Movie Tone News, April 2020

Welcome to this months news in which I want to talk about a question most elegantly put by Ivor in the comments of the last post, Do you 'storyboard' photos ideas a head of time or are you Indiana Jones-ing it & make it up as you go ?

The simple answer is yes :) I'll explain, The Hex campaign is run along the lines of different things, first came the idea of what I wanted to do & up until the ruins that part was verily clear, with the opening couple of episodes been written  first & pictures taken & added.
The plane episode was a game played out which gave the unseen event of Bill running away, so that meant I'd to come up with away of getting him back into the story, which is like making it up as you go, rolling dice to decide the story will do that for you :)

So I've now done both for what Ivor asked to get this far, so I then carry on as far as the ruins which was the next game played out & really was only as far as I had the story mapped out to, the hope was that some event in the game might drive the story forward, but the dice been what they are didn't comply with that & tbh I came a bit stuck as to how to carry on hence the big delay.

My first thought was to have Bill figure out away in which the group got the plane up & running, but that didn't really fit well with what I wanted, as it turned out the sets & props team were working on a new set which you've seen parts of in the last episode & while taking some photos I came up with the way forward that has giving what is I hope a clear path to the end of the campaign,

But in that episode I also added a new way of doing things, in that I took some pictures & then wrote up the story until they came out on the other side of the sea & then a game was played out to rescue the children, but here I done some thing else that I never done before.
The game called for 14 makers on the board, now when it comes to using makers I try to come up with other ways of doing things as I don't want makers in the photos, but with this many on what was only a 2 foot by 2 foot set I was at a lost.

Anyway I wanted to push on & decided I play out the game, first take went horrible wrong with the T-rex turning up before any of the beasts which were standing in for raptors.
To try & avoid the same thing happening again I added another token which meant there was now 15 of them, & played out the game, taking photos as I went, & while playing out the game I hit on an idea, what if after the game instead of using the in game photos I staged manged the scenes ?

Tbh this is a god send to me as for a long time I've stayed away from doing certain things or tried to do them in different ways, but this way of doing it means I can just play out the game as its meant to be & then just re-shoot the parts of it I want to use :)
I hope that answers your question Ivor & maybe is of some use to you guys, below are a couple of pictures to show what was done.

This picture was added after the episode had been scripted. 

This one was taken before the script was written.

                                                       

In game photo

Photo of the same thing that you seen in the last episode

In other news, I getting near the point were the studios can start doing what I'll call Mobs & Dolls movies that will take place in the fictional city of New Dublin & the surrounding areas, New Dublin is much like Dublin, only the politicians are more corrupt, I did say it was fictional right :)

In late news, never one to let the grass to grow under his feet Mr Panama is also looking at way to brake into the radio media, more on that in next months news, so plenty to look forward to coming up as well as the conclusion of the Hex campaign.

Well that's it for this month's news   , so its a goodnight from me & a goodnight from him :)
As always my thanks for dropping in & if you'd care to leave a comment it would be welcomed.

HEX Campaign, The Children

The start of this story can be found here https://nickelandimeproductions.blogspot.com/2019/04/hex-campaign-knock-on-door.html

Grace's mood was grown darker by the day, as near as she could guess its been about 2 weeks since the fight with the Germans at the ruins, but who could tell in this place of no night or day, the time immediately had past fast as Tom, John, Ronld & herself along with some of the natives had headed to the river in search of the Germans, only to find their U-boat gone.

Unperturbed they'd followed the river for what they estimated was about 30 miles until it opened out into a sea, finding no sign of the Germans along the way.
Although they could see land on the horizon they had no way of crossing the sea, so at a deadend they headed back to the village which was now their home, what keep their spirit up on the trek back was the hope that the Scorpion had returned, for without it, it now seemed they would be stuck here forever.

The Scorpion had not returned though & the group were perplexed as to what to do next, as not to be a burden on the villagers resources & to pass the time Grace, Tom & Bob help out with things like hunting & croup gathering, while Jenny Bill & Gregory spent most of their time at the ruins, which was just as well as it was there that they found their way to move on.

Bill, with a grin like a Cheshire cat "I think I found away to cross the sea which doesn't involve been on a boat & running the risk of getting eaten"
Building a boat to cross the sea had been the first thoughts but as any boat they could build would be to small to stand an attack from any of the larger sea creatures, they'd dropped the idea almost at once.
Grace, her mood starting to lift at the thought of been able to continue the search for her friends, "Ok you coy old fox don't keep us waiting spit it out.
Bill explained how he believed that from his exploring of the ruins that there was an underground passage that linked the land here to the land across the sea, they would need to speck to the beastmen to find out if they knew anything about it & if they could help.

At first the elder of the beastmen refused to talk with them about it, but with Roald intervention & given the fact the group had helped them out against the Germans they finally relented, it turned out that Bill was indeed correct in that there was a passage across that their ancestors use to use to trade with others of their kind on the far side of the sea, but they had to close it off as the red beastmen who lived on the other side became more aggressive.

The passage they told them was closed off by a great door that has not been open in many life times, but they agreed to let them try to cross accompanied by one of their kind, so that if the door could be opened he could close it off once again behind them.

Roald had decided not to go with them & bid them farewell at the ruins, Grace as were they all was saddened by this news as they all thought of Roald as a good friend.
Grace, as they were parting" Are you sure you won't come with us ? as it might be your only chance to find away home"

Roald"I'm sure Grace, I think in some kind of a strange way I've come to think of this place as home & as I've no family in the world above I've no real reason to go back"
Tom" Well thanks once again for all of your help Roald" & turning to Grace said " Come on its time to get going"
As Roald turned away Grace & Tom followed the others who were lead by Uk-got into the opening.

How long their journey through the passage way under the sea took none of them could guess,

but they were all relieved to find that the great door opened as easily as it had the day it had been built & a short time after they stepped out once again into the twilight of this strange world.

As Uk-got turned & headed back into the dark the group found they where high up on a ledge, looking down on a valley with a river & what looked like some kind of settlement on the far side.

As they made their way down the cliff face they notice there was groups of children moving around on the ground below, but no sooner had they set foot on the valley floor when the sound of a loud horn rang out, at this some of the children started to make their way towards a bridge that crossed the river while others seemed to panic.
Jenny" There must be something wrong, we'll better try & help these kids"
The group split up & started for the kids,but the kids seemed spooked & backed away from them.

As Grace tried to assure some of them, Bob spotted what was the cost of the panic, as some kind of fierce beast appeared from the foliage in front of him. 

Quickly un-slinging his rifle Bob let off two shots with one of them slamming into the beast's chest, but still it charged forward, it took Bob all of his courage & years of military experience not to turn & run & standing to he fired off another couple of shots out of which hit the beast's head bringing it to a stop just as it was on him. 

After directing the group of kids over to Jenny & Gregory, Grace noticed one of the children had climbed upon a rocky outcrop & started to climb up, no sooner had she reached the top when she noticed Bill been chased by one of the foul creatures, whipping out her pistol she fired off a couple of rounds missing the target & could only watch on helplessly as it gored at Bill.

Try as he did Bill was no match for the beast & Grace could only watch on in horror at what was unfolding below her, then Bill with the blood steaming from a nasty leg wound & starting to tier from  the onslaught he felt a slight shudder under his feet, the beast must have noticed it as well, for to Bill's amazement & relief it broke off its attack & darted away.

Just as Jenny & Gregory were leading the first of the children to the safety of the bridge the reason for the break  off of the attack by the beasts reviled its self .

With a mighty roar a T-Rex burst into view close to were Grace was trying to shepherd some children towards the bridge, from his vantage point Bob opened fire, followed by Tom on the ground, but the bullets seemed to have little or no effect on the monster.

The speed of the brute had to be seen to be believed as it quickly covered the ground on Grace who had keep herself between it & the children, lowering it's massive head it snapped at Grace.

Luckily it's aim was a bit off but the teeth racked across Grace's back & as the pain exploded in her she fell to the ground.

This proved to be the saving of Grace but the dooming of the children.

Although horrified by what he witnessed, Bob keep firing away, this brought his attention to it giving the rest of the children & the rest of his group apart from Grace, time to reach the safety of the bridge.
As the T-Rex reach the outcrop Bob climb down on the opposite side & for the next while had to engage in a game of cat & mouse with it, known that any slip up would cost him his life.   

Getting feed up with the game the T-Rex soon headed off in search off a meal some place else leaving Bob free to head over to where Grace had falling.
While badly hurt Grace with Bob's help was able to gain her feet & with his help they crossed the bridge to where the others were waiting.

To be continued

Designers note, I'm not going to go into details in this note as there are thing I want to cover in the next news, so I'll leave it at saying its great to have this back up & running after what was a longer then expected break.
As always my thanks for dropping in & if you want to be a movie critic & leave a comment it would be welcomed :)