Some More Pre Pro Photos
The cave walls are done! We've got most of the props loaded in, set and ready. We're looking forward to next week! Here are a few more photos taken during construction. Geoff talked me into operating the paint sprayer again this year, only I had to get all dressed up. You'd think that a jumpsuit made of napkin material would be cooler - it's not. Stages of work
Well the project we've been working on for the last few weeks has had the opportunity for some real concept work for me. There will be visual effects shots which will be using miniatures, live footage and lots of composition work in post, but before all this goes down an idea of what we are aiming at is required. A good example of what I am talking about is a shot where our characters walk out of a mine tunnel into a huge underground cavern with a walkway on one, chains hanging down into the darkness, and a waterfall. In order to get all the elements required into one angle I picked a top down shot looking at where the people will be walking.
Ok, so the way that I constructed my images for this project were all the same with only minor changes from pic to pic. I would start with a line drawing of the scene. . .well actually, it starts with a conversation with James or other crewmembers to see what they had in mind for the shot, to figure out important things like scale, lighting considerations, what elements were related to plot points, and the mood and the emotions the scene are trying to convey. Stuff like that, then the drawing. My example will be the room with the treasure, cuz hey, who doesn't like treasure?
After each stage I would go and get feedback from the crew before moving forward. With a thumbs up on the drawing I would scan the pic and go over the whole thing in black and white, getting the value and lighting figured out. This is where a lot of the mood would be injected into the piece. Alot of the lighting in this project is going to be produced by flashlights, which makes directing the attention and focus of the viewer alot easier. Literally just point at it.
Also getting the black and white value drawing done makes the rest of the job alot easier. In a layer set to colorize, just painting over in any color adds tone and saturation without messing up the light and dark value that has already been established. Some adjustments to the levels and contrast are going to be necessary as the image will be different than expected with color.
FX's for Fortunes Mine
Hello everyone. My name is Richard Tepavchevich and I'm the visual effects supervisor for Fortunes Mine. I've spent the last 2 months drawing pictures of caves, and traps and treasures helping James and Geoff realize their vision of Fortunes Mine. During the camp I will be the on-set effects supervisor making sure we get the cool shots we need to make the cave look as real as possible. We have big plans for the effects. It is going to be one awesome project. We have full size caves and miniatures and we will be using advanced filming techniques mixed with green screens to make Fortunes Mine and it is going to be a very exciting project for everyone involved. Along with my job comes our Production Designer, Jennifer "Hollywood" Schafer. While I help with construction and breakdown of the effects shots she handles set decoration, painting, paper mache, plaster, building and gathering props to bring life to our cave.
Anyway I am very excited, and here are some pictures of the construction process so far. There are lots more built pieces but for now I'll just show one actual walls.
The frame is built
out of 1"x 2" wood.
Then 1" hexagonal
stucco mesh is stretched
across it and warped
into "rock" shapes.
(The mesh is a little hard
to see here. It is the very
faint silvery screen
on top of the frame)
Then we used
red rosin paper and
heavy brown paper
mixed with water,
glue and wallpaper paste
to make our
paper mache coat.
Finally the cave wall
is painted.
A dark base coat
is applied.
Then a lighter brown
is applied sparsely
on top of the base.
And finally a
very light brown
is dry brushed
on top of that.
To Build A Mine
The first week of set construction has come to a close! The crew has been hard at work trying to build the most realistic cave set possible! The Crew took a trip to Gold Country earlier in the week and got the chance to come face-to-face with some honest-to-goodness mines from the late 1800's! We spent some time inside the "Big Haul" as well as the "Gold Gulch" mine! The folks at the Gold Gulch Museum in Coarsegold really helped us out with tons of useful information and even arranged for our whole crew to go 150ft into a cave! More on all that to come later! Also be sure to check out the DVD when it is released for all the fantastic behind-the-scenes info on the making of! So set building is going great, all the hard work of the design team is really paying off! We will have pictures to update with early next week.
Fiona and I have been hard at work breaking down the script and planning all the awesome stuff to go into the film! I have to say we're both pretty excited and cannot wait to share with the rest of the crew - we think they'll be excited as well! Fiona is also acting as our UPM & Script Supervisor for this project! She's doing an outstanding job and we're having a lot of fun getting all the details lined up for production! She's a natural! There will be more on this process later on.
The crew is in great spirits as things are coming together and we can't wait to get on set!
Jumping into PrePro
Hey all- as you can see, this is my first time posting, and I am really pleased to say that I just started into preproduction for our upcoming film, Fortunes Mine. Now that our script is nearing its final version, James and I sat down with it and began to break it down into its elements. This time around, I am also performing the duties of Unit Production Manager, in addition to being the Script Supervisor on set. It is a very big job with many new responsibilities, but I am working closely with James, who is showing me the ropes, and I am pretty excited for a challenge. Tomorrow we are actually beginning set construction for bits of the cave walls. In the next couple of weeks we’ll all be working really hard on the various set pieces, as well as drawing up a shooting schedule for next month. This year we have a much bigger crew, a greatly expanded cast list, and a lot more material to shoot, and I am really looking forward to being on set again.