Inspirit

Saturday, July 28, 2007

Response to recent comments

As I'm continuing development of the screenplay today this blog entry will be dedicated to comments. Yes, your feedback does get taken into consideration so keep it coming!

From Gigh to Gui
Renaming "Gigh" to "Gui" doesn't seem popular and I think I agree. My inspiration behind the name "Gui" was the artist Gui Bonsiepe, however last night this ran through my head: "Gui the tree" which I think sounds a bit sill-y.

But I don't think we can call him "Gite" (pronounced Git) because in certain English dialects (including the locale one here) "Git" in fact means "a foolish or contemptible person" .

For example in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, Jack Sparrow calls Davey Jones a "slimey git" as a means of insult.

Now I could have sworn "Gillian" was a female name but there's a similiar male name "Gideon". Although we could shorten "Gillian" to "Gill", I suppose it really depends how well the name flows when Panache cries "GILL! What are you doing to him!"*
* Yes, that line has been extended since the previous version of the screenplay.

Gigh growing from the tree
This effect is only in its infancy so its a bit hard to say what will happen here, though I will say the final version will look 100 times better than the latest one here. It will definitely be a lot more cohesive and the tree will sprout leaves before revealing Gigh.

I'm not sure if having him fall to the ground will work with the envisioned sequence but its something I could toy with. As soon as Panache seems him alive she rushes over and wraps her arms round him, that may work better standing but I'm not sure yet.

Panache approaches the megalith
Yes, it probably would be good if you (Panached) found a way to walk less hobbled over the tussocks. Maybe we'll need to cut a couple down to ensure they don't interfer with your walking.

Recording the sound voices
I would do this if I could be guarenteed the voices would be in sync with the mouths. But for this to happen the actors would have to perform their lines identically how to the take used in the final edit. I'm not sure if we can achieve that given we don't have professional resources. Imagine how bad it would look if the voice was out sync with the lips!

I think the safest way to do this is to invest in a portable sound recorder and get some form of external microphone which can be positioned near the actors. I'll have to look into that next week.

So a big thank you Bec, Phil and whoever else has taken the time write!

Friday, July 27, 2007

Possible changes to the cast

Today we didn't some more screen tests, this time with Guy.

First I tested him in is intended role which he seemed a bit unsure of. He seemed to develop a fondness for the Mr. Trollins character so I allow him to do an audition to which he provided a better performance. Since its more likely that Guy will play Mr. Trollins the roll of Gigh will need to be recast.

Bec recommends a fellow by the name of Neil, here's what he looks like...

I think Neil looks more suited to the role of Gigh which I'll probably rename to Gui (pronounced "gee") to minimize confusion wih the actual Guy.

Be expecting captures of those screen tests very soon...

Thursday, July 26, 2007

Guy Reincarnation Tests

Its important to conduct some early tests of the reincarnation effect because I have absolutely no idea how to achieve it. The reason this tests are so important is because I need to know which shots to film on location.

Once again YouTube has trimmed them from 16:9 to 4:3.

Step #1

Step #2

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Panache Screen Test/Audition

On Saturday 21st Bec and I conducted some screen tests at the first location we're planning to shoot at. We also incoporated her audition into these tests and they gave us a very good insight into the problems we're going to face shooting at that particular location.

The two most significant problems are:

The location faces north so during the middle of the day the sun beams directly down at the camera causing lens flares and washed out footage. We're going to have to shoot late afternoon after the sun drops behind the hills to avoid this.
There is a busy road nearby and the traffic is picked up by the microphone. A shotgun microphone might help to reduce this but a boom microphone might be even better. Failing that the sound track may have to incorporate the background noise.

Aside from that my camera work is terrible and some of the shots involve dialogue or interaction with another character. As there were no other actors or stand-ins Bec had to image them.

The blog entries have been arranged in anti-chronological order so when you scroll down you're seeing the screen tests in the order they appear in the script.

Finally, these videos are in 16:9 aspect but YouTube "cuts" them down to 4:3 and heavily compresses so their quality isn't very good.