AJ and I finished off the choreography today. I had built a tenth scale model of the set – those of you who haven’t seen any of the videomatics can only guess at the staggering quality of this model – so we used that to block out the action, rather than exerting ourselves with sticks as before. We came up with some pretty good gags (not the “ha ha” kind).
The main reason for building the model is to shoot photo-boards, i.e. photographed storyboards. With the fight choreography now fixed, I can be far more specific in my shot decisions than when the original videomatic was filmed at Christmas 2006.
Meanwhile, I’m talking to casting directors. Gradually, the snowball starts to, er, snowball.

I’ve been pretty busy the last month or so, moving house and travelling all over the place. It’s amazing how slow filmmaking can be. I once met a man who took eleven years to make a feature, and I’m beginning to see how I might break his record.
Earlier this week AJ and I got together to lock down the sword choreography for the first sequence of the pilot. It was just the two of us, so I had to “fight” him with a metal stick. I needed to get it on camera because neither of us knows the terminology or notation to write the moves down.
Soul Searcher‘s doing well in the States. Loose Cannon seem to have given it a pretty good push. And it’s been picked up for distribution in Indonesia too. I can’t wait to watch a dubbed version of it some day. I shall be very amused.

I’m getting quotes for a special costume, a Victorian biosuit. I’ve started to think about casting too.
Ian and his girlfriend and I went to an open evening at a special FX company last night. There were gremlins, a rubber car battery, that pesky BBC 2 logo, a giant quarterback, Audrey II in a range of sizes. One man made it snow. Another got set on fire. Watching a body burn stunt in the flesh is really quite scary.
Amongst the pyromaniacs demonstrating explosions, who should I find but Toby Stewart, the man who blew up the train for Soul Searcher. He’s still making things go pop and whoomph.

So the flower opened for a day, then dropped off. Strange, I thought. Then Ian looked on the intermanet; it turns that’s what they’re supposed to do: Morning Glory flowers only last for a day. D’oh!

The first flowers have appeared on the Morning Glory.
Progress on the pilot is incredibly slow at the moment, so I’m working on more videomatics.

The flat is turning into a jungle of Morning Glory. One of them was as tall as me until I gave it the chop.
Just a reminder that Soul Searcher is screening on film night at the Bristol International Comic Expo on Friday May 9th – book your tickets now.

Slowly the Morning Glory are taking over the flat. Soon they’ll be communicating through sinister clicking sounds. Some we’re training to cascade, others to climb. Today we erected strings with toilet roll tubes on for the latter category. Some of the cascading plants are on a wooden board propped up with VHS copies of my first feature.
In other news, I finished the latest videomatic, which won’t be appearing on this site because it gives too much away; The Model Unit have made a hollow hand for the Swordsman, enabling finer control of his weapon, and Katie’s design for Kara’s costume is coming on nicely.

Our Morning Glory are a foot high and trying to escape.
Last week Ian and Hank and I met up with a potential art director. We latter two knew nothing about building sets, and we were duly illuminated. Hank suggested hiring a lock-up garage and going on scavenging runs to collect materials. Whether this will happen in a van painted in the A Team style is more than I can say.
Today I continue work on another videomatic, the seventh so far. Last Wednesday the living room was filled with another high quality miniature – this one made from C-stands, bin bags, tissue paper, a pillow and a paper lantern. At one point I represented a matte painting by cutting a hole in one of Ian’s illustrations (not an original, I hasten to add) and shooting through it. The scene called for a duplicate of a female character, necessitating purchases from a discounted range of Pirates of the Caribbean action figures. Although there was only one Keira Knightley left on the shelf, there were two girly-haired Orlando Blooms, so it’s old Legoland who stars in the videomatic.