Rolling…

With filming for our feature project, All That Remains (working title), now finally under way, we’re currently in thick of it. But taking a few minutes stop gap, we thought we’d post some behind the scenes stills here and also some stills of the images shot with our new Olympus lenses that have been graded.

We definitely noticed sharper images with these lenses and also more detail retained in both highlights and shadows.

The visual style of the film will be a sort of meeting of animation and live action, with a very painterly style, so it’s not the best project to showcase the beauty of a particular lens (although you can see the details in the close ups).

Our first scenes were that of the immediate aftermath of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki (talk about throwing yourself in at the deep end), working with over 40 extras and a team of make-up artists, not to mention hairstylist and wardrobe assistant over two days, this shoot will easily be the most difficult and daunting of the entire production, but we’ve managed to find a great crew and great cast to work with, which makes all the difference when working on such an ambitious project – check out the stills below.

Our great team on location.

Dominic setting up a shot with the Canon Rebel T2i/550D DSLR camera.

Ian discussing a shot set-up with line producer Nigel Davey.

Dominic with the DSLR preparing actors for a powerful scene.

Ignoring the English rain….

Japanese extras waiting patiently while we set up.

Ian giving last minute direction before a take.

One of the Make-up team at work

The finished make-up

Our supporting cast were the best we’ve worked with.

Still smiling after 2 days…

What every director needs – a team that looks up to them.

Ian about to yell “Action!” on the first of the drama scenes to be filmed.

With much of the scenes being shot in a greenscreen studio, there’s going to be a lot of virtual set-pieces being constructed on our computers! There are two main reasons we opted for the greenscreen option, first was down to budget, it allows us to get more shots in the bag at the end of the day, the second was that it suited the particular visual style we had in mind, which is obviously a very stylized one.

Our two leads – Leo Ashizawa and Yuna Shin immerse themselves
in their roles on the greenscreen set.

Between takes, Ian and lead actor Leo Ashizawa discuss character.

Dominic “paints with light”.

Leo taking it easy?

Actress Yuriri Naka undergoes a 2 hour make-up session to play an
atom bombed scarred victim.

Yuriri in character.

Wardrobe assistant Monica helps prepare Actress Meg Kubota.

Yuna between takes.

Costume dept.

Dominic talks shot set up.

Nicolas Lue-Fong, who plays the son of our lead actor, showing
us how it’s done.

A feast that included traditional Japanese food was provided by two wonderful local ladies

For our actors, many of whom, have no experience working on a greenscreen production, the lack of a complete set and real locations has been a challenge, but greenscreen film production is here to stay, so the more experience an actor can get working with them, the better!

We made sure to show our actors and crew any shots that we had worked on, to boost their confidence when working on a set that for the most part exists on a computer.

Showing some of the cast rough scenes we’ve graded.

We have a few days of filming planned in Mid October, but the bulk of the remaining scenes will be shot in late October/early November.

Meanwhile we’ll be working on the shots already in the bag. Talking of which, below are a few of the graded stills – most of these have been shot with our Canon Rebel T2i/550D using the Olympus lenses we purchased a couple of months back.

(All behind the scenes photos by Phil Pugh)