History Continued
So on to 2005. Everybody was busy as heck, so what seems like a good idea - more movies. Three more to be precise. We started with the creation of an art film, a project we had talked about a few times in 2004 but decided to finally do. John came up with the title 'Unquarried Landmass' at a bar in the Octagon during a classics conference - the perfect incongruous name for our abstract film. So on Easter weekend we got our crap together and started filming. Remy was a good sport and performed all sorts of crazy tasks (try explaining to an 8 year old why you want her to play hopscotch in a cemetery, or what the point of rubbing sun block into a television is). She wasn't particularly fond of the face paint, but she managed to do it and overall the footage was, well, weird. But I guess that was what we were going for. Scott was brought on board to do a soundtrack for it and many hours were spent after we filmed doing the editing. I think the plane shot took something absurd like 45 minutes to render each time. The shot itself was about 30 seconds. Being the perfectionist I am, I usually had to change something after each render that I decided I didn't like. Very time consuming. A big shout out to all who helped with this film, on and off screen, we asked you to do some pretty stupid stuff.
2005's Unquarried Landmass
The next project we worked on was 1692: The Salem Witch Trials. A pretentious name, I know, but it was a conscious choice. The idea formed during a classics happy hour in about June 2004, we didn't film it for another year. It expanded a little during this time to really underline the ending, which I think worked out well. There was a ton of pre production stuff involved - I knew that we were going to be filming on location with a few people and didn't want to waste their time so I tried (in vain it seems) to have everything planned. We hand made our costumes (well I should say Lauren and Cass hand made them) and they looked amazing! Even Brian's earrings were hand made. We also tried to dress the set to make it look creepy, while that didn't show up so much because we mainly used very tight shots on Odette, it made for some awesome shots which were used on the DVD. This was also the first time we ever used Pyrotechnics! That was a mission in itself. On the day of filming it was a terrible frost and therefore a treacherous drive. But most of all it meant that Odette had the bluest hands you will see on camera short of a smurf. We were in the shade almost all day in already cold conditions and everyone was cold, but she had it the worst. Thanks for being a good sport! Once we finally had it in the can it was cut together and quickly revealed that it was absurdly short. We also had to go out with Odette again and re-film a couple of her close ups which weren't quite close enough. These new shots were much better. Scott spent a lot of time on the soundtrack for this one and while it was down to the wire, it came out far beyond my expectations - it was truly robbed of the best score award. We played as the last movie on the last night of screening at the 2005 Mothra film festival. Rob, the organiser said that was a pretty prestigious slot. While we didn't win a lot of awards (always the bridesmaid, never the bride) we still came out very happy with the audience response.
2005's 1692: The Salem Witch Trials
We did however manage to pull off one little surprise. John and Daniel worked very covertly to create a short animation called Vive La Dugong. Daniel had an idea to do a cartoon about a depressed hippo and discussed this with John on the half hour walk to campus. When they met up later in the day, John suggested changing the animal to a Dugong and suggested the name Didier. At this point Daniel was doing a French accent and came up with the infamous line 'I fucking hate zem'. Thus was our underwater adventure born. Absolutely absurd in nature, it did have a catchy theme and produced a lot of laughter at the festival. The fact that no-one at all knew anything about it added to the overall impression it left on people. Not bad for a weeks work.
2005's Vive La Dugong
Continued on Page Three >
So on to 2005. Everybody was busy as heck, so what seems like a good idea - more movies. Three more to be precise. We started with the creation of an art film, a project we had talked about a few times in 2004 but decided to finally do. John came up with the title 'Unquarried Landmass' at a bar in the Octagon during a classics conference - the perfect incongruous name for our abstract film. So on Easter weekend we got our crap together and started filming. Remy was a good sport and performed all sorts of crazy tasks (try explaining to an 8 year old why you want her to play hopscotch in a cemetery, or what the point of rubbing sun block into a television is). She wasn't particularly fond of the face paint, but she managed to do it and overall the footage was, well, weird. But I guess that was what we were going for. Scott was brought on board to do a soundtrack for it and many hours were spent after we filmed doing the editing. I think the plane shot took something absurd like 45 minutes to render each time. The shot itself was about 30 seconds. Being the perfectionist I am, I usually had to change something after each render that I decided I didn't like. Very time consuming. A big shout out to all who helped with this film, on and off screen, we asked you to do some pretty stupid stuff.
2005's Unquarried Landmass
The next project we worked on was 1692: The Salem Witch Trials. A pretentious name, I know, but it was a conscious choice. The idea formed during a classics happy hour in about June 2004, we didn't film it for another year. It expanded a little during this time to really underline the ending, which I think worked out well. There was a ton of pre production stuff involved - I knew that we were going to be filming on location with a few people and didn't want to waste their time so I tried (in vain it seems) to have everything planned. We hand made our costumes (well I should say Lauren and Cass hand made them) and they looked amazing! Even Brian's earrings were hand made. We also tried to dress the set to make it look creepy, while that didn't show up so much because we mainly used very tight shots on Odette, it made for some awesome shots which were used on the DVD. This was also the first time we ever used Pyrotechnics! That was a mission in itself. On the day of filming it was a terrible frost and therefore a treacherous drive. But most of all it meant that Odette had the bluest hands you will see on camera short of a smurf. We were in the shade almost all day in already cold conditions and everyone was cold, but she had it the worst. Thanks for being a good sport! Once we finally had it in the can it was cut together and quickly revealed that it was absurdly short. We also had to go out with Odette again and re-film a couple of her close ups which weren't quite close enough. These new shots were much better. Scott spent a lot of time on the soundtrack for this one and while it was down to the wire, it came out far beyond my expectations - it was truly robbed of the best score award. We played as the last movie on the last night of screening at the 2005 Mothra film festival. Rob, the organiser said that was a pretty prestigious slot. While we didn't win a lot of awards (always the bridesmaid, never the bride) we still came out very happy with the audience response.2005's 1692: The Salem Witch Trials
We did however manage to pull off one little surprise. John and Daniel worked very covertly to create a short animation called Vive La Dugong. Daniel had an idea to do a cartoon about a depressed hippo and discussed this with John on the half hour walk to campus. When they met up later in the day, John suggested changing the animal to a Dugong and suggested the name Didier. At this point Daniel was doing a French accent and came up with the infamous line 'I fucking hate zem'. Thus was our underwater adventure born. Absolutely absurd in nature, it did have a catchy theme and produced a lot of laughter at the festival. The fact that no-one at all knew anything about it added to the overall impression it left on people. Not bad for a weeks work.
2005's Vive La Dugong
Continued on Page Three >
