Big Rock Beer Appropriateness Guide

Big Rock Beer holds an annual commercial contest called The Eddies. We decided to make an entry based on when Big Rock is and is not appropriate. This was the most collaborative project we've made to date. We went to various locations and brought our gear with us, which used to be a huge pain because our softboxes are tough to pack around; now that we have portable LEDs, that's no longer an issue. With any luck, we'll win, but regardless, we're very happy with the results!

A big thank you to our actors: Laura Allen, Harry Papavlasopoulos, Joel McGregor, Jon Medd, Aaron Fransen, and special thanks to Justin Masson, who played a role and also provided an excellent voiceover.

Also thanks to the Costume Shoppe for providing the alien hands props!

BIG ROCK APPROPRIATENESS GUIDE

Vampire Skit
Woman in White - Laura Allen
Dracula - Harry Papavlasopoulos

Soldier Skit
Soldier - Joel McGregor
Mime - Elisa Friesen

Bond Skit
Bond - Justin Masson
Waiter - Chris Friesen
Goldfinger - Chris Friesen

Driving Skit
Driver - Elisa Friesen

Ninja Skit
Black Ninja - Elisa Friesen
White Ninja - Chris Friesen

Alien Chicks Pickup Skit
Guy - Chris Friesen
3 Alien Chicks - Elisa Friesen

Office Skit
Office Employee - Jon Medd
Office Boss - Aaron Fransen

Voice Over
Justin Masson

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YN600 & YN300 Product Review

We recently purchased some Yongnuo LEDs from Strobepro.com's showroom in Calgary.  We were looking for more portable options than our current softbox and halogen setup. These compact little lights are really impressive; check out our review and test footage!

Bran Muffins: A Sigma 18-35mm f1.8 Movie

We wanted to film inside a vehicle with virtual rain, and we wanted to film with our sexy, sexy new Sigma 18-35mm f1.8 lens.

For this project, we got filmmaker Harry Papavlosopoulos of SWG Films and actress Laura Allen to help us out. 

We set up our portable green screen inside our garage, but it's February in Okotoks, so it was still freaking cold. You can see Laura's and my breath in a lot of the shots. 

The Sigma 18-35 F 1.8 shows its clarity and sharpness in the movie. Laura is blonde, and blonde hair is usually harder to key, but we were able to keep an impressive amount of detail. Harry happened to bring his Black Magic Pocket Cinema camera, which we've never used before. He shot a couple of additional angles and we used one shot for the opening closeup of Laura.  For audio we're using a Rode shotgun NTG-2 mic plugged into the Zoom H4N.

Here's the storyboard we used to set up the shots. I drew this using the SketchBook for Galaxy app in my Note 3.

And no, I didn't.

-Elisa

The Wizard of Lights + Behind the Scenes

Chris came up with a idea featuring a realistic-looking wizard lighting up a town. He had several tricks he wanted to use to achieve an expensive cinematic look using only footage taken in front of the green screen in our basement. One shot I found particularly impressive was a fake crane swoop around our wizard on top of a building. To pull this off, Chris simply had our wizard, Aaron, slowly turn in a circle while the camera was locked off. Chris then built the moving environment around him. Watch the behind-the-scenes portion of the video linked above to see what I mean!

To plan the lighting and angles, we storyboarded, then Chris created a pre-visualized sequence.

When we started putting the pieces together for this video, we couldn't find a pre-made robe we liked, so I sewed one myself using dimly-remembered home ec skills from junior high and Simplicity pattern 9887 (sadly it's discontinued, but you can still find the pattern on ebay).

After building the robe, we started testing makeup.

Beard test on me (because Chris didn't want to  get spirit gum in his actual facial hair), then old age test on Chris, then both techniques combined on our actor, Aaron.

A friend of ours, Aaron Fransen, volunteered to be the wizard. We aged him with old man makeup techniques using a Youtube tutorial by Petrilude, and we stuck a crepe hair beard on him. When using crepe hair and spirit gum, spend a few extra bucks for good supplies. We used cheap Halloween shop stuff, and while we we got an acceptable result, it would have been a lot easier with higher quality gum. The crepe hair, at least, was decent: Graftobian, from The Costume Shoppe in Calgary.

This was different from our usual horror stuff, and a lot of work, but still a lot of fun.

-Elisa 

The Dead Mile Stories

August 2013: The Dead Mile Stories

Ashley Godick (Angelac Studio) put out a call on Facebook for zombie extras. She was running key makeup for the first episode of a web short series called The Dead Mile Stories, a supplement to K.J. Kleefield's 2012 The Dead Mile. I volunteered to shamble and Chris came along to observe.
We met makeup artist Kesar LaCroix, zombie extra Nadine Duhamel, actual actor Joel Seth, and a lot of other really cool people at the 6 AM makeup call.

Here's Nadine and I, with Nadine making my hair a little less tidy.

After getting expertly made up by one of the talented artists on Ashley's team, we drove out to Nose Hill Park. K.J.'s adorable mom appeared with snacks, including homemade banana bread.
To build on the completed zombie makeup and to make us look a little more rotten, all the extras were coated in a spray of instant coffee. At first it smelled kind of nice.  By the end of the day, I never wanted to smell instant coffee ever again.
Once the scenes featuring just the living humans were complete and they were ready to shoot the zombies, we took a little hike to the location at the top of the hill. While each zombie kill was filmed, all zombies not being killed had to quietly wait in the woods for their turn, far away from the camera and mike. Chris was handling the bounce so he got to see a lot more of the action than I did, and he wasn't even in the movie.
Due to unexpected wasp nests and occasional cyclists and joggers ("Whatcha doing? Oh, you're making a movie? Oh, neat! What? I'm in the way? Oh. Ok. Sorry." Repeat every 10 minutes) I didn't shoot my death until about 2 PM. I get my great moment in the film when I zombie-wander out of the woods behind Sasha, who whirls and slices me across the stomach with a samurai sword. I collapsed onto the gravel path about a dozen times before K.J. was happy with the take. Totally worth it.

Ashley's rig on Joel's neck.

A couple weekends later we were back at Ashley's house to get a greenscreen decapitation pickup shot of Joel Seth, one of the human stars. Ashley made a very cool practical rig from tubing and latex.

Check out K.J.'s movie The Dead Mile. The first Dead Mile Story is coming soon!

-Elisa

Guerilla Rebellion and Element 3D World Position Matte

In July 2013, we made a few ads for a friend, Ryan Chute, out on the East Coast. So far these ads aren't in full circulation yet, but hopefully that's coming soon.

Here's one where Chris took a 3D model car and had it spin around me.

And here's a quick breakdown on how Chris did the effect:

We put a lav mike on my lapel to pick up my voice. We don't have a wireless mic; the lav is plugged into a Zoom H4N, which is safety-pinned to the back of my suit jacket. The Zoom is a bit too big for the average pocket. Following making this video, we picked up a Rode SmartLav, which works with iPhone, so the setup will be lighter and easier next time.

-Elisa

Calgary Horror Con 2013

Calgary Horror Con mentioned on one of their social media platforms that they had to make a choice: they could spend money on advertising, or they could spend money on guests. They chose to spend money on guests.

Chris and I heard about this, and Chris saw a good opportunity. Horror Con is still an intimate affair, not the colossal behemoth that is the Calgary Comic Expo, and so it's a small enough community to get in on the ground floor. He decided to help the con out by making three commercial spots for them. Below are the the ads: Meet the Family, Happy Hill, and It's Here. The first ad, Meet the Family, is near to my heart because I spit a mouthful of digestive acid in Chris's face, but I digress.

We decided to go with three short stories with a feeling of impending doom. The first two have "it's coming" as their theme, and the third ad was released the week of the con, with the theme of "it's here".

Organizers Jim Saito and Dan Doherty generously thanked us for our efforts by inviting us to the Friday night opening gala at the Calgary Tower, where we had a chance to meet the charming Tony Todd, chat up legendary scream queen Linnea Quigley, and have a great talk with actress (and brand-new director) Jessica Cameron. I circled around Bill Moseley but never quite caught him alone. The main event for Horror Con this year was a 1990 Night of the Living Dead reunion: expert makeup artist and director Tom Savini,  principle actors Patricia Tallman, Bill Moseley, and Tony Todd, all attended a Saturday night screening of the film and gave a great Q&A afterward.

This'll wind up being a really long post if I go over everything that happened. Horror Con is a kickass event and it's only going to get bigger and better going forward. If you're considering going in 2014, stop considering and just get your weekend passes already.

-Elisa