Check out the progress of Urtext's latest adventure, Aurora . This is where you come for all the behind-the-scenes progress reports, stills from the sets, and maybe even footage from the finished film. If you're involved in the production and want to add something to the blog (everyone's invited!), email blog@urtextfilms.com . Also email us with your comments and we'll add them up to the site.
For things first - I want to wish everybody who has either been involved in the film directly or indirectly a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. The past year has seen the conclusion of filming for Aurora as well as a heavy start on post production. Whilst things have been quiet online it does not mean things haven't been moving behind the scenes! As of January 5th I shall be moving my edit suite to the new and imporved Urtext Studios on Gilles St and working out of the studio over the coming weeks/months on locking off the final edit and getting the special effects coming in to the film. There is still a large amount of work to do to ensure the film is the best film it can possibly be, suffice to say you certainly wont be seeing a message from me next year wishing a Merry Christmas and saying we're still working on the film. We don't want to put out a definitive release date only to let people down by not meeting it, but we hope to have the film ready to screen in the first third of 2010. Again, my thanks to everyone involved who has made this project so special, I look forward to catching up with you all in the new year.
And that's a wrap! Shooting has finally finished on Aurora, after almost a year of stop and start shooting. A big conrats to everyone involved, we promise to put up some footage and stills real soon. We'll also announce the wrap party details in the coming days.
Aloha all! More reports from the editing suite. I've been cutting the fight scene footage for the past 5 hours straight and have the first 3 minutes now in a rough cut. It's too early to say exactly how long the climax of the film will run, needless to say everyone will just have to wait and see. So far the coverage has been good and we've been able to amp things up right from the get go. We've had a couple of meetings recently about VFX and hopefully I can start putting some placeholder effects in the fight scene within the next couple of weeks, basic smoke effects and muzzle flashes to help a little with the timing of the scene. When placeholders are in we'll definately post some more pictures as well as a quick video on some of our visual effects workflow. It's hard to talk about what you think a film is shaping up like when you're the director, but the first 3 minutes was ridiculously fun to cut together, so much so thats its currently 6am in the morning and I'm only just considering calling it a night. Previz pictures are also coming very soon with a quick write up about how we're using them. If I may be excused I think its time for me to go watch the sunrise before heading to bed and dreaming of muskets and muzzle flashes.
Aloha all! Quick update from the edit suites. I know the blog has been pretty slow at the moment but that should be about to change for a while. After having just come off of another shoot I've been working on for a while, I've been getting stuck into the Aurora edit and I must say the timing couldn't have been better. It's a really nice feeling being able to come back to the edit of a film with renewed enthusiasm and inspiration, and I've recently enjoyed spending a lot of late nights labelling clips and fine tuning a couple of scenes that hadn't been tweaked for a while.
As of Friday we've done a VFX lock off of the first 10minutes of the film. Whilst the opening 10minutes of the film could change slightly, it is essentially completed ready for visual effects and sound design after that. We've had a few VFX meetings recently and things are looking very promising indeed. I'll have more to report on that shortly, but in the meantime I thought I just give people a quick breakdown of what we've got left to do.
In late September we're shooting the last half day, quite a small scene with a very small crew. A location has already been found and we're waiting on availability of cast and crew to shoot, other than that, we're pretty good to go.
Visual Effects shots start as of tomorrow! Temporary shots have already been put in to the edit to work out timing etc, and I'll blog about that within the next few days.
With the first 10minutes cut, we're ready to start talking music which will happen shortly. This also frees me up to now cut the fight scene which I've been dying to do. I labelled clips for 3hours of the past couple of days, and only managed to label all of the fight stuff excluding the sword fight... there are a lot of shots to say the least.
Very much rubbing my hands together with glee at the project as it stands... we're moving in to heavy post production and will have the film ready for you at the New Year. Our thanks to everyone involved and to those who have been waiting a year and a half already... we're on the home stretch.
Aloha all! Whilst we're hard at work with all things Aurora, I thought I'd give people a taste of some of the images that are still to come out of our two days shooting at the Masonic Lodge. I'm not going to lie, I'm hugely relieved that the two days are over and that they were the success they were. The shooting of the climax is probably my favourite footage to come out of the film thus far, and will prove to be some of the most rewarding come the later stages of post production. Once all the gun effects are in place, alongside quick cutting and some great sound effects, it should be something really special. Below are a few images that I've taken out of the rushes, completely ungraded and untampered with. I look forward to being able to share more images very soon, including footage of VFX work later down the track. Thanks again to all for their generosity in creating this really special shoot.
There's gonna be a lot of blogs about the Freemasons shoot over the next month, but probably very little for the next week. Mainly because we're all so exhausted from such a gruelling shoot this weekend. So, being in the mood for dot points, I thought I would summarise the weekends shoot for all those that weren't there.
Where: Freemasons Grand Lodge, North Terrace
Awesomeness of location: Very Awesome
Flexibility of location: Excellent
Number of cast and crew: 40+
Hours of shooting: 25
Number of camera setups: 125!
Injuries: 6+ reports of bruising, 1 injured leg
Damaged equipment: Tripod spreader snapped, audio power cable broke, shock mount lead faulty (false alarm), audio battery failed, dedolight needed replacing, dedolight lead needs repair (all fixed now!), card 07 failed (needed to reshoot 2 shots, one in a million failure)
Summary: An absolutely gruelling, push-it-to-the-limit day of filming that resulted in some amazing footage and a great sense of accomplishment. Only a half-day shoot left now!
Aloha! Just a quick update on where we are currently at with the edit. As some people may or may not know I had been cutting the film from 'The Bat Cave' up in the hills by my lonesome for some time before Leigh Kenyon, a good friend and just as good an editor came on board to help tackle the huge task that is editing Aurora. As of late Leigh has been assembling all scenes I had yet to make rough cuts for so we could sit down together and look at how the film was looking. Last week we had a look at the rough cut so far which is currently sitting at 18minutes. Watching a rough cut is a weird experience and to be honest one I would not recommend to people who don't need to see it. It can be sloppy, hard to digest, and overall takes away a little bit from the magic of watching any film for the first time when it is completely polished. Because of this I've already declined requests to watch it from people who do not need to, its just not worth watching from a perspective of not knowing what is yet to come, and believe me theres a lot. Whilst looking at the edit I started to do a more specific visual effects breakdown of the production which is currently looking to be approximately 150 seperate VFX shots. Between the blue screens, lack of music, ungraded rushes and at times instances of complete black, there was definately a film worth watching and I look forward to not only finishing the shoot, but finishing the film which we hope to do as we celebrate the coming of the new year. Things are coming together nicely and, well, you'll see for yourselves...
Peter and Mark have been busy working with Garth on the choreography for the final Emerson VS LeMaher showdown. Check out some footage from their first rehearsal...
Aloha all! I thought I'd bring to the attention some of the stuff we're currently doing on the film. With the fight scene coming up in late July, we're currently gearing up for some rehearsals for our end duel. I'd like to officially welcome Garth Skippon on to the film as our fight choreographer. Garth is a Kung Fu instructor who will be teaching both Pete and Mark how to make the fight look cool without killing each other. We'll make sure to be posting images as we progress with them into rehearsals.
Recently we also put a wig on hold. One of our characters, the Attendant, played by Rohan Watts had to shave his hair for another show. Because of the long shooting schedule something like this was bound to happen. After looking at ways we could get around the noticable difference in hair, we've employed a mixture of clever shooting as well as a really good wig. When you see the wig by itself you honestly believe someone has scalped Rohan and put his head on display, its a great match. Thanks to Megan, one of our resident makeup magicians for sorting that problem out!
We also have a short documentary made by Jeremy and a couple of guys from his uni that will be going online soon. It takes a quick look at the early approach to the film as well as working out how it could be made for nothing, including the importance of volunteers. Its also an excuse for myself and Matt to sit back and look like big wigs.
Going for a review of what has been edited so far later next week, will report back with news!
On a shoot like Aurora, you occasionally realise just how awesome the people around you really are. Not only is everybody on the film doing it for free, but they're giving up their own time they could be using to do any other number of things, for example, making money... or going on a holiday. I wanted to bring to attention the commitment of one person in particular this week who has gone out of her way to help us in what is a really difficult shoot logistically. Elka not only has stayed with us for a number of days working for free as a featured extra, but has just changed her overseas holiday plans so that she can arrive back home in Australia a week early to make sure shes there for the final Aurora days. Coming back from an overseas holiday a week early?! Are you crazy?! The verdict is still out... all I know is we're eternally grateful for support like this which has happened so often during this shoot. Its because of people like this that make the film possible. Thanks as always.
I just want to say that I pretty much concur with Chris on the storyboards thing. The biggest piece of advice I give directors is to plan as much as possible in advance, but plan in a way so that, on the day, plans can go out the window and you're ready to deal with those spontaneous moments of genius that all too often reveal themselves.
Now onto business. I can reveal now that the Mansion scene (the last major scene to be shot) will be on the 25th and 26th July, and take place in the Freemasons hall on Nth Terrace. Those that know the location know that it is a beautiful old building, and the Freemasons have been very generous in waiving the location fee for us.
This will be the most logistically complicated day by far for this film, and perhaps on any Urtext film. Actors and crew are now locked in, and we are in the process of getting extras for the big shootout. We're also looking to organise a third camera for the shoot.
So everybody sit tight, it's a little wait until the next big day, but it look like everything's slotting in nicely.
Aloha all! Been a little while since the last post but I'm pleased to announce there will be a few more posts over the next week or two. As the final dates of shooting approach I'm put back into storyboarding and choreographing fight scenes.
Storyboarding has been something used only sparingly on Aurora. I quite like storyboards usually but this project didn't seem to really have a huge need for them. The main use for storyboarding or atleast shot listing scenes has been so Rosie can schedule the days before we shoot, other than that most of the time the shooting process involves me and Aaron talking once we get to set and working out things from there. Each scene has a few key shots however that I always like to get on the day, and below are some examples. Usually its a master wide shot that covers everything so I atleast know in the edit we can always move back to it. I found a 45 shot storyboarded sequence on my computer tonight, described in detail and even put into a previz animatic. The scene depicted a chase that happens in Newport, the market we shot at last. For those that were there on the shoot, you'll know that there was no chase scene... the scene was rewritten and the 45shot sequence so carefully planned out was basically made redundant. One of the reasons storyboarding can be a pain when theres not a storyboard artist as such. In the past I have brought in Dylan or Jeremy to draw a couple of sketches here and there, but usually storyboarding involves me at home drawing really terrible stick figure drawings to either show to a couple of people in the crew, or just to help myself understand the image I'm thinking of. The images below are occasions where really poor storyboards have been used to describe key moments of certain scenes. What I love about these images is that they are so extremely poor, and yet the final images look pretty cool. More than anything I think this is confirmation that everyone on the crew is speaking the same language and highly skilled at interpreting my crap.
The final fight scene is currently being fully storyboarded and choreographed. Whilst it is a large amount of effort to go to, it is necessary because these two days of filming are particularly difficult and differ from previous days of shooting. Time management is going to be far more important for this shoot so we need to be prepared as possible. To do this, we start off by taking the script and choreographing the scene. Jim and myself have been choreographing the general fight scene whilst a choreographer is coming in to choreograph the sword duel. The choreography that Jim and I plan out basically involves us looking at a floor plan of the building and working out what has to happen for certain story beats to be met. To be honest it involves a lot of me running around getting excited throwing my arms around and making sound effects. Below is an example of one of the floor plans. Corresponding plans depict arrows and colour coded movements.
After each 'event' as we call them is drawn up, I do a break down of the number of shots I think it will require so Matt and Rosie can look at how many days of shooting it will take in order to maxamise the quality but also the feasability, locations aren't always free and some can be charged by the hour. Rosie then schedules the days accordingly and I continue to storyboard each shot. This is definately a scene we want to have completely storyboarded and be prepared for because once we get shooting its going to be pretty wild. I don't want to give away too many things about the fight scene yet, needless to say theres a reason I picked 'even 3' as the floor plan to show because in the action description is says 'Emerson kicks ass' and theres a reason for it...
