Today was our first night shoot. We were filming from 6:00 to 9:30 when we were forced to quit because it got too dark. Have a look!
There's actually a lot of scenes that happen in this little jail cell/wood shed/Viking keep. Hiccup is thrown in and disowned by his father after the village finds out that he's been fraternizing with dragons. Hiccup spends the evening in there worrying about Toothless and then his friends break him out just before the whole keep goes up in flame.
I loved all of it! This is rock bottom for our hero so it was such a serious part. But Matthew (Stoic) is the master of improv and kept if from getting too serious for too long. In between takes, he and Mason (Hiccup) were sword fighting, arguing over who sneaked macaroni, and playing with blocks. I caught so much good BTS footage.
The rest of the cast arrived on cue and we filmed the break-out scene which might have been the most complicated and stressful sequence I have filmed yet. We had only a small window of time when the light was right, we had to time the smoke bombs correctly, position the fire light, and rehearse like mad before each take because we only had so many smoke bombs.
We did it! But man, I had so much help. I had crew holding lights, lighting the bombs, fanning the smoke in the correct direction, rehearsing lines with the actors while I was filming, and de-smoking the set between each take. It was crazy how many moving parts there were.
A huge thank you to my On-Fire-Fam! I couldn't do any of this with out you!
Comments