Triple F, FFF, Firefly Fan Film

[IndyFanChuck]

Update. I DEMAND AN UPDATE:thumbsup

 

[pennausamike]

Update. I DEMAND AN UPDATE:thumbsup

I have ordered much of the costume for Browncoat character, Buddy Lee Creek.
I'm building a wood and metal dummy-gun that uses Bren magazines and have been (as budget allows) acquiring leather gear like slings, belts and mag pouches.
On the Alliance front, I've acquired the long coat for a "light 'im on fire, Skunk" costume and need to buy two more BDU's.

The table read at the Shindig went well, but I saw two places that the dialog just didn't flow, along with some general suggested improvments.
The script is much better now.
Probably not finished, but totally useable and, I think, entertaining.

Oh, and I'm still working 78 hours per week...

Mike

 

[pennausamike]

I have ordered much of the costume for Browncoat character, Buddy Lee Creek.
I'm building a wood and metal dummy-gun that uses Bren magazines and have been (as budget allows) acquiring leather gear like slings, belts and mag pouches.

Mike

I bought a not-quite-like-Mal's-coat and a gray Sweeney Todd vest to go with jeans and a pinstripe shirt.
The weapon is obviously homegrown and in-progress.
The magazine is from a Bren light machinegun, so the whole thing looks like an AK on steroids.
In addition to giving an upsize look to the rifle, use of the Bren mags also meant I could use the really cool over the shoulder leather mag carrier.
I want Buddy Lee to look like one tough dude.

 

[pennausamike]

On the Alliance front, I've acquired the long coat for a "light 'im on fire, Skunk" costume and need to buy two more BDU's.

Mike

I had to learn how to hand-sew leather after I cut the sleeves off the long coat.
Getting an affordable Sam Browne belt was a challenge.
Much bidding and being outbid on eBay 'til I got this one.

 

[pennausamike]

And now, just a gratuitous shot that makes me smile.
I told my friends at work that I don't like to brag, but I own more SST armor than anyone else at the company.
They were quick to remind me that that was true as soon as I bought the first set, let alone the fourth.

The next picture is some 3/8" dense foam sleeping pads I am going to cut out for background armor to go with the modified East German helmets.
I'll trace the SST pieces and the SST armor "scales".
I'll glue the scales on the main pieces, rivet on the metal guide plates, add a bunch of 2" webbing and buckles and, Voila!, I'll have three more Alliance Fed troopers.

 

[Goodwolf]

I'm really liking the rifle with the Browncoat outfit. FWIW, my browncoat outfit "browncoat" is just a brown western style duster with the collar/cape removed. I got the idea that the browncoat wasn't so much a specific item as much as a generic one in the episode "Trash" when they showed Monty. While he wasn't wearing what most fans I know think of as a Browncoat, he was wearing a brown coat.

So I got my duster, paired it with a pair of desert style cammies tucked into workboots and a shirt with chinese writing. Working on getting a Sidkit Mal which will be modified to not so canon and some sort of holster for it and it'll be pretty well done. Oh and a very fine hat. Possibly a cook's beanie. Thought about a coolie but it seemed too in your face chinese, if that makes sense.

 

[harleystone]

Really nice work dude, may i ask where you got all the SST armour from? Im looking forward to seeing the finished product.

After going through this thread it really has got me thinking of finishing the two fan films i started writing about two years ago (one star wars based and one Firefly based now where is my pen).

Dan

 

[kurtyboy]

Oh man.... Fan Films and Firefly! Two of my favourite things

Really nice work dude, may i ask where you got all the SST armour from? Im looking forward to seeing the finished product.

After going through this thread it really has got me thinking of finishing the two fan films i started writing about two years ago (one star wars based and one Firefly based now where is my pen).

Dan

 

[Mechamaniac]

Are you by chance looking for local Browncoat extras or actors?

 

[pennausamike]

I'll have a quick update in a day or two.
Thanks to those who are interested.

Mike

 

[pennausamike]

Are you by chance looking for local Browncoat extras or actors?

Probably


This is an introduction for those who haven’t seen this before,
and an update for those previously involved in the creative process.
Sorry it’s so long.

The basic story centers around an Alliance sergeant, at the end of his career,
sent to squelch former-Independent businessmen who have turned to smuggling under UAP rule.
This is NOT what the sergeant fought for (and watched his friends die for) in the war to unite the planets,
and that personal conflict is brought to a head in a meeting with the ex-Browncoats.
Our sergeant notes, “Yeah, well, there’s plenty for whom the cost of Unification exceeds the value.”
The story is an introduction of characters who could have many more adventures in the Firefly ‘verse.
My hope is that “Fool Me Twice” will bring together a creative team capable of filming those adventures and
that the successful completion of this film will legitimize a larger project.
For the sequel, the story expands to suggest an insurgent movement within the Alliance,
a look at trust and acceptance, being true to yourself, and finding your niche.
Oh, and a run in with a villain who has a framed art display of tattoo art skinned off his victims.
Cuz, you know, if yer gonna kill people, they gotta be BAD people.

“Fool Me Twice” is essentially a filmed play, able to be filmed for next to no budget.
There is a gunfight, a spaceship, and a large explosion caused by a pair of missles launched from the orbiting spaceship.
In a no-budget situation the gunfight will be a smattering of practical effects and sound effects,
the spaceship will be the I.A.V. Dortmunder lifted from Firefly stock footage, and the explosions will be lighting and a shaking camera.
If the right people are interested in “Fool Me Twice”, the gunfight can be a little “bigger”,
the Dortmunder can be exclusive CGI footage, and the large explosion can be an aerial view of a BIG fireball.

So who all is in it?
Primary Characters:
Alliance Sergeant Aaron Wyatt
Alliance Colonel David Anthony
Local Law Enforcement Lieutenant Amber Fitzpatrick
Smuggler Randell Rourke
Independent Escort Quintan Shang
Ex-Browncoat General-turned rancher Dan Anderson
Independent Buddy Lee Creek

Secondary Characters:
Alliance Corporal
Alliance Heavy MG crew (2 Fed troops)
Alliance Guards (2 Feds in Colonel’s CP)
Local law enforcement officer
Smuggler on radio
Independent guard
IAV Dortmunder Fire Control Tech
Waitress in a NOT-Alliance-friendly bar

Background Characters:
4 Alliance Feds (shootout)
1 Alliance medic (shootout)
5 different Alliance Feds (outside CP)
Background Independents (as many as will supply their own costume!)

Progress to the end of 2008:

The script is done.
Doesn’t sound like much, but beating out 24 pages of reasonably filmable dialog, on a part-time basis, took about nine months.
Also, everything else has to come from a useable script.

Costumes are under way.
The Alliance Feds wore Starship Troopers armor in Firefly, the only ‘verse-specific costuming requirement and the most expensive.
Although incomplete, all the main components are in place for
Four sets of foreground armor
Three sets of background armor
One armed Alliance medic
One Alliance Colonel
One Alliance Fed (like “Skunk”)

Local law enforcement costuming is done for two characters.

For the Browncoats, I’m only making specific costumes for three main characters.
I consider one done.
Two of those are underway.

Locations and sets are three/fifths scouted.
All the woods action sets are scouted and sketched, with a rough shooting plan.
Main shootout
Alliance temporary Command Post
Meeting with Independent Escort Quintan Shang
Walk to Barn
Barn exterior
Barn interior

Props and prop weapons are well underway.
Basically, everything that needs purchased is purchased.
There is just a lot of finish work to do.
(Buddy Lee Creek’s rifle is pretty a pretty good measure of the progress of this one man show.)
I have a ton of ‘verse emblems, patches, posters etc.
(For example I just traded a Simon Alliance baton for two more sets of Alliance rank pins.)
So both Alliance and ex-Independents are pretty well covered.

End of Part One

 

[pennausamike]

Really nice work dude, may i ask where you got all the SST armour from? Im looking forward to seeing the finished product.

After going through this thread it really has got me thinking of finishing the two fan films i started writing about two years ago (one star wars based and one Firefly based now where is my pen).

Dan

I got one and two/thirds sets of armor from eBay, one and one/third sets from Reelclothes and one set from an RPF member.
I got three helmets from the RPF, one from Reelclothes on eBay and one from a private owner on eBay.

Good Luck on your projects; I know I can use all the luck I can get on mine!


Part Two of FFF Update

2009 Spring Goals:
The script needs to be turned into a stick figure storyboard to plan the most efficient shooting schedule possible.
The storyboard will also set the equipment needed for some specific shots.
For example, I’ll need a ten-foot ladder for a “crane” shot of Smuggler Randell Rourke being captured in the woods.

Finish Alliance character costumes.
I’ll make the shipboard fire control tech from an Alliance ground trooper uniform.
Finish the Ex-Browncoat General-turned rancher Dan Anderson’s costume.
Assemble the gear for Independent Escort Quintan Shang’s costume.
(The actual costume will have to be sized to the actress who ends up playing this part.)
Design or have designed a costume for the Waitress in a NOT-Alliance-friendly bar
My expectation is that the background Independent characters can wear normal and western clothes,
with some ‘verse accents and props, to take them out of Earth-That-Was here-and-now.

Locations and sets still need to be found/scouted.
I’ve been offered use of a spacecraft interior set by a local film group.
That needs to be scouted and photographed this spring to plan set decoration necessary to be an Alliance ship.

I need to find a place that can serve as a NOT-Alliance-friendly bar.
I want to decorate with tons of Independent memorabilia and fill the place with beer, cigarette smoke and laughing, happy people.
The minimum I can get away with, if we shoot only into the corner, is a space about 15 feet by 15 feet with a corner table and a few foreground tables.
Use of a real bar/restaurant on a closed day would be ideal.

I want to have the following dummy weaponry done by the end of Spring 2009:
2 Local law enforcement SMG’s
2 Alliance Fed SMG’s
1 foreground Alliance heavy MG
1 background Alliance heavy MG
Alliance Colonel’s handgun
Buddy Lee Creek’s rifle
Quintan Shang’s break-open pistol carbine
Dan Anderson’s revolver rifle
4 background Alliance Fed rifles (buy airsoft L-85’s or build something similar, ?, depends on budget)
As with the costuming, Independent weaponry can be a mixed bag of what’s available.

The other prop category I’d like to have templated is some ‘verse specific paper props.
I want to have some individual papers, Cortex reference stuff, Telefonix cards (an excuse to FINALLY get cracking on those),
an Alliance communiqué, and even a menu for the bar.

And that will be the point where “Fool Me Twice” can no longer be a mostly one-man show!

Goals for Summer 2009 will determine the direction of “Fool Me Twice”.
By summer I’ll have the film equipment, pyrotechnics and people in place to film FMT.
I need the following post-production skills, if FMT is going to look like anything more than a home movie.
Sound and video editing. As an example, I’m relying on being able to insert sound effects to make the gunfight work.
CGI of at least the big explosion. Shots of the Dortmunder and a few enhancements of the gun battle would be nice, but not necessary.
I’m hoping to find folks in the corridor from Harrisburg PA to Baltimore MD to Northern Virginia to Philadelphia.

My original plan was to set up a PA Browncoats table at the Farpoint 2009 Con outside Baltimore this February.
Alan Tudyck is scheduled to appear, so I was hoping to find some Browncoat technical talent.
I may not be able to do that, and I won’t know until mid-January, which is much later than I wanted to be sure of my ability to commit to making Farpoint.

………………………So……………………….

If I find someone interested in doing some cool post-production work; ya know, for free, pretty much;
I’ll look to recruiting some local acting talent willing to trade work for exposure, ya know, for free, pretty much.
(Although there are a BUNCH of background parts for non-acting Browncoats, also, ya know, for free, pretty much.)
A professionally done fan film would be worth submitting to some cons and festivals, and should receive some internet exposure.
Hopefully that would attract some aspiring actors able to inject realism into written dialog.
Although I really appreciate fan films and am often amazed at the on-screen worlds created for little or no money,
it is usually fan-acting that takes me out of the reality of their fictional world.
And I admit, I don’t know what that quality is, but I know it when I see it…

If, on the other hand, I can’t locate someone interested in doing post-production work to a higher level,
I’ll find out if we have folk in the local fan community who want to have fun making a movie in the Fall of 2009;
and we’ll get together on a farm in Gettysburg, a spaceship in Harrisburg and a bar I-don’t-know-where-yet, and shoot a movie.
After that, probably early 2010, I’ll get some movie editing software and see what I can put together.

Either way, it’ll be growing the ‘verse.

 

[pennausamike]

I'm really liking the rifle with the Browncoat outfit. FWIW, my browncoat outfit "browncoat" is just a brown western style duster with the collar/cape removed. I got the idea that the browncoat wasn't so much a specific item as much as a generic one in the episode "Trash" when they showed Monty. While he wasn't wearing what most fans I know think of as a Browncoat, he was wearing a brown coat.

So I got my duster, paired it with a pair of desert style cammies tucked into workboots and a shirt with chinese writing. Working on getting a Sidkit Mal which will be modified to not so canon and some sort of holster for it and it'll be pretty well done. Oh and a very fine hat. Possibly a cook's beanie. Thought about a coolie but it seemed too in your face chinese, if that makes sense.

I agree with your interpretation of "Browncoat".
The Independent troops actually wore light tan coats, as like the 76th Browncoat reenactors wear.
Buddy Lee's coat was CHEAP, which was a main selling point for me.
I want to get a duster for my female Independent, Quintan Shang and Dan Anderson's light tan coat is western styled, but nothing like Mal's coat.

I bet a google image search of Chinese hat and Chinese headgear etc would yield some neat Chinese designs you might like. The beanie with braid is kinda cool. The brass helmet under Chinese headgear was different, would maybe serve as a jumping off point for a 'verse design.

 

[Zeppo]

I woud suggest different pants. Blue denim is not something we really see in the Firefly universe. The only person who was ever seen wearing it, was Mr. Universe. But no one else ever wore blue jeans.

I know that in my own FF fan film project, blue denim is verbotten.

 

[pennausamike]

I woud suggest different pants. Blue denim is not something we really see in the Firefly universe. The only person who was ever seen wearing it, was Mr. Universe. But no one else ever wore blue jeans.

I know that in my own FF fan film project, blue denim is verbotten.

YoSafBridge wore denim in "Trash".
I imagine others did as well.
I guess I just see denim as THE frontier fabric.
Made from grow-able cotton; how can a Rimworld go wrong?

 

[Goodwolf]

Also, Levi Strauss got his start selling "dungarees" to the prospectors in... I wanna say SF, which at that point would have been very similar to a rimworld or borderworld town. The selling points were durability durability and oh yeah... they lasted forever.

Although... they are so prevalant today that I can see them kinda breaking the believability factor if put *too* much in the forefront.

 

[Goodwolf]

I bet a google image search of Chinese hat and Chinese headgear etc would yield some neat Chinese designs you might like. The beanie with braid is kinda cool. The brass helmet under Chinese headgear was different, would maybe serve as a jumping off point for a 'verse design.

Right now, I'm kinda leaning towards the cook's beanie, maybe with the Independents logo embroidered on the brow. Kinda like a IAV hat, only from the other side.

 

[pennausamike]

I know that in my own FF fan film project, blue denim is verbotten.

I would add, too, that I can totally get why you would choose to steer clear of jeans. I think even in costuming, context is everything.
If jeans become a costume focal point they would look too here-and-now.
I think jeans can be used (if not over-used) but if budget allows, a no jeans rule certainly works.

Mike

 

[Zeppo]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying no jeans or no denim, just blue denim.

Jeans come in a whole variety of colours - various shades of brown that would work really well.

Just a sugestion is all.

To my eye, blue jeans would just look out of place in that world

For the record, I wear frontier style pants (similar to Mal's) in my fan film, and they were actually cheaper then most jeans.

 

[pennausamike]

I'll be posting a real update, with some pics, later this week.

Just wanted to mention that I needed something mannequin-like to display the costumes, so I built one out of 2" PVC pipe and fittings.
I need to make a "waist" for it yet, but it's standing in the basement with an Alliance Fed costume on, right now.
Not bad for $27 and a piece of scrap lumber for the base.

Mike