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"RETURN OF AGENT 12"  PRODUCTION JOURNAL indie moviemaking blog weblog

The journal is maintained on a palmtop and updated on this website approximately once a week.

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1-11-03 -- Josh and Angus helped disassemble the helicopter and install a fan motor and tail motor -- they did much of the work themselves and I was pleased.  Now we have to figure out how to do the rocket pods.

1-13-03 -- a couple of howitzers arrived from Amazon, getting Angus excited enough to blow through his schoolwork at high speed. The howitzers were originally supposed to go on the chopper but they are too big.  However they look pretty cool so we'll probably find a use for them.

Building new rocket pods for the helicopter went fairly well, and they are attached now.  Angus' friend Avery came over because he wants to be in the movie -- he is 14 but looks 11 and is considerably smaller than Angus.  This is in contrast to Taylor, who is 12 but looks 15.  Kids at this age are just wildly variable, I guess.  In any case, they're all kids and that is about the only qualification we have.  So what the heck.

We also got some Skylighter supplies but so far have had difficulty making the metal powders work for us -- I think we use too much.  But we tested some coffee creamer salutes and even figured out how to do a decent howitzer fire with a wad of flash paper that has bit of black powder inside.  So it was a fun day and Salvage only worried a little. 

1-15-03 -- Made a start on the RA12 script, which at the moment has a lot more actual acting in it.  May be risky, but what the hell.  Give the kids a shot at it.  We can always just blow up more stuff.

1-17-03 -- wrote another ten pages of RA12 and I'm still not done.  I wonder if there is such a thing as an epic short?

The napthalene arrived today and it works well enough but stinks like crazy and doesn't work that much better than coffee creamer.  It came with charcoal which when mixed with coffee creamer gives a much more desirable effect and doesn't smell, so we'll probably use that.

1-18-03 -- obtained a jar of Pyrodex P, which to my delight turns out to be much finer than FF black powder.  It also burns slower and more poofy, which means it now has allowed me to achieve my long-sought Tablespoon Fireball for mimiature work.  Black powder, at such tiny sizes (about 1/4 tsp) either blew the fireball mix flying without lighting it or (slightly reduced) lit it but didn't get it clear of the container.  The 1/4 tsp of Pyrodex does a nice job of getting the coffee creamer billowing.  Probably will work with Nap too, but have not tried.

1-20-03 --finished the first draft of RA12 -- at 47 pages, I suspect this project will be a tad longer than the last.  But went by Greg's and had a nice chat with Taylor -- he seems to be an enthusiastic filmmaker.  We'll see how he feels when stuff is blowing up.

1-21-03 -- We'll need some large boulders for setbuilding and even the fake ones are too expensive.  We're going to try to make them, but will have to find a method.  I thought maybe expansion foam in a garbage bag, but a test shows that to be unworkable -- the plastic bag seals the foam and keeps it from hardening.  We'll have to try something else.

1-22-03 --Tried the hole-in-the-ground method of making a foam rock and this was much more successful, for a proof-of-concept test.  We'll see how it looks painted.

The Airsoft guns arrived and they do look too darn real.  Angus thinks they are cool so I'll let him mess with them for a while before I take 'em apart and try to make 'em look more high-tech.  The dogs are not fond of guns, but at least these don't make much noise.

Angus and I tested and filmed a couple of "tablespoon fireballs" and they seemed to work well enough.  Then I tried messing with them on the Mac and managed to do it, though I did crash it twice.  But I am learning.

1-23-03 -- got surrounded by excited cast members to whom Angus has been leaking the script.  They were full of fun ideas about how to simulate gunshot wounds with red dye in baggies.  This had to be vetoed but the enthusiasm is appreciated.

Did the script fixes that Angus and Sharon had suggested and caught a few myself, then took it off to have copies made.  Also getting storyboard paper printed up.

1-24-03 -- When I was preparing to BBQ, I could see that Sharon was reading in the kitchen so I thought of a funny gag.  I assembled a large coffee creamer fireball and put it in the bottom of the grill, then went in and announced that I was going to light the grill now.  Went back outside and touched off the fireball, with a huge ball of flame billowing through the breezeway as I watched Sharon through the window.  The fireball brought Angus running from the other side of the house, where he'd seen it light up the whole backyard, but Sharon just rolled her eyes and went back to reading.  Just getting too desensitized, these days.  But Angus helped me do another one and we filmed it.

 1-26-03 -- We had lots of snacks during the Superbowl and I took apart the hand vac to convert it to a jetpack while I watched the game.  This was harder than expected.  I had anticipated only having to reverse the polarity but it turns out that an impeller doesn't work that way.  Reversing the direction just makes it work poorly but the airflow goes the same way.  I ended up having to completely strip it down and turn the inner workings around, and I'm still not done.  But it is fun taking stuff apart.

Max had friends over and Angus had Michael over.  Michael made a cool helicopter with rotating props out of Legos -- where was he when we were building the chopper?  I will definitely have to put him to work.

1-27-03 -- Had a cool new Airsoft gun arrive from a place called Den Trinity -- an MP5 with full auto blowback capability and which looks and feels real as hell.  Angus had a lot of schoolwork to do but he got through it quickly to get hold of that puppy.  Too real for our movie but good to know about anyway.

1-28-03 -- Had five pounds of black powder delivered by UPS this morning -- do we live in a great country or what?  Didn't need five pounds, we could probably have done with less than one -- but it was powderinc's minimum order.

1-29-03 -- Rebuilt the first of the two gammaguns and it came out fairly well -- now it looks considerably less real but still pretty cool.  And managed to get a tactile switch into the handle to turn on the laser pointer when you grip the gun, which is a kind of cool thing and Angus likes it.

1-30-03 -- Started work on the second gammagun, with Angus helping a bit.  Finally learning how to take apart laser pointers and rewire them -- just in time for it to not matter any more.  Typical.

1-31-03 -- Finished the second Gammagun and Angus helped with the assembly and was the needed third hand for soldering. Then he and I went off to Wal-Mart to get moviemaking supplies, like an automobile creeper (to use as a dolly) and cheap squirt guns and other things to use as props.  Picked up some highway flares and steel wool and ping-pong balls for experimenting with in pyro effects.  When we got home another Skylighter package had arrived so we did a few experiments that scorched the garage floor and smoked up the garage.  So we stopped for the evening.

 We also went to ToysrUs and got an RC Hummer for Josh's birthday present.  But he will be told it is also a prop, so he can play with it for a while and then we are going to blow it up.

2-1-03 -- The sugar-smoke mixtures made this morning turned out quite effective, and we are pleased.  Also the spark mixture.  So with that we can pretty much accomplish everything, though there will be a certain amount of testing still to be done.

2-2-03 -- Angus and I made some Experiments in the garage and blew them up, and we are fairly satisfied.  The problem with Experiments is the desire to continue Testing beyond all need, just because it is cool.  But I started the storyboard.  Craig came over, got his picture for the Web page, and we also set off a cool fireball by the gate.  Right through the bars.  We were hoping a passing car would see it but perhaps it was just as well that there were none at the time.

And my foam rock looks promising -- but was damn hard getting it out of the ground.

The Columbia burning up on re-entry is a bummer.  These things do happen, but it kinda takes the fun out of blowing stuff up for a while.

2-3-03 -- Had to fly to Albuquerque and back on family business, which was a bit grueling but I got some aerial footage out of it through the window.  May or may not turn out useful. 

2-4-03 -- the Ninja Smoke arrived from Firefox and it is most cool -- gives a terrific effect and makes no noise.  We even tried hanging it from a nylon line in the air and that was cool too, so we will have to film some.

2-5-03 -- Cold and windy.  Angus and I ventured out once, to blow something up, and Sharon claims this gives her permission to reupholster another chair.  I fail to see the logical connection, but I am sure that many women will be glad to explain it to me.

Angus got his hair cut and I arm-twisted him into letting Nadia give it highlights.  She did a nice delicate job and it actually makes his hair look more natural -- it was such a solid mass of dark brown before.

2-6-03 -- Angus and I did not light off too much stuff, but I did get some more foam to try to complete the foam boulder.  I think with a little careful cutting it might be okay.  I looked into the artifical ones and they look very good but they are much too expensive -- also too heavy.

2-7-03 --  Did a few storyboard panels and made some Smoke Mix and dug my foam boulder out of the ground.  It looks the right shape, we'll see how it paints.  Also the Sluggi Nerf guns arrived and they are pretty cool.  Again, we'll see how they paint.

2-8-03 -- Did some storyboard work in front of the fire while the captured videos of the clouds shot from the deck were being rendered and burned to disk.  Cloud skies are always useful because sky can be anywhere and being able to time-lapse the clouds sometimes gives a shot some extra dynamicism. 

2-9-03 -- Did storyboards and also figured out how to take apart the snapcaps that will be the gammagun powercells.  Want to make them glow somehow.  Tried a blacklight but they are the wrong sort of plastic and filling them with yellow flourescent paint didn't work either.  But at least the letters come off with a combination of turpentine and ultra-fine steel wool.

The Nerf machine guns stop after only one rotation, no matter how much you pump them.  This makes sense from the nerf-darf standpoint but for movie props we may have to motorize them.  We will see.

2-10-03 -- Picked up some tiny batteries and LEDs and made a test Gammagun bullet.  Tight quarters, but got it to work.  The snap caps are red plastic so I tried a white LED but it was too white -- the red LEDs work better.  However, I only have one of them so I will have to get more.  Took longer than I expected -- these things always do -- but still managed to get some storyboard pages done.

2-11-03 -- The Gammagun bullet has been lit up now for 24 hours and is still going strong.  Guess my fears of a tight window can relax.

The new gun arrived today and it looks scary real.  (Naturally, Angus thinks it is cool.)  It will take some work to revamp it into a more high-tech weapon.  It was purchased under the hypothesis that it -- being an 8MM weapon -- might fire those Sprite Bombs.  And it does, but they tend to explode in the barrel, causing the gun muzzle to actually have bursts of flame.  This, while interesting, is not what we wanted.  We wanted to use the Sprite Bombs as bullet hits, since they shatter in a spray of sparks when they hit a wall or hard surface.  But I got some brass tubing that we can cut down to short lengths and fasten to a board like pan pipes.  A sprite bomb in each and a blast from the compressor blowgun should fire them fine.  We'll see.

In the meantime, the gun will be revamped and probably become Commander Stix's gun if it turns out well.

2-12-03 -- Pouring rain all day.  Huge lake in the backyard. Angus and I threw some Navy Seal firecrackers in it, and then tried crackle bombs, but they didn't work.  However, after we sealed them up with hotglue and coated the fuses, they did.  Sharon finally made us stop because she said the dogs were worried.

Started working on the revolver, trying to de-real it enough to be acceptable.  Got some new batteries and LEDs from the Shack.  Also did some more on the storyboard.  Ended the day watching the first of the old Thunderbirds episodes, which was -- I am pleased to say -- about as cool as I remember.  Even Angus was impressed by the wealth of detail in the models and sets.  And they blew up stuff pretty well too. I noticed they had the same problems we had with the bluescreen washing, though they worked it out.  And I also spotted some of the ways they dealt with the problems.  Fans, smoke charges rather than flame, etc. Ingenuity at work.

2-13-03 -- The Dr. Vengeance guns arrived today, along with holsters which we will experiment with.  Only was able to get a few storyboard panels done, but they are fun ones, where Commander Stix gets knocked against Agent 12.  Angus has been reading the boards when I am not around, and I expect he will give me a hard time on these panels, but that is the point.

2-14-03 -- A box showed up from UPS but it was not toy guns or explosives this time.  Just Teaching Company tapes, which Angus thought was a dirty trick.

Did a bunch of storyboard work today, and tried some more smoke mixtures.  It looks like just the standard powdered-sugar-and-potassium-nitrate 50-50 mix works the best, at least for fast smoke.  The coffee creamer mixture is better for smolders.  We also fitted the tactical holsters on Angus.  With a little adjustment via a razor knife we got them trimmed of loose ends and able to accommodate the larger size of the modified guns.  They are also reasonably priced, which is a plus.

2-15-03 -- Got a fine strainer and a small cheap kitchen scale, and they turn out to be just the ticket for accurately mixing sugar rocket and smoke comps.  The results have been quite pleasing to us and quite upsetting for the dogs, which is a good sign all around.  Picked up the tripod from Mark -- he couldn't fix the head but at least he was able to get it off, and now it can be replaced.

2-16-03 -- The refilled Estes engine exploded backward -- I think I made the core too deep -- but we had more success with just hand-ramming the propellant.  The thrust is minimal but the effect is what counts.

We also played with coffee creamer smoke, deciding that 2 parts coffee creamer to one part potassium nitrate works well.  Mixed with ball juice and dried is simplest, but we also mixed it with an extraordinarily tiny amount of water (it still got very liquid) and baked it in mini-muffin cups at 250 degrees for an hour (convection.)  The end result looked and smelled delicious, light golden brown crispy things like an Italian cookie, but which when ignited give off a slow, steady volume of smoke for quite a long time.  Angus calls them Detonation Films' Smoke Cookies. 

You might imagine Sharon's reaction when she saw me taking out a tray of fresh-baked smoke bombs from the oven, but you would be wrong.  About all she did was roll her eyes.  It was Max that freaked out.  "You're making BOMBS!?  In the OVEN!?  I was gonna EAT one!"  Easily rattled, that boy.

2-17-03 -- Sugar rockets with nozzles seem to be trouble -- I think debris builds up in them too fast.  But the hand-rammed ones were okay -- kinda cool.  We also made some more smoke cookies and I took a short MPG of Angus with a lit one.

2-19-03 -- Made melted-sugar smoke bombs which turned into carmel, as the instructions predicted.  However, although they work they are only mildy impressive and are much more work than the coffee creamer bombs and cookies which work better.

On the other hand, we did grind up some leftover Valentine's candy hearts and used them to make a sugar rocket engine with some of the scrap aluminum pipe -- just a static fire but it looked awesome, thundering flame and billowing smoke.  Angus termed it "Burnin' Love" and we videotaped it and put it on the website.

Boarded three more script pages -- had to get more storyboard paper.  But I am halfway through now.

2-20-03 -- Angus and I tried a sugar rocket bound with ball juice and found again that such fuels burn much more intensely than standard -- we will continue to experiment but they are almost too good -- the hand-rammed ones may work better for our purposes.  They don't thrust but they smoke more.

2-21-03 -- Angus and I mixed up some rocket formulas and Tested them assiduously, (along with a run to see Daredevil) and then we came back and blew up more stuff.  And then Sharon came home and found the dogs nervous wrecks for some reason.  We have no idea why.  But she gave them hugs and they felt better.

2-22-03 -- Angus went over to Craig's to work on another film.  He was there all day, while I assembled fireball materials for the evening.  Sharon said she had a long chat with Max about Technology, which left her glad to be old, though Max was enthused.  We were blowing off fireballs the whole time but they were so quiet no one noticed.  Which is what I like.  Ed and Brenda and their son Michael came over to participate, and even helped tidy afterward, which was appreciated.  But though the camera lens shows a few spots we got some good footage, I think.  Even the dogs were not too scared.

2-23-03 -- Angus was busy all day shooting a movie with Craig and his friend RJ, and they came over to our place to edit it.  They did an astonishingly good job too -- some real talent there.  They need to finish the sound so they will probably come over tomorrow.  Meanwhile, I did some storyboards.

2-24-03 -- Angus started inking the board and he's doing a very good job.  Big help, plus he made sixty bucks in one day and blew it all on videogames.  Fine by me. Long as he's having fun.  I posted some of the stock footage to the website for other people to use.

2-26-03 --  Kludged together a ball mill out of a large plastic jar and the BBQ rotisserie -- made some rocket fuel with fructose using it, but fructose burns unimpressively.  Does okay, but regular sugar works better.  We also tested a couple of well-dried sugar rockets that had been bound with ball juice but they exploded again.  That stuff just burns too fast.

2-27-03  -- My milled rocket powders are fabulous -- I am a convert.  Had to do much writing but the new rocket tubes showed up and had to be packed and used, of course.

2-28-03 – Had to fly off to London for a meeting on a possible Thunderbirds series.  Very exciting, given that it was one of my major influences growing up.  May learn a few tricks as well, since it will involve Blowing Stuff Up.  Will be gone for a week.

3-8-03 – Bought cool Thunderbird toys in London.  Managed to box up toys and get to airport -- plane not so cramped as last time and slept almost whole way home, as is proper.  Were greeted by both wives and Greg's kids, and I set off a firework before we had even gotten the luggage out of the car.  Good to be home.

3-9-03 -- Sharon off to airport at 4Am but it was okay for me, still on London time.  So I drove.  She called once from Nashville and the boys and I have played with toys and explosive-making apparatus all day.  Angus' card to me was hilarious, I must put it on the website.

3-10-03 -- Angus and I stripped down T2 for rebuilding, went to the scrapyard, picked up a new wagon (with pneumatic wheels) and went to Gelson's.  Also tried filming a sugar rocket flyby but it went too fast.  Will have to tone down those nozzles.  Nice to see they work though.

3-11-03 -- Busy day for Angus and myself.  After schoolwork, we began serious work on a small Thunderbirds shoot, but we also wanted to use it as a reason to get many things that we knew we'd need for later productions anyway, like fluorescent lights and a nice wagon with pneumatic wheels.  So we did this, and Angus assembled the wagon (by himself, and with quiet pride) while I assembled the lights.  We hung the bluescreen, and Angus painted the War Table in Chroma Blue, and we rigged the rear rockets on Thunderbird Two (involving some soldering and tricky hiding of ignition wires) but when we actually filmed it it fired almost perfectly and looked totally Thunderbirds cool.  Angus thought it was even better because our flames were bigger. So though it was a simple shot really we felt very jazzed. And we even got it done in time for karate!  Did a few storyboard panels, and Angus has been getting better ad better at inking them. 

3-12-03 -- Angus and I got caught up in trying to get the Thunderbird Two toy to take off, and this entailed three different attempts and the entire day.  But we got a nice one at last, in the evening, and from two different angles, too.  Angus also learned how to solder, a good manly skill.  I must say it gave me a new respect for Gerry Anderson -- getting four widely-spaced rocket motors to fire simultaneously is not easy, nor is keeping the heat and flame generated from damaging the model or melting the lines supporting it.  It was actually a lot easier just to blow stuff up.  But we learned a lot, and Sensei Wayne even came over to watch part of it.  But the dogs Did Not Approve, even though they got a Hike and Salmon, and Salvage is sleeping outdoors tonight because the night smells of jasmine.  And the garage smells of Bombs.

3-13-03 -- Angus and I got our last shot -- the T2 flyby -- after only one glitch where one of the two engines failed to fire. Fortunately I had made extras.  We also drove around getting shots of the sky with moving trees by clamping the camera to the convertible rollbar.  Then it was dump 'em into the computer time and although pyro against bluescreen is always a pain, the new screen and lighting work much better.  This was all just fun, but it will be useful knowledge.

3-14-03 -- Finished the Thunderbirds Homage video and posted it on the Web, where it has already garnered some kind remarks.  I think Thunderbirds fans were just hungry for anything they hadn't seen a zillion times already.  But even as such we learned a lot, and the new bluescreen and lighting techniques are definitely a big improvement.  Also picked up the Agent 12 one-minute theme from Frank and so I can start cutting the "sizzler reel" now.  And Angus and I saw "Cody Banks" which we actually enjoyed.

3-15-03 -- Rainy all day.  At least gave me some time to work on the storyboard.  Also experimented with mixing napthalene and black rubber into the rocket fuel in an attempt to get black smoke.  So far what I get is gray smoke and a terrible smell, which is probably not worth the trouble.  But the salt-and-pepper napmix does do a decent small fireball, though there is still a lingering scent of mothballs.  Was drying out some star mix in the oven and Max came down because he thought it smelled like chicken.  There are probably few households where the children open the oven, stare suspiciously at the contents, and ask "Can I eat this?  Or is it a bomb?"  But survival instinct is strong around here.

3-16-03 -- Will and his son Gary drove down from San Francisco and we shot a short film -- still needs to be edited but we got the footage.  I think Will was astounded at how long it took to get 20 shots.  As he put it, he's framed houses in the same amount of time.  But the footage looks cool and should be fun to assemble.  Gary was very brave even when we were blowing stuff up around him.

3-17-03 -- Assembled the camcrane, which looks cool.

3-18-03 -- Edited the little film with Gary for most of the rest of the day.

3-19-03 -- Finished editing the "Showdown" vid and made copies.

3-21-03 -- Did some storyboard work, including some work at the dojo during promotions, which as always took an hour just to get underway.  So at least I was able to put it to use.

3-22-03 -- Sharon says Kitty runs and hides now whenever she sees me.  They learn.  The dogs are happy to see me unless I go in the garage, which makes them nervous.  Made a new batch of Smoke Cookies.

3-23-03 -- worked on storyboards and sugar rockets.  However our attempt to capture a wire-streak image of them failed when both rockets CATOed.  Sometimes that happens.

3-24-03 -- Started trying to put together the "Sizzler Reel" but that first involved rebuilding the movie from the mix and removing the music.  Then I had to get the visuals from the external hard drive, and of course the complete version is too big to work on my computer.  So I used the Mac to break it down and then dropped the mixed track to put in just the dialogue and SFX.  Of course this alone took all day, but now I can get started.

3-25-03 -- Started more work on the sizzler and got yelled at by Sharon for being too loud, which hurt my feelings.  But she is heartless and cruel by nature.  Angus and I are experimenting with making black powder, just to see if we can.  Goodness knows we don't need it, but it is an Experiment.

3-26-03 -- Now it is windy and dry, so Sharon has asked me to turn off the ball mill for the night lest there be a spark.  I felt this was reasonable, especially since I had just had a test ball-juice-sugar-rocket explode on me with a loud bang.  So I was willing enough to comply.  Finished the first cut of the sizzler reel and will try to get headers and tails on it later.

3-27-03 -- Angus' black powder works pretty well but it is too windy to blow stuff up.

3-29-03 -- In the afternoon Angus and I did storyboards and Craig came over in the evening and we blew up more stuff.  (Napthalene fireballs straight up.)  A day well spent, though not if you ask the dogs.

3-30-03 -- Stuff blew up. Craig spent the night.  It was funny -- when Craig went out the the garage, one thing caught his eye immediately.  "You've got a crane!" he said, lust radiating from every pore.  Obviously a future filmmaker.  I told him he could use it when needed.  Mixing up some stuff to try with epoxy to make black smoke, and also did a storyboard panel or two.

4-2-03 -- Finished the outer structure of the jetpack and it looks damn cool, practically like it would work.  The ignition devices have not been added but it is still debatable whether that should be integrated into the jetpack itself or fired from offscreen.  Angus would probably prefer to have control of that himself.  I know I would, if I was wearing it.  He and I also experimented with making sugar rocket mix out of powdered cocoa, but it appears only marginally successful.  We'll have to try lemonade powder next.  Or Tang.  I wonder if they still sell Tang?

4-3-03 -- I spent another couple of hours working on storyboards.  One thing I'm discovering is that working in the recliner is tough -- I keep dozing off.  I switched to the dining room table and got considerably more accomplished. Discovered that Dixie cups make great containers for coffee creamer fireballs.  Not sure what to do about this, but it is cool.

4-4-03 -- After breakfast stopped by a health food store and picked up something called Birch Sugar to experiment with.  Then when I got home more Bomb Stuff arrived.  Big fun!  Angus and I had made rocket fuel with powdered Country Time lemonade mix and it turned out really well, with spectacular flames -- I had been wondering about this, since the valentine hearts sugar rocket had worked so well.  I suspect but cannot yet prove that the citric acid somehow helps things.  I'll have to pick some up and try adding it to a standard sugar rocket.  In any case, the powdered zinc that arrived turned out to be great stuff added to rocket fuel -- gives a rolling greenish flame and billows of smoke -- very evil-rocket looking, so we are pleased.  And this was just a rough test.  Also got a real ball mill with two barrels so we are mixing two more batches of sugar rockets -- one with birch sugar and one with Dextrose, which also arrived.  Then I did two more script pages of storyboards.  So it was a Good Day.

4-5-03 -- Did storyboards today, getting past Page 40 in the script.  Had to go get new storyboard paper printed up.  Angus took a sheaf of originals off to a sleepover, planning to ink some of them during quiet moments.  Finished the rebuild/customization of the Commander Stix pistol. So it joins the other weapons on the Prop Shelf.

4-6-03 -- shuffled out to the garage to putter with the jetpack, wiring it so that Angus can fire it himself, plus a safety switch.  Got that done anyway.  Went back in and suggested to Angus that perhaps instead of bothering with wires and harness I should just mix up some perchlorate rockets.  Angus is not very heavy and with luck we should be able to get him twenty, thirty feet in the air before they burn out.  If we do it over the pool he should splash down safely enough.  To his credit, Angus merely nodded and said indicated it was worth a try, while his mom had a heart attack.  Angus explained to her it was a joke.

4-7-03 -- Still felt a little ill, so took a sick day, but that didn't stop Angus and I from testing the jetpack.  The thrusters blasted a lot of smoke but they'll need nozzles to give it enough distance.  In any case, the ignition system works.  Tried the AP/zinc mixed with epoxy and it is sort of scary stuff -- a huge blast of flame and black smoke.  In fact, a passing police car came to investigate.  But they were just making sure I was okay.  It looks like it would work for our Rocket of Doom but it may also be more than we want to deal with.  Further careful testing needed.

4-8-03 --  Got a nice call from Austen about the trailer and Angus and I tested a few more black smoke mixes, with middling success.  Did another script page of storyboards.

4-9-03 -- Angus and I even made a successful batch of thermite that we ignited in the backyard.  It flared with brilliant heat, burned about an inch into a 4x4 we had spanning a hole dug in the backyard, and left a puddle of molten iron which Angus is now keeping as a souvenir.  Picked up some ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) since we suspected it was giving the lemonade rockets the extra kick.  Sure enough, it seems to do the job, so we are going to add it to our Secret Formula.  We'll get Angus off the ground yet.  Managed to do a few more storyboard pages as well.

4-10-03  -- Dropped the trusty videocamera today, trying to get it onto one of those blasted Quick-Release mounts (which I have come to despise) and now we are getting some glitching.  Doesn't show up during taping, just in playback.  We did a side-by-side test of sugar rockets today and discovered that lemonade and birch sugar were about the same, though the birch sugar burned a couple of seconds longer.  This may have been just quantity -- I wasn't particularly careful about exact measurements when loading the tube.  In any case, either will work and we'll probably go with whichever is easiest.  We filmed this, and also the Thermite Cupcake, but the video is glitched when I tried to capture it.  Removing the tape and replacing it didn't help, though video taken after that seems improved, though still with occasional artifacts.  A concern, but God knows the camera has already been through so much we should just be grateful it has survived this long.  Did some storyboards -- down to the last five script pages.

4-11-03 -- Angus and I made a Loud Noise today.  We took an empty plastic soda water bottle, drilled a small hole in the lid, inserted a fuse, glued it in place, and put a couple spoonfuls of "golden powder" (vitamin C and potassium nitrate) in the bottle.  Then we screwed the lid on and turned the bottle upside down (so the powder would be on the fuse) and lit it and backed away.  I'm not sure what we expected.  I rather expected the cap would pop off.  Angus figured the bottle would just melt.  But what happened was the bottle burst, kind of like a balloon but with the loudest bang I have heard in years.  My ears hurt for hours afterward and Sharon was furious.  I had to call the neighbors to apologize.  At least their dogs were inside.  Ours almost didn't care.  They've grown too blase to do more than quiver, these days.  The camera seems to be working okay -- it was the tape that was damaged somehow. (Fingers crossed.)  Have inserted a new tape -- the old one was about full in any case.

4-13-03 -- Drizzly rain.  Turns out damp weather is bad for making pyrotechnics, as things get damp.  Who knew?  Finally finished the rough of the storyboard.  Woo-hoo!  240 pages or thereabouts; gonna take a lot of pushpins. 

4-14-03 -- Rainy.  Too damp for bombs.  Probably just as well.  Inked some storyboard pages.

4-16-03 -- picked up some new epoxies and casting resins, and mixed up a few rocket fuels but have to let them cure overnight.  Angus' new red glasses arrived today, so we filmed some tests with them against the greenscreen to see how they would perform.  At least they are tighter against his head and look cool.

4-17-03 -- Inked more storyboard panels.  Mixed up some black smoke engines -- added just a touch of aluminum to make it burn hotter -- hope it doesn't screw things up.  And got some steel to try to make a stand for Angus to use during jetpack scenes.

4-18-03 -- Angus and I also finally got a decent Evil Rocket mix, and about time too, since Sharon was about fed up with Testing.

4-19-03 -- I'd rigged up some thrusters for the backpack and we got a couple of shots -- stood Angus on the rectifier on the front sidewalk for good bluesky BG.  Full gear; shades, guns, costume and jetpack.  Sure stopped traffic, especially when he fired the thrusters.  I think some people were expecting him to actually fly.  But we may actually have gotten some useful footage and at least the thruster design now works. Time to start getting shots.

4-20-03 -- discovered the birch sugar (Xylitol) rocket fuel melts down quickly but turns black -- very interesting.  Did some more storyboard pages.

4-21-03 -- Angus is 14 today!  And Queen Elizabeth is 77, but we know what the real priorities are.  He and I went to the mall and got him some new Agent 12 shoes and pants and a shirt just in case the one we ordered doesn't work out.  And then we went home and painted some bluescreen flats and made some smoke bombs.  The sky was not good for jetpack shots but now that we have a complete outfit we are ready to roll.  May start with the helicopter though, just because miniatures are fun.  And to get it out of the garage.

4-22-03 -- Angus is eager to get started.  I wanted to nap but he got me to start wiring the chopper instead.  Now the tail rotor works.  And our portable bluescreen sets up nicely. 

4-23-03 -- First day of production!  Just a shot or two of the helicopter, and even those may need retakes because of the reflections, but the crane seems to work and so does the helicopter wiring. 

4-24-03 -- repainted the helicopter so it would be less reflective.  Then we grabbed a few shots of the newly-repainted helicopter in our pyjamas. 

4-25-03 -- Angus and I went off to the scrapyard and found this really cool magnet, incredibly powerful -- but they would not let us have it.  They use it themselves for identifying steel scrap.  But we found a whole bin of blank dogtags, so Angus got a handful, and I found some brass doorknobs to use as milling media.  All for two bucks.  So we felt good.  Then we went to Fry's for micro-rocket engines, and Angus got some games with his own money.  After that to Green Thumb for stump remover (potassium nitrate) and sulfur dust (sulfur) and then home again.  Experiments with the results show it to be less effective than the stuff from chemical supply houses but workable in a pinch.  Good to know.  Finally home again, and we started shooting helicopter shots this evening.  A nice, if low-budget, crane and dolly is wonderful -- I've already forgotten how we lived without it.  Did all the pre-pyro stuff.  Now we start blowing it up.

4-26-03 -- Grabbed some bluescreen rockets and then Angus and I set up the ammo-box scene.  This was delayed by the tripod holding the crane breaking.  But we bolted the crane directly to the wagon and it actually is much sturdier now.  Plus, as Angus says, it looks like it was meant to be that way.  It is less tall, but then so are our actors.  We set up the ammo box scene and blew it up, and it came out great.  We shot it from two angles and the shot looked so cool we played it back several times.  Then we went off to Linda's party.  Came home hours later to discover the night clear and windless -- I had been waiting days for such.  Lit off a bunch more rockets for stock -- and then discovered to my horror I had taped right over the ammo box scene!  Angus was off at Michaels but I hastily reconstructed the scene -- fortunately, when we blow things up they are not actually very damaged -- and shot it again.  This time was even cooler, though the propeller was slower.  However, it won't be seen much and I can always double-matte it in with regular-speed footage since I was shooting from a tripod.  So we can hope it's okay.  Let this be a lesson though -- always capture cool footage right away and burn it to disk. Note: Need more disks.

4-27-03 -- More helicopter footage obtained.  The Sidewinder missile barrage worked better than we really had a right to expect, and the plasma missile hits on the weapons bods were really cool.  Always glad that Angus' camera is there for backup.  Even the dogs don't mind much, since the noise is pretty minor. 

 I was trying to change the position of the helicopter on its stand and I accidentally dropped it.  Smash on the concrete floor, bits of it flying everywhere.  I was aghast, so stunned I couldn't even swear.  We had worked days getting that thing filmworthy.  But Angus, who was there, just said in a reassuring voice -- "Don't worry, Dad.  It's just a model.  We built it once, we can build it again."  Which was a great deal of comfort.  And as it turned out, he was right -- the much of the helicopter had been designed to snap together, and it was these parts that had gone flying.  It was back together in less than an hour, with only some minor gluing and repainting. 

4-28-03 -- Got the last helicopter shots, including blowing it to smithereens.  Rigging the shot took me three hours and it was over in less than a second.  But the footage was cool.  Michael Tsang came over to watch.  Then Angus and I struck the set, took everything apart, threw away the debris and returned the garage to almost normal.  Sure was tired by the end, though. 

4-29-03 -- As an experiment, used the stump remover to make black powder.  Actually seems to work pretty well.

4-30-03 -- Got a cheery call from Big Finish saying they liked the "Agent 12" script.  Always nice to hear.  You know they have to be cheerful, surounded by nude women all the time.  All writers should have villas in Ibiza.

5-1-03 -- Inked many more storyboard panels and numbered the whole board. 

5-4-03 -- had a few hours to try to do everything I meant to do today -- pasted up and copied the whole helicopter section -- forty pages in and of itself -- so at least that far ahead. 

5-7-03 --  Angus and I pasted up the storyboard for the chopper sequence on a couple of flats and it is in my room now. 

5-8-03 -- ran off to the mall and inked forty storyboard pages, and Angus inked half a dozen more, so there are only a few pages left.  Burned a few more scenes and pinned the disks up.  Starting to look familiar.  Also tried a Xylitol melt rocket which works pretty well -- I'll have to jot down the recipe.

5-9-03 -- Spent the day melting  and assembling rocket engines, painting set gear, and getting ready for the F-12 shots.  Will have to wire the car for its own effects, since it'll have to be wired anyway and may as well give Angus the buttons.  My ignition mix seems to do the job okay, and a brief test of a small rocket thruster looked cool. 

5-10-03 -- Sharon went off to meet her mom in Claremont, and I seized the opportunity of her absence to melt-cast a bunch of sugarthrusters for the F12, a process she objects to because of the smell of hot sulfur. 

5-12-03 -- went out in the garage and used the old T2 motor to wire up the chaingun on the F-12 to spin automatically.  Plus soldered some wire and clips for the thrusters, but will need a proper button and some lantern batteries.  In the meantime Angus and I are milling a new batch of Xylitol fuel.

5-13-03 -- melt-casted some heavy-duty Xylitol thrusters. Burned one more chopper scene to disk and cleaned up some more board.  Just a few pages to go.

5-14-03 -- wired the F-12 for thruster ignition. 

5-15-03 -- Big day.  Angus and I decked him out in full Agent 12 gear -- including jetpack -- and hiked up to Pride Rock, with him carrying all his equipment plus the tripod and self carrying the camera case and an aluminum extension ladder.  It was quite a hike, and of course hot.  The Shots came out nice though -- I did forget to turn the mike on again for half of them, but it hardly matters since we'll have to ADR them anyway.  However, the mike does show itself well -- it really works nicely (when on.)  The jetpack itself wasn't supposed to light off -- we'll do that part later. But we loaded it anyway, just for grins. However, it failed to light -- turns out I broke the wires to the thrusters when I put the nozzles on.  Tested one of the thrusters later as a stock shot -- man, they are intense.  Got that mix DOWN, we have.  But probably just as well they didn't go off, with Angus atop a fifty-foot rock.  Then long hike home, arriving sweltering hot and exhausted to fall in the pool.  We also painted the other side of the bluescreen in chroma green, so we have both to work with now. 

5-16-03 -- I had Angus and Craig scrub off the upper deck, which I then primered a section of.  Lowes mixed me up a gallon of floor paint which is supposed to be a fairly close match to Chroma Green.  Still waiting for the primer to dry, though.

5-18-03 -- Angus and I painted a section of the upper deck chroma green today, and it was bright, hot work.  Then I repainted the jetpack stand to match the chroma green.

5-19-03 -- Angus and I got some jetpack shots, but it got too hot to continue with anything other than editing. 

5-20-03 -- Our first green-pinned (finalized) shot today -- the shot of Angus launching into the air from Pride Rock with the jetpack.  Very cool.  Plus we got some interesting letters from another filmmaker who specializes in ingenious cheapness and has fun ideas of his own, and a band in Monterey Park that wants us to do a video for them.  All fun responses. 

5-21-03 -- Angus finished his schoolwork promptly so we could go off to Tri-Ess Sciences, which I was hoping would be a good local supply for the chemicals we need, but the guy who ran it was very adamant that he couldn't sell us anything.  His choice, of course, but at least we still have the Internet.  I do object to that kind of paternalism when we are already trying to be as scrupulously safe, honest, and unobtrusive as possible.  But as Angus said, the guy mixed it with humor and didn't appear to be happy about it himself, so maybe it is just the way things are.  But I think in the long term these regulations are preventing boys from becoming the rocket scientists of the future and it is a sad thing.  We did get some fuller's earth and a butane torch though, and Angus got a crystal-growing kit, so the trip had its upside as well.  Started mixing more Xylitol fuel because I think we're going to be getting a lot of jetpack shots over the weekend. 

5-23-03 -- Picked up some black paint and painted the garage floor for stock shots, and also picked up the copies of the boards.  Got some foam board to pin up the whole thing.  Really should have gotten some more primer and green and thicker board for making a surround greenscreen, but we'll try to fake it with what we have.  Melted down some longer-lasting xylitol thrusters and used the leftovers for some smaller ones for the stock.  Updated the web page with some "low budget tips and tricks" and got a message from Austen about getting into the Agent 12 stuff.

5-24-03 -- Angus and I took advantage of the cloudiness to do all the jetpack shots that took place on the greenscreen stage -- cloudy days are ideal because of the lack of shadows.  Josh came over to help, and we got literally dozens of shots and went through my whole stockpile of thrusters.  Now to start sorting all the footage.  Josh had some footage of his own he needed help capturing, and also needed some help with some small bullet squib hits for the dirt, so I made him up a couple with the caveat that Angus had to do handle them so I knew they would be safe.  Saw the footage afterward and noted that they did exactly as requested and the squibs worked just fine, so that was nice. 

5-25-03 -- Another perfect day for shooting but Angus and I were so exhausted from yesterday that we couldn't work up the energy.  As it was, Max and I hauled the F-12 up to the deck -- a massive chore in itself -- and I pasted up all the rest of the storyboard pages, taking most of the day and practically wallparering my entire office. 

5-26-03 -- Since it was also the Memorial Day Block Party and my mom was coming over, there was precious little film work done.  Just a couple of stock shots and starting a new Xylitol mix.  Josh was trying to finish his film and I assisted with his questions on inserting lens flares.  He did a good job too -- his dad brought over the end result and we put it on VHS.

5-27-03 -- Had to do Real Work most of the day, but did melt down some more thrusters to start capturing elements.  The plan was to film them tonight but karate -- with tough Irish Sensei Jacob was so exhausting I could not do anything but be glad I survived.  As it was, Sensei Wayne accidentally put me in a sleeper hold during a grapple and I blacked out for a few seconds.  Scary but interesting.  Did give Mutzie a copy of the board, but it is a massive tome and don't expect her to read it.  Exported a few more jetpack files and will burn them to disk in the morning. 

5-28-03 Hot and sunny.  Salvage and I hiked up to Pride Rock to get background footage with the long pole and the camera and did the best we could.  Salvage could not climb up on the rock with me, but messed around happily in the brush and came right away when whistled for, so she received Praise.  And even though we took the short way, entering up by where Josh lives, it was enough for us.  In the evening we did some stock thrusters up on the deck.   Max loaded a new version of Final Cut on the Mac, so I will be trying to work with that.

5-29-03 -- got engrossed in a jetpack shot which was looking cool and ended up tweaking it most of the day.  Plus Josh called for some help on Premiere.  Plus had to do Real Work.    So it was a full day.

6-1-03 -- Big day.  Not every day one builds an entire EFX studio AND gets some shots the same day.  But we did it.  Greenscreen everywhere, lights mounted on an overhead track (actually my 30-foot extension ladder on supports 12 feet off the ground) and in the evening Josh and Craig helped get some fine shots, including the 2-inch thrusters which worked just dandy and were impressive as hell.  But I am flat out exhausted and ready for bed.  Forgot to buy coffee -- will have to use instant tomorrow.

6-2-03 -- Hot after a cloudy start.  Another one of those mornings which would have been perfect for filming if we hadn't already been exhausted.  But a Vilma day anyway, which means Chaos.  As it was, I added some more lights to the overhead rack and put the flourescents on stands.  Did a pile of Real Work, so I am feeling less pressured there, and am trying to round up the cast for Publicity Photos.  This means getting outfits for Mutzie and Josh, and doing it quickly. 

6-3-03 -- Cool and cloudy and still in the morning, so Angus and I seized the opportunity           to get a pile of good F12 shots while the light was good and the day was cool.  Had about an hour and a half of good shooting before a wind started to kick up which blew the greenscreen around, so we knocked off.  We had plenty to capture and begin working on anyway.  Went to look at two jackets Mutzie and her mother had picked out for Commander Stix and put on reserve.  Both were good but I liked one better so I bought it and took it off with me.   Also took a copy of the CDA logo in to Printing Safari so they could put it on a shirt for me.  It's to be Tech Officer Scott's uniform.  In the evening we set up the garage for still photos for the Big Finish promotional materials.  Brian came over to have his photo taken and his father took a copy of the trailer with him.  Angus got his photo taken afterward, in full gear.

6-4-03 -- Spent much of the day photoshopping the photos of Angus and Brian, and then began editing together the jetpack footage to make sure it would work.  Seems okay so far.  Max was able to fix Will's computer, but there still seems to be a problem connecting it to the network so he is going to replace a few more parts.  After karate, Mutzie and Josh came over around seven for their photos, which didn't take long and I was able to clear out the garage again.

6-5-03 -- Cool and cloudy almost all day.  Angus and I seized the opportunity to get all the remaining F-12 shots, up to the point where it launches missiles.  These must be captured and sorted and then we can get the rest of the shots.  The weather is supposed to stay cloudy through the weekend, which will help. 

Wrote up the Gadgets and Gear section for the bible, then spent the rest of the day working on the promotional stills.  Took them into the dojo, where people thought they looked pretty cool.  Tweaked them further when I got home and set them on a web page for Austen. 

Got a nice letter from a guy down south who does radio-controlled boats and other such coolness.  Will have to give him a call tomorrow.  Such people are useful to know.

6-6-03 -- Worked on the Agent 12 bible and added images and posted it on the site for approval.  This took most of the day. 

6-7-03 -- spent most of the day capturing, sorting, and starting to burn to disk all the F-12 footage we have so far.  It takes hours to do this, and it is never as much fun as running around shooting things, but it is the only way I personally can keep track of where we are.  But I did rewire the F12 thruster ignition which had gotten burned away in the last shoot, and picked up a new steel creepy-crawler to replace the plastic one, which has started to collapse under the combined weight of Angus and the F-12.

6-8-03 -- Spent the day running around Simi Valley trying to scout possible locations.  Stopped by the Church at Rockey Peak and noted that several people from the dojo were there.  They gave me the name of a pastor to speak to regarding using the parking lot for a couple of moving F-12 shots.

6-9-03 -- Too wet to shoot so Angus and I covered all the equipment and I started milling some mesquite charcoal to see how it works for effects. 

6-11-03 -- went to the Laundromat.  Had to wash the big tarps we'd painted green, as wadding them up all damp had not done them much good.  They are better now, but I'd forgotten what a grind laundromats are.  A homeless guy out front was trying to hit people up for cash but he was so hammered he couldn't even stand, he was just lying in the lot.  Police came and tried to get him to move, but ended up calling for paramedics.  He was waving cheerfully as they took him away.  A nice Mexican lady who was running about seventeen loads at once helped me fold one of the tarps, which I appreciated.  Angus helped me fold the other when I got home. 

6-12-03 -- Angus and I got many F12 shots today and what with all the climbing up and down stairs with equipment and clambering up ladders and yanking that go-kart around I am tuckered. 

6-13-03 -- Set up the helmet so it would rise in the air via pulleys and counterweights, but had to wait until night to shoot.  Then we were eaten by bugs.  But we got shots and I backed up some old stuff onto the external and cleared some space for the new.   Angus and I are mixing up some new Xylitol rocket mix -- this time using stump remover as we are low on KNO3, but it should work pretty much the same.  Added a bit of iron oxide because I had seen some mention that it assisted in burning.  Catalyst.  May not, but will add some pretty red color and probably won't hurt.

6-14-03 -- Spent the day melting down rockets -- tested one, Angus had requested that we use sugar rockets for the plasma missiles if at all possible, but they turn out to be not quite strong enough.  We make them more for looks than thrust.

6-15-03 -- Angus and Craig and I got many shots today, including standing Angus on Mark's mailbox in jetpack garb and also firing the Plasma Missiles.  The doctored engines (Angus was a bit nervous about using standard engines) gave a funny "poot" and fizzled, so we used real ones and it worked fine.  Angus was very cool.

6-16-03 -- some magnesium powder showed up from Pyrotech.org and what with experimenting with that (too hot and bright for us, I fear) and smoking up the garage getting thruster stock was basically occupied all day. 

6-17-03 -- Spent the early part of the day melting down and casting the xylitol sugar rockets -- used magnesium powder instead of aluminum this time, and they seem to burn more vigorously with fewer sparks, so they will probably be good for getting stock footage.   Of course, the footage we already have is pretty good anyway.  But any excuse, and I wanted to try the formula.  Also had to get it done before Sharon got home, because she's not fond of the hot-sulfur smell. The remaining melt that wasn't cast was rolled by Angus into pea-sized balls and will be used as stars and gluons.

6-18-03 -- Swept up the garage and discovered Angus had already donned his outfit for shooting.  So we did a ton of karate stuff against the black screen, and also got some of the opening shots.  Kenpo Three over and over again wore him out though, and I think he took it out on me at karate -- I had a Private and it involved Diving Rolls and now I am sore.

6-19-03 -- put in an hour or two editing the footage of Angus doing Kenpo 3 against black, which I am hoping to use as a main title sequence.

6-20-03 -- Angus and Nick and I got the remainder of the opening sequence shot.  Filled the garage with coffee creamer smoke to make the lasers show, and the result looks pretty damn cool if we do say so.  Now Nick and Angus are charging around outside making their own movie at night.

6-21-03 – Sharon’s Birthday.  Deliberately took the day off from production.

6-23-03 -- Got up at dawn and finished some Real Work and sent that in, but felt under the weather for the day.  Barely had enough energy to burn a bunch of scenes to disk and edit the karate solo sequence and build a bazooka.  Discovered after it was nearly complete that I had used a usually-closed switch by accident -- a test with a small ignitor went off in my hand while I was clipping it in.  Rewired it with another switch, same thing.  Finally had to dredge out some completely different and much larger switches and drill some larger holes and wire that in.  Seems to work now.  It's only going to be used for a couple of scenes but we got intrigued with the project.

6-24-03 -- still a little under the weather.  Nonetheless, managed to complete construction of the bazooka and we tested it a couple of times on film.  As expected, the rockets arc down pretty fast -- especially because we have to cut the fins way down -- but that is actually more desirable than the alterative and the shots looked cool.

6-25-03 -- tried to investigate some Simi Valley industrial spots but none that were available were much better than the garage, which is free.  Some new pyro supplies arrived and I experimented with them and then tried to shoot some stock in the evening.  Not sure how much of it will work out -- the wind was slight, but it was enough to be a problem.  Got some decent tiny explosions but they may not be any better than that which we already had.

6-26-03 – Started constructing the CDA HQ set in the garage. 

6-27-03 -- building sets in the garage today -- always makes it feel like cool stuff is happening.  Built two walls and the boys did major work on them, fastening down the panels and adding all the screws and painting them.  I still have to design a functional door -- since this time they have to actually open and close occasionally instead of just getting kicked in -- but we'll work something out.  The boys are up late finishing all the footage for their "splinter cell" video.  Nick is dressed all in black and I came home last night to discover him in the garage.  Scared the poop out of me for a second. Worked out a decent formula for the cutting torch prop -- Xylitol seems to just plain work better than Sorbitol, no question.  Smells better too.  And doesn't get all sticky from the moisture in the air.  So since VP Discount seems to be stocking it now we will continue to use it. Got a bit cooked working on the sets -- I was assembling the 2x4 frames outside in the sun while the boys attached the panels in the garage -- so I personally was pretty worn out.  But Frank let me come borrow his spare Maxtor drive so I was able to back up a bunch of stuff off the iMac and clear off some room.

6-28-03 -- Angus and Nick stayed up past 2Am getting their movie shot, but they say they finished and have dumped it onto the iMac for editing.  Myself, I spent the day trying to work out how to make cool sliding "Star Trek" doors on a nonexistent budget.  But progress has been made.  This is the weekend that fireworks go on sale at Fillmore, but for the first time we have decided not to go.  The stuff we make is more interesting, safer, and less likely to annoy the neighbors, being quiet.  Plus we have an actual use for it.  So we've thrown some more mix on the mill and decided to leave it like that.

6-29-03 -- Mark is back and he gave me the car seat to use for the helicopter - I took it over to Greg's.  Built more on the CDA set and painted some of it -- it is starting to look cool now.  Got the sliding Star Trekkie doors to work in a fashion -- they will be operated by 23rd-century technology, namely a small child standing behind the wall.  Also cast a few thrusters and finally got some decent 3/4 stock footage. 

6-30-03 -- Angus was over at Michael's for a birthday, but I did more work on the set.  Added some lights which make it look sort of cool but sort of like a bar -- I may take them off and use them for the proton cannon instead.

7-1-03 -- Took a bunch of stuff over to Greg's -- two loads, in fact -- in preperation for chopper-set-building.  Got misters as well and tried them on the HQ set but they just made things slippery and couldn't be seen so I took them down and put them on the porch instead.  Angus agreed with me that the lights looked wrong, so they have been taken down as well.  They will serve for the proton cannon.

7-2-03 -- Went over to Greg's with Angus to begin assembling the chopper set.  With the help of Greg, Taylor, and his friend Chris, we got the whole thing banged roughly together in a single day, and though we still have some painting and buttons to add, it is looking cool in a typically cheesy sort of way.  The kids were a lot of help, too.  Taylor already wants to keep the set for his own use after we are done, but Greg says no.  Started "rusting up" the set in the garage by spraying soapy water and rust-colored paint at the same time and it looks cool.  Have to remember that.

7-3-03 -- Angus and I spent the day over at Greg's finishing up the chopper cockpit; Taylor and Greg assisting.  Taylor had been at a sleepover and of course was dragged out but quickly rallied -- both boys did a great deal of work and I was proud of them.

7-4-03 -- There was a brush fire up in the hills (which, as I took pains to point out to people, we had *nothing* to do with) and what with that and our general desire to lay low on the 4th we did no real fireworks of our own.  Spent the day getting ready for the shoot tomorrow at Greg's. 

7-5-03 -- Angus and I got up early and went over to Greg's with all our equipment and managed to get all the shots done without completely wrecking their house.  And with only minor damage to Taylor, who had his pants slightly burned by sparks but found it exciting.  Even Greg semed to get into the fun of it, but I got the strong impression Leisa is just glad Taylor and the house have come through it more or less intact.  So far, anyway.  The shoot wiped me out as they always do, and the rest of the day was spent Resting, though I did go by Frank's to hear some music, and checked out a garage area behind Mary's office which could be useful.

7-6-03 -- Captured the video of Taylor from both cameras.  Looks good so far.  As always, I wasn't paying much attention to Angus during the shoot, trusting him to operate the second camera on his own.  Blessedly, he did quite well, getting solid shots with a good choice of angles, and some of them better than my own.  Always nice to have backup, and some of them will definitely be used.  Brought the car seat back to Mark, but the rest of the helicopter stayed at Greg's.  Any chair will do; I left the seat cover there as well.

7-7-03 -- Tried to do that shooting-through-the-door scene today but attempted to do it with fuse and the styrofoam of the set caught fire.  Fortunately we always work with a hose handy.  It was doused before there were any problems but it does serve as a good reminder that we must always be careful.  A test of electrical ignition showed this works much better (as usual) but we have to delay for a day while the set is repaired.  Josh came over and hung around all day, mostly in the pool with Angus.  I gave him some scenes to add muzzle flashes to.

7-8-03 -- Sorted a few of the McFarlane takes.

7-9-03 -- Filmed the "shooting through the door" first shots and this time it worked well.  Punching blasts (I loaded the squibs with coffee creamer for a hard fireball effect) and no fires.  Angus and I both filmed and Angus's shots turned out better. Then I prepped for tomorrow, painting the floor and literally trapping myself in the garage until I could signal Angus to open the main garage door so I could sneak out.  The dogs are nervous about the painted floor and are sleeping outside.

7-10-03 -- prepped for the night's shoot.  Angus had karate and then we went home to find Josh already on set.  He brought over some of the footage he'd been adding muzzle flashes to and they looked quite promising.  We shot through the rest of the door and got most of the Angus/Josh stuff -- and then noticed my mike wasn't on.  But by that time Boo Boo and Mutzie had arrived.  Boo Boo and his sister Feifel did sterling duty behind the scenes as door operators, and then Boo Boo did his role as well.  Mutzie had all her lines memorized -- she's very serious.  It was fun seeing all the kids together though the more of them there are on a set the more they have to be reined in, or they start giggling and goofing around.  We still got through in good time, even though it was hot, and the new mike (when on) appears to give good results.

7-11-03 -- The entire day was spent capturing, sorting, and burning the footage from over the past week; always a long process.  Still not quite done.  But have to keep on top of it. 

7-12-03 -- Sorted and burned all the footage from Thursday.  Took all day, but a nice stack of disks to show for it.  Also trying some golden powder with aluminum mixed in, just to see what happens.  It's milling now.  And ordered Final Cut Express from Amazon.  Would be nice to be able to use the iMac for more than just capturing and sorting footage.

7-13-03  -- After breakfast with the boys, Max and I, working as a team, got a cable run up to his room and an ethernet cable run down, and thus installed the wireless network up there.  From that vanatge point it reaches all the needful computers, including Angus' and there was much rejoicing for an hour or two until RR went out again.  But at least it is done, and hot work it was, too.

7-16-03 -- Spent part of the day cleaning up the garage getting ready to construct the new set.  HAve to find out what Max did with my drill, though.

7-17-03 -- Sharon and Angus ran down to Colleen's for a get-together.  They are spending the night.  I planned to utilize the time in rebuilding the garage set into a new set, but realized after they left in the van that I needed the van to bring home those huge styrofoam sheets.  So instead I picked up some switches and other minor electronics to try to make the prop cutting torches.  Plus I baked my own softwood charcoal from the meleuleca trees, and it is milling now.  Experimented with using psyllum husks for making meal powder, and the results are encouraging.  Also tried lethicin for fireballs, but that was a dud.  Oh well.

7-18-03 --  Sharon and Angus were still down at Colleen's and I stayed up way too late the previous night, so slept in and then accomplished little.  But did mix up some more meal powder and got some small fittings for tablespoon fireballs, which can now be done fairly reliably.  THen stayed up too late fighting with the family computer some more, which Angus has managed to completely clog up with junk.  Oh well, it is old anyway.

7-19-03 -- went off to get more foam sheets to build new sets.  The shots Josh added muzzle flashes to came out great -- I am very pleased with him.  Tried to start rebuilding the set but discovered my old drill-driver had given out -- went to get a new one but of course it had to charge.  In the meantime messed with some pyro mixtures and some footage.  Angus and I got a needed door-closing shot or two, and I was able to track down the chopper footage I was missing.

7-20-03 -- Angus was over at Michael's so Max and I had breakfast, but we picked him up afterward and we all went over to Mary's office to help cart the stuff out of the garage.  The guy whose stuff it was -- Jack -- was very nice and even though he had to make to trips, we did end up with a very promising space.  Angus and Max were both hard workers.  Put my new drill-driver to work and took apart the garage set, starting to rebuild it into a corridor.  And also started cleaning up an F12 shot, tidying the greenscreen, smoothing it out, and adding a ground shadow.  Still need to add dust and muzzle flashes -- but will see if Josh is up for doing them.

7-21-03 -- Made pulverone, and using the sifter worked well.  My meal powder -- made with ball juice and psyllum husks -- also worked well.  Tried adding it to a fireball and it gave it quite a kick, more than I expected.  Fun but too vigorous for our use, will be scaling it back.  Started building another wall for the corridor scenes, and it is drying now.  Final Cut Express arrived, so I am excited.

7-22-03 -- Angus and I worked on the corridor set and got most of it done -- it just needs painting now. 

7-23-03 -- went out to stick screws in the set and paint it.  Also made some stardust that turned out well.  Makes for a good effect in small fireballs.  Burned more footage to disks -- some overlooked chopper shots.  The Final Cut Express has been installed -- barely begun playing with it but I like the look of the interface.

7-24-03 -- Angus had spent the night at Craig's and the two of them were feeling vigorous, so we went over to Lowes and then MAry's to start doing the greenscreen room.  The boys did almost all the work themselves, with me mainly supervising and fetching drinks.  They were very hard workers for five straight hours, and we got all the styrofoam sheets up and primed.  Then we left it to dry before painting it green.  Big job, and hot work.  But as we were tidying up, we heard an ice-cream truck go by in the alley outside and Angus managed to flag it.  Just the treats needed after a sweltering job like that.  Angus' present of an Airsoft shotgun arrived and it is very cool.  He likes it quite a bit, I think.  Plus I got some little plastic balls designed to be filled with bombstuff which are cool.

7-25-03 -- invented a cool new black smoke mix with some PVC powder that just arrived.  Also fired up Final Cut Express and struggled with it for a while before finally getting it to do what I needed -- cut together the beginning of the opening but went out to get Josh's stuff to cut in and now the program crashes on startup.  Sigh.  It must be my magnetic field.

7-26-03 -- Angus and I went over to Mary's and painted the greenscreen room green -- took a few hours, but not bad.  And finally worked out my smoke mix.  Tried to do editing but the Mac is seriously down -- Max is working on it.  And my machine kept crashing -- I thing I need to convert the blowing dust stock to another format.  But Sharon and I walked the dogs, and I tidied up in general.  Mike Davis, of the miniture power boats, called and he will be visiting tomorrow with his son Harrison.

7-27-03 -- Mike Davis and his some Harrison came up to visit, bringing with them a selection of miniature power boats.  Harrison was thrilled to meet the real Agent 12, and also to swim in the warm pool. Angus did a great job of keeping him occupied, and even though Mike and I had never seen each other in person, we got along great. 

7-28-03 -- installed some lights at Mary's, so it was a productive day.  Spent the evening editing the opening sequence.  Still have to tweak a few things, but it's getting there.

7-29-03 -- We shot the corridor scene tonight, which went well.  The kids were all much more relaxed and we picked up some lines that needed redubbing from the previous night.  The dry ice was interesting but not very visual, and Mutzie spilled a chocolate martini down her front.  A likely addition to the blooper reel.  The crane works quite well for getting smooth shots when I can handle it right.  Even Max helped out in sliding doors open and closed.

7-30-03 --  Wasn't feeling well -- shoots always take it out of me -- so simply made some charcoal from 2x4 chunks (which by the way shows interesting promise for drifting sparks) and Angus and I went off to see T3, which we thought was fun.  Began sorting through the footage from last night, getting the shots together.  Will burn them to disk tomorrow.

7-31-03 -- Angus and Josh were shooting their own little movie which involved blowing up Josh.  I helped.  Then we shot a scene for RA12 which also involved blowing up Josh.  Came out cool.  Josh spent the rest of the day in the pool.

Sharon still gone, house still lonely.  But the Maltese method black powder made with 2x4 charcoal is very comforting.  And that same charcoal does an awesome job mixed in with coffee creamer.  We just make them in a small dixie cup, but they work quite well and are free of anything that might shatter.  The dixie cups don't even get scorched.

8-1-03  -- Sharon is back home.  Angus is over at Josh's and took an armload of weapons with him.  Glad they are having fun.

8-2-03 -- Max and I brought the F-12 down from the deck, a task which despite the removed railing was still almost fatal. But we got it done and of course now we are Smug.  Sorted and cleaned up Sharon's Cloud footage and am now exporting it to files for burning.  Lots of footage but since we'll probably speed it up we need lots.

8-4-03 -- Did Real Work, plus worked on the garage set, and sorted the rest of Sharon's cloud footage and shot some Air Burst black smoke effects.

8-5-03 – Most of the day was spent dealing with footage, editing another sequence and burning all of Sharon's clouds to disk.  Also posted some more stock on the website for others to use.  Tried one last airburst using an empty prescription bottle, but the lid was too tight and it was too loud.  Also, the black smoke burned to white because of the pressure.  So stick with looser packaging.

Mark said the Remington power loads should work fine as blanks in a .22, I got some and tried them out.  The strongest ones did in fact give nice muzzle flashes, so we filmed some and put them on the site.  These are mainly because Josh wanted them for his own use -- I still prefer the one-step-away-from-reality of lens flares for our project.  But glad to help out.  Most of my cast is gone at the moment -- I will have to resort to shooting Angus stuff.

8-7-03 -- Got some work done and some editing but spent more time updating the web site and answering e-mail.  Angus and I took the crane over to Mary's to get ready for shooting in the morning. 

8-8-03 -- Got Angus up reasonably early and dressed him out, then we went over to Mary's while it was still cool and dangled him from a green cable in his harness while we got needed shots.  The harness chafed him a bit, but overall it all worked out.  Sharon took Angus off to the beach, where they both got mildly sunburned.  This is especially soothing to chafed skin.  Got a letter from a kid making a movie who wanted some ground flame effects, if we had any -- we didn't but we were going to need some ourselves, so we did some miniature versions on a pie tin and posted them. 

8-9-03 -- Sorted all the footage of Angus in freefall, but need to get more disks to burn the scenes on.  Did a little more editing on the CDA sequence and steadied a couple of shots so they look better.  Angus says Josh is back so I am bugging him for a time to shoot this weapons-lab stuff.

8-11-03  -- The free stock footage we had posted on the website for others to use seems to have garnered some interest from other amateur filmmakers, which was kind of the point.  No use us all doing it we we can just reuse the same stuff but in different ways to make new creations.  Safer, too.  In any case, glad some people are thinking it might be useful.  Got a few things at Lowes -- mainly pipe fittings for a new stabilizer design I wanted to try, based on someone else's posted design -- see, there we are, sharing again -- and then in the evening we met Brian and hs father at Mary's and filmed all the Dr. Vengeance stuff in which he appears on a monitor.  Brian is much more into the role now, and Angus even did some of the directing.  It went well.

8-12-03 -- Gave the F-12 a dose of glossy black paint for its upcoming scene, and Sharon bought black tee-shirts for the henchmen, and I printed out six V logos for them.  Had Angus and Michael cut them out carefully, and ironed them on. 

Also had them assemble some igniters, and we rigged a half-dozen 3 oz paper cups for coffee creamer fireballs.  Wanted to see if we could successfully shoot such things on the green stage, because we could always use the stock and besides, Michael is underway on the miniature of the CDA fortress and we'll be filming it there -- with explosions.  Better to make sure it'll work.  We used two cameras to get two angles, and did five fireballs, with delay for my going back to get the coffee creamer and the shop vac hose, which I had forgotten, and for vacuuming up debris between shots and letting the smoke clear out.  But I think the results show it will be workable, with careful tweaking.  Those cheap lights keep going out though.  Annoying.

8-13-03 – Mostly Real Work, though did upload some more stock.

8-14-03  -- Lab scene.  We started shooting at seven PM and it was still hot, but the boys were in fine form and we got good stuff.  Love working with that crane, it's a real treat.  The dogs were very interested and would come in between takes to see what was going on.

8-15-03 -- Ended up spending most of the day compositing scene 525, the Angus freefall scene. Hand-painted out all the harness rigging.  Got the scene where it looks pretty good, with just a couple of minor frame-edge lines which I could fix myself with a few minutes' work (and a few hours render time) but I passed it off to Max, who may be able to do it quicker.

8-16-03 -- My electromagnetic field was in fine form today, as I crashed my own computer to the point where it needed three reboots to get back to normal.  Went in to use the Mac in the meantime and managed to crash IT so badly that Max says he will have to completely wipe the drive and reinstall the operating system.  But I did wake up realizing an easy way to fix shot 525, so I did that once my own machine was back up, and also did shot 528, another freefall shot.  So though the day remains in the deficit category, it was not a complete wash.  Ordered a new external HD for the Mac so I can back up more stuff -- all this footage eats room.  And made a stencil so I can stencil equipment.  And made a new camera stabilizer, because I had given the other one to Josh.  And Angus and I went off to Lowe's to get some sheets of Durock, flexible concrete sheets, to help protect the set walls from possible flame.

8-17-03 -- Painted the Durock to match the set and bought a couple of replacement bulbs for the lights at Mary's.  Swung by to install them and they seem to work, so I'll get more and replace the others.

8-18-03 -- Did a smattering of Real Work and sent it off, and then fought with the sprinklers and ran errands.  Started constructing the rotating platform for the F12, and Angus and I cleared off the upper deck, because Sensei is supposed to come over on Wednesday evening for a private lesson.  Have to keep Angus sharp.  Burned all the Brian stuff to disk.

8-19-03 -- Had a bad disaster on the set today -- the big sugar thruster for the F-12 backfired, shattering the front of the enclosure and showering Angus with sparks.  It was terrifying.  To make matters worse, we got it on three cameras, and the video is chilling.  We hosed him down instantly, but everyone was very shaken up.  Oddly enough, Angus at the moment seems the least fazed by it -- he's got some blisters but he came off damn cool to several older boys, such as Max and one of Rodney's nephews who was watching, and they said so.  He even got right back in the car and drove it off the set so we could get the shot (we can lay the flames in later.)  So I am freaked, but he was heroic, and he definitely wants to continue the movie.  Fortunately, that was the last of the F-12 stuff anyway.  Nonetheless, someone suggested Nomex underwear, like race-car drivers wear.  I’d never heard of it, but it seems like a good idea, so some is on order now.  You never know.

8-20-03 -- After the trauma of last night, we took it very slow today, checking on Angus (to the point where he started to get annoyed.)  Sharon made an appointment to see the doctor at Motion Picture so we took him off there.  The nurse asked how it had happened and I said an effect went awry during our movie, but this threw them into a panic, asking what production and things like Workman's Comp.  They are a movie-industry hospital after all.  So after she was reassured and went away, the doctor came in and I knew not to mention film.  So the conversation went like this:

Doctor:  Oh my.  How did this happen?

Me:  We mounted a solid-fuel rocket booster to his go-kart but it exploded.

Doctor:  Oh, okay.

Word-for-word.  Anyway, Angus still insists he's feeling fine, they gave us some cream, and I found a shard of the shattered F-12 mounting and made it into a necklace to remind me to be careful with fire.  The parachute cord from the set was used to string it, and that stuff tends to fray, so I melted the ends with my blowtorch.  A blob of burning nylon fell on my finger and blistered it badly.  Sigh.

8-21-03 -- Angus is fine enough now to resent the attention we give him, though he does say the area is starting to itch a bit.  The Beast Wars DVD collection arrived, which at least gave Angus something to watch.  And I put together a couple of rockets to fire from the bazooka.  In the interests of safety though, the bazooka has been converted to only wire-guided shells.  More control, and that is a good thing.  Angus is going to see how he feels, and may join us.  Also picked up some black shoes and a headset toy.

8-22-03 -- Warm and sunny.  Went into the hills to shoot David's scenes, and Angus went along, working second camera. 

8-23-03 -- Picked up some shoes for Avery and spent the day building the control panel for the shoot tomorrow.  Angus spent some time at Josh's and now Josh is here.  Max rebuilt the Mac HD and I tweaked it to satisfaction and then he cloned it.  So in theory we have a backup version all ready to go if this one gets corrupted again. 

8-24-03 --  Filmed the Craig and Avery stuff today and it went quite well.  Nice to have a big green stage to run around on.  Angus is healing up nicely and most of the old skin is falling away, leaving new pink skin underneath.  Comped another of the McFarlane scenes. 

8-25-03 -- Angus and I went off to Mary's to get some shots.  I was planning to blow up the howitzer control panel I had made, but the thing was huge and I couldn't think of a good safe way to do it.  But it was a simple enough shape so I made a small cardboard one, four inches high, held together with flash paper and bits of gluons.  With the smoke mix inside it blew up very photogenically and was much easier and safer to control.  We also fired and filmed the howitzers themselves.  Angus got some good angles.  And I burned a number of scenes to disk.

8-26-03 -- tested the torches for safety -- then worked on the editing.  We now have about three straight minutes of tightly edited opening footage cut together, and a lot more to assemble soon.  Much more to go, but such things are encouraging.

8-27-03 – Angus’ first day of school.  While he was gone I filmed Vinnie in the hills, with Steve helping.  Vinnie liked the cutting-torch sticks and wanted to do them more, but we had gotten the shot so I said no.  Angus gave me a karate workout this evening -- 25 minutes, but that was enough.  I was worn out.

8-28-03 -- Drove off to Woodland Hills to try to find a photogentic rooftop -- spoke to a building manager who kindly summoned a technician to escort me up there.  Took a number of photos and converted them to alpha mattes.  Initial tests look promising.

8-29-03 -- blew some stuff up.  Hung a small tissue bag of coffee creamer from a black pole and rigged an electrically fired burst charge inside.  Then filmed it straight up.  Made a bit of a bang but got a nice zero-gee blast effect.  Also finished the comp of Craig and Avery readying the howitzers -- it crashed the Mac but I finished on the PC -- and Angus thought it looked pretty darn cool.  One more green pin for the wall.

8-30-03 – Sharon and I and Angus went to REI Crafts for project stuffs and ate at Follow Your Heart.  In the afternoon I wired small bombettes. 

8-31-03 -- Sharon decided to go up to visit her mother, since her brother Ken is there at the moment.  Max was still at Nick's cabin, so Angus and I had breakfast ourselves.  Then we returned home and made many bombs for a Dude's Evening.  However, Sharon decided to come home that same night Max got home, and half my preliminary fireball footage was ruined because the chimney of the house -- hidden by the dark in the background -- kept being illuminated for a few frames by the flash.  So I had to whip up a few more fireballs, shot from a different angle.  These worked, but I think I can get better ones.  They'll be decent stock though, and we can try more tomorrow.  Along with a few of the airbursts that we didn't get to use tonight.  NIce to have everyone home -- we'll have to BBQ something tomorrow.

9-1-03 -- Wired up a couple more aerial firebursts and then spent the rest of the day relaxing with boys and Sharon.  In the evening we filmed the firebursts which were blessedly not too loud and came out really cool.  A couple of them are perfect for our needs, and I am sure we'll find a use for the others.

9-2-03 -- Max had painted out the pole on one of the fire shots and did a beautiful job -- now I will have to bug him to do the others.  The disk from the kid out in NY State who was having trouble downloading the stock arrived -- he hadn't put in a SASE, just a dollar bill and a quarter, carefully taped to the letter with the disk.  Oh well, I checked his web site and he is definitely a young amateur filmmaker about Angus' age and a hard worker, so I sprung the extra .50 for the padded envelope, burned the disk, and mailed it back.  As Sharon said, I seem to have discovered a way in which I can have fun blowing things up AND make it seem like I'm being altruistic about it at the same time.    Edited some of the Angus and Josh stuff too -- I'm not sure how to tweak a camera move I need done, but Max is printing some artwork so I am lurking by the printer.  When he comes down I will pounce and make him give me a tutorial.

9-3-03 -- edited the lab sequence -- the boys did well, acting-wise.

9-4-03 -- Worked on the scene Josh had done, repositioning some of the muzzle flashes, and tested the airburst bombette I had made.  As feared, the burst charge fails to ignite the smoke mix.  Will have to work on it. 

9-5-03 -- Cleaned up some stock footage and tried to get David scheduled but he'll be gone all weekend.  So phoned Vinnie and let him know he was off the hook.  Picked up two four-yard lengths of black fabric and hired one of the shop ladies to sew it together for me.

9-6-03 -- We filmed Michael Tsang today at 2PM, when it was hotter than blazes.  Fortunately, we only went about a block away, where there are cool rocks around the lake, and Michael (somewhat to my suprise, since he's normally hyper) took the actual filming quite seriously and we were done in 20 minutes.  Which was about all we could take, anyway.  Then Angus and Josh and Michael make their own movie in the backyard (after a badly-needed swim) and I supplied explosive effects while preparing for a stock shoot in the evening.  At a whim, tried upside-down coffee creamer firepots hung from the garage door opener and they are astonishingly cool.  Picked up my black fabric backdrop today as well and put it in the garage.  Works, but with bright pyro I have to be more careful about getting rid of wrinkles.  Still, at least it is a stretchy knit.  I will give the whole thing another try tomorrow.

9-7-03 -- built  some frameworks for sets and bombs on the deck.  Rigged some effects charges and filmed them this evening.  They look good, if I can edit out a few places where the house got illuminated.  Also showed Josh how to do Transparency and Motion, in the process finishing scene 244, the chopper getting raked with machine-gun fire.  Pretty cool  It is now green-pinned to the wall.  Max has restored the Mac and I am adding the additional programs it needs.

9-8-03 -- filmed a number of squibs that worked well.

9-10-03 -- My walnut dust arrived and was a disappointment -- it kinda works but is a real pain and coffee creamer Royal works better and is cheaper.  So I got more coffee creamer Royal.  Built six fireball bombettes and filmed them after karate -- the kids got to watch.

9-12-03 -- stopped by the mailbox and found a cheap plastic pistol had arrived.  I had ordered a pair, hoping to use them as Gammagun stunt guns for scenes where they get thrown around.  But they made a mistake and only sent one.  I called them on it and left a message, but goodness knows if they will respond. Filmed some more airbursts and the last one was very spectacular and dropped flaming debris on the camera.  Just a few more battle scars for the Brave Little Camera. Tried to film a fireburst tonight but it failed to detonate and setting up a new one involves precarious ladder maneuvers that I am loathe to try in the dark.  So it shall wait.  I've managed to break the Mac again anyway.  Master MacCrasher, that is me.  Angus and Josh filmed their own stuff after school, and Sharon and I had lunch.  Got a nice note from Lou about Agent 12. 

9-13-03 -- Tried to arrange a shoot today but couldn't get Michael,so tried for tomorrow and have had a hard time getting David.  Also broke the Mac again, tghis time in about four minutes, with Max watching.  BUt as he said, at least we now know how I am doing it and can try to work from there.  Made some micro-bombs with gelatin capsules and banged off a few until the camera ran out of tape.  Can't capture until the Mac is fixed. 

9-14-03 -- COuldn't get David, but we have scheduled all the kids for next week.  Tried shooting the howitser's firing against the blue sky out front and it turned out really well.  Can't slow the footage though because I broke the Mac yesterday inside four minutes.  However, spent the day rigging the howizers for detonation and making some bombs with balloons, several of which turned out cool.

9-15-03 -- Got five panels from Lowes -- which is the maximum amount I can fit in the van -- and brought them home, inserted screws, and painted them.  This took most of the day, but Sharon was off at lunch with Colette.  In the afternoon assembled some squibs and a fireburst in a black balloon from Magic World -- better balloons there -- and then fired them off in the evening.  Filmed well.

9-16-03 -- Used Kaci and her truck to pick up a buncha styrofoam, and tried to film a bomb which didn't work.  Max brought home the iMac and said he had at least isolated the problem and could fix it quickly when I crashed the program.  So he showed me how to fix it and the program promptly crashed.  Do not mess with my Magnetic Field.  But he got it working again (I had left the room) and I was able to use it to capture and slow some explosion footage.

9-17-03 -- Painted five flats for the set (Sharon helped put in the screws), uploaded some stock, sorted some clips, and even tried a fireburst in the evening but it wasn't great.  Had tried using a rubber glove with charges twisted up in the fingers but they failed to ignite.  We have enough now anyway -- they're just fun.

9-20-03 -- Was able to film Taylor today -- it worked out well and he was very cooperative, even when I covered him in dirt.  He took home a half-dozen smoke cookies as well. 

9-21-03 -- Blistering hot.  108 at least.  Naturally, we were shooting the henchmen in the hills, but we rehearsed at the house and that helped, we were able to bang through the shots quickly.  David wanted to fire the bazooka again so we did, using my shirt for a backstop on the wire.  It worked fine, stopped the rocket neatly before it went into traffic or something, but burned a hole in the shirt.  Cool.  The shot turned out well, also.  Filmed some fire EFX in the evening -- hard to film fire on video, it gets so bright.  But got some nice stuff anyway.

9-22-02 -- A little ill today, so took it kind of easy, mostly messing with footage and filming the flamethrower and firing a gun in the garage.  Convelescent stuff.  Then I was trying to upload a bunch of it and got the message I had exceeded my server space.  Have sent a letter to Parcom.

9-23-03 --  Finished uploading the stuff to the web site -- maxed out the server and had to delete some things, but nothing important.  In between uploads, went up on the deck and began assembling the crossbars to hold up the walls, attaching steel strips to them, and gluing magnets to the wall panels.  Not actually terribly hard work but it was blistering hot up there and I had to escape often.  But the end resluts look like they will work and now to start rounding up actors.

9-24-03 -- Picked up more metal strips and magnets for the set assembly and screwed them in place. Wanted to start painting the deck but had to wash it first and it wasn't dry.  Made some BP using the new willow charcoal and it worked most excellently.  So the results are drying now and a new batch with aluminum in it is grinding away to serve as ignition dust.  But one thing that strikes me as odd is the amount of Salvage's fur that manages to find its way in, despite the airtight jar.

9-25-03 -- Went up to paint the floor of the upper deck for the set -- warm work, but it is done.  Realized that I would have to do something about that Victorian lamppost up there, so unbolted it and took it downstairs, setting it next to the porch.  Sharon declares she likes it right there.  Added titles to all the webfiles just to make them more useful for our own purposes, and wired up a bunch of detonator cables. 

9-26-03 -- Began assembly of the set on the deck.  Hot work. 

9-27-03 -- Finished building the set and we filmed on it tonight.  Despite some glitches in the extras casting -- people dropping out and others frantically recruited -- it all went well and the set looks quite good on film.  Frank came over to be second camera and was excallent as always, and even Sharon helped out as a Door Slider.  Steven Dowell and David Becker were the additional agents, and Weeners even tried to sneak into a shot but was chased out.  Everybody's a ham.

9-28-03 -- Took boys (and Josh) off to breakfast and then Max off to purchase a bench press, which he paid for half of and then assembled himself.  In the meantime I built more onto the set and rigged a number of effects charges.  Lots of work for both of us in the hot sun and we both jumped gratefully into the pool at the end of the day.  In the evening the actors showed, we rehearsed, and then went up to do the shoot, with Frank working second camera.  The effects worked well, the kids performed admirably, the new fogger did great smoke, and the lighting we got lucky with.  The end result is that we got some damn cool footage and nobody got hurt, so I am jazzed.  Angus especially looks spectacular in a couple of shots.  When he wants to look cool, he can really pull it off sometimes.  And it never hurts to have big guns in your hands and a thundering fireball rising through the smoke behind you, either.  Was pleased with the fireballs -- the missile strike took some rigging but looked like a million bucks and was only a tablespoon of BP in a coke cup with a big load of coffee creamer Royal on top.  But screwing the cup into a plastic trash can and bracing that against the pre-cut wall section did the trick.  And Mutzie is starting to really understand her character as well.  Unfortunately I had two cups of espresso at 6pm because I was so dragged out from rigging the set, so now I am wired and can't sleep.  But tomorrow is Monday -- a good day for naps, I'll wager.

9-29-03 -- Shoot Recuperation Day.  Was so wired from the weekend stayed up very late and slept fitfully, so today was just a mindless day.  Tidied a little,went off to see "Rundown" with Greg, updated the site. 

9-30-03 -- Made a new detbox in a wooden case, theoretically capable of firing 11 charges in rapid succession.  But am still awaiting igniters.  Tried making my own igniters and they worked well enough, but are less consistent than commercial ones.  The karate class was held on the deck, amidst the set, which I suspect was fun.  Mutzie wanted to see all her footage afterward.  She also wants to be "Gina" in the credits.  A diva is born.

10-01-03 -- Sorted and trimmed files most of the day -- always takes much longer than actually filming them, but it needs to be done.

10-02-03 – Real Work, then spent the rest of the day editing the stuff from last weekend -- had fun. 

10-03-03 -- Did some editing.

10-04-03 -- Josh came over and he and Angus did some of theor own filming, plus all of us went off to Mary's to get the howitzers-getting-shot-up scene.  Also rigged the deck for machine-gun hits and when it was dark smoked the place up and had Angus run through with gunfire at his heels.  Came out kinda cool, actually.  Takes a long time to run the wires for nine bursts though.  And then one has to coil them all up afterward.  Still, a nice bit of footage.

10-06-03 -- Was trying to get more shots in since Angus was out for Yom Kippur, but the only thing we actually got on film was the helmet flying into the air, done by throwing the helmet into the air over the pool cover, which cushioned the fall.  Then did a lot of getting-ready-to-shoot-stuff.  Started to rig the Proton Cannon but then realized we'd need the Magno-Grapples so needed to rig a new stunt set of those.  Also wanted to get shots of Agent 12 at the hole in the base wall, but the wall was too thin looking so I had to beef it up.  And Angus wanted to see "Rundown", and we needed more debris, so I called Greg to see if we could help him out by ripping down that old chopper set.  He was glad enough of that so we drove out there, ripped the thing apart, loaded the debris into the van, went off to see the Rundawn (which Angus liked) and then took the debris home, where we are using some for set decor and the rest we tossed.

Managed to tweak the late bullet hits earlier in that one shot (had to use Premiere, which took only a few minutes -- I was going nuts with Final Cut, which crashed anyway) and burned it to disk.

10-07-03 -- worked on getting the blast damage on the set finalized.  Came out kinda cool, I thought, and Angus thought so too.  Soon as he came home from school we filmed the scenes we needed, though we had to interrupt between angles for an hour so the sun could shift position.  Angus nailed his takes wonderfully.

10-08-03 -- Still a bit dragged out after last night, but made the stunt table and began editing more footage.  First real attempt at using our own muzzle flashes (for Michael's machine gun) and they worked pretty well.  Max put Final Cut Pro on the Mac and it seems so far to be working much better.

10-09-03 -- Built some fake muzzle flashes just for fun -- used the real ones as reference, but made these animatible, and they actually seem to work well.  Then took stuff over to Mary's -- from there had a meeting with Gigapix, and then back to Mary's where I discovered I needed a pulley to make the thing work.  So went and got one, brought it back and rigged the shot, but need an assistant to do it right, so left it ready for tomorrow.  My mill belt broke -- I was in a quandry, but on a hunch went to Marvin's vacuum  shop since it was about that size and sure enough they had a good equivalent for two bucks.  Probably better than the original.  So the mill, which had ground out some coffee creamer smoke and I had made it into cakes, is now grinding some sugar rocket mix for the torches.

10-10-03 -- spent the day either over at Marys or home, filming on the greenscreen of the Proton Cannon or preparing the set for the shoot.  Wired up three coffee creamer fireballs, including one three-inch slant, but Angus requested just one, so we went with the three-inch.  After a couple of rehersals Josh pulled the leg out of the table just at the right moment, Angus did his dive, and I triggered the fireball on cue.  Came out great, even though we forgot to smoke the stage first, but that is easily added in post.  Big and cool though that scene was it gave no trouble, whereas a closeup of the table legs being shot away ignited the set and it had to be put out with the hose.  After filming, Josh and Angus took over the set for their own project.  Give two boys a camera, a set, and a smoke machine and they are set for the evening.

10-11-03 -- worked on stuff for the shoot that evening -- took me as usual, all day, up to the very last minute.  Building another wall, painting more panels, melting down and casting the Xylitol rockets for the torches, painting the floor padding -- there was much to do.  I was still numbering the storyboard tearsheets when Sensei arrived so we could go over the requirements.  Then the kids arrived, along with their dads (who stuck around for the whole thing) and even some kids' friends.  The whole shoot went very well and we got some of our coolest footage yet, I suspect.  Craig served as second camera and did an outstanding job.  Angus was awesome.  All the kids were enthused, the dads were helpful, and Sensei kept them driven along when I was too busy.  THe finale, when we blew up everything as they ran out, totally ruled visually, at least on the camera monitor, and all the spectators cheered.  ANgus and Craig went down to watch "Agent 12" again, the rest of the cast and parents went home bubbling with excitement and will probably be up all night, and I found myself collapsing into a set chair and slowly winding up det cords while I decompressed.  Now it is past midnight but despite exhaustion I am still too wired to sleep.

Angus wore the Nomex and the stunt gel for the cutting-torch fight, and Vinnie was hosed down and wore stunt gel.  Nobody got even singed, and I am glad.

10-12-03 -- Shoot recuperation day.  I was so wired last night I didn't get to sleep until after 2AM, and so today was scheduled for grogginess.  About all I did was capture all the footage and post some frame grabs.  Craig got some great shots -- he has a terrific eye for composition.

10-14-03 – Real Work, then in the evening wired up a bunch of charges, and Angus and I got the rest of the needed scenes, including the eruption of the C5 drum behind him, which came out cool. 

10-15-03 – Sharon tying up my Real Computer to do scanning, so I was forced to work on the Mac.  Did some editing and experimented with FCP for compositing.  Does well with screen but I am not crazy about the bluescreen and greenscreen controls.  So complex and unresponsive you're almost forced to use Chroma, which does not work well for pyro.  Still, did nice work on the black-screen stuff and I was able to sweeten the Angus-diving fireball shot with some of our stock footage so it looks serious cool.

10-16-03 – Meetings, then sorting and editing.

10-17-03 -- spent the day editing the footage of the first fight scene -- took me all day to get a minute of final edit, and I still have a last sequence to go.  Typical.  But it is pretty cool -- because the kids are older and better fighters now, I didn't have to resort to editing tricks to make the battles look cool.  Just to keep the shots fresh and trying to edit around the places where they went off camera.  Fortunately we have many takes from various angles, and Craig's stuff has proved invaluable.

10-19-03 -- started editing the remainder of the fight footage and got intensely into it, taking a break now and then to set up and photograph the coffee creamer Blowpipe and assemble it into a webpage, and was just totally stokin' all day until Sharon timidly said I was getting scary again.  So I stopped.

10-20-03 -- finished putting together the coffee creamer Blowpipe page and when Josh came over in the afternoon, he and Angus and I filmed a clip for illustration.

10-21-03 -- comped the shot of Angus firing out the hole -- as suspected, the Premiere bluescreen worked much better for that, what with the uneven lighting and the smoke -- and even played with adding some sounds.

10-23-03 -- off to Mary's to film more proton cannon stuff.  Had to run back three times for stuff I forgot, but managed to get the shots that don't actually involve blowing stuff up.

10-24-03 -- Real Work in the morning and then off to Mary's to film the Proton Cannon destruction.  Got it all set up and then the battery in the camera pooped out.  Took it back home to charge up.  Went back to Mary's, blew the cannon twice -- after discovering the det box batteries were dead ALREADY, this drives me nuts.  But I used the battery from my cordless drill, which worked fine and blew the charges like gangbusters.  Then cleaned up the mess and went home to capture the footage and take a shower to wash off the soot and smoke-grime.

10-25-03 -- Back to Mary's to film the guns flying up against the greenscreen, then home to comp it. 

10-26-03 -- We watched wildfires in the hills the fires all day.  But spent the day adding gun muzzle flashes and explosions to footage, so it was time well spent.  

10-27-03 -- More fires all day.  Angus and I rigged a sprinkler on the roof, and it was very comforting.  Did some compositing, but it was hard to concentrate.

10-28-03 -- Smoky and muggy.  The sprinkler on the roof was comforting enough to allow sleep, though not great sleep, and in the morning the fires were distant enough to turn the sprinkler off.  But there is ash everywhere and it makes for boogers.  Spent the day doing a bit of compositing -- just bluescreen stuff that isn't major, but gives a nice flavor and allows for practice.

10-29-03 -- Took the two henchmen guns apart and started painting the interiors for when they get blown up -- was impressed with the Supersoaker.  Just getting it into two halves required unscrewing 36 screws, and there were twice that many inside.  The mechanism is also very cool looking once you get it open -- especially when painted silver.  Also decided to get rid of the road flares we'd bought in case we needed them as props.  Took them apart, because I am a guy, and began messing with the contents.  Discovered part of it was water-soluble so am filtering the result and letting it dry to see what use it may have.  Given the flame color it is probably just strontium nitrate, which I already have a quantity of, but may contain other things as well.

10-30-03 -- Blew up the guns, which worked okay, after some effort.  TWo days work for a second of footage.  Oh well, had worse.

10-31-03 -- dropped the shot of the guns blowing into the edit and it works well enough, so that sequence is basically wrapped visually. 

11-1-03 -- Wanted to get over to Mary's and touch up the greenscreen but didn't get a chance.  However, did call Mutzie about shooting next week and uploaded the script template to the website.  Turned out to be a pain because the server was slow and the browser tries to launch the template on download -- finally had to zip the thing.  Angus worked on a cool stick animation and Max was out helping a friend film all day.

11-2-03 – Retouched the greenroom.

11-3-03 – Angus and I went off to film Mutzie at Mary's which went very well.

11-4-03 -- Comped the hole shot -- after struggling for an hour on Final Cut, finally just yanked it into Premiere and did it in four minutes, including render time.  Some things -- like bluescreen mixed with pyro and smoke -- Final Cut seems to have a hard time with.  Does great screen work, though.  Just as well to have both.  Captured all the stuff of Gina from yesterday, sorted and burned it, and then we went back tonight with Josh and got the rest of the stuff.  Both Josh and Gina were in good form and we banged through it quickly, with only one humorous moment when Josh stopped so fast his foot tore the foam floor.

11-5-03  -- Sorted and burned all the footage from last night, pinning the disks to the walls.  The board is starting to get full. 

11-6-03 -- Began making some more Xyliyol mix -- have some ideas for some stock shots we could use. And hiked up to the abandoned house at the top of the hill near the freeway -- a harder hike than I expected.  Had hoped it might serve as a set location but it is too far, with no power, and is actually smaller than Mary's place, so never mind.

11-8-03 -- Came down this morning to find the new Powerbook on the table -- max had brought it home last night.  Very pretty in its box and everything, and I spent all day playing with it and getting files transferred and loading software.  It picked up the Airport even in my room, which will be helpful.

11-9-03 -- Glorious rainy Sunday.  Comped the shot of the door closing, just to test out the system, and got a bunch of lumber and took it over to Mary's to start framing the corridor. 

11-10-03 -- Started the day by going over to Mary's to begin framing the corridor -- mainly this meant cutting lengths of wood and screwing them to ceiling beams.  Afterward, went off to Frys to get a network router.  There were many confusing choices but I finally selected one, took it home, installed it, and it worked.  Quite a surprise.  But now both my machines are hardwired to the Web and, my streaming radio now secured, I was able to go through the lab sequence, adding a doorway and cropping out some places where my lens hood got into frame. 

11-11-03 -- Went over to Mary's and finished framing the set -- need to schlep the wall panels over but will need to paint them first.  This will require paint, plus the van, and dry weather.  All three may be in short supply, though I can probably manage paint.  Melted the Xylitol mix and formed it into balls for effects.   Spent the afternoon comping shots.

11-12-03 -- Too windy to take walls down from the deck and no van to take them over to Mary's anyway, so spent the day comping McFarlane shots.  Was fun.  There is a certain pride in realizing they were done entirely with our own footage -- Sharon's skies, and our explosions, and the footage of taylor.  No commercial stock. It's a minor thing, but it is kind of like baking cookies from scratch.

11-13-03 -- Comped McFarlane shots all day.  Tried one shot on Final Cut, Premiere 6.5 for Mac, and Premiere 6.0 on the Vaio.  The Final Cut one ultimately worked best, but it took a long, long time with lots of tweaking.  Amusingly, the Premiere on Windows 98 did almost as well and in only about two minutes.  This was about as I had expected.  Nonetheless, I will go with the best result.

11-14-03 -- Did lots of compositing of McFarlane stuff

11-15-03 -- Piles of McFarlane composites today, with the Japanaradio pumping and Ebay on the other computer -- I was trying to score a ball mill but got outbid -- and I even managed to crash the Mac once during a five-layer composite, which I feel helps keep it in line.

11-16-03    -- Angus painted flats and I comped shots.

11-17-03 --  Took the painted flats over to Mary's -- we'll need more but I can only fit four at a time in the van. 

11-18-03 --  Angus and I took more panels over to Mary's.  Then he wanted Western Bacon Cheeseburgers.  Max had gotten him hooked on the things two days ago, and he wanted one for today and another for lunch tomorrow.  Growing boy.

11-19-03 -- comped a shot, and went to the store, but spent most of the day making smoke stock.  Turned out well but as expected the files are huge and they will basically be unpostable except in the most truncated form.  However, they will serve fine for us, which is the main thing.

11-20-03 -- Selected a few small smoke clips and uploaded them, then filmed a quick "Filthy Fire" test that worked out so well I posted it too. 

11-21-03 --  Sorted and trimmed smoke stock and went over to Mary's to paint the flats.  Angus called to say he was going to be operating a videocamera for the school while taping a school play.  He was there until 9:30 but said it was a fun time and they liked his work.

11-22-03 -- Howling winds and cold. The ladder/light bar crashed down on the deck and the set panels were shredded, but that's better than what I feared when it kicked up -- I was afraid they would act as sails and rip down the railing itself.  Salvaged a few panels and took them over to Mary's.

11-23-03 -- Angus and Josh and one of Josh's friends named Matt all went with me over to Mary's and we blew through the corridor setup.  Even made arched girders for the ceiling.

11-26-03 -- Tested a few dirt blasts and they worked like crap -- I have to find more powdery dirt.  Ours is too sandy.  The homegrown pulverone works just fine as lift though.  Upgraded Final Cut on my machine and output the fight sequence to disk. Another green pin.  Tried to schedule a shoot but Brian is out of town for the holidays.

11-28-03 -- Only productive thing I did was run up to the deck, set up a fan and some lights, and film some blowing smoke stock.  Mainly for jetpack and helicopter scenes but also for inclusion on disk.

11-29-03 -- made MPGs of all the stock disk clips so they could be uploaded to the website.  Also milled a charcoal formula from the rec.pyrotechnics newsgroup suggestion and mixed it with ball juice to pour out in a thin glaze.  Trying to make charcoal flitters.  Early results are encouraging.

11-30-03 -- worked on charcoal flitters (medium success) and then edited the video for Sensei.  Footage was lousy but did what I could and Max helped tweak it.  It's just a one-shot anyway.

12-01-03 – Real Work all day.

12-02-03 – Updated web site, then flew off to Vancouver.

12-03-03 – Back from Vancouver

12-04-03 -- We were shooting tonight so I prepped the set as best as I best I could, schlepping stuff over in the VW, and Gina had to come over early because her parents were going out.  So we had Gina and Josh and Vincent over for a couple of hours, and there was lots of goofing around.  Then I had to stuff them all into the VW and run off to the set, only having to go back twice for forgotten shoes and guns.  Red and his two daughters Mallory and Kaci showed up, the two girls playing Henchmen (Atari and Genesis) and Brian was in top form as Dr. V.  Kaci, who is very small, had to bully Josh a lot, and that was fun.  Red helped with the choreography.  And after all was done and we were all going home I discovered I had forgotten to turn on the halogens and we'd shot the whole thing with flourescents.  Annoying.  But the footage looks okay, maybe a bit industrial but that works for the set.  And Angus did great -- he operated the sliding door and generally kept things in line behind the set.  A fun night

12-05-03 -- captured all the footage from last night and updated the site.  Started comping a jetpack shot and realized the thruster footage I had wasn't quite adequate so I will have to make some more.  Oh dear, more bombs.

12-06-03 -- did manage to comp shot 361, since I discovered some good thruster footage I'd forgotten about.  Already started milling a new batch of rocket fuel, but I'm sure we'll find a use for it.  In any case, the shot came out pretty cool.  My first 8-layer comp, and in FC as well.  Used our Stratos and Airburst stock, along with the rocket footage we are hogging for ourselves.  Took hours, with lots of rendering, but no crashes, which is a nice change. Tested out a small fireball charge by simply rigging it in a dixie cup with a fuse and tossing it into the air.  Ball of flame and sparks, which startled a few people out on the street, but almost no noise.  Since it was drizzling they assumed one of the power lines had shorted.  Rather a relief.  Must remember not to test aerial stuff out front.

12-07-03 – real work; made bombs and blew them off -- very soothing.

12-10-03 -- Went over to the reloading place to pick up more Bullseye.  Made charcoal flitters.  And did another McFarlane shot.

12-11-03 -- started comping the shot of Taylor jumping out of the helicopter.

12-12-03-- Comped two McFarlane shots -- last ones that required comping, I think. 

12-13-03 -- Max and I took the dogs for a walk, and on the trail noticed those spiky seed pods from the liquid amber trees, the ones that look like a battle mace.  These were dry, with the seeds gone, so I tried coating them with meal and titanium, mixed, with NC lacquer.  They burn surprisingly cool.  Also tried filming a meteor incoming with the Xylitol balls but didn't have the camera quite right.  Would have done more but had to go off to Santa Su for a concert.  Just the school bands, and decidedly high school, but fun to watch anyway.  Craig was in one of them, playing drums.  Angus chatted with friends.

12-14-03 -- Tidied the garage and started comping a shot of Angus in the F12.  Right now the shot's in the cleanup stage -- smoothing out the camera move and the greenscreen flaws. Learning some tricks.

12-15-03 -- Spent a few hours repainting frames of Angus against a greenscreen in the F12, and then took Angus to karate. 

12-19-03 -- start of school vacation for Angus.  He'd had a good time in karate, doing a body slam on Brian Ishiba.  Both were exhausted though.  Melt-cast some sugar rockets for stock and jetpack shots, and decided to use that cylinder of aluminum with the hole bored into it for an effects mortar.  So I drilled a fuse hole in the side and tested it out.  Worked great.  Tested it again, also worked great.  Then Greg called to find out why we were not at Candy's party.  Oops.  We got dressed and went over.

12-20-03 -- messed with the little mortar, discovering it does a very nice job of launching 7/8" shells 20 feet in the air, and a bit of fuse times them nicely.  Will be able to shoot much more stock soon.  Adding the Xylitol fuel fragments makes for very cool debris, jetting themselves around like comets.

12-22-03 --  Angus filming at Craig’s.

12-23-03 -- was recovering from intense writing and was vegging most of the day.  Tried to work on a comp shot but wanted to do it indoors by the fire because it was Christmassy.  But doing video editing on a trackpad is a pain.  Finally gave up because ML arrived with Paula and Miranda.  Both girls were sweet, though Miranda was feeling the effects of cold medication and was bouncing off the walls.  They loved all the animals though, who were thrilled at the attention.

12-26-03 -- Dang.  Had a perfectly simple effect shot -- stock even -- go a bit wrong and the charge landed smack on the camera before it blew.  Burned the camera, although it still vaguely functions, though it won't do playback.  But it is toast, and shall be honorably retired.  Next time, shoot overhead pyro with a mirror.  The milling jar kept leaking from the lid so I bought a rubber cap at the plumbing store which seems to do the trick As a test I removed the milling jar a safe distance and hit the mill briefly with the torch -- yep, all that dust erupted in flame.  Better to have a well-sealed jar.

12-27-03 -- spent some time trying to acquire a new camera on Ebay, but the first two auctions ended before I could get a bid in.  Went over to Mary's and knocked down the set, clearing the way for construction of the new.  GOt more of those aluminum blocks at the scrapyard -- handy for may things.  And Angus and I crushed, screened, and sorted several pucks of black powder.

12-28-03 -- Was able to get a replacement Danger Cam on eBay, assuming it arrives and works.  Still need to get a Beauty Cam.  But there was much family stuff.

12-29-03 -- replaced the flourescents in the garage/stage and spent the rest of the day comping a shot of Angus in the F-12 -- a process that took quite a long time because it was 300 frames long and I needed to add cam shake and blur to every frame -- on three successive layers.  Fortunately, FInal Cut lets you copy and paste motion commands.  But its distortion commands suck, so I did the dust layers in Premiere.  The comped layers with shake took an hour to render each time, but I spent the time during renders testing the new batch of BP.  Works quite well.  Started a new batch milling, since it is raining anyway.

12-30-03 -- Picked up Sharon's van at the end of today -- good to have it back.  Now we can get supplies over to Mary's again.  Finished comping an F-12 shot.

12-31-03 -- Picked up supplies from Lowes and took them over to Mary's.  There was a lady rummaging through a neighbor's trash and had spread it all over the alley but she said she would pick it up.  She appeared to be finding some useful stuff too, and was quite pleased.  She was an odd duck, with a perky ditziness -- like Jenna Elfman as a bag lady.  Finished comping another F-12 shot and also made more BP.  Prepared a fireball in a coffee can for celebrating New Years. 

01-01-04 -- Parcom seems to have updated the server -- the site runs much faster now.

01-02-04 -- Updated the web site.  The Danger Cam ordered on eBay arrived and was tested -- it was cheap because the seller did not have the battery charger or the remote.  This was okay for us though because we still had the charger and remote from the previous camera and they work with this one.  So we can start getting underway again.  Took Angus off to get his hair redone (and mine) -- it is important to maintain what consistency we can.

01-03-04 -- Worked briefly on a shot, and began the process of having CafePress handle all the stock disks.  It was definitely a distraction, having to burn disks and mail them, and I did worry about how to handle such things if I was away.  Not to mention we can get back to just blowing things up and filming them.

01-04-04 -- Cold and a bit windy.  Feeling a little under the weather, got only one act of Real Work done, painted about a dozen frames, sent some disks off to CafePress and to a guy who had ordered one, answered a polite question about compositing from a kid in the Netherlands, and made and exploded several medicinal bombs using the new powder, which works quite well, even the dust.  Did them in the garage though, so as not to bother the neighbors too much.  Rattled Max in the room above, but I can't please everyone.

01-06-04 -- The new camera arrived!  The VX2100, and she appears both sturdy and elegant, with a nice feel and balance.  Angus immediately noted the controls in the handle -- for cool low-angle shots, as he said.  It will take a little while to get used to, but I have looked through the manual and tried a few things -- including trying to film a charcoal flitter fired from a mortar.  The shell went a bit high and the dark sky had some clouds, which the camera picks up rather noticably, so the footage could not have been used even if I hadn't been holding it by hand.  However, of other interest is the charcoal flitters were wonderful, slow falling and long-lasting -- they twinkled like fireflies and drifted down slowly, lasting clear to the ground.  THey should be fun to film properly.

01-07-04 --  Painted some more F12 frames and began assembling the housing for the Danger Cam.  Went well enough up to a certain point, when the safety shield on the chop sawbroke and jammed the saw, necessitating repairs.  As it also had damaged the section of the housing I had been working on, this delayed things.  However, tests with the camera enclosed showed the housing barell to be too long, so that the camera could see it. This is being remedied.  The tilted Lexan seems to work well though --at 45 degrees it reflects only the black inner surface of the barrel. Tested the Beauty Cam on a couple of fireballs, just as a practice, nothing serious.  Noted that the Beauty Cam is very good in low light -- too good for stock perhaps, as it clearly picks up ambient light and stars.  However, the Danger Cam is intended for stock use and it should not have these problems.

01-08-04 -- Painted the rest of the F12 frames, and finished the Danger Cam housing, except for the tripod mount.  Ordered After Effects. 

01-09-04 -- a guy who had ordered the smoke disk from CafePress -- but lives in Canada -- had not yet received it and his project deadline was looming.  So uploaded the necessary files three at a time to the family website and he grabbed them as fast as I did so.  Also finished and burned the F12 shot and started cleaning up a chopper shot. 

01-10-04 -- Angus was at Craig's most of the day but he and several friends showed up in the evening to film, and one of the friends -- Tim -- took a Blowing Stuff Up disk with him afterward.  He said he'd already used some of the web stock.  In the evening comped a chopper shot that took more work than I expected but turned out cool.  And the blonde star formula has been mixed and pressed and just needs to dry before milling it back to powder and forming into flakes.

01-11-04 -- Angus and I lit of a number of charges in the evening, testing out the DangerCam, which worked quite well, though the Lexan could use more cleaning in the future.  Got a couple good shots though, which makes it worthwhile.  SOme of the charges went bang, rather loud.

01-13-04 – have the flu.  Adobe After Effects arrived today -- too sick to do much but did get it installed.

01-14-03 -- Still sick.  But started comping a shot of the f12 and the chopper, which looks exciting though it still needs work, and picked up another large circle of plywood and took it over to Mary's.  Began experimenting with After Effects and will definitely have to read the manual. 

01-15-04 -- did manage to finish comping shot 219, the most complicated yet, with 14 layers.  Wanted to go build the set but I'm still too under the weather.  So began shot 220 instead.

01-16-04 -- comped another chopper shot, which turned out rather cool.  Made muzzle flashes in Photoshop, which are actually easier to use and allow me to choose Signature Colors in the highlights.  The BG was Sharon's footage.  There is a certain pride in only using our own material.

01-17-04 -- managed to comp a shot and clean up the greenscreen on another. 

01-18-04 -- Still ill, dammit, but had breakfast with boys.  Then Angus and Craig and I went over to Mary's and the boys cut out styrofoam circles while I pinned them into the column -- we'd laid it down on the ground to keep the seam closed.  After that was done the boys and I took a can of foam apiece and foamed hell out of the thing, so hopefully it will hold together now.  We left it to harden overnight and went home. 

01-19-04 -- Angus and I went over to the set, stood the now-hardened pillar upright, and it looked good.  Taped it, then I went off to Simi, got more paint and some strap bar and bolts, and finished painting it and attaching a rail for chaining prisoners.

01-20-04 -- Swept up and cleaned a bit at Mary's and checked the lighting.  Sharon was there to have her appointment so got to see her as well.  Captured some footage from both cameras that I had not been well enough to deal with previously -- just some stock shots and a jet contrail, but some nice stuff in there.  A little annoyed that iMovie no longer has an Export command. It is now Share.  Same result -- but how fey.

01-21-04 -- worked on comping a chopper/F12 shot and it was a time-consuming process.  Need machine-gun fire tearing up the dirt; built a frameworks of tubes and wood to create the effect but the wind prevented using it tonight. 

01-22-04 -- Tidied up the set, repainting the marred greenscreen and buying some toy handcuffs at the dollar store.  Gray plastic, but a little silver paint made them look good.  Then in the evening, Gina and Josh were handcuffed to the pole and we did their scenes, shooting them with the new VX2100 (Angus calls it the CoolCam) and the new wide-angle lens.  It all went very well, and Gina is getting much more into her role, though she still gets the giggles a lot.

01-23-04 -- The new dojo is about finished and Angus and I went off to see it this evening, Angus actually getting in a workout while he was there.  Looked good.  There is a Fosters Freeze next door, so we stopped for ice cream afterward.  I sense the beginning of a new tradition.

01-24-04 --  Made a tutorial for the website and began work on the binocular shot.

01-25-04 -- Milled a pound of dirt to a fine powder and baked it in the oven to dry it out -- it is hoped this will make a fine dust for bullet hits and blasts.  STill too windy, but test-fired and filmed a Dixie overhead burst and it worked very well.  Finished the binocular shot and a second tutorial.  Updated the site. 

1-26-04 -- filmed a few bombs -- the Lexan gives too much flare, I may have to use glass after all -- and took Angus to karate.

1-27-04 -- Rigged the strafing stock shot and filmed it at night.  A pain to rig but it worked flawlessly, just a quarter tsp of my own homegrown corning dust kicking two heaping spoonfuls of finely powdered dirt into the air.  And Angus and I were running two cameras.  But though the footage looks okay, it turns out not to be useable -- the dust gets too faint in a screen transparency.  WIll have to do it again against chroma.  And meantime, it has started to rain. 

1-28-04 -- Shot a few more dirt tests, this time against blue sky, and they worked much better.  Think I can still improve with a different camera setting, and in any case the strafing rail revealed that the charges last night had blown out the end caps in all the tubes.  So they have been replugged with water putty and are drying now.  Just as well, because I'd run out of dirt as well.  A new batch, taken froma gopher mound, was damp because of the rain but it was baked in the oven for a while to dry and now is being milled.

1-29-04 -- Worked on Turtles and Dragon most of the day, but found time to test another dirt hit -- worked better this time.  The sky was hazy though, so did not do more.  Began cleaning up another Angus in the F12 shot in AE -- I am sure my inexperience is causing me to do far more than is needed, but at least AE does make it profoundly easier.

1-30-04 --  Painted the rest of 243 in AE, which should allow a decent comp now.

1-31-04 -- Finished comping 243 and green-pinned it, began working on muzzle flahes for the next shot.  Sharon feeling a bit more human, took her out to see "Master and Commander" which has a wider release now.  ANgus went off to Josh's birthday party, bearing a Dragons toy set and one of my bombs, a coffee-cup Dixie Fireball, which he said was a huge hit.

2-01-04 -- SUper Bowl Sunday.  The sky was clear and blue, so I filmed some dirt blasts (at least until a tightly-packed wad blew up the tube) but the smaller camera was having glitches and I could not capture most of them properly.  Tried cleaning the heads and striping the tape with the good camera, which helped some -- filmed some dropping balls of rocket fuel in the garage -- but still a glitch or two.  Will try a new tape.

2-02-04 -- Tested out the demo of the DVmatte Pro plug-in and liked it enough to order it.  RIgged a few more falling balls of sugar fuel and filmed them in the garage.  In the evening it was raining.  Tried to film rain with the Danger Cam but its low-light capability was not goood enough.  Switched to the Cool Cam (with appropriate protections) and got some nice footage.  The rain is just standard California rain, nothing fancy, but I tested it against a background plate and it works.  Cool. Angus did really well at karate this evening -- he can almost do a full front flip and his moves have serious power these days.

2-03-04 -- Spent the day writing a LOD outline, and calling the various actors to confirm.  Looks like Boo Boo may be iffy, we'll deal with that as it comes. 

2-04-04 -- Chilly but clear.  Lots of work, plus my meeting with MGA regarding Alien Racers, but the company seemed cheery, the people nice, and the project fun.  They make the Bratz dolls -- and the Commandobot!  It was the robot toy we used in the first Agent 12.  I loaded the trailer from my keychain and people got a kick out of seeing it in action. Plus blowing up -- I guess it had been something of a headache for them, but it worked just fine for us.  Filming tonight was good and yet not everything to be hoped -- Brian Isiba was very good, Angus was sick, and Gina was great, along with David and Kaci -- but Boo Boo couldn't make it and at nine I was about to sub in Brian when Steve, Gina's dad, got an emergency call from her mom, who had sudddenly been taken ill and needed to go to the hospital.  Naturally, we cut it short and sent Gina off.  Some things are just more important.  Hopefully Susan will be okay.  Once that's settled we can always pick up where we left off.  Frank was working second camera and as always he was a godsend.  He even ran off to get another tape when mine ran out.  I am grateful.

2-5-04 -- Sunny but chilly with wind.  Recuperating from shoot, did not get as much Real Work done as I wanted, but some in any case.  More fun, the dvMatte Pro plug-in arrived and I tried it on an F-12 shot with the Gatling gun whirling and the greenscreen all wrinkled and it did a great job, especially for our purposes.  So that was thrilling and I did a couple of shots while Sharon's friend Collette visited to see Sharon's work with the tablet and laptop.  ANgus still under the weather but recovering; Max gone most of the day.  Called Steve about Susan (Gina's Mom) and it sounds like she had a close call --hopefully not a heart attack or stroke but something close enough to be considered a scary warning.  She is still undergoing tests and treatment.

2-6-04 -- Some Lycopodium powder arrived and I played with it a bit -- works more dramatically than coffee creamer but not really more effective and far more expensive, so these experiments will be enough, I suspect.  Finished comping shot 242 and it looks cool.  Making some charcoal with the melilica to see how it does for pyro.

2-7-04 -- Did some more dirt blasts that worked better, and on a whim made 10 grams of flash.  A small pile, lit, makes a tremendous bang all by itself.  I demonstrated this several times to boys, to warn them against doing this.  They all thought it was cool, so we had more demonstrations to ensure that the warning would be clear.  I still have several grams left.

2-8-04 -- Mixed up some black smoke formulations for filming, and started sorting and titling what I had thus far.  Took most of the day.  Began working on 226 in the evening and it looks promising but it is late and I must go to bed.

2-9-04 -- worked a couple of hours trying to build a strafing sequence out of individual clips.  Think I am getting close, but it is bedtime now

2-10-04 -- Spent sevral hours rigging a strafe in the garage, getting it properly lit, etc -- ANgus and I tested all the wiring -- and then it misfired on several charges.  Oh well.  Try again tomorrow, and at least the footage is interesting if not what was wanted.  Finally built a moving strafe that I can live with, but we'll have to see how it works in the shot itself.

2-11-04 -- Wind finally stopped and the sky was clear and blue.  So seized the opportunity to blow some stuff up, with reasonably good success.  Got some very nice shots using the black smoke mix, including one that is spectacular.  Also blew up the styrofoam chunk that had been waiting weeks for a windless day -- worked fine, though it practically vaporized.  Ran into a problem cleaning up the footage though.  AE cleans stuff nicely, but then Final Cut refuses to slowmo the output.  Gets all glitchy.  Have no idea why, but have posted a question, with samples, on the Cow to see if anyone can answer.

2-12-04 -- in the evening filmed a successful Strafe in the garage, and captured all the Pillar footage.  So feel like the day was well-spent.  Sharon attended her iMovie class and said it was very helpful, and at her mention of some of its other features I checked the effects out and found it has a cam shake plug-in that appears to rule.  Adjustable and everything.  I am most pleased.  May save me a lot of pain. 

2-13-04 -- did a strafe in the evening

2-14-04 -- shot a Strafe away from Cam with two cameras and figure I am done with Strafes now.

2-15-04 -- Finished shot 226 today -- most complex shot I've tried yet.  A 12-layer composite, with several of the layers being made of composited layers themselves.  But the end result is quite satisfactory. 

2-16-04 -- comped shot 228, which wet fairly smoothly until I discovered I had forgotten to put in the rocket thruster, but found that Final Cut saved the information of previously saved versions and I was able to rebuild.  Another green pin.

2-17-04 -- Too cloudy for bombs, but I did begin comping a helicopter flying at cam scene. 

2-18-04 -- Comped shot 229 -- the chopper flying at cam -- and it turned out nice if I do say so myself.  The new firewire drive arrived and I used it to back up the current one.  Now I have Big Thunda and Big Thanda, and Big Thanda is indoors so I can use it for editing inside if I like.

2-19-04 -- The bobforward.com domain was transferred so I began uploading stock to it, and with that and working out the logistics of linking to it I was very distracted.  In the evening, comped two F12 shots. 

2-20-04 -- Comped two more shots in the evening, sitting by the fire -- it is nice to work inside with the family, yet still have full access.

2-21-04 -- made a trip to Fry's for disks and stuff, and then spent a pleasant afternoon comping cool F12 shots while Sharon drew.

2-22-04 -- Rainy.  Comped another shot -- complicated by the fact that I -- as the motivating force spinning the F12 around --  had to paint myself out of the shot, but it came out well.  Updated the Production Journal and posted a few more framegrabs.  Pressing some more pucks of BP for effects.

2-24-04 -- Took the bags into the dojo to get them off the porch.  These were the two heavy bags and I swear they weighed over 200 pounds apiece -- I could barely move them.  But I wrestled them into the car, took them to the dojo to see Vinnie and Gina and Kaci -- all my stars -- and to give Angus' apologies for not being well enough.  It was good to see them though.  With Angus sick, and the weather poor, and having to write so frantically, the best that could be done for today was mill and press more black powder for when we can shoot again.  One batch done today and another milling in the night.

2-25-04 -- Too computered out to do much else productive on that end, but made another pound of BP, and used the wisteria charcoal made in the fireplace last night to start milling another.  It may or may not work as grains but can always be turned into stars and it is fun to experiment.  A few chunks of melilica wood -- debarked this time -- were baked up in the fire tonight, with the leftover bark tossed on the fire itself.  Either the wood or the bark made a delightful fragrance.  BP is one of the few things that isn't affected by being made during damp weather and in fact is more relaxing to do so then since there is little danger of sparks. Always bearing in mind of course that eventually you will need a place for it to dry.  Angus still not well, but improving.  He's quite tired of being home and is rather eager to go back to school, as he has managed to keep on top of his homework in the interim.  Thank goodness for online postings.

2-26-04 -- Spent part of the afternoon trying to rig a depth-charge effect.  The first attempt destroyed my metal trash can and soaked the garage.  Went to get a heavy-duty plastic feed bucket from Kahoots and accidentally got two -- I was comparison testing them and inadvertantly left a smaller inside a larger -- they were bothe black so neither the clerk nor I noticed till I got home.  However as I recall the small was only about ten bucks so I will go back tomorrow to compensate.  As it happens I need both anyway.  Turned out that when I rigged a charge in the bottom of the larger -- which held at least twenty gallons -- the result was not what I expected.  Instead of a geyser of water the entire bucket, containing well over a hundred pounds of water -- jumped two feet i9n the air and landed again, spilling only a little.  Several attempts gave the same result, and I no longer have Dad to ask for a physics explaination.  I can only go on trial and error, and I will try again tomorrow with the smaller vessel.  In the meantime, my batch of BP made with wisteria charcoal looks like it may actually be decent -- it has been pressed but needs to be corned and dried.  In any case, damp tests are vigorous, with interesting sparks.  Angus is still not well, but slowly improving. 

2-27-04 -- Screened the latest batch of BP and corned another (the wisteria), setting it under the BBQ grills to dry -- it will probably take days with the weather so damp, but there is plenty to spare.  Milling a batch now with melilica charcoal.  Too pootered out to edit but tried three more depth charges, varying water depth, putting one in a sunken coffee can (it crushed INWARD, oddly enough) and attempting to "spike" the shell to make the explosion sharper.  No real luck.  The tub continues to jump, and on the last one the continuity testing circuit fired the ematch as I was wiring it.  Underwater, fortunately, or I would have ringing ears still, but it sloshed me with water and in the chilly air that was enough for the day.  Angus still not well, but I picked up his assignments at school and with that plus online he is staying on top of things. 

2-28-04 – Sharon’s Show.  In the evening, Barry and Randy and Lolita hung out, playing with computers and drawing and talking.  In the process of showing Randy how I would clean up an F12 thruster shot I actually finished the shot, so not only was it an interesting demo but I get a green pin out of it.  Cool.

2-29-04 --  Did some variations on the F12 thuster shot, but with cam shake added they take over an hour to render.  STill, they will be useful when done.  Angus and I used scaps of styrofioam to construct one control panel, and its sections will be used to make two more.  Then we can complete some shooting.  The melilica charcoal BP looks more gray than black, even after I found a few uncrushed chuncks of charoal in the mill and crushed them up.  Still has to be dampened and pressed.

3-1-04 -- Angus back in school after a week of being sick.  LOts of work for me.  An ultra-monday.  Burned some scenes to disk and green-pinned them, and becan cleaning up a complex shot in AE.

3-6-04 -- Warm and sunny.  Angus's friends Craig and Tim were supposed to com over at noon to build control panels, so in the morning I picked up materials.  They arrived as acheduled and soon everyone was at work -- including Salvage, who was delighted at a garageful of boys and stayed for the whole thing.  The fact that they had beef jerky may have helped.  In any case, three hours later we had three silver control panels with buttons and they look very cool ranged in the garage.  Also made a six-pack of bombs for Nick and threw in a dozen titanium squibs and some smoke bombs. Good filmaking effects.

3-7-03 -- Warm Santa Anas, delightful, not too howling.  But I was glad I had put the control panels away in the garage last night.

3-8-04 -- Took Angus to the doctor about his cough.  Did manage to get all the control panels over to Mary's -- one per trip.

3-9-04 -- Warm and sunny, very pleasant.  Or would have been if Sharon and I had not had to put in very full days of work.  Even the arrival of some bombstuff -- including finely powdered titanium and iron, very cool -- was only able to be spared a few moments.  Still, much productivity and we feel we have earned our rest.

3-10-04 -- Will arrived.  The dogs adored him, though he does not care much for dogs, and we went off to Mary's but he said we could not cut the rafters without violating Code, so we will not.

3-12-04 -- Wanted to have Angus help hook up pulleys for the jetpack but he was busy with Josh all day. Tomorrow, perhaps.  Meantime, blew up some stuff with debris, and one shot turned out cool, so I have posted it. 

3-14-04 -- Called the actors, trying to set up a shoot for Wednesday.  Started going over the boards, seeing what we had to do.

3-15-04 -- Got a call from George that his son will be camping Wednesday.  Argh.  More casting scrambles.

3-16-04 -- Karate in the evening for Angus and after being sick for two weeks it was nice to see he was right back in form.  Many kids there too.  We have recruited Dylan to be the new Agent 8.  Made Smoke Cookies today but decided to add some baking powder to the mix and make them in mini-muffin cups.  Result: Smoke Muffins!  They are fluffy and crisp and tend to burn instead of smoke but wrapping them in aluminum foil first makes them work quite well.

3-17-04 -- A huge shoot tonight -- wrapped Josh's part, and Kaci's, and recruited Dylan and did most of him except the fight.  Gina's done except for the fight as well. Acting, pyro, wirework and greenscreen all in one night, and I was so busy all day I forgot to eat.  Blessedly, Frank got me a sandwich, which was delicious.  Josh is probably in trouble for being out so late but I was afraid his parents would never let me use him again so I decided to just finish him up.  And All the kids were stupendous, and they dug the efffects, and Angus was awesome.  David helped pull him upward, and now wants me to do effects for HIS movie.  Cool.

3-18-04 -- Warm and sunny.  I woke up totally beat, aching all over, and slept in since I was down on the couch anyway.  Deliberately took it easy today -- glanced through the footage with some satisfaction (except Angus forgot his guns in a crucial scene) and started milling some more BP, as I've been using a lot of the cannon size lately.  Best for fireballs.  Lots of new e-matches arrived -- yay!  And tidied away some of the equipment.

3-19-04 -- started a new batch of BP with the remaining Melilica charcoal, and prepare a batch of eight fireballs for future use.  Upon returning home (I almost forgot the boys, but rememebred only ten minutes late) Angus had his har Nadiaed and it looks nice. Mac is home, givig poor Deb a break.  And the Exotic Life store gave me a used aquarium for effects work -- it is huge and heavy and they say it oleaks slightly, but it will work well for us and after we are done -- assuming I do not shatter it -- Max can use it for a terrarium for his snake.

3-20-04 -- spent the day trying to use piano hing to fasten three very thin sheets of plywood together to make a folding greensceen that might hopefully prove more durable than previous styrofoam versions.  But the wood is thin and the screws have little to grip on, have added resin and epoxy in the hopes it will help.  Also took a fireball device over to Carl's to show him what David might be planning to use.  As it happened it was Brian's 18th birthday part and they were just bringing him out in sedan chair, so we rigged the fireball to salute him as he came down and it turned out quite well, if I do say so.  Carl filmed the whole thing.  Happy birthday to Brian.

3-21-04 -- Painted my boards black and set them to dry, after grinding off the screw points that stuck through.  In the afternoon, captured all the footage from Wednesday, and in the evening Angus and I filmed the "missiles away from cam" stock we needed.  After futzing with electrical ignition it turned out to be easiest just to hold the pellets in the barbeque tongs, light them, and toss them off the deck.

3-22-04 -- Warm and sunny, but with too many hazy clouds to film explosions, although I had several prepared. 

3-23-04 -- Watched the gunkata scenes in “Equilibrium” 5 more times, three with Angus.  Looks promising.  Also corned two more pounds of BP, corning it as rough as I could.  It is turning out that the very large chunks -- the cannon grade stuff -- and the very finest, the corning dust -- are the most useful for our work.  And these are what most BP users would consider wastage.  The midrange grains -- about 2f-3f size -- we hardly ever use and these would be considered most valuable in most circles. But I'm getting better at corning the pucks in such a way that I don't get much of the midrange stuff, and in any case I can always grind it back down to meal.

3-24-04 -- Went over to Mary's and managed to get the pillar's metal strap off and the whole thing over on its side, and then went to the 99 cent store and bought painting supplies.  Time to turn it into a missile.  The jetpack thruster fuel had finished milling so it was melt-cast into thrusters.  And picked up a used copy of "Equilibrium" for Brian to study.  Had Angus do Kenpo 3 with guns and it looked quite promising.

3-25-04 -- Updated the Production Journal and Framegrabs, spoke to Brian's father who feels that Spring Break would be a good time to wrap Brian's part.  Also picked up a 40 inch balloon from Magic World and measured its lift.  145 grams.  This gives about 400 grams, give or take, for a three-balloon device, or less than a pound.  But shall do what one can.  One balloon will lift my little digital camera though, should that be required at some point.

3-26-04 -- Stopped at the Dollar Store and got a plastic bowl, and a gardening tool, and made the Fuel Port Handle for the movie.  Took some grinding and fiberglass resin and some paint, but so far it looks quite passable.  Made a few fireball overheads for stock filming but it was too hazy and the moon was directly overhead and bright.  So skipped that -- besides, Angus and Josh and his friend were filming their own stuff.  And that was keeping things plenty busy -- they borrowed a few Dixie Fireballs and squibs for the purpose.  Got a nice letter from Tony at Cannonfuse, he likes the site and wants to trade for a t-shirt.  Will have to see what we got.

3-27-04 -- Warm but a bit of wind, too much for shooting any stock durintg the day, but Angus and I went over to Mary's and began painting the missile.  I had left a can of white paint holding down the fuel hatch while the foam hardened; this had fallen and leaked on the floor but we cleaned it up as much as possible.  There will be a white smudge there forever, I regret.  The evening was clear and calm enough so dis a couple of flaming starbursts that came out cool.

3-28-04 -- Angus had Craig and a friend over and they had fun Filming all day.

3-30-04 -- Started cooking some charcoal, edited the slo-mo disk description, that was about it.  Angus practiced some more Gunpo.

3-31-04 -- Clear blue sky, no wind, a great day for bombs.  So that is what I did.  Blew stuff up, roasting the Dangercam housing several times, but that is what it is for and the camera inside was okay.  Then spent the rest of the day playing with the footage.

4-1-04 -- Started sorting footage and burning disks, milling charcoal and black smoke mix, and fell prey to a Skylighter April Fools gag involving a "new multicolored smoke mix."  Was funny.  Sensei called for angus to come into a lesson and he did, within three minutes was ready to go, and did well.  While he was there I went next door to Skirmish for some practice Airsoft guns for Gunpo.

4-3-04 -- Yakov showed up fairly early to play with Angus, and I set both of them to work painting the missile, which they did well.  I recast the hatch with more fiberglass resin and set it to harden, and even had my teeth cleaned while we were there.

4-4-04 -- Angus and I went over to Mary's and did the jetpack takeoff again.  And this time it was great, he looked awesome and cool.  It always seems to work better when it is just him and me working.  We lost the watch again, but had a backup which is almost identical, so it is not noticable.  And this time I had him counterbalanced with two 40-pound bags of rock salt, so he was a lot easier to lift.  The good thing about using rock salt for sandbags is the heavy plastic bags it comes in already have handles, it's cheap, and we can just dump it in the water softener afterward, since we have to buy it anyway.

4-5-04 -- Spent the afternoon getting things set up for the landing-on-the missile shot.  After school, Angus and I went over and dangled him via wire, weight belt and salt bags -- a more complicated process than we had supposed, and one that almost made him barf because of dangling from the belt.  Got the shot though, and then home.  I'm suprisingly tired.

4-6-04 -- Chilly and cloudy.  Plus I am sick again, which accounts for my tiredness yesterday.  But got work done and captured all the footage.  Didn't have the energy to knock down the missile set though -- could barely move as it was.  I took Angus to karate -- it's not much strain -- but he had one hell of a workout.  Did good though.

4-7-04 -- Still too many clouds for bombs and I was still recovering anyway.  BUt did work and tried a double-burst in the evening -- worked okay, will want to try others.

4-8-04 -- Angus not feeling all that well today, but he went to karate anyway.  Checked him when home and he has swollen adnoids.  May have to take him to the dr tomorrow.

4-9-04 -- Good Friday, and no school for Angus.  He and I rented "Kill Bill" for dude's night, since Sharon was up visiting her mom. I also discovered that the new mothballs -- the unrila cake kind -- make great black smoke if you can get them burning.  We bought a mess and I am milling them to powder.

4-10-04 -- The powdered mothballs, mixed 50/50 by volume with corning dust, make a great black smoke and fire mix, and it is quite easy.  Will have to try filming it when the sky is blue enough.

4-11-04 -- Warm and sunny, just a bit too breezy for bombs.  But it was Easter anyway, so probably just as well.  Angus and I went over to Mary's to paint the wall, and did most of it until we ran out of paint.  I will have to get more.

4-12-04 -- Picked up some more paint to finish painting the set, and went to the bank for Sharon, and tried melt-casting Xylitol rockets with urinal mints, but the mints melt too fast and won't mix in, and the end result isn't very good.  Oh well.

4-13-04 -- Blue skies, no wind, a Good Day For Bombs.  So I did a couple.  Then went off to Mary's to finish painting the set, and then went off to the Mark Cox dojo to meet Jessica Levine's dad Howard.  She is a 14-year-old black belt who may be able to play Sluggi, which would be nice.  I left him a card so he could check the site.

4-14-04 -- Angus and I went off to Mary's and completed building the set.  Sky was clear and blue so filmed a couple of stock tests as well. 

4-15-04 -- Tidied the set and took pictures of it; bought a large mirror for shooting black stock, and called both Brian's dad and Jessica's dad to start setting up for filming.  Took Angus to karate and we stopped by the Tang Soo Do dojo to meet Jessica; Angus being his usual shy self.  But it went well.  And then a two-hour karate lesson for him in which he looked good again. 

4-16-04 -- Wrote the revised pages for the RA12 script, detailing the changed scenes, and then Angus and I went to see The Punisher, which was merely okay.  If that.  Afterward he had to be judge at karate belt testing and Sharon met me there after work and we had Vietnamese food at the nearby place.  MAx was home briefly to pump some iron.  He and Angus are both ripped, leaving me in dirt.  Youth.

4-17-04 -- Drizzly.  Itw as supposed to be a big shoot tonight, and I made dozens of effects for it, and arranged for David Becker and Brian and Frank to be there.  Tried to have Time too, but he wasn't available.  In any case, we got all of Brian's acting stuff, plus the stuff with David and he, but just as we were getting to the gunpo fight we had to cut it short because tyhey had to leave.  I had warned them it might be a long shoot but to them t6hat meant "maybe an hour" whereas to me it meant "Most of the night."  Such is interpretation.  In any cae, we have rescheduled for Monday.  But it did mean that ANgus and I suddenly had a rainy Saturday night to ourselves we hadn't expected, what with Sharon being off at at friend's 50th birthday party.  So we got Snackage and fire logs and rented Hot Shots Parts One and Deux (which he had never seen) and had a good evening at home with many animals eating chips.

4-18-04 -- Angus celebrated his birthday today, though his real birthday is not for a couple more days.  He had some friends over and we all went off to see "Kill Bill 2" which was perhaps slightly inappropriate fare for 15-year-olds but they seemed to like it.  And then they were loud and charged around with Airsoft guns for the rest of the day. 

4-19-04 -- Big shoot tonight, in which we wrapped up Brian's part, so of course I am wired.  But it was a lot of fun, and ended with an exploding control panel that quite put a cap on the evening.  Brian wore the Stunt Gel and had the leather coat zipped up, so he was fine.  And that is the main thing.  Frank appears to have gotten a great angle on it too.  Angus and I did some of his part earlier -- we got there an hour ahead of time -- and he had done all his homework as well.  He did great, as did Brian.  The only thing of note is that Angus is now taller than Brian, so it was just as well we wrapped this up.  He's more confident too, and capable in the fighting -- Dr. Vengeance had met his match this time. In any case, a very cool evening.  Brian seems into the effects and kept thinking of cool tricks he could play on people with them.  Poor Max was ill all day -- but oddly.  It seems like he must have ripped something exercising, and capped it off with some food poisoning or something, resulting in his being most miserable. 

4-20-04 -- Scary day.  Max came home, still in pain and blacking out, and was looking yellowish.  So I hauled him off to Motion Picture, where in an astonishing display of concern and professionalism, they rapidly disgnosed him with a ruptured spleen, prepped him for surgery, and operated.  Now he is recovering and we are all drained.  Production wise, before all this happened,I captured all the footage from the Brian shoots, both mine and Frank's, and it looks quite promising.  But at the moment there are distractions.

4-21-04 -- Spent part of the day just sitting in Max's hospital room sorting footage on the laptop, will burn it to disk when I get home.  Made Max a tee-shirt that reads "Spleens are for the Weak."  He seemed to like it.

4-22-04 -- Spent most of the day running into the hospital and back, with carpooling Angus mixed in.  Max now in a regular room, but still has a tube down his nose, which he dislikes.  But they have to leave it there until he starts farting properly.  That's really what they say.  You'd think they knew us.  I sorted more shots while in the hospital room and updated the web site.  We don't do much the past few days but the tension wears us out anyway.

4-23-04 -- Spent most fo the day over at the hospital with Max, who is starting to walk around a bit now.  While I was there I sorted the rest of the Gunpo shots and burned them to disk here.

4-24-04 -- Warm and sunny.  Spent most of it in Max's hospital room, doing editing on the Gunpo fight sequence while he slept. 

4-25-04 -- Hot.  Spent most of the day at the hospital with Max, which meant I got a lot of editing done on the fight sequence.  It is nice to be withMax but he is still recuperating, which means dozing or watching TV, so I just wear headphones and can keep editing.  Angus and I had breakfast with a guy named Barry, who is a SW fanfilm maker, along with his wife Angeline and their daughter Megan and their friend Will.  It was a casual breakfast for no specific reason except to establish we could all get along if we work together.  Barry's trying to shoot an ambitious SW fanfilm and would like to use the greenscreen room when we have it available.  He has script and storyboard and everything but like most of us, finds it hard to get actors all in the right place at the right time.  But perhaps Angus and Frank and I can be Jedis.  Frank would be particularly fitting.

4-26-04 – Max came home today, yay!  Sharon and I are both ready to collapse.  But I was able to start pinning up the gunpo disks.

4-27-04 -- began rigging some small effects, making more BP, and pinning up disks.  Printed out two copies of the revised script pages and delivered them to the actresses, or at least their representatives.

4-28-04 -- tried a couple of small bursts -- I've learned not to do too many in one night, because if there are problems they escalate.  In this case the mirror (which had a piece fall away when I was setting it up) looked clean but the condensation from the night air showed up as streaks and ruined both takes.  The small bursts worked well enough in themselves though, so I will try again tomorrow.

4-30-04 -- Warmer, blue sky.  A great day for bombs, so I blew one up first thing, filming it, and then (after some Real Work) tried keying the footage against black so that it could be screened but the results were less than ideal.  I could put it against blue but we already have a better blast on the site so there isn't much point.  But it was an experiement I had been meaning to try in any case.  Corned and screened two pounds of BP and made some effects for tomorrow in case it turns out nice.  Have to start building the last fullscale set but didn't want to pass up the good weather.

5-1-04 -- Warm and glorious and a clear blue sky, so I did four bombs with debris, very cool.  Played with the footage most of the day, except for a run to Starbucks.

5-3-04 -- Was going to film a propane balloon pop at night but it was too windy.  FIlmed the propane torch itself instead, from various angles.  The flame looks cool.

5-4-04 -- when Angus got home he and I fired off the triple-burst.  I had been concerned that it might frighten traffic so after hosing down the roof and everything in the vicinity, I sent Angus out to the corner with his cellphone while I set the cameras rolling and waitied by the detbox.  Took about five minutes, but he finally gave me a momentary all-clear and I blew the triple.  Two cams, came out nice, and despite the concerns made so little noise that Mark, washing his van next door, didn't even notice.  Lots of brief fire and smoke, but it had vanished before any more traffic came along, so we did not worry anyone.  This was the idea.  Spent the evening cleaning it up and it should be quite useful.  We have learned that multiple smaller effects are more photogenic than single large ones, and safer, too.

5-5-04 -- Sorted, titled, and cleaned up footage, answered e-mail

5-6-04 --  Spent most of the day burning footage and updating the web site; a long process from sheer volume.  Almost forgot to pick up the boys but remembered at the last minute. 

5-7-04 -- Angus and I went over to Mary's and did much painting and construction, getting the new set ready.  And then went back home, where we found Yakov hanging around.  He and Angus were put to work dissassembling the Nerf machine guns so they could be made into Sluggi props.  This was a long process, as Nerf guns have a zillion screws, but they got them apart, and took the guts out, and primered and painted all the outer components to be cooler.

And then they were released to play.  Yakov had brought some powder from commercial fireworks he had taken apart and so he and Angus went out to set fire to army men with them.  This was briefly fun, but the powder was stronger than expected and an unexpectly large flareup burned Angus' hand (causing him to drop the video camera) and singed Yakov's hair.  They were much subdued after that and after Angus's blisters had been treated they put everything away and Yakov went home.  Angus went to watch videos and relax.  Big day.  He is soaking his hand in ice water now.  And hopefully they know better than to do that again.  Stick with Daddy's explosives, that is the ticket.  Angus knows that already, but Yakov is excitable and unfortunately Angus got the brunt of it.  But I think the lesson has been learned.  I confiscated the rest of the powder (they were quite willing to give it up) and disposed of it.  I suspect it was H3, not BP, which would certainly account for the trouble.

5-9-04 -- Picked up some cheap powered screwdriver/drills and began converting the Sluggi guns to full auto.  Got one mostly assembled and it seems to work; will do the otehr one tomorrow.

5-10-04 -- Went to Lowes and got another sheet of one-inch foam and a paint roller, then went to Mary's and painted both it and the thinner backdrop piece and put them both up.  Now the set is done, except for floor padding sheets.  Went back home and built the other Sluggi gun.  Angus is right, they look bette whirling in opposite directions.  Then went to the Tang Soo dojo and found Jessica there, got her picture plus pant and shoe sizes so we can get her outfit together.

5-11-04 --  Struck down a few more sections of the upper deck constructions, and went off to get the Sluggi costume.  Found an outfit that may work, and dropped it off at the dojo for Jessica to take home and try on. 

5-12-04 -- Heard that Jessica's costume fit okay so have started trying to schedule the shoot.  Always a complex process. 

5-13-04 -- Disassembled the last of the deck set woodwork and piled it up; and picked up an inexpensive strobelight to see if it would enhance machine-gun muzzle flashes.  The idea would be to have it offscreen so it would briefly illuminate the actor and set, like a real flash. Angus and I did a test, but the flashes are so short in duration the camera only picks up one out of three and even with muzzle flashes and sound effects added the end result is more a distraction than an enhancement. 

5-14-04 -- picked up six sheets of styofoam and some gallons of paint that exactly match the craft store primer.  Which is about concrete color.  So I spent the morning primering the sheets, then picked up Angus and he helped tape them down and paint them gray.  I also soldered clips onto the rest of the det box wires and used the rest of my ignitors to wire some tubes for charges.

5-15-04 -- Wrapped principal photography on RA12 today with the Girlfight sequence.  Angus and I spent most of the day getting ready, and at five Jessica and Gina and Sensei and Frank showed up.  Jessica and Gina were a little shy at first, but we got the opening shots, and by the time Sensei had worked with them on a sequence for a while they were New Best Friends and were running off to the bathroom together at every opportunity.  So it was a fun night.  Still have a couple small pickups to get and miniatures to do, but the Big Scenes with Actors are done.  The girls did great, Angus was a champ, and Frank invaluable as always.  So of course I am wired and will sleep downstairs, when I eventually get sleepy.  A fresh gardenia picked from outside is helping.

5-16-04 -- Shoot Recuperation Day

5-17-04 --  Captured all the footage from Saturday today, a long process since we had three cameras and each one had about an hour's footage.  Can't just start it and walk away, either -- I have to watch it all coming in so I'll have an idea of what there is to work with.  Fortunately, it looks like we got some good stuff.  Angus did great, his aerial angle was much needed and he even went in tight on some axe kicks that I was glad to see.  Frank got some cool angles as always.  So now comes the sorting and trimming.

5-18-04 -- Sent my female stars some flowers, to thank them for their efforts. 

5-19-04 -- Continued trimming and sorting shots.  17 gigs worth of footage that needs to be trimmed of extraneous materials. But it is fun. 

5-20-04 -- More footage trimming.  Went over to MAry's to clean up a few things, and took the computer along to karate to trim more while Angus was there.  Angus was in good form.  He has also been using the weights lately -- it shows, too.  Gina thanked me for the flowers.  She deserved them, but it made me happy.

5-21-04 -- The rent-a-bin has arrived.  This will be good for cleaning.  I suggested to Angus that he should help me clean all day tomorrow but he seemed resistant.

5-22-04 -- Angus' friend from Canada, Erika, was supposed to show up today, and but we were not sure when and Angus was doing his best to stay calm, but he kept going out to hit the weights and stuff.  So I put him to work filling the rentabin and stacking wood (with me helping) and that filled some time.

5-25-04 -- Angus seems cheery.  We still cannot quite film his pickup scenes until his hand is completely healed, but it is close now

5-26-04 -- Finished trimming the Girlfight footage; now to put it all together.  Got the wireless netowrk up again, mainly just by plugging it into the Mac, which seemed to know what to do.  Bought some stuff at Frys which may not be needed.  Began pressing more BP. 

5-27-04 -- Finished trimming and sorting the Girlfight clips.  Down from 17 gigs to 4.  Much more manageable.  Started editing the machinegun holes sequence which looks surprisingly successful, considering.

5-28-04 -- Continued milling down the new charcoal. Bought some paint rollers so we can start redoing the set to greenscreen again. 

5-29-04 -- Rousted Angus while Sharon was at painting, and he and I cleaned off the remainder of the set from the upper deck and then moved all the weight equipment up there.  So it was Big Work.  Then we went off to the Firing Line to shoot Real Guns, Angus' first time and he did extremely well.  The airgun practice, no doubt. 

5-30-04 -- began editing the beginning of the Girlfight sequence

6-1-04 -- edited more on the Girlfight -- more complex than the boys, because there is greenscreen invoolved.  ALso went by David Becker's to see if I could help him get started on Premiere.  He has a more advanced version that I'm not familiar with (and which has eliminated several features that I really liked, like a right-click speed control and transparency) but we muddled.

6-2-04 -- Have started comping shots inside the Area 52 set, much of it having been done with greenscreen elements to compensate for limited space and the desire for safety. As always, a bit of a struggle but the dvMatte software is a blessing and every shot is a new experience.  Our own smoke stock coming into heavy use for atmosphere elements between layers.

6-3-04 -- STarted adding muzzle flashes, smoke, and bullet streaks to the Sluggi entrance scene and as each effect had to be individually laid in and tweaked, before I knew it my back was aching from hunching over in the chair and the day had gone by. 

6-4-04 -- Comped more shots

6-5-04 -- Angus and I went back over to Mary's almost immediately to repaint the wall green.  We will do the floor and side walls as well but we ran out of green paint.  Just as well, as we have to get a couple of pickup shots first.  The rest of the day was spent editing and comping shots -- nine zillion muzzle flashes and bullet hits, smoke layers over everything.  Thank goodness we have our own stock to draw from.  All this combined with the discovery that we are missing a Brian line.  I'm fairly sure I could kludge my way around it but hopefully we'll be able to get a pickup from him as well.

6-6-04 -- Spent the day editing and comping more of the Girlfight and occasionally falling in the pool.

6-7-04 -- edited more Girlfight sequence.  Into the actual fight now.  Boy those girls look brutal.

6-8-04 -- Stabilized and comped -- at least partially -- an eighteen-frame Girlfight scene with the green door in the BG.  Now I need to get a shot of Angus to put in there to smooth the transition.

6-13-04 -- Mostly a Sunday, with Max coming home for the Traditional Breakfast and hanging around most of the day, but Angus and I did go off to the Greenscreen Room to get a couple of pickups and his Reaction Shots.  These shot of the major characters doing a variety of reactions and expressions against t6he greenscreen have proven invaluable, especially as we always take care to have lots of digital phots of the sets. These can be matted in as BGs and the shots are a blessing when we need cutaways or reactions.  Spent the evening putting Angus in the BG of a shot, even doing a rack focus for the transition, and it seems to work well.

6-14-04 -- went to Lowe's for more chromagreen paint and picked up the jetpack stand and took it over to Mary's.  Cleaned up a bit of shot 528 in the evening.

6-15-04 -- Worked on shot 539 for much of the day, erasing the bricks, general cleaning, and testing it against backgrounds.

6-16-04 -- Finally green-pinned shot 539 -- three days work for a three second shot, but that is how it goes sometimes.  Does look cool though, if I do say so.

6-18-04 -- Angus and I went to Mary's and picked up a few greenscreen jetpack shots and a few cutaways.  Angus had heard me rant about the way Riddick took off his goggles in the "Chronicles of Riddick" film so as a joke, during the scene when he we supposed to whip his sunglasses off, he did them with an over-the-head move, like Riddick.  And I had to admit, it looked a lot cooler that way.  So we shot it that way as well.  Then, since he had not yet seen the film, we went off to actually see "Riddick," and Angus was more amused by the goggles move than anyone else would have been,under the circumstances.  We made a brief stop afterward to pick up a landing shot, then went home to pack.

VACATION IN HAWAII FOR A WEEK

6-26-04 -- Still on Hawaiian Time, so we slept in, but then Sharon went into work and I tidied the workshop -- throwing away a binful of old exploded props and such.  I tend to keep them around in case we discover we need to cobble them back together and blow them up again, but eventually they do pile up.  Angus and I also crushed 5 pounds of black powder pucks -- I did the crushing and he would run in between crushings to screen out all the small stuff and dump the large back in.  So we got through it in good time. Still have to screen it all, but at least the smashing is done.  Mopped up a bunch of files and did general housekeeping on the machine, and then dropped a couple of the comped shots into the edited sequences and they seem to work. 

6-27-04 -- edited in a shot or two, and screened all the crushed BP.  Now have lots.

6-28-04 -- wet up the tank in the garage and filled it, adjusting lights and trying to clean the weird dripped crud -- like glue or something -- off the back.  The initial tests of shooting air rifle pellets in it look promising, but the water has to sit a day or so so the air bubbles on the sides of the glass will go away.  In the meantime, began comping a multilayer shot of two fights going on at the same time.

6-29-04 -- prepped the water tank for some bullet tests.  Angus fired the airgun while I filmed, and after some experimentation with light placement and filters to cut the glare we got some decent results. Then we tried the milk-cloud effect, pouring the milk down a tube from a funnel to prevent sloshing.  It actually worked pretty well but the camera was off-center and I didn't pour fast enough.  Will do better next time.  But for now of course the tank had to be drained and washed out. 

6-30-04 -- another nuke test in the water tank -- better but too much milk, I think.  Also, have to avoid bubbles.  Draining and refilling now.

7-1-04 -- filmed a couple more watertank nukes -- think I have enough now.  The trick turned out to be strapping a dishtowel over the end of the milk hose and just using about 4oz of milk.  It comes out hard but diffused through the cloth and gives a nice effect.  Plus the new chems from Sklighter arrived -- as usual, in a box marked PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD AS YOU VALUE YOUR LIFE AND THE LIVES OF THOSE AROUND YOU DO NOT DROP THIS BOX!! Or words to that effect.  In any case, I am sure the postman handled it gingerly.

7-2-04 -- did some depthcharges in the tank -- used gelatin capsules filled with BP and dipped in epoxy.  They worked surprisingly well and did not crack the tank.  Did one last milk nuke and think we are done with the tank for a while.  It is draining now.

7-3-04 -- was ready to shoot some boys on the stage -- when they all cancelled because of parties and such.  Should know better than to try doing anything on a holiday weekend.  But I titled the watertank stock for the webpage and posted it.  The colored flame solutions woun't wick -- I think it is because of the lube in the alcohol.  The lube doesn't burn away and eventually clogs the wick.  Should not have used nitromethane, but it was all I could find.  Still, it burns pretty in bowls.

7-4-04 -- Notes: Fourth of July!  And the whole family -- except me -- has taken off to see fireworks.  This just seems wrong somehow.  BUt I have a Real Work deadline tomorrow and have to get to bed early.

7-6-04 -- I began editing on the fistfight sequence following the gunpo.  Pressing some more BP as well.  Tried milling citric acid and KNO3 and it burns, quite well, but there is no real reason to experiment futhur as other things are avaialable that work better.  It was just to satisfy my curiosity.  One of the site users sent in some Word templates he had made for storyboards and other things, and they were quite nice so, with his permission, I posted them for the use of others.

7-7-04 – Real Work, but the day was otherwise spent editing the tail end of the Girlfight scene.  Not oly is it tricky in and of itself, but it also requires considerable compositing, with multilayer shots and every layer a handheld camera, it seems like. Lots of tweaking the shots around trying to make the movements match up.  Tedious.  This is why pros have motion control camera systems.  But when the tweaking works though, it is pretty cool.

7-8-04 -- Had karate and spent the afternoon and evening coming Girlfight shots and struggling with difficult greenscreen.  But it is all a Learning Experience.

7-9-04 -- Did lots of editing today and dicovered there is just no way to clean up that one greenscreen shot any more than I have -- not even frame by frame in Photoshop.  So I have decided to accept it as is and move on.

7-12-04 -- Very hot and muggy.  Began the rough assembly on RA12, seeing what needs to be done, comped, picked up, etc.  Amusing to hear thekids' voices -- they were an octave higher when we began.  And I went to the Thouusand Oaks Videomaker's Club meeting tonight, learning a great deal of new and useful information about Sound from a pro.  I was wondering if the meetings would be sorth it, but the advice on handling that infuriating 60-cycle hum was worth the whole trip.

7-13-04 -- HOt!  Spent most of the day, while waiting for notes on the Real Work, continuing the rough assembly on RA12.  This takes a while, because the footage and clips and sequences have all been put in various folders.  This was an attempt to make the sections managable but after a year I forget what system I was using for that particular file and need to plow through looking for things. Most of the scenes have been burned to disk and pinned up, but I only use those as a last resort.

7-14-04 -- picked up some sound equipment for post work.  Better mike, some cables, and some useful adapters.  Also a mike stand.  AT the moment it is set up so Sharon can use it for singing while playing the piano, but we can steal it as needed.

7-15-04 -- Some shotgun primers and percussion caps arrived today.  Tried out both.  Shotgun primers in the flare launcher (loud!) and percussion caps in my revolver with a small charge of homemade BP and a wad of paper instead of a ball.  BLAM!  I make good BP.  Also tested the VX2100 on some alcohol flames with the 2ND filter on -- looks promising.

7-16-04 -- devised and tested mom's boomstick, filmed it in action, and sent it off.  Also began trimming through the Area 52 shots.

7-18-04 -- Did more editing but discovered that a number of scenes I need for the sequence must be stored on a ifferent hard drive so I will have to track them down.  Pressed more pucks of BP but did nothing overt, what with the fire danger and nervous neighbors.

7-19-04 -- Found the footage I had been looking for, at least -- I had backed it up onto DVD and put it away.  Was able to pull it back off and start using it, though it took a while.

7-21-04 – Flu for the past two days. Did a bit of compositing and have decided to retire early.

7-22-04 -- Did a touch more editing but have to find some more footage on another hard drive so will pick that up tomorrow.

7-23-04 -- Did much work (15 pages of script) and some editing; compositing more viewscreen shots.  It is amazing how much needs to be done, and so much of it is invisible to the audience.  An onscreen shot requires two layers of compositing in and of itself, plus video noise, and then it still has to be resized and composited into the monitor.  All the audience thinks is we had the actor onscreen.  But that is the trick, I guess.

7-24-04 -- spent a number of hours compositing shots in RA12, slowing building shots of various treated layers and stringing them together in a sequence.  It always means editing the rough footage to the frame, and then yanking out just that clip and cleaning it up -- painting out rafters in AE, for instance, sometimes frame by frame in the handheld shots -- and then putting it back in and rebuilding the sequence.  For some reason AE seems to shorten some clips by a frame or two, but it doesn't seem to affect the cut -- I think it just goes very slightly faster or something.  In any case, it works so far, but this sequence has been a real slog.  Coming along, though.

7-25-04 -- Spent most of the day editing and compositing shots; adding smoke, adding video noise, building a multilevel shot of of various components -- the final segment is just the first half of the section  but at least it is more or less complete and can be exported for assembly. 

7-26-04 -- Decided the Citric Acid mix would never dry, so tried burning it off and made a huge cloud of smoke and fire trucks came to invesitgate.  But they went away.  And the Cremora people want me to take their product name off the website.  Understandable, so I did.  But now I am sulking in the house muttering "bang" to myself at intervals in a very small voice.  Such is Fire Season.

7-27-04 -- Did Real Work until Jay called me up with notes, which broke concentration.  So I went over to Frank's to hear music and then came home.  Sorted footage for the second secotion of the Area 52 sequence and imported some stills of the F12, turning one of them into a series of plates to simulate motion.  Discovered that the christmas lights are easier to grind the tips off if they are dipped in epoxy first and this is allowed to cure.  Then they grind nice and can be filled with pyrogen as needed.

7-28-04 -- my computer was occupied for much of it by downloading the Detfilms site into GoLive.  Angus also did his.  Now we’ll see whether we can make them work on Macs.  I’m continuing with the edit of the second part of Area 52, but probably won’t get far.  It’s already late.

7-29-04 -- Angus and I had karate and Sensei Denny taught the class so I am wiped.  Did a lot of Real Work today and started compositing a Prisoners at the Pillar scene which is looking good – but now it is time for bed.

7-30-04 -- In the evening, put in two hours cleaning up footage for two brief scenes in RA12 that needed compositing.  But they do look better now.  It always takes lots of tweaking.  Putting smoke behind someone is tricky at times, especially if the BG is not a solid color and is moving.  But it does give atmosphere.

7-31-04 -- Was going to work, but went off to see “Thunderbirds” instead.  Could not convince a single boy to join me and they were, regrettably, correct.  Oh well.  Came home and soothed my nerves by compositing many shots and doing more editing. 

8-1-04 --   In the evening, comped a few more shots and put the entire first Area 52 sequence together.  It is missing only the brief cutaway to Tim, and if it takes any longer to get that stupid shot I’ll just build one using Brian Ishiba’s library of reactions.  Bet it’ll work.  In fact, may do that tomorrow and see how it works.

8-2-04 -- Tried faking up the shot with Brian Ishiba, and even tried Kaci Horton, but neither quite worked.  We’ll probably have to shoot the scene after all. But I wired the motor I got from eBay and it ran, so since it is now summer and Swamp Cooler Parts are available, I picked up a mess and began experimenting with assembling a Real Ball Mill.  It is put together now, but none of the parts screwed down – want to check everything first before I bolt it.

8-3-04 -- finished assembling my new ball mill, which seems to work quite well so far.  Now I want Max to start drinking lots of protein powder so’s I can have the jar.  Wanted to mill some stuff tonight but need to get the whole thing set up outside first.  So instead I went inside to clean up an Angus shot in which the screen is so hard to distinguish from the BG that I will have to paint every frame.  Only two seconds blessedly but even with all the tricks I know now sometimes it is still the only way.  Did one second of it tonight – thirty frames – took over an hour.  That’s enough.

8-4-04 -- Angus cleaned out the old ball mill area and hosed it out, and then he and I shifted the new ball mill there and set it up.  The whole thing looks very nice.  Tested a few alcohol flame blowpipe effects – they sounded cool but it is hard to see alcohol flames in the daylight – which is why I want to try filming them at night, they are not as likely to flare out the lens.  But for the day tried some naphtha as well, which of course was cooler than hell – but more dangerous and not, frankly, as likely to be useful.  May try filming the alcohol at some point soon.

8-5-04 -- In the evening, after karate, painted another 30 frames of scene 185.  Not perfect, but strung together and tweaked a bit, it looks like it’ll work.  Two evenings for two seconds of footage – that’s enough.

8-6-04 -- spoke to Joel of Spudtech, who makes custom spudguns.  I was interested in trying to adapt one of his pneumatic cannons for launching dirt, debris, vast amounts of blood, etc – it would be ideal for dry brush etc. because there would be no fire danger.  Plus, I’d like it to launch alcohol for flamebursts without the bright flash and smoke of BP.  He’s going to ponder the design.  Be cool if it works out.  My test of putting the dampened BP in a paint can and using heavy media (brass doorknobs and German silver) worked better than expected with the new mill – the results were three 1/3-lb balls of hard-pressed BP and the media perfectly clean.  I believe the BP is quite close to the ideal density this way and am drying the results for testing further.

8-7-04 -- Yakov showed up today, so we seized him, dragged him off to the set, and got some pickup shots we needed.  He did great, too.  Then we began tearing down the set – one panel at a time, since it is hot and we do not want to overload Mary’s trash can.  Both Angus and Yakov did this work.

8-10-04 -- spent the day talking to prospective writers and working on the “peelout” scene for the F-12, which actually came out pretty well, despite the legendary trouble we had with the shoot.  Glad Angus got back in the car and did the take again, because I was able to lay in the Big Thruster footage afterward and it worked great.

8-11-04 -- During a long phone call I was editing RA12 and answering some mail from a guy who wants some muzzle smoke on the site.  Told him it wasn’t a bad thought but it would probably have to wait until the fire season was over.  Joel also called to get more specs on the air mortar – apparently he’d been planning this massive thing and all we really need is a small one.  Makes things simpler.  Angus and I also crushed and screened about 5 pounds of BP – we now have so much I have decided to store it outside, in a weatherproof steel box, rather than in the garage.  Safer.  Plus, just to try out the mill with the new bronze-bar media, I made about two pounds of Xylitol rocket mix.  Worked great.  Now I am starting the chopper fight sequence, which I have been rather anticipating and dreading at the same time.  Helicopter rotors are really tough in bluescreen.

8-12-04 -- talked to Joel at Spudtech – who gave me a price that was so reasonable that I insisted he take more – and we should have our pneumatic mortar in a week or so.  Can hardly wait.

8-13-04 -- In the evening, began assembling the Chopperfight Sequence.  Needed cam shake on a lot of scenes, but have started just using the Earthquake effect in iMovie for that – it works great and is so absurdly simple it feels like cheating or something.  Also tried some firepipe bursts with denatured alcohol treated with lithium chloride – makes a bright red fireball which is cool, but not very realistic looking.  I might add some salt to see if I can’t orange it down a bit.

8-14-04 -- Did a lot of work on the chopperfight sequence, some of which involved simply tracking down shots.  But also grabbed a fast closeup of a Vulcan spinning against a greenscreen – just a toy minigun barrel held in a portable drill’s bit, and put it outside sitting on a greenscreen with the camera in tight.  Turned out surprisingly decent.

8-15-04 -- worked all day on RA12 shots, adding several more to the sequence.  Which as usual, took hours, but I was obsessed.

8-16-04 -- In the evening comped shot 245 (took some work in AE, but finally done)

8-17-04 -- Spent part of the day getting some potassium chlorate ready for milling, and then edited in a few more chopperfight shots and began adding camera shake to the sequence as needed.

8-18-04 -- Finished adding cam shake to some of the scenes in Chopperfight01 and they improved the intensity quite dramatically.

8-19-04 -- The camera’s shoulder mount arrived and I tried it out – seems to work well.  Plus it can hold the mike adapters and stuff – I spent some time testing the mikes as well.  Got another request for a “smoke burst” like NCC’s, but I am not inclined to just undercut another low-budget filmmaker.  Was planning to eventually do black-powder muzzle flashes – they’ll have to be satisfied with those.  Nonetheless wrote to NCC to see how they’d feel about smoke bursts – the mail bounced back – I guess the account is not current – but I found one of the guys on the Chromanator forum and sent him a message that way.

8-20-04 -- made some conductive pyrogen – 10 grams each of potassium chlorate, antimony trisulfide, and conductive lampblack, all in a thin NC lacquer.  I was worried at first that I might not have enough lampblack in the mix to be conductive, but once I weighed out the chemicals I learned the difference – lampblack weighs almost nothing, so you have a spoonful of chlorate and trisulfide and great heaping mounds of lampblack.  In any case, initial tests are promising; good conductivity with just a strip and dip, and a prompt if mild burn on a 9V battery.  The current mix would work as a primer, if covered with something like BP or H3 in NC, but since I’m just testing anyway I thought I’d try adding another 10g of chlorate.  I suspect the current mix is fuel-weighted and may burn better with more oxidizer.  Long as it conducts; that’s the main thing.  Then began trying to clean up the chopper-firing-missiles shot – FC does not seem to handle bluescreen very well and the smoke makes it worse.  Premiere does better but I am also trying an AE cleanup. 

8-21-04 -- after testing the conductive pyrogen, adding another ten grams of chlorate brought the mix to a good reactive slurry in NC lacquer and I was able to strip and dip 50 wires.  Then dipped them in another slurry of H3 and titanium fines, and ended off with a dip in honey-thick NC lacquer.  The end results pop instantly in a shower of sparks with a Quest 9v launcher and I am quite pleased.  Work as igniters or as squibs.  The Quickburst still are slicker, but it is nice to know I can make my own now if I need to.  And then I got a sick idea.  I came up with the idea of Kabumei – the Art of the Sharpened Grenade.  I shall say no more, but it will definitely give us a chance to practice our blood chops.

8-22-04 -- Made another 50 igniters because the mix won’t keep, and they are drying.   Wrote up the Kabumei “history” and will send it off with Sharon to have a real Chinese guy go over it, hopefully making it more accurate.

8-23-04

Sharon dropped my Kabumei writeup off with Jane for vetting.  In the evening worked on the chopper missile shots.  The screening gets tricky with all the smoke.  Also got a message from somebody editing a Civil War documentary for A&E who needs some stock cannon-ball hits.  Sounds like fun.

8-24-04

Began compositing another Area 52 shot, building scenes out of elements as usual.  And also tested a few cannon hits – to the point where I ran out of our special dirt.  I am milling some more with gypsum and charcoal.

8-25-04

Warmer.  Tried to work on a better place to get shots, but unless the air mortar arrives, I’m pretty stuck.  Fire season is bad. I dragged in some more shots for compositing – adding noise to a shot of Taylor so it could go on a viewscreen – but then Angus and I rented “Shaolin Soccer” and we had to watch that in the evening instead.

8-26-04

Cloudy morning – could not shoot cannon tests.  Tried a brief test with the flat cardboard pancakes from the craft store.  A few spoonfuls of BP, sealed in with strapping tape, and the whole thing laid into the bottom of a coffee can which was then filed with dirt.  Boom!  Very loud and dirt basically blown for miles, raining down on everything, including my hair.  Too much punch, but it works.  Angus and I went over to Mary’s and knocked down more of the set, and in the evening after karate I comped together a couple of shots.  So a productive day.

8-27-09

Cloudy again in the morning, and I had a meeting at 10 AM so I could not shoot a cannon test then.  At noon I said the heck with it and fired the test anyway.  I had it on Progressive, and the results were not good – the Sony VX2100 only shoots a 15fps progressive, which is annoying, but I didn’t buy it for that originally.  Sent both tests off to Rob and he agreed that we’d go back to interlaced.  He also liked the blacker dirt.  I do myself.  Cleaned up and comped scene 249 – which is notable only because there was a time it would have taken me three days.  This time it was just an evening.  Learning curves.

8-28-04

Warm and sunny.  Did a couple of blasts that were semi-successful but the dirt is still too light.  Just don’t think that gypsum is going to work as well as good old Chatsworth Red.  So I went out and got a bunch and started milling it, and it sanded its way through my milling bottle in two hours.  Had to go out and buy some PVC fixtures and build a “real” milling jar.  Which will hopefully hold up longer.  Comped three more shots in the evening, so felt productive.

8-29-04

Warm and sunny.  The sky was a good blue this morning so I got up fairly early and did six cannon hits, covering the whole place and myself (clad only in boxers) in dirt and soot.  Then the doorbell rang.  Twice.  Sharon was asleep, and I assumed that it was likely the Jehovah’s Witnesses again, so I went around front as I was, filthy and in my boxers, to find Linda returning our house key.  Her granddaughter Leila was with her, who promptly burst into tears.  But Linda thought it was funny.

8-30-04

Hot.  My Airport Extreme arrived today, as did the Airport Express, so I had a busy day building a wireless network.  But it seems to have worked.  And in the evening, spent four hours hand-painting a F-12 swerving scene frame by frame to remove – well, mostly myself and the pole doing the swerving action on Angus and the car.  But it looks pretty good now.

8-31-04

Hot again.  Got a message from Joel that the mortar was done and he had tested it out and it was tres cool.  So he is shipping it out – should be interesting.  In the evening spent four hours on the missile-dodging and I can see this is going to be a long one.  It’s about six seconds and will be many layers and each time I want to check something it is a five-minute render.  Probably be a few days on this one.

9-1-04

Will try rendering out the separate elements of the “Dodging Missiles” scene to see if I can’t reduce the render time on the overall shot.  And Joel called to say he has still been playing with the air mortar – he wanted video for his site – but he is shipping it out today.

9-3-04

Hot.  In the evening I worked on the “Dodging Missiles” shot again – six solid hours on that shot just today and I’m still not done.  Mainly because each change takes ten minutes to render.  But progress is made.   Discovered this morning that Angus had been up all night drinking Brainwash and other caffeinated drinks and playing his football video game.  He claims his intention was to stay up all night and then all day, so that he would sleep promptly at a good time and get back on schedule for school.  A clever ploy.

9-4-04

Hot, with Santa Ana conditions. The air mortar, having arrived late last night, was assembled and tested and it works extremely well.  Very easy to fill, well-constructed, extremely quiet.  I want to call it the Thunderpipe FX-1, which is a good name, but a bit of a misnomer, it being so silent.  But it kicks a quart of liquid or three pounds of dirt upward at the touch of a button, and using my special dert (or kerosene with an ignition source) gives a spectacular effect.  I already ordered two more.  Spent the afternoon painting it flat black so it will be easier to hide.  It’s nice too that it can simply be hosed off when dirty and generates not only no noise but no flame or sparks, so fire worries are lessened.  (Unless playing with kerosene.)  At Angus’s suggestion we did try a small lemon.  Not a good idea.  Launched it so high it was out of sight, and then the wind carried it out over Plummer, where it splattered on the road.  Fortunately not hitting any cars, but we won’t do that again.  Plan to rig a simple hand-held trigger for it (right now I am using a sprinkler transformer) and we’ll try some dirt in the hills.  Joel says the next two will come with hand triggers on a 50-foot wire.  I hope to give one to Nick and give the other one away in a contest on the site.  These are devices every amateur action filmmaker should have.  They would even be great for stage shows.

Another six hours on shot 258 and it is done at last – looks pretty cool, too.  Moving on.

9-5-04

Got up fairly early for a Sunday and made Angus get up too, because I needed someone to Stand Watch.  Got the videocamera and the Thunderpipe and some naptha and blasted a huge fireball thirty feet in the air.  It was appalling.  It was so appalling we did it again, so we could get an upshot on it.  This one was even more appalling.  We have spent the rest of the day testing it with dert and other fun things, plus doing smoky muzzle flashes in the garage – a busy busy day. 

9-7-04

Wired up a hand activator for the ThunderpipeFX, which looks good and works well and I am smug.  Now to try it in the hills.  And cleaned up another brief shot of the F12 – compositing tomorrow.

9-8-04

Hot today, and muggy as well.  Filled the Thunderpipe and took it up to the hills with some dert to try a blast in the bushes – worked great, though the wind blew the dust away quickly. 

9-9-04

Hot and muggy, even sprinkled a little.  Kind of neat.  Showed John the Pool Bob the Thunderpipe and he was properly impressed – of course, he now plans to make his own, since he has that capability.  The bamboo for the Kabumei arrived today – looks cool.  Finished cleaning up some shots of Angus in the F12 late last night so I feel progress has been made. Angus says that his teacher in Stagecraft says the work he does with me will count toward his hours (he has to do 50 hours of outside work) and this has him jazzed.

9-10-04

Picked up some prop supplies and cleaned up another shot in AE – comped shot 259 and it seems good so far.  Need to add shake.  260 and 261 are clean and ready to comp but I decided to watch “Legend of Zu” and relax.  Fun to watch, once you give up trying to comprehend the story. 

9-11-04

Hot and very muggy.  Angus and I went over to Mary’s to strike more of the set (until her trash was full) and picked up a bucket, some epoxy, and some cord at stores.  Used these to add a Debris Hopper to the Thunderpipe and to finish off the Kabuchi with cord wrapping.  It looks decidedly slick now.  And in the evening, cleaned up a six-second chopper shot frame by frame – man, helicopters are a pain with those rotors.  I bet Matt and Trey are finding the same thing.  Any rear shot means painting out that support pipe. 

9-12-04

Hot and muggy.  Stayed up past 2AM last night working on shot 262, then went to bed on the couch.  Slept well, though so obsessed with the shot that I dreamed about it and woke up at 7AM still thinking about it.  So I got up and went back to work.  Managed to do that whole sequence today – the wheel-skid turned out astonishingly well, given that I hadn’t expected it to work at all.  Now on to returning fire.  Angus was cheery all day.  He and I also tested the Thunderpipe with the Debris Hopper.  It worked well, and I would have shot stock with it but the sky wasn’t good for that today. 

9-14-04

Sharon and I both not feeling well now, but I am feeling a bit better which is promising. Imported more shots to work on into the computer, so I will have something to do tomorrow during the voice record.  I can’t write, but at least I can clean up shots in AE.

9-15-04

Hand-painted two RA12 scenes and comped them, only realizing when I got home that I had forgotten the shadow under the helicopter.  But that was fairly easily added and some more green pins for the wall.

9-16-04

I started cleaning up shot 269 at the dojo but decided I would need Steadyhand to fix a camera bobble.  So brought it back home.

9-17-04

Cleaned and comped shots 269 and 270 tonight – keying footage with fire and smoke shot against a wrinkled greenscreen is not easy.

9-18-04

Cleaned and comped shot 273 and started 275 before I got just too tired.  Cleaning up exploding helicopter shots is tough, but they do look cool.

9-20-04

In the evening I continued working on shot 280, cleaning up both helicopter and F12 footage in AE, but that took about three hours and that was enough.  The actual shot assembly, including cast shadows, will have to be done tomorrow.

9-21-04

Worked on shot 280 most of the day – mainly because the renders for every tweak took ten minutes – but was able to do all my Real Work during those render times.  Now it looks like it just needs some shake and I can green-pin it.  Got a message from Joel that he is working on the copper Thunderpipes and they look cool.  He sent a picture and he is correct.

9-22-04

Angus got his braces off!  He looks much better without them, naturally, and his teeth are not as badly decalcified as Max’s. And I green-pinned shot 280 and have begun working on 281.

9-23-04

Joel sent a photo of the two Thunderpipes side by side and will ship them out tomorrow, so I have announced the contest.  He says he likes them so much he’s making one for himself.  Too damn cool.  Started assembling more scenes and also building a Plasma Missile for greenscreen shots.  The original Plasma Missiles got too battered in the production.

9-24-04

I posted the Stock Footage contest so it is up anyway.  The nice thing is if we don’t get any entries I get to keep the Thunderpipe for myself.  So it’s all good.

Finished building the Plasma Missile except for the decal, which I will have to make.  Probably take a special trip to the office supply store for clear label stuff, but I need more printer paper anyway.  Comped a couple of small shots, shook a few more, and put together a whole sequence, minus the one shot of the streaking missiles.  Then on to the Proton Cannon.

9-25-04

Did the entire Plasma Missile flyby shot today.  Got the clear decal material and printed it up, then put it on the missile.  Another hour spent dirtying the missile up, and then Angus and I went over to Mary’s.  We busted up and tossed the last control panel, and then hung the missile from a wire and filmed it against the greenscreen, from several angles.  Also turned it on the wire so when I doubled it up we could see a different side, making it look like two distinct missiles.  Took the footage home and I spent the rest of the day compositing it, using the Blue Flame stock from our site as the exhaust.  Did it on a whim, but it came out very cool, and the whole shot completes the sequence nicely.  So okay, it was basically a whole day (plus preps) for a one-second shot, but I’ve spent more for less.

9-27-04

Started shots 277-278, which is another build of the Area 52, involving many layers of composites of actors and onscreen images and removed ceiling beams.  Getting better at it but it still takes a while.

9-28-04

worked through scenes 277-279, getting all the layers comped in.  Lots of complication to just look like a large room, but whan all one has is small rooms, one must do this extra work.

9-29-04

got work done, including a four-scene sequence that all had to be composited and shaken and hand-painted in places.  Took almost five hours but kept me occupied.

9-30-04

spent several hours looking for the Proton Cannon footage.  Could not find it anywhere and looked through all the externals drives as well.  Finally resorted to going back through all the unlabeled tapes and finally found a segment – but we had accidentally taped over most of it.  It did give me a clue as to where the captured footage was though, and I finally did find it in the McFarlane section, the thought at the time being that it was all part of the chopper.  In any case, took about four hours but at least it is still there

10-1-04

Finished shot 285, which took all evening.  But at least I have new books to pass the rendering time.

10-2-04

Got in a small hike and took a glam shot of the Thunderpipe.  Fixed the ball mill driveshaft sheathing and went with Angus, first to Mary’s where we cleaned up more of the set, and then to the scrapyard, where I bought 12 pounds of tungsten carbide scrap and some aluminim stands.  I am hopeful the carbide will make good milling media for grinding metal if I can find a steel container. 

10-3-04

shot some more flaming balls dropping, and blew up a gopher hole.  Filmed the gopher hole (which left a huge crater in the yard) and made a short spoof of Gardening Tips.  Posted that on the site.  Max showed me how to burn DVDs.  Burned a couple of Agent 12 DVDs for people who have requested them.  And in the evening cleaned up a couple of shots of the chopper and the F12 in AE and began comping them all together.

10-4-04

began building the Cobalt Missile.  The warhead is fairly simple but looks promising; now I have to create the body.  Finished working on shot 286 and burned it to disk – one more green pin for the wall.  And captured the Flaming Balls footage.

10-5-04

Started painting the Cobalt Missile, and have been compositing shot 287 all evening.  It takes forever to render, many layers plus cast shadows.  And I still need to add cam shake.

10-6-04

comped shot 288.  Fairly simple, these days, but looks good.  Would have done more but because of the evening’s commitments couldn’t start until late.  Will save the layers to be used in 289.

10-7-04

after karate, comped shot 289 and put the 285-289 sequence together.  Green pin.

10-8-04

did necessary housekeeping, i.e. burning to disk all the footage that had been comped in the past week or so, along with the created elements thereof.  Now I can get it all off my hard drive and move on.

10-9-04

Angus and I went over to Mary’s with the Cobalt Missile and got much footage of it – but not all, I forgot the still camera and can’t do the reverses until tomorrow.  But came home and comped shot 292.

10-10-04

went over to Mary’s and got the rest of the Cobalt Missile In Flight stuff, including stills.  Went home and captured it, and in the evening comped shots 293 and 296. 

10-11-04

Video Club in the evening, showed Agent 12 which was well received.  And enjoyed watching the other videos.  Gave a last tweak to shot 296 but the Video Club lasted late.

10-12-04

Meetings all day on Real Work, but I did manage a short shot of 289A, which will allow me to do another shot tomorrow with minimal fuss, since I’ll only tweak a few things.

10-13-04

Was at Mary’s most of the day – tidied up, and then installed the gable vent fan.  This involved balancing atop a rickety ladder with the fan in one hand and my drill-driver in the other, trying to mount it without falling – and my phone rang.  Frank, of course.  Good to see he is back in form.  But I also picked up two sheets of 1/2” plywood and 16 cinder blocks and laid them out for the new War Table.  Primered it and left it to dry.  Even got my teeth cleaned while I was there.  And Angus got his fillings done and his teeth cleaned up – looks nice.  In the evening I knocked out shots 295 and 297.

10-14-04

off to Mary’s to paint the War table and some more of the walls with Chroma Green.  Returned home and comped shot 298, which involved a certain amount of painstaking rotoscoping.  So it was a long night for a one-second shot but such is the way things are sometimes.

10-15-04

in the evening, comped two more shots of the chopper battle.  I must say, I think our chopper in flight looks better than Team America’s – not to mention some stuff I saw in a trailer for a Bill Murray film about undersea explorers.  I can understand not having the budget for motion control but at the same time they can certainly do more than just shoot the image from a tripod and try moving it in editing.  I move the camera.  Sure it is a pain to track in comping but it is not impossible and the 3D effect is much better.  My opinion, anyway.

10-16-04

Angus and I drove out to rent some rocks for the miniature set, and discovered after the drive down to the place that they are closed on weekends.  Annoying.  But at least my spudgun arrived from Joael; and we used it to shoot some lemons and tennis balls and experimented with water balloons (our hope is to shoot blood squibs with it) but more testing is required to ensure they don’t rupture.  Also cleaned up the elements of shot 303 in a hotel lobby.  So it was only a somewhat productive day.

10-17-04

drove out to T.O. to get the plastic rock that Lee Agnew generously donated, and also managed to do about four shots.

10-18-04

comped a couple more shots

10-19-04

Completed the Chopper Sequence!  Yay!  Three solid minutes of non-stop action with multi-layered effects in every shot.  Whew.  Did about four shots tonight and then put the whole thing together and – thank goodness for storyboards – it worked.

10-20-04

picked up some rental fake rocks for the miniature set and began working on the McFarlane-on-the-ground stuff.

10-21-04

did some composting and work on shots 313-314 in the evening at the dojo while Angus had karate.  Tried also doing a fireball with the Thunderpipe, since the sky was clear and the surroundings wet.  Worked well enough if the camera was low, but needed a new angle and was out of naptha.

10-22-04

Fired off the Thunderpipe about five times, four during the day and once at night, taping it the whole time, and got some decent footage.  Also got another disk of submissions for the stock contest, so that is good too.  Did the editing and comping on a pillar sequence as well as some Real Work.

10-23-04

sprayed the rocks using the new paint sprayer – which worked pleasingly well – and now they resemble the local rocks quite a bit.  Collared Angus and he and I took the rocks over to Mary’s discussing how we would make the actual fortess of the CDA headquarters.  But when we were taking the rocks in, we discovered in a nearby dumpster an old Playskool kitchen which, when seen from the back and appropriately decorated, appears to have great promise.  Plus it was a toy, and better yet, free.  So we took it home to hose off and will try rebuilding it as a CDA HQ.  I also discovered – finally! – how to lock the exposure on the camera, so I may try it for shooting some Thunderpipe stuff.  In the evening comped and assembled a few more shots, but discovered I need to grab a bit of BG footage in the hills for an F12 shot I want to do that involves camera movement.  Can’t do it with a still, the perspective shifts on the car but not the BG.

10-24-04

Angus and I went to TRU for some toys to help deck out the fortress.  We got some Megablox sets and Angus built some stuff which we are attaching in various ways.  I’ve also been milling a bunch of mesquite charcoal, just as pigment to make more Dert, but it might be interesting to see how it works for BP as well.  Probably not that well, but it can always be repowdered and made into stars and stuff.  Comped shots in the evening

10-25-04

Did more work on the fortress.  Added foam core to the Styrofoam to give a more finished look (that would match the walls in the sets) and would not dissolve when painted.  Ran out of foam core, though.  Was contacted by a guy using 3D Max who wanted to help out – I wasn’t sure he was serious but he sent a test shot based on one of our photos and he’s pretty good.  As long as he’s enthused, I am more then willing.

10-26-04

worked on cleaning up a jetpack shot.  David (the 3Dmax guy) sent more tests, and I sent him some more reference footage to work with.  Finished assembling the fortress in the garage – a mishmash of various bright colors, given that it was made from toys, but a coat of uniform primer gray suddenly makes it look much cooler.  It will be given a stone look, but I need to get more stone spray.

10-27-04

Finished painting the CDA fortress and it looks bad-ass.  Once it dried – which took forever, that stone-look paint is slow – I took it over to Mary’s and set it up.  Realized I would need dry dirt for the surroundings and of course it was raining.  So shoveled a bunch of muddy soil into an aluminum pan and baked it.  Once it was dry I started milling it down but the weight popped the bottom off my mill jar.  It is dark so I just turned it off, but I will fix it tomorrow.  Worked on some jetpack footage in the evening.

10-28-04

The milling jar turns out to be cracked, but I have others; milled some dirt down fine and took it over to dress the miniature fortress.  Dusted it all around and it looks cool now.  Finished rebuilding scene 328 and adding cam shake – these were some of the first scenes shot and there are some tweaks that can be made now.

10-29-04

began testing small charges for tomorrow and mixing up a new batch of Black Smoke Powder

10-30-04

got ready to go over to Mary’s to shoot the fortress stuff.  Angus and I loaded up and went over, and we filmed almost everything except the part where we blow it to bits.  Which was just as well, because a late test with the exposure locked (something I have only just discovered one can even do) seems to have better results. Still, it will be good practice.  Four hours, but I was worn out again.  Shoots always do take it out of me.

10-31-04

Angus and I went to Mary’s to blow up the rest of the fortress.  This time with exposure locked.  The zook hits went fine, and we had just wired the final charges when Frank showed up.  He said Catherine (who was Angus’ tutor in math, and now wants to make movies herself) was coming over to watch.  So we hung fire until she showed with her dad and boyfriend – and then we blew the fortress.  Looked cool.  Doused it with water and left it out by the dumpster (kinda where we originally found it) To see if someone would want it.  It’s only a bit singed in places.  Then home to capture footage.

11-1-04

Set some black powder pucks outside to dry in the Santa Anas.  Picked up some more stock footage submissions from the post office and went through them.

11-02-04

David, the guy with the 3D Max program, sent the files of the roof and they look great, I spent four hours tonight working with them in shot 375.  Getting all the elements in, moving correctly, and then of course rendering takes a long time.  But it looks promising.

11-03-04

work on shot 375.  Bought and downloaded Shine for David and myself, and installed it and began tweaking 375 with it.  People are right – it definitely adds coolness.

11-04-04

some work on shot 375 – minor tweaks really, but each one a half-hour to render.  Finished it up while Angus was at karate, and discovered he was getting promoted tomorrow.  No one tells us anything.  But he had a good workout and the shot, with cam shake added, looks good.

11-06-04

did a couple of needed errands, like buying printer ink and going to Mary’s to clean up the dirt.  Crushed and screened some BP as well.  But mainly worked on shots – now that we have fortress footage it is time to comp the henchmen in with it.  Always a long process, but got two shots done and have made progress on a third.  However, it is now time for bed.

11-07-04

Worked all day on shot 038 – a two-hour render each time I tweaked it, and I tweaked it a lot.  Angus and I went off to see “The Incredibles” again during one render, and I went off to Mary’s to try to film a black smoke rocket effect during another.  The black smoke failed though – works fine at home but for some reason I kept getting white smoke there.  I think the formula has gotten old or damp or something.  May have to make a new batch.  Left shot 038 rendering again and went to bed.

11-08-04

In the evening I managed to do shot 039; not great but the best that can be done given the footage. 

11-09-04

ran some errands, got some more Chroma Green Paint, and comped shot 068.

11-10-4

Angus and I flew to Edmonton Canada.  Worked on shots on the plane until the battery gave out.  Video rendering eats the battery fast.

11-14-04

Back now.  Have to catch up on Real Work of course, but In the evening worked on several fortress shots, discovering adding dust to the miniatures makes them look extra cool.

11-15-04

Plunged back into Real Work today but still manage to get shots 108 and 132 comped and done.

11-16-04

sorted and burned a number of the shots I had been working on, backed up the files, and got them off the overcrowded hard drive.  Did one shot of the fortress blowing – Premiere is still the program to use for greenscreen pyro.  Now I’m working on shot 206 which is another one with super-long renders that will take two nights.  Four hours on it already, and I have to go to bed.

11-17-04

Spent most of the day on Real Work, but since for me it consisted of sitting in a conference room for five hours listening to a voice record via speakerphone, I used the time to also finish work on shot 206, which is finally done.  20 straight hours on a two-second shot, but that is the way it goes.  And at least the voice session gave me something to do during the renders.  So it was a day of Successful Multi-Tasking.

11-18-04

For myself, managed to get shot 330A done at karate, so one more green pin for the board.  I need more green pins.

11-19-04

Sorted and filed shots for burning to CD tomorrow, and put title cards on Fig’s snow stock and uploaded it.

11-20-04

Found an independent convenience store that still had some Styrofoam coolers so I bought a couple and spent most of the afternoon building Area 52.  Need to spray it with latex primer because it is Styrofoam – but at the moment it is raining.  Went inside and spent a few hours cleaning up shot 342 – began playing with the composite but I’ll need to pull some of Sharon’s airplane sky stock off my archives to finish it.

11-21-04

started painting the Area 52 miniature, but the cold wind was a problem – had to keep the garage door shut and put a heater in there just so the paint would dry.  Painting Styrofoam requires a latex primer to start.  Right now it is a solid gray, and it will stay more or less gray, with some dirtying.  Also continued working on a jetpack shot but it again is taking forever because of all the render times.  Had to make MPG previews of all the rest of the submitted stock entries and get them up – that took longer than expected, but it is done.

11-22-04

picked up Angus from school (feeding him Fatburgers so I could steal the condiment cups for bombs) and also picked up some small toy howitzers from the Longs Drugs right there.  They were added to the Area 52 miniature.  By the time we got home Vilma had gone away so a good day.  And in the evening I managed to finish shot 342.

11-23-04

Picked up some 4” ABS pipe and an end cap to make the missile silo – had to cut them both in half lengthwise, which was harder than it sounds.  But it is done and will be painted tomorrow.  The rest of Area 52, including the stencil, is done now.  Also got a nice letter for a low-budget filmmaker in St. Louis that Dan Golden is currently working with – he likes Agent 12.  Always nice to hear this stuff.

11-24-04

finished painting Area 52 and took it over to Mary’s.  Did two jetpack shots in the evening.

11-25-04

Thanksgiving -- but I did some AE work on a jetpack shot.  But Max has been pigging my power cord rendering some Flash, so I am limited by battery life.

11-26-04

spent a solid day inserting all the shots I had been working on over the past few weeks into the rough cut.  Which is looking considerably more finished now, for the distance I’ve gotten.  Did a lot of trimming and tweaking as well.

11-27-04

Busy day working on the edit; spent most of the day taking out the footage of Boo Boo and replacing it with composited footage with Dylan.  This meant fixing some other shots so they would all match up; Angus’  hair is decidedly longer and his voice is deeper, but we’ll redub the other lines anyway.  The hair’s not so different it matters.  The subbed shots were shot on the greenscreen stage and comped against the digital photos I took of the long-scrapped CDA HQ interior set.  It is always good to have backup digital photos of sets for this very reason.  Quick and easy to do, and the digital photos are so high resolution that they can be blown up huge and slid around to get the section of the background that is needed.  The comping is not unobvious, but given that the shots they replace were done with a rather shaky camera anyway and the new ones are rock solid, they are an overall improvement.

11-28-04

Agent 12 for six hours.  Discovered I needed some quick preliminary blowups of the CDA HQ and a tech shot of the Cobalt Missile – spent the evening putting them together using stock and stills.  Do what you have to.

11-29-04

Did more editing on the rough cut, including a simplified but better version of shot 320.  Sometimes still images are just easier to work with than video.  Burned all the new stuff onto disk and pinned it; backed up things to Big Thunda and Big Thanda, and ready to move on.

12-01-04

Began cutting together the Pride Rock stuff – some of the first footage we shot and Angus is a good bit shorter.  But it works.  Also contacted the Stock Contest Winner – his father, also – to arrange for sending the Thunderpipe.  Must make sure parents are informed.

12-02-04

edited together shots 322-330. 

12-03-04

did more editing on the jetpack sequence.  Starting to do the Craig and Avery stuff now.  Thank goodness for DvMatte.

12-05-04

I worked all day on a one-second jetpack shot – scene 347.  Much motion blur, which takes forever to render.  But it was pleasant, us all working in the den and a fire going and animals absolutely everywhere.  Because of the CPSC starting to hassle Firefox and Skylighter, I went ahead and stocked up on chems. It may come to nothing but there was a sale going and I figured what the hell.  At least, since I work in miniature, it will probably be a zillion years’ worth.  Now to figure out where to put it all when it arrives.

12-06-04

spent the evening comping 8 seconds of Craig and Avery stuff.  8 seconds of footage in 5 hours of work.  Better than my usual average, actually.

12-07-04

in the evening I bought and downloaded dvMatte for AE – already had it for Final Cut and now I wish I’d bought the package, because for stuff like Craig’s hair it already looks like it is going to make all the difference.  All I do in AE is usually clean up the shot, but now it looks lots less jaggedy.

12-08-04

cleaned up some shots in AE but not as many as I’d hoped.  But some days are like that.

12-09-04

an entire day spent at SD for a back-to-back voice record.  But it went well and I got some shots composited while we listened to the recording.  So time well spent both ways.   But it was grueling, the way only ten hours in a chair can be.

12-10-04

shot 368 in the evening.  Took quite a while but looks okay now.  Still have to add some cam shake for all the explosions.  Also spent some time casting various black smoke rocket mixes – all my formulas will have to be adjusted now that I have new scales.  Got a nice burn but only grey smoke.  Have increased the epoxy considerably to see if this helps.  I think adding the iron oxide may have made the epoxy more burnable as well – but a more fluid mix is desirable for casting if it works.

12-11-04

Tried a rocket on the deck but even the slight breeze blew the smoke, so I took them off to Mary’s instead.  A few hours of stinking the place up – I got some footage but the full-on camera was not quite right so I may want to do it again.  But the rocket thrusters work okay – almost too okay.  I need to slow them down a little.  Perhaps more cure time.

12-12-04

Angus and I went off to Lowes and then to Mary's to set up Area 52.  It went pretty well and I can go back there and get stills.

12-13-04

did a pile of Real Work, then went off to the voice record session.  The session was delayed so I could not stay for the whole thing, but managed to clean up and comp shot 365 while I was there.  This made me feel like enough had been accomplished so I went home to collect Sharon and we went off to the Video Club Christmas Dinner, which had very good lasagna and a Buster Keaton film.  They also gave me a plaque for “Agent 12” which was unexpected but very nice.

12-14-04

Had a bit of a startle – decided to try milling the smoke mix finer to see if it would perform better.  So I loaded it into the mill and started it up and went in to work – and about fifteen minutes later there was a muffled THUMP and the door rattled and black smoke billowed around the edges.  The jar had exploded.  Fortunately just smoke mix, so the noise was minimal, but it did coat the whole milling area with black soot.  I’ve managed to wash and scrub most of it away, but it did teach me that it is unwise to mill perchlorates with metal, even when heavily fuel-weighted.  Blew the cap and bottom right off the jar.  Spent the evening watching the Recon disk on one computer while burning the dozen or so scenes I had completed over the past few days to disk on another.

12-15-04

12-16-04

Did a lot of Real Work today, then started working on my ball mill, trying to figure out why it had so many slippage problems.  Finally realized that – d’oh! – it was turning the wrong way.  A couple trips to the hardware store solved that problem.  Never can solve it in one trip.  And in the evening I did the Jetpack Up shot that David had supplied a BG for.  Took 5 hours.  Two more seconds of footage.

12-17-04

But my thoroughly milled black smoke mix seems to work, (I add the zinc afterward) and I also went by Mary’s and took pictures of the Area 52 miniature.

12-18-04

I started to assemble the entire Jetpack sequence, spotting sections that still need inserts or other work.  But it does give a clearer picture.

12-19-04

Showed Nick a few Premiere tricks, since he has that program now, and sent him off with a disk of explosions.  I tweaked up the Tiger and Gameboy stuff, adding a screen readout and some background explosions.

12-20-04

dredged through my aerial footage I took flying to San Antonio.  Found a clip that was more or less the right angle, comped the Area 52 set into it, and added explosions of the howitzer shells bursting.  Turned out quite effective, actually.

12-21-04

in the evening comped three more shots in the Jetpack sequence.    Coming along.

12-22-04

all my packages from Skylighter arrived.  So I went to Lowes to get a storage unit for them and ended up picking up some firelogs and a few other items as well.  Built a new milling jar, cut and plugged some more rockets, and got some dark brown concrete color powder to help stain the milled Chatsworth Red a bit more photogenic for Blowing Dust.  Also got some bronze paint and painted a rocket nosecone bronze, and painted the lazy susan fluorescent green, and glued the nosecone to the center and rotated it while filming.  It became the incoming howitzer shell.  Took some work because the bronze got pretty green in the DV footage but it worked well enough and I was able to complete the entire Tiger and Gameboy sequence this afternoon and evening, which pleased me.

12-23-04

Felt a bit better – enough to unpack all my chems and put them in the storage magazine.  Pulverized some Dert and went off to Lowes to get a remote on/off switch for the ball mill.  This was the time to get them, they sell them for Christmas lights – but when I went to Lowes on the 23^rd I discovered Christmas was over!  They were packing all the stuff away.  But I grabbed a remote anyway.  In the evening I comped and shook four shots, which is better than average.

12-24-04

Christmas Eve.  Spent the day milling more Black Smoke Mix.  Trying it with the hexachlorethane mixed in and trying to get the proportions right.  It seems promising but more work to be done.  In the evening built shot 378 entirely out of scrap – it had been intended as a closeup, but I felt we needed a long shot there to establish positions a bit.  So using some of Frank’s footage and some of my own and some background stills and a pile of stock, I built a shot.  Took all evening but turned out not bad.  One and a half seconds of footage.  Typical.

12-25-04

Christmas.  Sharon got me a shop press.   Thing is huge.  And powerful – Angus and I tested it by flattening an empty CO2 cartridge to the dimensions of foil.  Weighs almost as much as I do, very solid hunk of steel – but surprisingly inexpensive, considering how much something like that would have cost if it had been exercise equipment or something.  We also finished mixing up more black smoke powder.

12-26-04

The forecast was for rain, so I tidied up a bit around the mill and then spent some time working on shots 379 and 380.   That took most of the afternoon, and left me with several disks to burn in the evening.  I also seized the fact that it was going to rain – but had not yet done so by dark – to run up to the roof to shoot the Billowing Dust footage I had been trying to get.  Finally no Santa Anas and the rain would wash away all the fine powdery dirt I’d get all over everything.  And I did, too, but got the footage.

12-27-04

did shots, getting through scene 383.  Also milled some AP and hex; equal weights – cast it in epoxy with the zinc.

12-28-04

Worked on the Area 52 agent fight, much of which I am having to cobble together out of spare pieces.  But given that, it seems to be working.  We’ll definitely need Brian’s lines, though.

12-29-04

Called Brian’s dad and scheduled a quick pickup shoot with Brian tomorrow.  Worked on some Real Work.  And tweaked the sequence I had been working on a bit – plays a little smoother now.

12-30-04

Cloudy, impending rain.  Angus and I went over to Brian’s at 10:30 with camera and bluescreen and picked up the couple of missing shots.  I have imported them and begun compositing them, which allows linkage into the already-edited Gunpo and Girlfight footage.  Began milling some more BP – not that I needed it, but I want to try out making pucks in the new hydraulic press.

12-31-04

Disaster.  Was trying to work on the entire film at once and melted down my Powerbook.  Files overwritten, OS corrupted, the whole kaboodle.  Saved what I could; blessedly I had just burned the entire assembly thus far to DVD.  But the computer is a mess; Max is doing his best to recover what he can of my files.

1-01-05

Pressed some pucks with the new Bomb Squisher which does an impressive job -- even at only 5% water there is liquid leaking out..   Sharon is letting me use her machine for journal notes at the moment.

1-2-05

Still no machine.  Max is trying to recover what he can but it will probably be a lost cause.  Glad I backed up what I did.  In the meantime I have moved the family iMac out to my studio because the desk is a better level for typing.  Was able to pull a script out of the external and edit it, and downloaded my own template from the website, so at least there will be something to turn in tomorrow.  Dan Golden brought over his own computer for Max to take a look at.

Also milled some more BP and tried pressing it dry -- nervewracking but to my surprise it actually worked.  The dampness of the day may have had something to do with it, but the dry press yielded a very hard puck which, once I broke a bit off and crushed it, yielded what may be one of my best BPs yet.  

1-4-05

Still using the iMac, awaiting word from Max re the Powerbook.

1-5-05

Max called to say he was able to recover my files.  That is excellent.  Still cannot work on the movie until things are back, which forces me to just go inside and read at the end of the day.  Still, there are worse things.

1-6-05

Cold.  Max brought over my computer, which had my files on it, and I was able to dump them off onto backup drives.  Unfortunately, as I tried to restore the other programs it began crashing again.  Max had warned me that he suspected there was a hardware problem as well.  And so it has proved.  In any case, the files are recovered and I can continue my projects.  But the Powerbook will remain out of commission for a while.  Which is only annoying in that I can’t use it as planned for my demo on Monday.

1-7-05

Tried to press some BP pucks but my hose clamps succumbed to the strain of the new Bomb Squisher and broke.  Need to get new ones.  The ABS got all bulged.

1-8-05 thru 1-15-05

Accidentally deleted these.   Bummer.  But no big loss as mostly it rained.  I worked, Sharon worked, and I bought a massive Powermac G5, which kicks ass.  I’ve gone from one or two scenes in an evening to 10 or 12, so progress has accelerated.

1-16-05

Angus and I went off to Lowes and got cinderblocks.  Over to Mary’s to raise the wartable up a couple of feet so the Cobalt Missile could appear to be in an underground silo.  Big work.  But we did this, and then went back home again where I edited more footage and played with more black smoke experiments.

1-17-05

MLK day.  One of those holidays that is only okay if you are a freelancer, because for most people, especially with kids, it is a huge pain.  Parents have to work but kids are out of school.  I had Craig and Tim over here most of the day, and after I sent in a script I took them over to the set and put them to work prepping the miniatures set for the Cobalt Missile Launch.  This was something I had intended to do myself and had budgeted and entire day for the process, also planning for exhaustion afterward.  But the boys did all the work and we were done in an hour.  We were even considering an attempt at filming but enough is enough.

1-19-05

took time to run off to Mary’s and rig some more of the Cobalt Missile, taking over a couple of thrusters and replacing the original thin green wire (which I feared would break, especially being pulled over a couple of screw eyes) with some 30-lb test fishing line.  Counterweighted it on the other end and it seems to rise at a decent rate on its own. Then went off to pick up Angus at school – we stopped at Starbucks afterward for Chanticos, to which I am becoming addicted.  In the evening I cut together some more of the Area 52 interior stuff, including the spark zap when Josh is trying to work the damaged control panel.  Layed some static in on the blank box we were using as a monitor and it looks surprisingly okay.

1-20-05

when Angus got home we went over to Mary’s and shot the Cobalt Missile Launch.  Reasonably successful though the composite motors would not ignite with the standard igniters.  However, if they had, it might have been impossible to see anything.  It was already tough with all the black smoke effects going off.  But we got some shots of the missile just being lifted upward from the same angle and by compositing the footage I think it will actually work okay.  The tests I did this evening look promising.  Angus was a big help at the shoot, holding up his end very well, including taking care of the hose.  Stagecraft is helping.  Except he now refers to things like “trees” instead of the his father’s preferred name for them, which is “the metal stand thingy what holds up the lights.”

1-21-05

Warm and sunny.  Took boys in, then discovered the day was perfect for Black Smoke Shooting so I stunk up the neighborhood getting some footage.  But the sky was blue, there was no wind, and the recent rains have people less nervous.  I was able to get some good useful columns of black smoke and capture them.  The smaller camera tends to drop frames during capture so I captured using the VX2100, and then striped the rest of the tape in the same machine which I hope will help.

1-22-05

Warm and sunny.  Angus and I went over to Mary’s and got a decent pickup shot of a miniature car on fire, and then I spent the rest of the day playing with footage.  Also sent some black smoke shots to Movie Seals and uploaded the Dust page.  About out of black smoke mix, so I have begun milling some more.

1-23-05

Warm and sunny.  After breakfast with Boys Angus and I tried to get the Missile Exploding shot, but I was rushed because the sun was heading behind the house and the fishing line we were suspending it with kept breaking.  Finally we were ready but the missile fell just before it blew.  Fortunately Angus hit it with the hose and put the fuse out – we’ll try again another day.  But since Craig was over we went to Mary’s and the boys carefully sliced up Area 52 and then reassembled it.  I loaded each section with a Dixie Fireball and we each took a button – on a one, two, three sequence we fired our sections and it came out great.  Angus hosed down the remains afterward and we were quite pleased – but I am exhausted as always after any pyro shoot.  Had to have a recuperating Chantico.

1-24-05

Nice but cooler.  Too much haze to try to shoot a missile explosion, but I did make a small batch of Shimizu’s Black Chrysanthemum stars to test.  Man seems to know his stuff, but they use napthelene and are stinky.  I have them drying on the far side of the house.  Took Angus and Michael over to Mary’s and we filled her dumpster with as much junk as we could, including some boards that Angus jigsawed into smaller bits.  Still a ways to go on the cleanup.

1-25-05

Real Work all day, but worked on the comp of the Cobalt Missile Launch in the evening and updated the website (now that I had recovered most of the Production Journal.) 

1-26-05

Rainy.  Spent the morning doing Real Work but my flamethrower arrived and it is surprisingly cool – Angus and I burned the wisteria stump with it, which will probably only slow it down a little.  And in the evening I worked on comping, adding dust, and shaking the Cobalt Missile Launch.  I think it is about done but I will see how it looks in the morning.

1-27-05

Missile shot looked okay in the morning, so I have shaken it down in iMovie and burned it to disk.  Angus and I also went over to Mary’s and cleaned up some more – has to go in stages to avoid overwhelming her garbage bin.  I also began cleaning up the Area52 blast in AE, getting ready for that shot’s comp work.  Picked up so plastic sawdust from the plastic place and pulverized it to powder but so far it is not proving an effective substitute for PVC.  Sharon’s fretting about her brother etc has led her to purchase many books via Amazon – which come on my account.  I always worry that the FBI has me on a watch list anyway, and it can’t be good if I am buying potentially explosive-making chemicals AND apparently buying books like “Psychosis and Rage: The Urge to Kill” or whatever scary title Sharon has ordered recently. I would worry, if I was them.

1-29-05

Clear and windy. I comped the missile launching shots, and they look pretty cool.

1-30-05

Did quite a bit of editing on the missile chase beginning, including painting out Angus’ wires.  We missed a couple of Josh’s lines but I was able to use reaction shots instead, and he is so expressive that they worked well, possibly better than dialogue.  Nearly twenty seconds of footage done today, much better than average. 

1-31-05

Went off to Tuffshed and ordered a shed that will become the new lab for Detonation Films, thus getting the scary stuff out of the garage.  Sharon approves.  I did some Real Work consisting of script changes and then spent some time sorting through footage for shots 494 and 495.  Started to clean up a shot for 495 but will need Steadyhand to make it work, and that is out in the studio and it is late.  Windy, so must sleep downstairs.

2-1-05

Windy again.  Began working on shot 495, running a shot of Angus with the jetpack through Steadyhand to smooth it out, and then running that through AE to clean up the edges.  Wrote a letter to Dynapel saying that I still keep a Win98 machine around just for Steadyhand and adding my voice to the wish list for a Mac version.  They wrote a nice letter back saying they are considering it.  Then a meeting at SD, followed by building shot 495, which turned out to be twelve layers but at least the big machine is swift.  Got it done and rendered before 9pm and am inside now.  Aphrodite helped me work, playing on my desk and fighting with the backscratcher for a while.  Now she is snoozing inside by the fire. 

2-2-05

Windy some more, though it has died off this evening.  We’ll see if the calm lasts.  Did shot 494, put it together with 495, added it to the assembly, and then did shots 496-498.  Took most of the day but it was fun.  Also cleaned up a bit more of Mary’s area and brought more cinderblocks home to help soundproof the ball mill.

2-3-05

More wind.  Went to the Videomaker Expo in Pasadena, and though it was small I did find a few things I wanted at decent prices; a collapsible greenscreen and a keyboard set up for Final Cut shortcuts.  As usual, I’ve been too busy actually using the program to actually learn it.  The keyboard helps – though the reduced letter sizes on the keys (to make room for the shortcuts) means a non-touch typist like myself is somewhat hampered in actual writing until I get used to it.  Still, did shot 499 and went back and played with 480 for half a day before finally deciding I liked what I had originally better anyway.  Angus had karate and we met Terry at Mary’s and showed him the greenscreen room and asked if he could redo it so it would be professional – he seems to feel that it should be possible.

2-4-05

Still windy.  As Sharon says, it starts to get tiresome.  Cleaned up a few shots in AE to get ready for compositing, and had a nice chat with Brian at Final Light.  He’s trying to get a stock footage company off the ground; mainly using CG effects at the moment, but he’s pondering the idea of real pyro, cleaned up for easy use.  I sent him the black smoke column to see what he could do with it. Also spoke with Carol Austen-Fink, who continues to be a real go-getter.  She also had the number and email addy of the Public Relations officer of the Nevada Fire Department so I wrote him a polite letter inquiring about remote locations where I might blow up some slightly larger stuff without disturbing anyone.  Doubt I’ll hear back, but it is worth a shot.

2-5-05

I got terribly obsessed with shots 500 and 502, spending some hours cleaning up the elements for compositing.  Then another two hours starting to assemble 502 in FC – when FC crashed and I lost all the work.  I was surprised; I expected it to have at least autosaved a certain amount, but it was all gone.  But I still have the elements and I remember much of what I did to solve problems, so I will start over again tomorrow.  Angus and I also went over to Mary’s and cleaned up a bit more, then went to buy proper Super Bowl snackage.

2-6-05

Super Bowl Sunday!  I woke up at 4AM, still irritated by the shot I’d lost in the crash.  Fretted about it for an hour and then at 5AM said the hell with it, got up, and did the shot over again.  Took me until 9:30, and crashed again in the process, but this time I was saving at every step and was able to recover promptly.  Came out cool, too. 

2-7-05

Cloudy, occasional sprinkles, chilly and damp.  Could not stay in the house one more day; went off to the library but it was closed until 12:30.  Did discover that its wireless net is on even when closed and is reachable on the patio outside, which also has power plugs; this may be nice for the summer mornings.  Went off to the mall instead and did work; outline for #15.  Then home; experimented with a new take on shot 500 but after four hours decided my version yesterday was better and burned that to disk.  Spent some time on the laptop trying to assemble shot 501 – got it looking okay even though renders took forever but now it needs a few tweaks like steadying out the sky BG (will need to run it through Steadyhand) and adding motion blur and Gaussian blur and cam shake.  So that’s a few more hours for tomorrow.

2-8-05

Sunnier.  No wind, clear sky (finally) so I mounted two cameras, set everything up, and blew the Cobalt Missile apart.  That pretty much does it for filming on RA12 – just working my way through the assembly now.  Kevin from MGA has given us two Tarantulas toys to blow up.  They were returned for defective gearing but they look very cool.  Plus I got shot 501 finished.

2-9-05

I took a picture of the jetpack for shot 503 and went into the garage and got a shot of a Fat Boy igniting in front of a hard fan, which made a very good “shorting out at high speed” effect.  Then just because I had the garage cleared of cars and the blackscreen down, I brought in the flamethrower.  Took a lot of tries and futzing with the settings on the camera, but I finally figured out how to set it to record flame decently.  So I did this as well and posted a clip on the website.  Generic billows but I’ve already found a used for it myself so I suspect others will as well.  Lay in nicely, too.

2-10-05

Slow day, not feeling well, and weather building toward rain.  Add shot 503 to the assembly and then burned everything off to DVD – it is now 4 gigs and I am starting a new assembly from here on, since the DVDs are maxed out.  Cleaned up three more shots in AE for compositing, but mostly spent the day installing the Final Cut Express HD software, which arrived today.  Has LiveType included, which is 8 gigs by itself.  Haven’t played with the FCE-HD much, but I did the motion/compositing test and it didn’t crash the way FCE used to, so that is an improvement anyway.  Also found a very fun trilogy of shorts called Sockbaby created by the guy who created “Earthworm Jim” and they are a blast.  Angus and I are talking like the characters now.

2-11-05

Raining.  I sleeped downstairs with animals.  Sharon got fed up with Angus and I talking like Ronny Cordova and told me to knock it off.  So I have.  Angus had a good day at school then went over to Josh’s.  Worked on shot 504 all day on FCE-HD and then did it all over again in FCP.  The FCP one is slightly better but only – and seriously only – because the dvMatte plugin works only with FCP.  But doing it on the laptop just makes me realize how much faster it is to do it on the Monstermac.  However, it was raining and I wanted to join Sharon by the fire.

2-12-04

Nice day.  Rain stopped, sky blue, so I was able to test a black smoke star, dropped from a wire overhead.  Videoed nice, but the wind is still a bit more than ideal so I didn’t do any serious shooting.  Angus and I went over to Mary’s and tore down the rest of the green wall.  Brought the crane back home. Comped three shots, almost four but Sharon wanted to go out to dinner.  Almost 20 seconds of footage, although that’s not accurate since once it is edited it will likely be half that.  But a good day.

2-13-04

Sunny.  John and I are tired.  We worked all day with Terry, building what John now calls the GSR-v2 – Green Screen Room version 2 – and although Terry did about 90 percent of the work, we are both beat.  But the rebuilt GSR is very promising looking – the corners and floor edge are curved to make it seamless and once it is mudded and painted it should be a significant improvement over the original.  John was not used to pounding nails – they use screws in Stagecraft – but he learned.  It is an important skill.  And Terry managed to even make the place where the rounded corners met look nice.  I was impressed. 

2-14-05

went off to the Video Club to do my presentation.  Got the powerbook to work with the projector but the resolutions were different and all my familiar layouts were different.  Had me quite frantic but I think it went well.  At least people were nice about it.

2-15-05

assembled shot 507.  Came out better than I expected, frankly.  Burned to disk and another green pin for the wall.

2-16-05

Had lunch with Frank and Ed. John and I also went off to see “Ong Bak” which was surprisingly watchable, though the Thai language sounds like a catfight and the music sounded like what you’d use to score a catfight to.  But Tony Jaa can definitely do the stuntage.  Searched through my machine and found the Angus-On-The-Missile shots and began cutting them together prior to compositing, so I’d know just how much I had to clean.

2-17-04

Rain and Real Work.  Finished the first draft of #015 and turned it in, then composited some missile shots.

2-18-05

spent most of the day putting together the Missile Pursuit sequence, finishing up by bringing inside the results for cam shake on the laptop by the fire.

2-19-05

Rain.  I continued to put together the shots for the big climax – got the Cobalt Missile explosion looking nice (shot 514) and then, after two hours of cleaning up 515 (where Angus is seen enveloped by the explosion) discovered that the sequence works better without it.  More ambiguous and nerve-wracking.  So I went on to 516, got that more or less done, and left it there because it was either stop now or be up all night.  And John and I have Terry work tomorrow.   Found a cool station on the iTunes Electronica catagory that plays Secret Agent music – just right for editing Agent 12 stuff.  And Aphrodite was in as usual in the evening (I do AE cleanups on the laptop just so I can join the family) and for some reason there have been dead bees in the house.  But this is okay because Aphrodite is fond of bees.  Munches them right down.  They are probably sweet.

2-20-05

Rainy.  John and I were up at dawn to go work with Terry, but he called and pushed it back to nine, so we were able to have breakfast at the Lamplighter first.  Which was good but we certainly surprised everyone showing up so early.  Then it was off to Mary’s where John proved quite adept at filling nail holes while I proved completely inept at mudding joints.  However, we did get it all done; for now, anyway.  Terry says it will need to dry for a couple of days and they we will go over it again, possibly Wednesday evening.  So we went home tired but pleased, and I banged through almost a dozen shots, many-layer composites and one that I had to practically make from whole cloth – needed Josh’s hand holding a blue Gameboy with an onscreen image, but we could only find the yellow one.  So I took a photo of my own hand holding it, turned the yellow into blue in Photoshop, added the image and motion and it came out fine.  And the other shots were fun too – it is cool doing these big spacious shots with explosions In them. 

2-21-05

Rainy. I spent most of the day on shot 525 – one which I had green-pinned much earlier on, but I decided now that I had more explosions and better equipment it was worth redoing.  But eight layers of motion blur take time to render.  Got it done at last, and then whipped out shots 526 and 527 to make the day more complete. Found another dead bee in the house – goodness knows where they are coming from but Aphrodite likes dead bees so at least they do not go to waste.

2-22-05

Rain rain rain.  I called the Tuffshed people and rescheduled – the concrete area has not much water but getting to it would take a boat.  Didn’t want any workers with power tools getting electrocuted.  Did a smattering of Real Work including a meeting, then dove into the editing – sought long and hard for a shot of the F12 control panel but that may have been lost in the Great Crash – however, dug one out of the archives of Agent 12 and used that.  Got about four scenes done, now it is midnight and bedtime.

2-23-05

Not as rainy.  Did the final McFarlane scenes and the F-12 launch; a big day with a good bit of motion-blur renders so it took all day.  Met Terry at Lowes and got a pole sander – we were supposed to meet John at Mary’s (Sharon was bringing him from school) but it turned out that with the damp weather the thicker plaster joints had not yet dried.  So we have postponed until Sunday.

2-24-05

spent most of the day working on scenes – got up to 540.  Only six storyboard pages to go; eighteen shots, but each one a multilayer composite.  I was hoping to be done by tomorrow, with Frank coming over for dinner, it would have been nice to hand him a locked picture to begin scoring.  But with Real Work intruding tomorrow I’ll need a few more days, and as Sharon said, I can’t rush it now.  Took John off to karate but he feels that Tuesdays would be better for him, as Brian Ishiba shows up then and he can work on sparring.

2-25-05

did three more shots – until Sharon’s dinner party started.  Frank and Mary, and the Petrilaks.  Everyone got along fine, the food was simple and good, and Sharon had too much wine but she was only slightly goofy.

2-26-05

Nebulous weather.  No rain, which is a shame because I have a fireball waiting outside but I want everything wet when it goes off, Just In Case, and it has not rained here in two days.  Naturally.  But I spent the entire day indoors compositing, getting through shot 547.  But I am beat.  Trying to decompress now.  Sharon is working and John and I made a brief run to Mary’s to check on the plaster – it seems pretty dry now – but I have not heard from Terry about tomorrow.

2-27-05

John and I went off in the morning to Mary’s to finish up the plastering with Terry, sanding down the rough edges and cracks and replastering them smooth.  Okay, we did our best and Terry did most of it, as usual.  Then home, where Sharon was working, and I put the entire rest of the day in on RA12, getting though shot 550.  Just one more shot for the end – but I need a setting sun – even a still photo would do – and it seems like of all the pictures we’ve taken, that was never one of them.  At least not without trees and mountains in the way.  It’s not like I couldn’t go online and get one in five minutes, but we’ve done the whole film using only footage we created or captured ourselves, and I would like to continue in this vein.  So I’ll see what can be obtained in the next few days.  I may put out a call on the Family Letter – I do believe that family contributions should count.  But if not, I’ll head up to the top of the mountain and see what I can get.

2-28-05

Cloudy.  Got up determined, nay, resolute to work on AR stuff – so of course got obsessed with finishing the final shot of RA12.  It started to sprinkle so I was despairing of getting a decent sunset shot – but then I remembered that the Stock Contest Winner had submitted a very nice time-lapse sunset which was on our own website, and had received a Thunderpipe for it to boot.  So I pulled it up and worked it in and after six hours had the final shot done.  This was interrupted only by the AR crew sending over some more music themes, one of which (the Ultrox theme) I dropped into the ending sequence just to see how it played and it did give, as Max said, “goosebumps.”  Music always helps.  So I have been burning DVDS with the completed footage and sticking them all over the place, sending one off with Max, etc.  Just in case the computer fries or the studio catches fire or something.  Paranoia.

3-01-05

Locked picture.  W00t.

3-2-05

Burned backup disks and than began trying to clear files.  Archiving everything will take a while.  Also have started searching through my old SFX archives for things like gammagun and F12 sounds – not to mention the hits and bone crunches we created.  Took a disk over to Frank, mentioning that I felt perhaps a “garage band” sound might be appropriate in a few places – we had, after all, done most of it in a garage – and then worried afterward that he might have thought I meant Apple’s Garage Band.  So I called him back, explaining I simply meant “grunge.”  But he had known that.  However, if he had not he would have been too polite to mention it, so it was best I called.  Yakov says he has stripped down the Tarantula, so we will blow it up as soon as we have a place to do so.

3-3-05

Looked like rain all day, but it didn’t.  Too bad, because I had another fireball all ready after having to disarm the one that had been currently waiting, due to the arrival of the gardeners.  But I did get fed up with the gopher out front and poured a half pound of crap powder down his hole, covered it with a cinder block, and lit it off.  Made quite a boom, given that it was just pulverone.  Not really loud, but a blast of smoke and sparks and another great smoking crater in the lawn.  That will teach that gopher not to mess up my nice yard. Discovered all the old sound effects files on the Windows machine and so began laying in the gammagun shots into the RA12.  Then, just for fun, did some of the Sluggi-Stix fight with machineguns and bonecrunching fight sounds.  Although arduous, it is always kind of fun adding sound effects – they make everything so much cooler.  John was sore from the sparring yesterday – not so much the hits but the misses, if you know what I mean.  Throwing out a fast snap kick that doesn’t connect because your opponent is so unkind as to dodge can really yank the joints.  But some Advil and rest should handle it.

3-4-05

Rainy.  John stayed home from school; not feeling well in an undefined sort of way.  But I took the other boys in.  Did Real Work all morning, then ran errands in the afternoon – took John along and we got some solid sanding in on the GSR2, but since Terry was not there we stopped when our arms got tired. And spent the late afternoon doing more sound effects; mostly gunshots at the moment because I know where they are located and besides they are cool.  But I’ll bet Aphrodite finds it nerve-wracking.

3-5-05

Sunnish.  My birthday, but not a big deal.  47 or 48, something like that.  I thought it was 48 but several knowledgeable people claim I am now 47 so that is certainly fine with me.  John and I went over to Mary’s completed the sanding, and applied the primer.  We used the sprayer, which sends out a ton of paint, though a lot gets in the air.  We were wearing the paper suits and breathing masks and tried to seal off the room so the overspray wouldn’t get elsewhere.  John was not feeling well and had taken a benadryl so he was a bit slow, but the work got done.  Afterward we had Panda Express and then went home to clean up.  I spent several hours doing more sound effects work, then got hauled in for a birthday cake handmade by Sharon. 

3-6-05

The boys and I painted the greenscreen room but ran out of paint – the drywall soaks up much more than the plastic-coated foam sheets used to.  So we used up all we had and have ordered more. Finally home to do more sound effects, though the day was so beautiful it was necessary to go outside occasionally to smell the jasmine. 

3-7-05

spent most of the morning doing sound effects, which probably annoyed Aphrodite no end, since she is trying to sleep.  She was certainly grumpy when I tried to pick her up in the evening.  I was doing the girlfight stuff and discovered that our bone-crunching and arm-snapping sound effects just seemed wrong when two 14-year-old girls were fighting.  Finally realized they were too masculine sounding, so I pitched them up half an octave.  Now when Gina grabs Jessica by the head and drives her knee forcefully and repeatedly into Jessica’s face, the crunching of teeth and nose breaking sounds properly feminine.  Somehow this all seems very disturbed, but it works.

3-8-05

did the changes on some Real Work and then spent the rest of the day doing sound effects on the shootout sequence at the CDA HQ.  Fun.  Kept the volume down though so hedgie could sleep better.

3-9-05 – 3-15-05

Out of town.

3-16-05

First day back and I had to spend the entire day trying to overhaul the website.  Had to zip all the downloadables, replace the originals, upload them (all 2 gigs worth) and change over 700 individual links.  Took all day.  But the site does seem to be running a bit better at the moment.

3-17-05

Rgh.  Should have done more Real Work but the website needed more adjusting.  Updated the Production Journal and ran “Agent 12” through Sorenson Squeeze a couple of times, trying to find the best setting, but each time totally tied up the computer for an hour or so.  Finally got something okay and got it up – another long upload – and now it appears that the Airport has gone kablooey.  But the cable modem is still live so the Monstermac – which is hardwired in – still can access the web.  John and I also got haircuts and he was demonstrating his prowess with gun twirls using the Airsoft cowboy pistol and I have to admit they are looking good. Downloaded the iStabilize software to try out the demo – the interface is a little hard to understand but it does seem to do the job.  Don’t need it at the moment but will bookmark it for later purchase.  Tried to call Frank about the music but I think he is out of town.

3-19-05

Rainy.  As I rather expected, the Tuffshed people called to say they would have to reschedule because of the rain; the paint would be all messed up.  So no shed today.  I spent some time trying to find blacklights and finally found a few at Wal-Mart – but they proved to be pretty feeble in the big greenscreen room.  Nonetheless, John and I applied another coat.  The fluorescent paint has the usual problem fluorescent paints have – lousy hiding.  It will probably take yet another coat.  And then home to work on adding sound effects for the rest of the day.

3-20-05

spent most of the day adding sound effects to the F12-chopper battle.  I had to export one batch of SFX to make a single track, as things were getting cluttered.  Now I can use that track and start cluttering things up again.  Concentrated mostly on the F12 and explosions today; the chopper SFX will have to be sound-designed before I can start laying them in.  Poor Aphrodite probably got very little sleep today what with all the noise – I am leaving her alone tonight.  She needs rest.

3-21-05

Monday, but had turned in my Real Work earlier so I was able to spent the whole day on sound effects, designing a cross between a helicopter and a jet; sounds very cool.  Began laying all that in with the other sounds of the F12-chopper battle, making for an extremely noisy day.  But for Aphrodite’s sake I kept the volume down for most of it.

3-22-05

The Tuffshed guys arrived very early, with a truck full of equipment, and within three hours they had constructed a 10’x12’ shed with a window, door, and skylight, and even roofed and painted it.  I was impressed.  I’m hoping to use it as an effects lab.  I started moving my chems and such but then it started to rain.  Fortunately the shed is raised off the concrete and the paint had dried enough not to run, so I got to stand in it and enjoy the sound of the rain.  At least it didn’t leak.  In the meantime I did real Work (two meetings) and pretty much finished the rough mix on the chopper sequence.

3-23-05

Was starting to do work on the sound but Frank needed help getting his Avengers submission onto a DVD, and I went off to help with that.  If only I had taken the charger for my laptop.  Powering lasers takes juice.  We got one done and then I was out of power.  Had to go home, and Frank came along.  Got two more done and Frank went off to label and ship them.  It was damn good stuff, too.  But as it was most of the day had been used, so about all I was able to do on the edit was drop the AR theme on a section just for fun.  Was cool though.  Sent Richard the outline and then ran off to Lowes to get lights and power cords for my shed.  Wanted those big powerstrips from Fry’s as well, but the traffic was ungodly jammed for some reason so I went home again.

3-24-05

Sensei Bill came by and I was also able to show him some of the sequences from RA12 in which he had done the fight choreography.  The rest of my day was spent working on the shed, installing lights, powerstrips, and WiFi, along with a couple of shelves.  Was testing the shelving method (2x8s cut to length and wedged between the 2x4 frames, then screwed in place) and it seems to work, so I will get more boards and do more.  Sharon kept trying to sneak in, coming up with all sorts of excuses like the dogs wanted to see me.  But I was very firm.  No Girls Allowed.

3-25-04

John and I spent some time putting up more shelves in the Detonation Films lab.  He used the chop saw to cut them to length and I screwed them in.  Went well.   As a way of initiating the lab, I mixed up a small quantity of flash powder using the aluminum I had milled.  But even unconfined the boom was tremendous – Mark indicated that he’d rather I didn’t do it again.  Perfectly reasonable, and besides I had used it up.  I really have no need for flash, but it did show that my aluminum works.  Then I went off to give blood – the test for hemoglobin showed my blood was fine, and they forgot to ask if I had eaten until they had already struck oil.  Upon being told that I had not actually eaten for ten days they were somewhat concerned --  not about the blood but my recovery afterward.  But it all seems to be fine.

3-26-04

The donation of blood yesterday took its toll today – I got up to pee twice in the night and passed out both times.  Fortunately close enough to the bed that I mostly landed there.  And I was weak and dizzy most of today, especially if I stood up quickly.  Nonetheless, (with the help of John and Yakov)  we continued to work on the lab.  I had the boys doing most of the work, sawing wood and such, though I screwed the shelves in.  And rested a lot.  We also installed a tunnel for Aphrodite that leads outside, put up barricade to (hopefully) keep her in that area, and moved her box into the lab.  I just checked and she has found the tunnel and is running around outside.  With luck she’ll remember how to get back – that’s where her water and warm rock are.  We also moved the Thunderpipes and the props such as the bazooka, jetpack, and Gammaguns in to the lab, arranged as a display.  Yakov dropped off the first Tarantula, completely stripped and ready to blow up; and it also turns out that John let him borrow the lockpicking equipment and manual which neither of us could make work.  Apparently Yakov has had more success and has been picking locks all over the place.  He’s the type do be good at that sort of thing.  This may be useful.  We’ve been wanting to get into the Santa Susana river/storm channel – the huge concrete passages that were featured in “Terminator 2” during the truck chase – but they are locked off from general public.  We hope to get in there (once they dry up a bit) and scout around – there are short sections that run underground which might be very cool locations.  We don’t want to be destructive, so picking the locks would be ideal.  And since there is no way the city would give us permission, we’ll just have to do it on the sly.  Sounds like a good summer project.

3-28-05

spent part of the day adding sound effects to the film and a larger part adding another coat of green to the new Green Room.  The new lights (actinic) had arrived and I picked up some fixtures for them; they appear to be just the ticket to giving the paint an extra “glow” for ease in keying.

3-29-05

did sound effects on the Readyroom fight sequence.  Still need concrete footsteps, but the rest of the effects are in.  On to the next section. 

3-30-05

went by Mary’s to check out the paint job and it looks good, and Sharon worked.  John was off at Josh’s most of the day and is now spending the night.  I spent the remainder of the day doing sound effects, making a list of the lings we still need to foley, and then experimented with the iMovie letterboxing tool.  It actually works pretty well, but you have to do each individual scene because the framing is different from scene to scene – sometimes you want more of the top than the bottom, etc.  But it did make the resulting test look cooler – and then I discovered Sorenson Squeeze will actually export it that way, widescreen format without the black bars, which I think is awesome.  It may be worth the time to do it to the whole film, especially for the Internet.  Not only does it look cooler but it shrinks the file size a bit as well.  If only I’d known before spending all those hours painting out ceiling beams in AE!

3-31-05

Windy.  Stayed inside and did sound effects.  Got most of the way through.

4-1-05

for the most part I worked on sounds, getting all the way through except for foley of things like footsteps on concrete.  Tried to get some yells from Jessica but they were having a Testing Day and the place was jammed.  So I called her father and we have rescheduled for tomorrow.

4-2-05

John and I did a bunch of foley stuff, recording necessary sounds.  Took a while because of all the traffic noise, but I think it worked.  Jessica’s dad was supposed to call about getting Jessica’s fight sounds but I think he forgot – I will call him again on Monday.  In the meantime spoke to Steve Grob about getting the lines from Vincent that we were missing due to the mike not working that day.  I actually went out and bought a nice digital recorder which seems quite impressive for a little thing, plus it allows you to plug in a better mike AND it connects to the computer via USB to transfer the data afterward – should be a handy thing.  I mailed it off to them since they are in Las Vegas these days.  If they will record the needed and ship it back we’ll be set.

4-3-05

Spent all day on the film; did the main credits, and edited the blooper reel for the end credits.  Film is now 23 minutes on the nose.  Having trouble exporting it – get sound dropouts toward the end in the final export but I think it is just too big now even for the monstermac.  I may have to do half at a time.  In any case I re-exported all the 24 layers of sound as single .aiff tracks instead of the mix of .aiff, .au, .wav, and .mp3 (with adjustments) that they currently were.  Should help with memory issues anyway.

4-4-05

Had to do Real Work all day, but was feeling so housebound I ran of to the Virtual Office (ie the mall) and got quite a bit done before the place started getting crowded.  Once the theatre opened I spoke to the manager and got the number of the person I’d need to call about possibly renting one of their smaller theatres for a short time.  Then home to finish the Real Work, and in the evening I did the end credits.

4-5-05

Cleaned up the dialogue and put the whole thing together with AIFF tracks, then exported it and it worked; no dropouts.  Zipped and burned to disk, then made a smaller version for Frank and burned that, mailed it off to him snail-mail.  Figured it would get there before I would have a chance to do so.  Still, what with all the renders this took most of the day.  However, I put up the pegboards in the effects lab and began hanging up all the prop guns, etc.

4-6-05

Added radio futz to the dialogue tracks that needed it and got my notes on the first script.  Exported and burned another workprint with the improved sound, which again took considerable time.  Frank says that he’ll need a couple of weeks to do the score, so we’ll not try to push the screening date too early. Sometime in May, we figure. 

4-7-05

spent most of the day working on the RA12 poster.  Always tough doing a poster for something like this, because artistically you’d like it to have maybe three images in it, but of course with so many kids involved you really need to have at least one shot of each of the actors somewhere on there.  So the end result is perhaps a tad garish but I feel it works, and I have taken it off to be printed.  If the AMC thing works out, we’ll print up fliers with the screening date and time as well.

4-8-05

Frank and I went to the AMC at 11 and met the projectionist (Andre) who let us try both the widescreen and fullscreen DVDs.  To our delight they both worked, but the fullscreen definitely looks better.  In fact, it looked surprisingly awesome and the sound, rough though it was, wasn’t bad either.  Frank and I were both incredibly jazzed – in fact, he promptly went out and got some mixing software so we can do the thing properly.  I was stoked  John was at stagecraft all day, but it is good for him.

4-9-05

Still stoked about the test screening.  Had fliers printed up; but can’t distribute them yet until the AMC confirms the May 14th date.  John had stagecraft all day again – they are rehearsing for “Funny Girl” – but he said it went well.  Changed a few more credits; gave Nadia a hairdressing credit and put my pyro credit over a pyro scene, which makes more sense.  Then went through all the old footage, collecting “behind the scenes” stuff; not actually bloopers, just interesting footage of the kids rehearsing and stuff, including whatever I could of adults in the background.  Normally adults remain invisible in Agent 12 stuff, but this is a different matter.  In case I get around to doing a “Behind The Scenes” special feature, it will be handy to have the clips collected.

4-10-05

John and I set up the camera and mike and looped all the needed lines from him.  His voice is getting so deep I actually had to have him pitch it up a notch or nothing would have matched.  Then we went over to Jessica’s and got her few fighting yells we needed, so it was a productive day there.

4-11-05

I had to do Real Work, so hid in my room, but met Jason for lunch, just to talk about the possibilities of the future, and then back home to discover my powder magazine had arrived.  A huge heavy steel box, but I got it back to the shed and transferred the powder into it, so I feel more legitimate now.  Also tried one of Angus’ looped lines from yesterday; nice a clean, dropped in perfectly, maybe just a tad deep but we at least had pitched it up slightly and it may only be the fact that it’s actual clean sound anyway.

4-12-05

Warm and sunny.  Woke up with a sore throat so bad I could barely swallow – I definitely have a bug of some sort.  Now I have spent the day with a voice like Barry White. Too sick to do much Real Work but I did trim and edit in all the dialogue loops from John And Jessica; they helped a lot.  Was hoping to hear from Steve re Vincent’s missing lines but no call.  However, he is a CPA and it is Tax Season, he is obviously frazzled.  Frank reports he is having fun with the music.  He’s giving Sluggi a touch of Wagner, which I think is just right.  Angus had Stagecraft until late again, so no karate.  I’m not well enough anyway.  But I did pick up the larger poster from Kinko’s – it looks cool.

4-13-05

Sick.  Stayed in bed most of the day, with Sharon pampering me occasionally.  Did install Magic Bullet and after testing most of the presets chose the three I liked best and set the machine to rendering versions, one after the other.  Takes about four hours each time.  Funny thing is that the trend seems to be to shoot things on film and then make them look more like video – most of the presets added a greenish cast or sepiatone or a gritty halftone quality.  Which I can see being useful but not what we need.  Had a “Sky Captain” one too, something called bleach-bypass – but I was really just looking for a simpler color-timing process.  In any case, I’ll compare the results tomorrow.

4-14-05

Still sick, if anything, worse than yesterday.  But I could not stay another day in bed; had Real Work to do.  So wrote an act which may or may not be good, and compared the various color-timed versions I had rendered yesterday; One was particularly flattering to the actors but another made the machines look cooler; I will probably edit both together depending on which I want to emphasise in that particular shot.  Should not change the number of frames or anything, so should not affect Frank.  Who dropped by with some BIAS software which I have not had a chance to try out.

4-15-05

Still sick, but no help for it, had to do Real Work.  Banged out twenty pages of script, finishing Part Two, and sent it in with an apologetic note saying that I hoped it was at least coherent.  Was a bit better than yesterday but not ready for such a grind – and then the school called saying John had dislocated his shoulder.  So I went to get him and take him to Motion Picture.  He was cheery enough – he and a friend had been practicing submission holds on each other and suddenly there was a pop and his arm wouldn’t move.  Plus it was swollen and cold.  An Xray indicates he may or may not have a slight chip, but the doctor (once we finally got in) didn’t know exactly what he had done.  So he has a sling and antiinflammatories for now and cannot do mike wrangling for a few days.

4-16-05

Warm and sunny.  One of those days when I got up feeling wonderful and felt that way for about five minutes and then realized I was still sick. Spent most of the rest of the day cutting together the various forms of color-timed footage – the stuff that makes the actors look most attractive has the drawback of taking the balls out of the fight scenes and making the miniatures look CG.  So I used the attractive stuff for the close-ups and the Buffalo and the straight footage for some of the action scenes for more grit.  Oddly enough, the soft-focus stuff helped the girlfight and gunpo – it made it more appealing, like art, which is important, as that sequence was pushing my own boundaries for what would be acceptable in a kids films as it was.  Also distributed flier to the neighborhood, so those who may want to see it can.  They have been very tolerant and it is appreciated.

4-17-05

Warm and sunny.  Feeling a little better.  John still has his arm in a sling but is recovering nicely.  Yakov stopped by to have his leg bandaged up – he does tend to hurt himself a lot, I think he fell off his bike – but while he was here I had him record a couple of extra lines for the “voice in the headset” – he’s actually a pretty good actor and his small role as Sega was techie for the henchmen so it fits.  Ran them through Soundforge and added futz and squelch and dropped them in, where they do add a good deal.  Tried playing with Bias but I have no idea how to make that blasted program work; I hope Frank is having better luck.  I notice that Apple is bringing out a FC Suite with a Soundtrack program – too late for us but I’ll probably end up getting it.  Spent the rest of the day downloading and watching “Star Wars: Revelations” the fanfilm that had premiered over the weekend.  A truly astounding job by a lot of committed people – I was very impressed.  They had some problems with the mix – they had not learned (as I had to learn the hard way myself) that it is not necessary to keep the ship engine noise going all the time, even if the actors are in a ship traveling at speed – you can just start it at the beginning and then drop it way down and the audience memory fills it in for you.  That way it doesn’t get in the way of the dialogue.  But that’s actually something they could fix later in a few days if they liked, and perhaps they will for the DVD; there is no question the rest was spectacular.  I was trying to see if they used any of our explosions; I think they might have but the action was pretty intense and the compression a bit blocky so it was hard to tell.  Not that it matters but it is always nice to feel that one might have contributed in a small way.  But one way or another they got it done, and good for them.

4-18-05

4-19-05

Spent most of the day on Real Work because sometimes this is required.  Wanted to go over to Franks just to film him doing what he does, but our schedules did not mesh.  So will try again tomorrow.  Updated the website. 

4-20-05

Went off to Mary’s for the much-needed Green Screen Room Cleanup.  I had been planning to rope boys in for the task, but first I had been sick and then John had hurt his arm so the task had been delayed too long.  So I just went and did it.  Threw away all the construction scrap, tidied and swept, and now the place looks decent and ready to use.  Also wrote a letter to PanicStruck Productions congratulating them on Revelations – more than most people I understand what it took to get that project done.  Respect is deserved.

4-21-05

John turned 16 today, and barely got time to celebrate it, because he was Mike Wrangling again now that his arm was better. The rest of my day was spent over at Frank’s where I got to listen to a bit of the score he is doing for RA12 – kicks butt so far – and generally tape him at work for an eventual “Making Of” segment.

4-22-05

Sharon and I did Real Work and I did write a “behind the scenes” script – just trying to decide what would be of the most interest to talk about.

4-23-05

We had been supposed to celebrate John’s 16^th birthday today but he was still sick, so his friends stayed away.  He and I went out to see Kung Fu Hustle anyway, which we enjoyed although the plot was a bit vague.  Some fun visuals though, and plenty of good cheesy kung-fu action.  I bought another cabinet for chemicals and supplies, put it together, and loaded it up.  Most of my stuff is stashed now.  Got locks for the cabinets and powder magazine.  Not that the cabinets couldn’t be ripped open anyway, but at least nothing inside is particularly dangerous by itself.  It’s more to keep small children out.  I also began the long process of converting a version of RA12 to widescreen format for the Web – it looks cooler that way and makes for a smaller file size – but it means breaking each shot apart, moving the crop margin up or down until it frames that particular shot nicely, and then reassembling the whole thing.  With about 1000 shots in the whole thing, this will take a while.

4-24-05

John is actually worse today – he’s got exactly what I had, sore throat, cough, the works.  He’ll be sick for a few days, then. Spent most of the day cropping the shots for widescreen – am about 1/3 through now.  A couple of them glitched – this seems to happen with certain composites in iMovie for some reason.  Turns them a washed-out purple.  But I cropped them anyway – iMovie is easiest to use for the purpose and even though glitched I can use them as reference when I redo those specific shots in some other program that can handle the footage, like Final Cut. 

4-26-05

Was able to watch both the “Pink Five” shorts on Atomfilms by using IE instead of Safari – they were a lot of fun.  In the evening I finished cropping the first half of RA12 for widescreen, and was relieved to discover that the weird artifacts I was getting on some of the clips in iMovie when cropping were apparently just in the previews – the final DV render was clean. Got contacted about making some custom sparks for that editing company in the Midwest – spark squibs are fun and not too difficult so I will be glad to help if I can.

4-27-05

John still sick, but no surprise.  At least he got his World of Warcraft game today so that cheered him.  From my own experience he still has a couple more days of feeling stuffy to go.  As he says, however, so far being 16 has sucked.  Warcraft should help change that.  Had a music meeting and then went home and finished off the third act of AR026 – first season done except for changes.  A full day.  Spent a little time in the evening getting iMovie ready to letterbox the second half of RA12 – discovered I had not sliced the chopper scene as neatly as I’d hoped, so I will have to do that special.  Missing a couple of frames.  And I had to do some housekeeping – was running out of room on the HD.  So all that took a couple of hours.  However, it is now ready to start work tomorrow.  Frank is supposed to be bringing by the score that evening – eager to hear it.

4-28-05

Continued letterboxing the second half of RA12, and in the evening went over to Franks to pick up the music.  It sounds quite good for the most part, though there are two sections where I need to delicately ask for changes – always difficult when someone is doing you a huge favor as it is, but I think it’ll be okay.  He’s off to Vegas for three days anyway, so he’ll have time to decompress.  We can discuss it when he gets back.

4-29-05

Spent most of the day working through the rest of the widescreen cropping – got it all done and burned to disk.

4-30-05

Most of the day was spent editing together an RA12 trailer.  This was only tough because we had such a plethora of shots to choose from; I think I could have filled the entire minute with explosions alone.  But I cut something together which had a mix of explosions, fighting, shooting, and humor; the four building blocks of good cheese.  But just as I was finishing – after six hours of work -- and starting to mix down the sound, the whole program froze – Agh.  I had to reboot – and discovered to my horror that all my work was gone.  Gone.  Even though I had saved repeatedly.  Drives me crazy, this habit of FCP of not REALLY saving anything until you actually shut down the program.  Fortunately, as a master crasher of Macs, I knew to go search out the temporary render files, which when launched rebuilt most of the work except for the motion commands.  So at least I got back five hours of the work.  Exported a file for safety, saved the new work under a different name, and proceeded cautiously, exporting renders at every step.  But was able to comple the edit and mix – and then the Sorenson Squeeze program started acting up.  I had just updated it with the new version, which I honestly do not care about, since its main advantage it to encode WMV files.  Something I wasn’t really planning on anyway.  This upgrade is buggy as hell, but I finally got it squeezed via a couple of workarounds and uploaded to the website.  However, I think I will have Max tomorrow show me how to uninstall it and I will reinstall the previous version.

5-1-05

Built and tested a couple of creamer fireballs just to see whether the tissue paper method worked better than the condiment cup method.  It did.  The condiment cups are easier to use but they stay intact and carry too much of the creamer with them when they are blown out.  They do work, though.  Uploaded the trailer I made last night and sent the link to a number of people

5-2-05

Spent the solid day working on the music for RA12, trying to work out what, if anything, needed to be changed and how.  Shifted cues around, downloaded songs from iTunes as temp tracks, and barely got up all day.  It was a lot more intense than I had expected.  But I sent all the results off to Frank by snail mail since he’ll be busy until Wednesday night anyway. 

5-3-05

Decided to redo the trailer title cards to center them better, and discovered in the process why Squeeze had been acting up since the upgrade – my icon was still connected to the old version, which had been partially disabled by the upgrade.  Now that I use the right one things work better.  And I sent in the final on AR26 – I am now technically (though likely not actually) done with the first season.  John says he did lots of ladders n’ lights in Stagecraft today.

5-4-05

Dumped the recordings of Gina and Vinne into the computer.  Looks like Steve managed to get some workable stuff too.

5-5-05

Spent some time converting the voice clips from the Grobs into something that could be edited.  WMA files are a bit annoying in that they are hard to convert without a Windows machine, but fortunately I still have one.  Thank goodness for SoundForge.  Frank called a couple of times – he’s intrigued by the idea of using the Valkryie music and wants to try it.  He was able to find sheet music on line, which isn’t perfect but will at least be a start.  I’ll try to get him a check tomorrow.

5-7-05

Went over to Franks, who is having fun with “Valkryies” during the chopper sequence.  Sharon worked all day.  Hedgie is learning to take her Medicine.  Took boys in and gave them Hats.  Then in the evening began working on the dialogue, dropping in the final loops and lining up lip sync.  Need to get Soundsoap to clean up a bit of the audio.

5-7-05

Spent most of the day going over the dialogue, tweaking and adjusting, picking up some walla from Angus and laying it in, and trying to get 43 tracks of audio down to something manageable, like six or seven.  Also tried to find Soundsoap but couldn’t find it anywhere – fortunately Frank found it.

5-8-05

Did some Real Work, but mostly beat the audio track down from 43 to 7, and began experimenting with Soundsoap to clean up some of the noise.  

5-9-05

Got up at 4AM, finished my Real Work by 6:30, and sent it in.  Frank wanted me to come over and listen to some music, which was sounding really great.  But of course I was groggy all day – came home and Sharon was parked in the driveway with her car door open to unload groceries – while trying to give her room I thumped the car into the side of the house.  Just damaged the right turn signal light but it still works – but I felt dumb.  Sharon forgave me though.  Went to the Video Club in the evening which was fun.

5-10-05

Windy.  Just as well; spent 12 hours in front of the computer, pulling out lines of dialogue with noise on them, cleaning them up in Soundsoap, and re-inserting them.  Gruelling.  But did manage to play with a few chems during pacing breaks; discovered a new black smoke formula using potassium chlorate, PVC,and coffee creamer, of all things.  Does great black smoke and avoids the danger of metal fuels.  Want to run further experiments, refining the formula.

5-11-05

Spent the whole day mixing down SFX, and then went over to the AMC just to make sure they knew we were coming.  They did, which was a relief.  And from there over to Franks, who had made all the changes on the score, including a raunchy guitar riff for Sluggi that may be the coolest thing ever.  He had Catherine do vocals tonight and will clear up a problem he was having with some of his brass, and I should be able to do a semi-final mix tomorrow.  Semi-final in that it will be as good as I can get it and may be used if need be, but awaiting Frank’s input to be called final.

5-12-05

Frank had the final score and I picked it up from him, then went home and started mixing.  Always a painstaking, grueling process.  Eight hours later I was done with the first 14 minutes and my eyes and brain were shot.  Going to bed early with the hopes of finishing the rest tomorrow.  Sharon was totally supportive as always, making dinner, bringing home soda water, and generally being perfect.  As always.

5-13-05

Got up at 4AM and began working on the mix again, finishing my initial pass in time to take boys to school.  Then a few tweaks, always feeling Frank (in spirit) leaning over my shoulder stating that the music should be turned up more.  But I think I struck a decent balance.  However, when it came time to burn DVDs I ran into the usual artifacts problem.   Was tearing my hair out for most of the day, but finally discovered that if I converted it via Sorenson into a HD_720 file, that this could be burned to a DVD without the artifacts and looking like decent quality.  John and I took the disk over to the theatre and left it for Andre to test at his convenience – he called a little after 9PM to say it seemed to work okay.  Sharon has been unbelievably wonderful, staying out of my way when I was frantic and giving me kisses when I wasn’t.  Been burning DVDs all day.  Tested one at the neighbors and got no artifacts but some annoying quarter-second freezes; but nothing on the home computers.  And as it happens, the DVD player I had ordered from Amazon arrived – the one the video club had recommended, that plays PAL and all regions.  It also played the disk fine and it is tiny, so I may bring it along as backup.  Frank dropped by just because he knew I was frantic and he felt like being amused at the spectacle.  Shoe is so often on the other foot, he certainly has the right.

5-14-05

Today was the Big Screening.  I set my alarm for 7Am but got up at six because I was so jittery.  John got up as well for the same reason.  We went over to the theatre with all our gear at 9AM, determined that the disk worked, and then – to our amazement – we enough people to pack the theatre.  Twice.  Since the film was only 23 minutes we had two showings, and everyone seemed to have fun.  I now have many more people volunteering to be part of the next project.  Gina and Jessica both showed up looking gorgeous (what a difference a year makes with teenage girls!) and Taylor showed up with an entourage of females.  I was totally stressed out but once it was over I just collapsed.  Uploaded the web version and now consider the project Done.  There will be DVDs to assemble and Frank may want to play with the mix, but despite having to work up until the last few hours I consider it complete.  I have removed the Albatross (the necklace I of thruster fragment I wore ever since John was injured during one shoot) and the saga of Agent 12 is done.   Got hugs from everyone, thanked everyone who had helped out (which was practically everyone) and spent the rest of the day in a giddy daze.   And thus, I think there is no better way to bring this Production Journal to a close.  Thanks again to everyone for everything!