For a contest in Wizard: the guide to comics a friend of mine and I have decided to make a psuedo movie trailer for a fake Nightwing movie. I will chronicle that process here.
Warren, my ace, boom-boom, partner in crime on this adventure
2-10-00 Warren and I have our first meeting about the movie. All the scenes are planned and a script is written.
2-12-00 I begin to choreograph fight scenes for the movie. Costume ideas are tossed around but nothing solid....though a $100 pair of boots looks to be a necessity
2-17-00 First attempt to work through the fight scenes with live people. With minor tweaking they work. I come to the realization that I am out of shape and need to work out or else I will kill myself performing the stunts and fights
2-25-00 Second session with fights. Costume still has not become solid, the $100 boots are teasing me so I still am considering buying them
3-1-00 Warren and I choreograph a cane fight between him and I.
3-6-00 We get a camera and actually film some stuff for the movie, granted it is just plain clothes stuff. The Cane fight looks good on film...now if we can just get that acting thing down
3-8-00 Principle photography will begin in two weeks. In my mind I have decided that I will just buy the boots. Still no costume though.....but once I get one I will post a pic of it
3-9-00 Went head and put money down on the boots....will buy them tomorrow. Also found a shirt and gloves for the costume. I have decided to go with a costume more like the cartoon than the comics. Also can't seem to find pants for it....not good
3-13-00-morning- I found pants for the costume. I also realize at this point that I will be playing a very thin version of nightwing. Come to think of it, I look a tad ridiculous in the outfit thus far. hopefully once it is finished that bad ass looking factor will make me look good....ha ha, fat chance.
3-13-00 - night - filmed some of the scenes of nightwing in plain clothes. Some of it worked out pretty well. A workout scene I did turned out decent but one of my friends said I look really young. I think he just likes getting on my pecks about the whole age thing.(bastard) So far no action sequences have been filmed. they should start next week.
3-17-00 Practice on the action scenes went well. Filming will begin Sunday. I'm still a bit nervous about the costume. but so far everyone says I look cool....let's just wait and see how it looks when it is finished. then I'll post a pic and you people can tell me what you think.
3-19-00 A setback with the costume (the shirt wasn't finished) cause us to create a plain-clothes fight. Performing this quick fight abolishes everyone's worries about me portraying Nightwing. Monday night more filming will occur on other action scenes.
3-20-00 The costume is completed and looks great. Shout out to Natasha for a job well done. We shot four action seqences and all but one look crappy. Tonight is a lesson in what not to do next time out.
3-22-00 the girl we had planned on using in a dinner scene has to back out. I may have to go to my back up "actress" which, too bad she isn't dependable either.
3-23-00 re-shoot on the stick fight and another double kick scene. The double kick scene doesn't work cause of the angle of the camera....perhaps third time will be a charm. the stick fight looks good and we have quite the audience at the park we shoot it at. Very odd.
3-26-00 In the middle of the dinner scene the battery on the camera goes out. So the back-up girl leaves promising to return that evening to finish the shoot. She never came so I will punch her in the eye tomorrow when I see her. Also, I edited the fight scenes and it looks great.
3-27-00 Re-shoot on the garage action scene looks great. Also re-did the filming for the dinner scene. Going on vacation next week so hopefully get some work on the film done.
4-7-00 nothing has been done on the film but I finally got a pic of the costume for all to see.
4-10-00 Warren comes into town and we filmed the last of his scenes at his parents house. He does a great speech. We also had an action sequence of my beefcake roommate throwing me around.
4-17-0 Work has been sparse on the film. Most of it is done we just need to edit it.
4-19-00 After watching blade for the umpteenth time I decide that I should attempt to do a one armed cartwheel kick in the movie since most of the acrobatics from previous fights have been cut out.
4-21-00 I filmed the cartwheel kick and it looks good. Let's just hope warren likes it. Oh and I got a few pics of me in the costume...but it is barely visible.
4-24-00 Warren came down today and liked the cart wheel so much he wanted to do a re-shoot of it. Then we are off to edit this puppy
4-24-00 late D'OH!!! the person who was suppose to edit the movie for us was not prepared so now I will be using the Imac display at he local compUSA to edit the movie. This should prove interesting.
4-27-00 After skipping lunch for three days and staying late at work the movie is finally complete.
4-28-00 I overnighted the movie to wizard today. It would be so huge if I won. Also, a guy at work wants to put the commercial on the web for me so expect a link any time.
4-29-00 The film has become a huge hit at work and I often catch co-workers and customers watching the movies. Some of the guys are even quoting the lines. That's freaky.
5-2-00 I decided to make a 30 second TV commerical of the Nightwing stuff. It looks really cool and the people at work also watch it.
5-9-00 The movie is now on the web. Here is the link. FYI this will take a while to download if you have a slower connection and you must use Quicktime to view it.