The Narrows - Proof of Concept Shoot using Virtual Production at Garden Studios

Thanks to the extremely generous support of Garden Studios a ten minute ‘Proof of Concept’ of The Narrows has been now been shot!

The production had two goals. Showcase the capabilities of the ‘Virtual Production’ stage for drama, and to give people a taste of why The Narrows script has gained so much industry interest.

The director, Tom Edmunds and producer Daniel-Konrad Cooper managed to secure us an absolutely stellar cast of Dixie Egerickx, Sam Spruell, Anton Valensi and Alex Morgan. Who almost immediately lifted the script to a whole new level adding nuance and depth to every moment.

As a writer it’s always exciting to meet the people you’ve imagined, but it’s even more special when the talent add so much to the story, I honestly can’t wait for people to see it.

Shooting on location on a canal

First day of shooting was on location with a real boat, The Lupin. It was only a day but it was incredibly productive. We shot wide shots of key scenes and also ‘plates’ that would be used later in the studio with a recreation of the boat to simulate being on the river.

There were challenges. Almost every take was slow to do, because resetting the boat was a laborious process even with a tug boat helping out. The engine noise was also an issue for the sound department even if it had a lovely melodic rhythm to it that the rest of us enjoyed.

But even with issues there was also something magical going on. There were moment with the Lupin and it’s crew floating down the river where it was it was possible to be transported to a different time.

Working with a Virtual Production stage

The studio was also a fantastic learning experience. Denson, the cinematographer did incredible work adjusting to the technology. He and his team used all sorts of exciting techniques to sell our recreated Lupin being a real boat on a canal.

This included also sorts of clever computer work and lighting but my absolute favourite bit was a tray of mirrors filled with water to give ‘dancing dappled light’ from a canal onto the actors faces.

I was also blown away by what the volume could do. Especially with 3D generated scenery where the time of day could be adjusted with a touch of a button. I can’t imagine why we wouldn’t use this technology again when it comes to filming the feature version of The Narrows. Not least because there was no chance of falling in our virtual canal water!

Another advantage of the special stage was how easy it was to reset a scene. Within maybe five minutes we could be ready to shoot an entirely different shot.

Anyway, I can’t wait to show everyone the finished product and hopefully go into full production on the feature version of the story.

Credits

Cast: JOSEPHINE Dixie Egerickx
Cast: STOKER Sam Spruell
Cast: WEASEL Anton Valensi
Cast: BOSUN Alex Morgan

Director: Tom Edmunds
Cinematographer: Denson Baker
Writer:  Samuel Pinney
Producer: Daniel-Konrad Cooper
Executive Producer: Thomas Høegh
Focus Puller: Malte Hubner
2nd Asst Camera: James Furr
ProCam Tech: Vato Beridze
Costume Supervisor: Luan Placks
Costume Standby: Tamsin Flower
Makeup Designer: Julia Bowden
Makeup Artist: Kari Rodnes
Sby Art Director: Nora Hoegh
Scenic Artist: Eliot Haigh
Sound Mixer: Nigel Albermaniche
Boom Op: Will Pye
Production Assistant: Emily Beynon
Production Assistant: Hugo Nordstrom
Chaperone: Fiona Barnett (Dixie's Mother)
VP Supervisor: Mark Pilborough-Skinner
Casting Director: Nanw Rowlands
Insurance: David Johnstone

Special thanks to Garden Studios and their sponsors Procam Take 2 and Mo-Sys

Trigan Empire: The TV show that nearly was.

I can finally talk a little about the Trigan Empire TV show I worked on a few years ago. Sadly not because it’s happening, the project is still in limbo with Rebellion owning the I.P.

However the incredible artist Chris Weston has posted some of the concept art he created for the show when it was in development. You can see the original tweet here.

The artwork is absolutely stunning.

To give a bit more detail the trio of characters were the main protagonists for the adventure. A member of the Trigan royal family, a freshly retired Trigan legionnaire and a lowly engineer who worked for the Trigan Navy.

The series (10 sixty minute episodes) was loosely based on The Reign of Thara but with enough twists to keep die-hard fans of the show excited.

We spent ages working how to update the wonderful Trigan comics whilst still being true to what made them so magical and I think we did okay. We certainly attracted some incredible talent the the project while it was still active. For example the multi-award winning director Sam Yates was on board to direct.

I’d also like to shout out to Anna Silver who was the script editor and Dr Emma Southon who was our active duty Roman expert. Yes, for a show where Romans battled dinosaurs with lasers we had an actual Roman historian helping us make it even more authentic (when appropriate). You can buy her book here - Agrippina.

I’m still fairly limited on what more I can say but it was an absolute joy to work on and I’d jump at the chance to do more with it.

As it stands I’ve got 600 pages of Trigan adventures on a shelf behind me that no-one else will ever see. If you are in the industry and would like to read the pilot, let me know.

The Ambush wins an Award!

We won an award for The Ambush, our Viking VR experience created with The Ridley Scott Creative Group! The lovely people at the Aesthetica Film Festival decided The Ambush was the ‘Best VR experience of 2019.’

I was lucky enough to be in York for the festival so I saw what we were up against. The field of competition was incredibly strong. For such a young field VR filmmaking has come so far.

We were extra lucky to do so well because we had some pretty serious technical issues. The computer running The Ambush wasn’t quite up to the demands. It would run but it wasn’t loading in the music, any dialogue or any of the major characters.

Imagine Star Wars with no Luke, Vader, Han or Leia.

Luckily I spotted the problem before the festival was over and the lovely people at Dimension Films drove down from Newcastle with a more powerful computer to run it and we were all fine.

I’d say it was one of the high-points of my year especially because while I was there I got to eat an entire meal wrapped in a Yorkshire pudding.

Viking Planet / Ridley Scott Creative Group

This was a brilliantly entertaining project with lots of interesting challenges due to working in virtual reality and I enjoyed every moment of working on it.

The Ridley Scott Creative Group needed a screenwriter to pull together story for a Virtual Reality experience that would be the centre piece of a new museum being launched by Viking Planet in Oslo.

The section I worked on was a VR experience where visitors can go on a Viking raid in 3D, sitting amongst the crew on the long ship as it hunts for likely targets amongst the fjords.

Between takes the brilliant director, Erik Gustavson (left) with Wolfie Huges (centre, who plays Captain Grim) and Odd Meling, a producer who got roped into being a Norse king.

It was thrilling to work on because of the unique challenges of VR. Unlike cinema, the viewer can look everywhere and yet you don’t want them to miss the important action. This combined with the exacting historical standards of the team at Viking Planet made every day exciting. If there wasn’t historical evidence for a beat or action, it couldn’t be in the experience.

My personal challenge was to make the viewers care about the crew in the shortest amount of time. I wanted everyone on the ride to almost feel like they were part of the gang of Vikings and really be invested in the outcome.

The experience takes advantage of ‘volumetric capture’ where real actors can be inserted into the virtual world, in this case on board a long ship in about 600AD. Capturing actors moving in 3D uses some absolutely cutting edge technology and that’s before you have them rowing and fighting.

The Museum opens in Oslo in June, and I couldn’t be more excited for the public to finally meet the Vikings I’ve spent so much time with.

https://www.thevikingplanet.com/

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