Hey Gordon,
Great job. It really isn't easy doing what you are doing, so my hat's off to you. I am curious about the technical stuff you are using. What type of camera? Are you going with wireless mics? What kind? Did you build the sets? How many puppeteers do you have?
Thanks.
- Kanja
We're "punting".
Its all rather new to us as a group, so we're re-inventing the wheel quite a bit.
We are shooting on HD. But all taht technical stuff as to video formats is beyond me, so I leave it up to my production partner Michael Heagle. He has made two independent films that are in distribution (Go To ****, and Planetfall). He's got the tech end of stuff pretty covered. He's also editing and generating all the effects shots in the computer.
I WISH we had wireless mics. As it stands we've had to ADR everything from our scratch track to elimnate laughter and talking and all manner of background noises. We've salvaged a little bit of the dialogue, but it's such a pain to clean up the sound. We WILL be getting wireless head mics for episode 2 if I have anything to say about it.
I built most of the practical sets with the help of a great scenic painter. But we're cheating at every turn. Some sets are miniatures used with greenscreen puppet footage. Some sets are strictly CGI with pupets on greenscreen. Some sets are practical, real elevated flats.
And puppeteers... theres Amber and Me and Charles and Lazslo and Ben and Michael and Liz. So, the count so far is six. We double up for the non-standard characters and sometimes I even stand in for main cast folks when they can't make it to the shoot and we ADR them later.
We are VERY CLOSE to having the pilot all sewn up. We are basically done except for the music and the opening credit sequence which is supposed to be animated. But we're relying on folks outside the main group for that stuff so we may have to "punt" again VERY soon.
-Gordon