As noted a post or two ago, we were back in Almonte last weekend for the first shooting day of Legend of Oz. After the shooting day wrapped, we took the time to take a quick visit over to former Tribe Erdini, which got me thinking about all the work that went into setting up those tribes.Erdini, for those unfamiliar, was our major tribe location. In story terms, the people of Erdini were central in the fight against Mora. They played host to Crow and a lot happened in their tribe. Of our four standing sets (Tribes Erdini, Volunti, and Brittany Plus Mora’s Fortress Tara) we spent as much time in Erdini as the other three put together. [7 days in total, as opposed to 3.5 in Volunti, 2 in Brittany, and 1 in Tara.]
All of those standing sets were set-up at the Almonte location. It was a farm owned by the family of a friend of mine who were gracious enough to have us out over the summer. Not actually in Almonte, the property was about 10-15 minutes west, making the total drive from Ottawa close to 40 minutes in total. It was a long commute but well worth it considering the vista we got – the kind of production value you can’t buy.
The good news is that it wasn’t an active farm. They weren’t doing anything with it, so it sat idle. Which was also the bad news. The grass was tall, thick [usually wet] and it needed to be cleared before we could do anything else.
Now the property was big enough that our three tribes were set up in different fields at different times with different landmarks, and – luckily for us – the production schedule had us shooting with the smallest of them first. We went into Brittany a bit unprepared and learned not to do that again. We flattened an area maybe 30-40 feet in diameter. We did it by hand, on the day of shooting, using the old crop circle method of foot and board. It took a while. Volunti was a little over twice the size of Brittany but we were smart enough this time to do a bit of the work before hand. In both cases there was a split between having everybody (cast and crew) working on the tribes and leaving some of them to continue the work while we shot related scenes elsewhere. We did have a schedule to keep.
When it came time for Erdini, we knew what was in store and wanted very much to get something mechanized in play for the grass clearing. Erdini was going to be double again the size of Volunti; well over 150 feet in diameter. The best we got was my friend spending a couple of hours doing donuts on an ATV that had a weighted board tied to its back. It got about 50% of the work done.
We ended up holding a “Half-way through shooting, let’s set-up Erdini potluck-BBQ” on the 4th of July (we started shooting in Erdini on the 5th). All of our cast was invited but our numbers only totalled about 13 [and that included family members of the attending cast]. To those 13 went the task of clearing grass, cleaning up and restoring the firepit, packing up Volunti and moving the tents to Erdini [after we found them] and starting The Covering.
Let me tell you about The Covering. The foundation of our tribes were these tents – the tribes were nomadic after all. The tents were Canadian Tire bought and were a bit, shall we say, modern for our needs. The fix was to buy a mass of brown fabric and cover the tents in it. Kind of animal hide-ish, kind of just earth-tone fabric. Time being our great enemy, we never really sat down, measured the tents, and created proper “costumes”. Instead the pieces were cut and loosely sewn together creating coverings that fit with mixed success.
We’d also learned early on that the fabric put weight on the tents that they hadn’t been designed to support. And that that weight was greatly increased when the fabric was wet. And that the wind of Almonte created greater stresses still. [We didn't, however, learn that early enough and we lost many tents plus a gazebo along the way.] So by Erdini time, we were pulling the coverings down and collapsing the tents at the end of every shooting day. Then, at the beginning of every shooting day we would raise the tents and re-cover them.
Not to mention we didn’t have enough fabric to fully cover every tent so between every scene we had to adjust the coverings to cover the parts of the tents we would see on camera. It was a horrible, horrible job, especially when the fabric was wet.
Then there was the gazebo, which itself had to covered, raised, and collapsed every day. Let the good times roll.
Ultimately it was all worthwhile because Erdini looked pretty great, but it was a lot of work. Kudos goes out to the entire tribe-dwelling cast and crew who did the job day after day without (much) complaint.
Erdini was active from July 4th through August 2, 2008 and on July 18th, 2009, barely a trace of us remained.
Win, Nature.
Leave us a comment - especially if you were there. Then check out the production stills of Tribe Erdini and everything else over on the Untamed Lands Facebook page.
Some days are inevitably slow. By one, or usually a variety of factors, things start to fall behind, the schedule crumbles, and the day drags on.
Saturday (July 25), AKA Shooting Day 2, was one of those days. Everybody was in good spirits, the weather held out well, but it was a long, slow day.
Now, going over schedule is something that tends to happen here and there. Sometimes it’s just what you have to do to get everything done that you need to get done. Given the choice of going over an hour or adding another shooting day to try and pick things up later, running late is the lesser of two evils. But if you’re likely not going to get everything done even if you do go over, then don’t do it. There’s nothing worse than running late for nothing. Call it a day and plan to start fresh later.
This had become one of -those- days.
It’s impossible to point to any specific thing and say that’s the reason. I could list off some factors, certainly, but each on their own would have mostly manageable. [Making it a going over but getting it done kind of day.] Put them all together and…
Let’s talk about what we did get done instead. We were shooting Dot’s arrival in Oz. The Woods of Munchkinland to be specific. As you might expect, her arrival resulted in the death of Ester, the wicked witch and ruler of Munchkinland – saving Boq and Portia (seen above) in the process.
We were out on the trails where there are occasionally other nature loving hikers. The young actress who plays Portia announced to each of them. “Hi. We’re making a movie.” I don’t know that they all heard her, but I’m sure some did. Shooting out where other people just happen to pass by has given more than a couple of them, I’m sure, interesting stories to tell when they got home.
We also got our first shots of our other witches, Locasta and Wester. They looked great and you can see a couple of production stills, as always, on Facebook. (You don’t need to have a Facebook account to see the photos but if you do have an account, take a second to click “Become a Fan”.)
Now think about this. Dot’s been transported out to the woods a long way from where she was where she’s instantly accused of killing a woman she’s never seen before by two other women who can teleport around at will and who seem to be fighting over her.
How do you think you’d react in Dot’s shoes? What would you draw on to stay strong? And what would your plan be to get home or even figure out where home was?
Answers go in the comments and next week (since we’re not shooting) I’ll update you on rehearsals and fight planning.
Posted 1 year, 1 month ago at 11:14 am. Add a comment
Rain. It’s wet, it’s cold, and it’s uncontrollable. When you have a tight schedule to meet, and you’re working outdoors, you have to work with it – and in it – as much as possible.The only things that provide real barriers are (1) when there are weather continuity issues between or within scenes (2) if there’s extreme downpour, and (3) where there’s the rare instance where scenes really can’t support the rain.
Which is why things looked bleak on Saturday morning when all three of those were on the table.
But I wasn’t being fooled. Last year, we woke up to heavy thunderstorms on the second day of shooting and with no signs of reprieve in our future, we called the day a wash. By noon, the clouds had parted and the sun was out. It rained again in the late afternoon but we could have gotten a half day’s work done.
Lesson learned, mother nature. Lesson learned.
On this first shooting day for Legend of Oz (July 18, 2009), there was no thought of cancellation. Our shooting location was a farm 40 minutes out of Ottawa – just west of Almonte – and we were going out there to wait it out, find a way to shoot everything we possibly could, and worry about the rest later. [Which is kind of one of our guiding principles for problem solving - push on through it.]
Just before leaving, I was trying to get the walkie-talkies to work properly and the voice of God told me that in {a long list of surrounding areas} the heavy rain would stop in late morning giving way to overcast and isolated showers in the afternoon. [In all likelihood, it was probably a frequency for automated weather reporting, but I'll stick with the voice of God theory for now.]
The rain virtually stopped while we loaded the production vehicle, drove to our rendezvous, and headed out together to the location – skipping the highway and taking the long way in the process.
We set up our base camp in a bit of shade – yes, there was sun now – just in time for it start pouring. We very quickly relocated into an empty shed. It turned out that that downpour was just a little practical joke from mother nature to celebrate our first day of shooting because within 30 minutes the sun came out, shortly followed by the sun block, and we had variable cloudiness all morning.
It didn’t rain again until just as we broke for lunch, and in the afternoon we did get some isolated showers – but we were shooting interiors so we stayed dry while we waited them out.
Two things to understand about these interior scenes. First, raindrops on aluminum siding rooftops make for bad audio. Second, these interior scenes were in sequence with the exterior scenes which meant that we still relied on weather continuity.
All that to say, we had a great day considering how things could have turned out. [Or, had we not leanred our lesson last year and cancelled the day.]
We shot six and a half pages marking both the beginning and end of the movie , got to see how our new production unit worked together, and wrapped on time – which in itself, is pretty special.
Untamed Lands is still alive. With all the hoopla going on in these parts related to Legend of Oz, it might be easy to think that it’s been forgotten but that’s not the case. Post-production has naturally slowed down a little bit while the production unit for Oz gears up, but Ottawa summers only last so long and we have a limited window for outdoor shooting.
Nonetheless, things are still being worked on. Business and marketing plans continue to develop and our focus is on making sure we can take advantage of opportunities as they start to come up. We’re also, largely as part of this, about to do a bit of shooting and put together a new promo video/trailer which should be online in the near future.
That’s where things are now, but where were they a year ago? I’ve done a couple of these Untamed Lands Flashbacks on Facebook and on Twitter but here’s the first flashback blog post.
July 12, 2008. A Saturday. We were in Tribe Erdini [actually a property out near Almonte, ON] for a day in which VG’s absence (VG Winter played Roarke) limited what we could shoot. Had to write his presence out of a small scene but all-in-all it’s not an easy task to fill a day of tribe shooting when the tribe chief is AWOL. For Ian (Quick, who played Crow) this would be the day that an overzealous extra lightly brained him with a club. One of many injuries which will probably come out in the fullness of time.
July 13, 2008. Naturally, the Sunday. We started the day out in Stony with audio problems. By the time they were fixed, it was raining. Normally, we’d shoot anyway – unless it’s a downpour we work through – but in this case we were scheduled to shoot continuations of scenes that we’d shot the beginning of in bright, searing sunlight. So, yeah.
Quick note to set the stage for the rest of this story: Under the canopy in the swamp the rain was barely noticeable. In the clearing, 100 feet away, where we were supposed to shoot, this would not have been the case.
Rather than waste the morning, we got creative. What started off as a genuine interest in recording chant audio from our Hoods quickly devolved into tomfoolery [which is what happens when we're not on schedule]. There were remixes, chorus lines, bobblehead-ing and semi-improv’d skits all resulting in the funniest “out-takes” to come out of Untamed Lands. Everybody reading this who was there [or who has had the pleasure of watching the edited featurette] is either doing an embarrassed facepalm or is smiling, possibly laughing, at the remembrance.
Once we finished that, I put the cast through a surprise exercise. The concept was simple. Somehow, television had invaded your little part of ancient Ireland and your character was being given two minutes to explain their position. It was shot “live”, with no pauses, no second takes, and no preparation. [Okay, three-minute's preparation. I'm not heartless.]
I repeated the exercise on another day with the Erdini group expanding the concept and letting them talk about anything for their two minutes. And so you know, each interview was done in private and the cast sworn to secrecy so that nobody had any more preparation than anybody else. Everybody I put it to did a great job and we came away with some really diverse results. We’ll be putting the videos out for promotion as we get closer to releasing Untamed Lands but to this date only three people have seen them all.
After lunch, the sun came out and we shot our last two scenes of the day. In the end we turned what might have been an otherwise dreadful day into something fun and productive. Lemonade and all that.
And that’s where we were last year.
I’ll probably put the cast through that soapbox exercise again this year and while it won’t be a surprise if they’re reading this, they’ll get no warning about when it will happen.
Posted 1 year, 1 month ago at 10:34 pm. Add a comment
If you haven’t heard, we’re doing this little movie called Legend of Oz. It’s a contemporary update to the classic children’s book “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” and isn’t an adaptation so much as a retelling of the story using modern science fiction concepts and social structures. It’s an evolution of the story for a new generation.
The urban fantasy is still about a young woman trying to get home after being transported to the faraway land of Oz, but now Dot (Dorothy) is just into her twenties and an almost Buffy the Vampire Slayer-esque, diamond in the rough, type super-heroine. Her time in Oz and quest to get home teams her up with a genetically-engineered hyper-human, a cyborg with the soul of a man, plus a human-lion hybrid and pits her squarely opposite wicked tyrants and their minions in an epic fight with all of Oz on the line.
You can get more synopsisy information back on our website.
As we continue to roll through production, we’re setting things up so that you can follow the production as it happens – pretty much live. We’re going to be posting regular updates to this blog and on Facebook, uploading behind the scenes photos and videos to our Flickr and YouTube accounts, tweeting from the set, and letting you interact with us on any one of them.
We’re all pretty excited to bring this project to life and we want you to be there right with us. [Don't worry. We aren't going to spoil any of the surprises or twists in the story.]
Principal photography starts on July 18th, which is coming up way too quickly, but before we can go forward, we need to get you caught up. Here’s the previously on:
- We’ve run our way through the two-round audition process and selected our wonderful cast. Check out the cast announcement for those details.
- We had our table read which was both a lot of fun and one of the few times the cast will be together in such a large group.
- The ongoing ordeals our cast is facing before we can take them to camera are fight training and rehearsals.
Fight Training: In case it wasn’t mentioned [and reading back, it wasn't], Legend of Oz is kind of an action movie. There are quite a few fight scenes and we’ve been working the cast pretty hard [at least harder then they're used to] to get them trained up and, most importantly, to make sure they’ll be safe.
Four Sundays of training behind them (you can check out more photos over on Flickr) we start into choregraphy of actual fights this week.
Rehearsals: We’ve had three fun days of rehearsals so far (again, photos on Flickr). The cast is starting to get to know each other better as we work out scenes and talk more about backstory and relationships. And eat cookies.
And in a nutshell, that’s where we’re at. This coming weekend, we have another Saturday of rehearsals and then it’s back to the Taekwondo school on Sunday. I’ll leave you here with the first “60 Seconds Behind the Scenes” clip from our July 5th rehearsals.
Update: The Flickr photos aren’t fully online yet. They’ll be going online over the next couple of days.
Posted 1 year, 2 months ago at 10:39 pm. Add a comment
We’re starting “The Way the Wind Blows” as another way for us to talk to you [our fans and friends] and keep you informed about what’s going on with Valley Wind Productions.
The coverage here will be two topics.
1) Whatever we can [at least loosely] connect to production. Things like what Valley Wind Productions is doing, the production process, production in Ottawa, and so on.
2) Scriptwriting/storytelling – which is pretty much the foundation of all production and my primary skillset.
Specifically, at least for the next couple of months, coverage will largely be the production of Legend of Oz, our contemporary update to the classic “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz“. We’ll be covering the production as it happens here, on Facebook, Flickr, and YouTube, so you and everybody can follow us from beginning (or this moment on, anyway) to end. We’re creating a new Oz for a new generation and you can be there as it happens.
[I'm not too sure but this might be the first movie production covered so completely and almost live using social media.]
I’ll be the primary author but just so you don’t get too tired of hearing from me, I’m going to bring in some other posters from time-to-time. There’s a semi-open invitation to to the actors or crew who’ve worked with us on Untamed Lands or are currently working on Legend of Oz to talk about their experience, life on the set, or whatever and once in a while, maybe we’ll see a guest post from some other folks making a go in the Ottawa industry.
Just as important, this blog is another way for you to talk to us – and each other. Ask us questions or suggest topics. If there’s somebody you want to hear from or something you want to hear about, let us know. Reply to existing posts and just plain contribute to discussions.
So, welcome to the blog. Thanks or stopping by and be sure to say hello once in a while.
And if you haven’t already, check out the following links:
