Screen Tests - Production Stills

The following are some photographic images of the things we have been doing for the last few weeks.


Last week, we did extensive motion and lighting tests with a large variety of different video cameras. Here, we see Brad poking a Fusebox, a small kid's camera, which records in 320x240 highly compressed video onto internal flash memory at 10 frames per second. This may sound like atrocious quality, and that is one way of looking at it. We are of the possibly valid opinion that the artifacts of this format lend it a very interesting aesthetic, which is we think about it right, could be employed to a specific conceptual representational purpose. One must admit that this small camera looks rather formidable on the large fluid-head video tripod that we got from the audio-video equipment checkout facility at Evergreen, Media Loan. These tests are absolutely essential with the large variety of different cameras we are shooting with. Without these tests, Brad and myself could not do our jobs as cinematographers, because we wouldn't intuitively understand how each camera performed under different lighting conditions, and also we wouldn't be exactly certain about what representational purpose is most suited to each format, because we wouldn't be sure of its specific aesthetic properties.




Last week, we scouted some locations. These images are from a hidden alley in downtown Olympia, and is a candidate location for the Alley in front of Morgan's apartment, in which 2 scenes happen.



For the last week and a half, Morgan and Brad and Jed have been working on intensive revisions to the Trouble With Unicorns script and storyboards. We have been using the Animatic we created as a device for making problems with the story more transparent to our eyes, which are tainted with the nearness of creative involvement. This has been going very well, and the revisions we are making to the story is making the movie significantly better in many ways.


Morgan types revisions into CeltX, the free scriptwriting software that we are using.


Morgan has a moment of bursting inspirative ideas


This weekend we have been shooting screen tests with our actors, seeing how their makeup looks under different lighting setups and gels, and seeing if our makeup/costume designs are working as we hope they are.





Ashley, our amazing production designer and makeup artist, delves into her large collection of cosmetic resources. Makeup and costumes are an essential aspect of this production. A few days ago, Ashley made a trip to the Mac store, and spent 300 dollars on some excellent makeup, to bolster her supply of cosmetics that she acquired while in China during the previous month.


Ashley with our actors who play Sarah and Morgan, Julia and Venu.


Here is a closer shot of Venu, who is having a Happyland style makeup job applied by Ashley.


Here is some mongoose style makeup on Julia. This costuming is not quite complete, but we got an idea of how the makeup will look under different lighting setups. Before our first shoot, the Mongoose costumes will include a possibly large amount of Badger fur and faces.


Here is some makeup tentatively being applied to the face of Phillip Roebuck, our actor who is playing Ron. Phillip is one of our more experienced actors, and it is great to be working with him on this production.


Here Phillip talks to Morgan.


Here, Brad takes a brief respite of Nicotine inhalation.

Hopefully this post serves as a somewhat interesting visual proof that indeed, all is not stagnant in the way of progress in Unicorns land.
~Jed: Editor, Cameraman, techno helper monkey