Toss the Tripod and Cut the Costumes!

This post is actually a little on the late side. The Abbotts visited the third weekend in April. I spent most of my time toting my laptop around to work on my final English assignments while fellowshipping as much as possible. The college assignments felt like a bit of an anchor at that particular time, but we did manage to get a little done...and I'm so looking forward to the next visit this Summer!

The Jasyar and Kinco costumes were completed, and thankfully they fit Joseph and David A. However, I made a tremendous goof on the Sarkov costume. I only had the dark brown undershirt finished, and when we pulled it out of the bag it was much smaller than I remembered it! Andrew could only fit it over his head and get one arm through it. It was the last costume I made, so it is rather odd that I messed it up.

But I have a good excuse, I promise!

Actually, come to think of it, I was sewing it the last night of my Spring Break and had a History exam the next day, so I was probably costuming with more than half my brain tied behind my back. Thus, the costume I had intended to make for a 15 year old guy went to a 6 year old guy: "little David" (as we call him to keep from confusing him with David A.), who plays young Jasyar.

We did manage to find the alternate Sarkov costume - an old red t-shirt we altered - and he tried that on along with the muslin outer jerkin designed for Kinco (note: the rugged, ripped look of the outfits is intentional).

The Abbott guys trying on costumes (Andrew-left, David-right). During filming David cleverly conceals his braces! You would never know he had them. Andrew thus far has worn a mask as Sarkov, so that hasn't been a challenge.

"You killed my father. Prepare to die."
Jasyar shows a rare grimace. Yeah, THAT'S what we're talking about, Joseph!

David Read dons his "young Jasyar" outfit.

The boys doing some prop shopping.

Since we didn't have all of the costumes made, we couldn't get a lot of filming done. We only got a few essentially screen-test worthy scenes of Jasyar and Kinco traveling silently through the woods. The lighting was great and we chose one of our more obscure trails as the setting. It had a very nice, mysterious forest feel to it.

Ignore the modern pants (and shoes) for the moment...the camera angle was suppose to conveniently overlook them until a more creative solution was developed.

As for filming lessons learned: I think my tripod qualms were officially confirmed. Our tripod is great for still photographs and the rare perfectly still distance shot, but beyond that it is a choppy, creaking pain to use. On top of that, you don't fully realize the choppy scrolling or annoying cranking sounds until AFTER you watch it on a larger screen with suitable speakers. All of the scenes in the trailer and music video were filmed without the tripod because otherwise flexibility was hindered. I attempted to give the tripod another chance this last time, but it really wasn't much help. I would much prefer to have a dolly of sorts that is smooth and easy to move around.

Rachel and Angela wrote a song together (beautiful piano music and lyrics!), and Abigail and Mary sang it along with them (even Beth tried to be a part of it!). Hopefully we will get a chance to record that and film the music video during the next visit.

I set up another website for Imaginate That: www.imaginatethat.wordpress.com.

Here are some photos from our very brief and casual photo shoot (Rex got in one of them!). I want to have more professional looking pictures one day (the self-timer doesn't always cut it)...but of course, we need to make our movies more professional looking too!

The musicians...oddly enough, they happen to be posing like The Beatles! I didn't even think of that when I took the picture.

Recently we've worked on planning out the rest of the script...and I need to get back to sewing costumes (need to start on the girls' costumes) and finding realistic props!

~Amanda~