Check out the magic locket in Penny West. Another great design by Brandon Hall. This locket helps Penny on her quest for the Drake map. Some recent developments we have teamed up with the great animation director Brad Goodchild he is the new director for Penny West. 
We’ll try to keep posting Penny West updates. In the meantime, the last podcast for Tiny Miracles will go out today. Next week, we’ll be podcasting a new movie on Movie-Snaps.
The first prop is in! It’s the Golden Hinde, Sir Francis Drake’s ship This was designed by Brandon Hall, a terrific 3D modeler.
We had a terrific weekend working with the cast of Penny West. Here they are at work:
Molly Dobbs (”Penny”), Sam Stone (”Kevin”), Christopher Odom-Rieser (”Charlie”)
Sam Stone (”Kevin”), Christopher Odom-Rieser (”Charlie”)
Sonja Dobbs (”Aunt Debbie”), Jeff Rigler
Jeff Rigler, Molly Dobbs (”Penny”), Sam Stone (”Kevin”)
We moved! Now that Penny West is no longer live action, we no longer need to stay living in the same house (really a location, since much of the movie took place there.)
Moving is hard, especially when you can’t get DSL to work properly in your new place!
Stayed tuned for more blogs and podcasts.
There’s been a change in the program. Rather than buy props, we are now designing them on a computer. That’s because we’ve decided to make Penny West in 3D!
Penny West will be entirely 3D using the terrific program Cinema 4D. We (as in Rigler Digital) have been using this program recently for corporate video work. With this kind of software (and some imagination..oh, and lots and lots of time) we have the ability to tell a story without the contraints of time and place.
I’m not sure what’s going on but the Michaels in Santa Monica has discounted a lot of products. I was just poking around during my lunch hour when I noticed that the bin of prints said $3.00 for all clearance items. I found 5 lovely prints of similar yellow/gold/soft orange tones. We had been talking about not painting the walls of the house and instead using lighting plus different wall art to create different rooms. These seemed perfect, so I snatched them up. At the cashier they rang up at $1.80 each! Oh, happy day! (Cut to me trying to walk back to work with these large prints in tow. I got to my building’s lobby and actually dropped one print. It made a rather loud noise. They have cardboard backs, you see.)
Now for some inexpensive frames…
We’ve started braving Costco again for supplies. You can often find better deals but it’s nice to get the flats of sodas and stack them up in the garage. Sodas and water can be stockpiled months in advance of the shoot. And of course, plates, cutlery and napkins are good to stock up on too. Just don’t overdo it! On the last movie, we had way too many leftover red plastic cups.
Click below to see our Costco notes:
We still have some work to do on the script. We are currently fine-tuning it and looking to put in some more action/magic. The trick, of course, is keeping it affordable.
If you look at the graphic below, it’s rather obvious that there is some Indiana Jones influence. So I spent today watching all three movies. (Or rather, playing them in the background as I cleaned house.) There’s not much we can do to mimic these films, given our budget constraints, but it was fun to hear the theme music.
I picked up a nifty handheld tape recorder. This is a key prop in the movie. I guess I thought they’d be hard to find and expensive. We found a great one at Fry’s for $34!
