We here at Dawnrunner are big sci fi fans.  So when it came time to name our fairly expansive network, what better name than "Cosmos."  From there our satellite hard drives become stellar bodies (named after various Stars throughout the Galaxy) and our local mounted hard drives became the various paired forces that exist, chaos and cosmos, conflict and resolution, action and reaction, etc.  Cheesy?  Absolutely!  This created an elaborate "webbed" fixture of stellar bodies, effectively, in our office.  What's not completely awesome about that?  It has however made me a bit curious as to what other naming conventions people use for their professional networks.  If you and/or your company have a unique system drop me an email, I would love to hear about it!

With the launch of the new Fortune's Mine website, and the script coming along nicely - we decided to try our luck with some cave wall tests! Since, of course, the main location for this story is in fact a mine shaft - we decided it was important to test this! After playing with expanding foam, and weeks of planning and talking about various ideas - we finally decided on a method. We like to call it Papdirpaint-Mache, as it's a delicate blend of paper, dirt, and paint-mache. Mixed-Medium Art at it's finest. Once dry, we went in and did some detail painting and threw up the camera, lights and did a proper test. As you can see from the video above, it looks pretty good! We used a fairly small section to test, and honestly didn't spend a whole lot of time on it. We're happy with the results and will be moving forward with the creation of some fake boulders, rocks, mine-shaft walls and other various accessories for our set! Check back for more tests to come!

One of the most important aspects of professional looking film is camera movement. Of course, dollies, cranes, jibs and steadicams are some of the most expensive pieces of equipment on the set, not only because they are precision machines but also due to their sheer size. On the DIY side of filmmaking, there are a million novel ideas about achieving camera moves (basically mount the camera to something that moves and you have a new mount!), but many aren't exactly capable of smooth professional moves or the durability that is needed on set. I know, I've built a few failures myself. Lately I've been trying to aim for something that is ideally the best of both worlds but is at least somewhere between the two.

We have a scratch-built 4-way steering doorway dolly already and it works wonderfully. I'll post some of the details of that build later. While it has an amazing turning radius and is very durable, it is also very heavy and not super smooth (although that depends on where you're shooting). So to beef up our dolly collection for some upcoming projects I'm building something new. Well something tried and true actually; a mainstay of indie filmmakers everywhere, the skateboard dolly.

The writing of scripts is always a toss-up.  We sit around the office and talk about a script until you feel like you’ve already watched the movie.  Which is fantastic, and a great way to test story lines.  Then however, you sit down to write it and realize you can’t remember things, or the story line or piece that you thought was so awesome - now does not make a lick of sense.  You muscle through that moment of frustration, read and re-read what you’ve written - THEN almost like magic, you go “Oh!  I see what’s going on!” and then the script just flows from your hands to the keyboard.  I wonder at times as I’m writing what it’s like for other screenwriters - though I’m just masquerading as one.  Fortunes Mine is now on it’s second draft and I love it even more than I loved the first one!  It will not be long now before it’s locked and we can start determining how we’re going to shoot it (my personal favorite part!)  Until then….

I'm going to save the specifics for the premiere so I don't spoil the entire story right here, but I will let you all know that we have just finished the second draft of the script and everyone who has read it is very excited.

Last year's story was based around a few different films, but drew a lot of influence from "The Explorers" and "Apollo 13." This time around were going for more of a "Goonies" meets "Indiana Jones" type of story.

The Story follows a group of kids attending a traditional summer camp who accidentally find an abandoned gold mine. There's danger at every turn as they venture into the mine. Will they find treasure? Will they make it out safely? How will they keep the camp counselors from finding out what they're doing? You're probably going to have to wait until you see the film to find out all the answers but we'll probably let a few of the details spill in future updates, so stay tuned.