K.I.S.S.

In spending time thinking about the shooting schedule, how we only have two evenings, and how many shots & angles there are, I realized it doesn't make any sense to move about to different islands. We'll just make Turn Island do it all. Camp fires be darned - we'll use the camp stove...

Story Boards

Finally figured out the Storyboards app on the iPad. Phew! Thought I might have to draw it by hand.

A little note about the props: there isn't a camp stove or flashlight in the app, so I substituted a laptop and bottle. Use your imagination...

This is the second attempt - I put the original "slideshow" together with Windoze movie maker - which doesn't play well with the iPad. So, here's one created with Final Cut on a Mac. Let's hope this one does better.

Control the Beast

There has to be a way to control the camera (on the gymbal posted earlier) when it's out on the jib, or on the wire. So, I gutted an old Futaba "Super Seven" transmitter for the brains, a TV from the local "one stop shopping" store, some anodized aluminum & plastic clad fiberboard, a hinge and bolts from the hardware store, and eureka! A control station for the DP.

The idea is a suitcase like thing that protects the controls and monitor in transit and that opens up on arrival, ready for use.

Crew now Forming

We have an actor for "Young Eric"! His name is Tyler, he's 20, and loves to boat. He's a bit of a ham, so he won't be shy in front of the camera.

So, that means "Old Eric" will be me, and David Weed can go on behaving as himself. (I had designs on David playing the part of "Old Eric" 'cause I had someone in mind to play "Young Eric" that looked a lot more like David than me. That hasn't panned out, so back to plan "A". David is a fine boat captain too, so when we need a driver of the shooting platform - he's the man.

My brother, Tim, will play "Tim" and also double as skiff wrangler (it's his boat), camera operator, sound man, and all-round useful guy.

John Meloy has signed on to do it all: camera, sound, and whatever else comes up - like cooking steaks? He's good at that too.

Steve Work is there with enthusiasm. All around smart and creative we'll put him to work holding a mic boom and equipment setup.

Updated:
Lance Cadena has volunteered his time too. He'll be doing the behind the scenes capturing, so when this vid goes viral, we'll have some teaser stuff to go with it.

Shoot Schedule

June 1~3, 2012
The majority of you have spoken - the first weekend of June is the most widely available.

Here's some interesting tidal info:
  Saturday, June 2
  Saturday, June 9

Note that higher tide is of value in the evening. We need access to the beach, and ability to move boats around inside Little Turn - and that cove get's "lumpy" when the water goes away.

Change of Plans

Ok, there's going to be shooting at Turn Island. That'll still be location of the beach where "Young Eric" comes ashore and then get's chased off by his imagination.

But, I scouted it this weekend and learned that fires are no longer allowed anywhere on the island. Camp stoves, yes, but not camp fires. Or beach fires. And, a fire is pretty important to the "sitting around the campsite telling scary stories" atmosphere that makes up the "outer story".

We're looking into Shaw Island as an alternative location for the outer story.

Let's do all of the inner story at Turn island - forget trying to move all the way up to Matia for what would otherwise be only a couple of shots. If we frame it right, pretty much any island will do.

Hardware

We'll be using cameras & lenses. Natch.

I've got a couple of Canon 7Ds with lenses from 14 ~ 200mm. Even got some great old glass from my Pop that he used with his Contax. The 25 & 135 are especially sweet.

Since a bit of the footage needs to be shot on the water, from a moving boat (note to self: finish the story so that part is obvious), and we don't want the viewer(s)* getting seasick, the camera should be stabilized.

So, I'm building a 3-axis gyro-stabilized mount around a 7D.

The thing it's not yet attached to, nor seen in the photos, is a trolly that'll hang from an aluminum extension ladder. (We're gonna need a ladder anyway for shooting up in the trees, might as well make it pay for itself in as many ways as possible). It'll hang out from the deck of Favorite so we can shoot "young Eric" from a variety of low angles ahead/alongside/behind him as he runs his skiff over the water.

The "trolly" also has motorized wheels so it can crawl a line stretched through the woods, spider-cam style.

This whole gadget is radio controlled, with a video downlink so we can frame the shots. I have all the bits here - just need to complete the assembly. I don't have a good enough monitor, nor is the video signal HD, so we won't be able to pull focus accurately on the image, but if there's enough time set aside to get this thing done, we can pull focus to pre-determined points.

Here it is so far:

* There might be 3 viewers besides the group of us film-makers...