All the crew and cast turned up promptly on the first day, except the director, who came down with flu the day before: typical. It transpired that the crew and cast had no need for his services anyway and Alex and the mo-cap team soon had everything up and running with the fitting and calibrating of the borrowed VICON super cameras. They provided fantastic coverage of all 4 actors at once, even with our set props occluding some of the action. No mean feat. This was a massive relief, as we hadn’t tested any of this kit and if it hadn’t worked with all 4 actors and set, we would have had a very short shoot! Meanwhile the rest of the crew got the actors suited up and tested out shot process with call sheets,props, set, facial cameras and audio and made ready to roll for the next days shooting. The following days saw us finally getting our teeth into shooting the film, and with some great performances down (including some splendid “wolf” fights on day 1) We got a good few of the early scenes in the bag. By Friday the set was running like a well oiled professional film shoot, which is testament to the hard work and dedication of all involved, as it’s a particularly complex process performance capture: It involves separate audio, facial and body capture with all the attendant umbilical cords and re application of face dots and markers etc. having be coordinated simultaneously. The sickly director dragged his sorry frame in on day 2 and croaked his way through the weeks directing, whilst attempting to not infect the actors and crew. Time will tell how successful the later was, fingers crossed. By Friday every one was tired but excited, as it has been a fantastic first week. Let’s hope it all goes as well in week 2.
Paul
