accurate schematics for our DP, Bjorn. Measuring out backyards sure is fun!
Day 3 we met up with Dae Young Danny Kim our 3rd fighter for the end fight sequence. This dude holds a 5th degree black belt in Taekwondo and could take you out with his lethal weapon stare! We trained for 4 hours in the Green Screen Studio at VFS and sweat out the beginnings of a pretty slick 3 man fight. Let me tell you creating a fight for 3 guys with 3 different weapons is a lot harder than it sounds. For reals!
Day 4 I met up with Rebecca Hay, who is playing the female lead. Spent a few hours just re-connecting with her and talking about life in general. Working with Rebecca is always a treat and I'm sure this time out will be no exception! After my meeting with Rebecca, I headed downtown and met up with Bjorn our Director of Photography. He couldn't meet long because he was teaching a class at VFS however it was nice to see him and start talking about various shots and lighting ideas. After Bjorn was called back into class, I zoomed across the city and met up with Nick, our AD and Ryan my credits guy (because the credits are going to be elaborate because we're elaborate people. Spent a few hours catching up with those guys (we were all in the same class at VFS) Nick worried over safety as only an AD can. I can already see how the shoot is going to go. Which is why Nick is the AD in the first place.
After all those meetings, I went back to Davin's and he and I went back over the script and began making up our shot list.
Day 5 I met up with Nemo and went over some art that he created for me. I must say, I'm quite pleased with what he did in between his busy schedule (he's a pro storyboard artist as well as a painter and comic book writer/artist. He swore that he was done working on smaller shows several months ago due to his hectic schedule, so I'm glad he made an exception for Paper Trail.
After a great afternoon with Nemo I Went back to the house and tuned up a fight sequence with Davin.
Day 6 Stole a bunch of old newspapers that were outside of a subway restaurant by the skytrain. They were going to be recycled so I don't feel bad. Also went to a comic shop and picked up 100 image comics for $20....ouch. Did somemore fighting, bought some protective gear for our forearms because we like to hit hard!
Day 7 Our props master, James came over to the house. We went over all the stuff we've got to build and or destroy. We've been very fortunate having him help us out. He built our weapons from scratch and they work great. He also showed us some moves with the short metal rods (he use to teach martial arts the exact style escapes me at the moment) that looked pretty cool. He also showed us some take down moves, using me as the human dummy...painful.
Day 8 Went shopping for costumes with Ricmond, who is doing wardrobe for all the characters in Paper Trail. We spent 5 hours picking out, Davin, Danny's and my costumes. We bought 2 of everything for me, just because I get thrown all over the place in pretty much any scene that I'm in. Davin's costume looks really cool. We're going to have him dressed all in white....mmmm.
Day 9 Camera test with Bjorn and Shane. We got the Red One all tricked out and Bjorn tested out a bunch of lenses. After he was satisfied with that we shot some test footage of our fight and over cranked the hell out of the camera. Then we tested handheld vs steadycam the fighting looks very different, should be interesting to see which way we decide to go.
After the camera test, Bjorn and I went off to the house location and talked shot lists and lighting for several hours. Lots of expensive ideas were thrown around.
Day 10 Met up with Danny at his Dojo and spent 4 or 5 hours coming up with the final touches of our 3 man fight. At this point it's all about finesse. After the fight, spent 15 or 20 minutes throwing myself through this giant whole in the wall that connects the kitchen area with the living room. Painful!
So that's what we've been up to the last week or so, and it's only going to get busy. Monday I've got a meeting with our 3D guy. Tuesday we've got a tech survey with all the department heads. Wed more fighting and Fri a meeting with Makeup!
Oh, and since I'm doing P90X, I train every morning at 8am for at least on hour....yarg!
Hopefully I'll have a vid to post on some progress soon!
Travis
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