Stormy Tempest: Unmasked

Howdy, folks! Our intention is to blog our way through the production of Stormy Tempest: Unmasked. The goal is to release this newest film on January 31, 2010 and to detail some of our efforts in this blog. In general, we envision our films as "live action comic books" that we would LIKE to be able to release on a monthly basis. So far, our fastest production was just over two months, but it was much more complicated, requiring a great deal of greenscreen. This film, by design, should be less complicated. The question is: Can we do it in 30 days, the same pace as is required for a monthly comic book? Keep reading this blog to find out!
- - - - John

When we finish a shoot, Bill always sends out a review to the crew letting us know how the footage turned out, so we'll kick off the production blog with his letter.

From Bill Black...

EVALUATION OF THE STORMY TEMPEST: UNMASKED SHOOT

On Dec 31 I transferred all the footage from camera into Premiere Pro and watched all of it. Problem areas were minimal. The picture quality was exceedingly sharp, more so, it looked to me, than on previous productions. This was shot in DV and not HD and yet the resolution seemed durn near HD. Shooting in the woods with sun filtering thru trees presents an exposure nightmare in that it is impossible to get even exposure thruout the frame, esp since Stormy is WHITE and CLAYTON is black. That said, this all came out amazingly well, much like NYOKA. The sharpness of picture was partly due to the fact that I consciously keep the shutter speed at 125 or higher. Most was shot in the 180 range with some going up to 1000 of a second. The color, for the most part looked great.

The sound worked fine both in the cockpit and in the woods. There was no audible hum or hiss that I could discern. Sound levels of voices seem workable thruout with no noticibly low volume areas. Of course there was all kinds of extraneous noise picked up that we did not want (cars, people, leaf blowers, planes) during the outdoor shoot. Some scenes may have to be dubbed because of that. Many scenes were shot MOS. I'm assuming those did not have dialogue but that will be determined in editing. When I remembered to unplug the cordless mike receiver, the camera mike worked just fine. When I DID NOT turn off the receiver and Mark DID turn off the boom mike, I got incredible static sounds. If those scene were without dialogue, that no problem. Otherwise, they must be dubbed.

There were a few one-take scenes where cars, houses or people appeared in the background. Most notably these: (1) When Clayton straddles Stormy on the ground, car can be seen in bottom left of frame. However the picture resolution was so sharp that I was able to crop out the car and expand the picture with back to full WS frame without any noticible loss of quality. At least not on my 22" HD monitor. (2) When Stormy wakes up in woods about 3 mins into first reel and calls for "Ship?", the mike cord can be seen at very top of frame. I'm sure the same remedy can be applied. It's not the boom that can be seen but the little cord from the shotgun mike which was disconnected when we attached lapel mike. That cord dangles down so I must remember next time to tape it to the boom. (3) Ditto mike cord when Stormy says "Looks like I just found my ride..."

When the batteries died there was no disruption of quality. The picture remains perfect then just stops. That's good. Footage with the small Sony was not nearly the quality of the big Sony of course. Much of that footage was the sword fight so it will be cut into brief snippets anyway. Color and even exposure are not comparable to the FX1 but can be adjusted in Premiere. Sound with that camera was fine. Normally when using the camera mike, the sound has a bit of a tinny or hollow quality but not so much outdoors.

The performances were just GREAT! Nicola is so dad-burned PURTY!!!! I was really happy that this script allowed Nicola many scenes without her mask. Looks to me like this will cut together well. I don't know that we missed any scenes but it doesn't seem like we did. Pierson, I believe has established a new iconic image with that combination hood, goggles and hat. I know it was hell to wear that gear, but it sure paid off. I saw no problem with the performances at all. It all looked very good and true to character.

I can't wait to see it cut together. I believe we have another winner here. And we have some cool, funny scenes for the blooper reel! The alteration in the costume, ahem, greatly altered the entire space-time continnum... to our advantage, of course.

So, THANKS, EVERYBODY, for a great job very well done! We succeeded in doing another complete movie in a day and a half!

John's Notes: Stormy Tempest: Unmasked was shot on December 29th, 2009 for 5 hours (cockpit scenes and greenscreen) and December 30th, 2009 for 8 hours (on location in the woods). On December 31st, Bill reviewed the footage and created a digital copy. On January 1st 2010, I picked the footage up from Bill and began to review the footage in preparation for a first edit of the film.