Archive for September, 2009

The Trio

Posted: 18th September 2009 by Jana Hutchison
Categories: Concepts & Development, Episode 3 - "House Calls", Guest Posts
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Jana Hutchison on developing the costumes and characteristics of the Trio

The beginning of Episode three gave us a wonderful opportunity to introduce three new characters, and also a whole subset of the Night Zero world: the Skullhunters. Except for fragments about the charming Edge, we haven’t quite gotten the whole story on the Skullhunters. So now, meet the trio: West, Axel and Sawtooth. We thought it’d be interesting to discuss the process of how each of the trio wound up with their distinctive look.

These characters allowed for us to really branch out past our born-of-utility drab and dingy color. The skullhunters are personas of their own invention, without societal constraints (think super-villains).  The script presented descriptions of the trio, ranging from specific to vague. This was the most premeditated costume design, with a small costuming budget and a long back-and-forth process between myself and Anthony, the director. I did some visual research for my ideas for each character with photographs found online, which allowed us to speak with the same language when discussing ideas, which we had not before. We found that we don’t all use the same words for describing costuming. What comes to mind when I say “suit”? Does that just mean a tie with jacket? Is it a three-piece matching affair, or perhaps a jacket isn’t essential for the “suit” look? Sending off two pictures and saying “more like this one or the other?” helps us narrow down ideas and pick out essential elements.
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Night Zero version 2.0

Posted: 11th September 2009 by Anthony van Winkle
Categories: Behind-the-Scenes Photos, Digital Production
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On redesigning the website for better updates and archive navigation, plus a few remaining behind-the-scenes photos from the “Sisters” vignette

This week marks the one-year anniversary of nightzero.com, and to celebrate we’ve launched a brand-new website designed from the ground up for an improved user experience. I hope you’ve all had a chance to poke around and see what’s new. If you’ve got some feedback, send an email or post a comment below. If the page is all messed up and looks like somebody vomited HTML onto your screen… you’re probably using Internet Explorer 6.

Most immediately noticeable, of course, is the home page. While 75% of our regular visitors come for every update, the other 25% come only once a week, and we wanted a home page that was convenient for all of them. In the old model, missing an update meant a series of clicks to navigate to the episode archive or risking spoilers by back-clicking through the updates you skipped. In our new system, an entire week’s worth of pages are on the front page so you can jump right to where you left off. The previous images can remind you at a glance what the last page was, so you’re always on top of the story. Some favorite links have also been added to the home page, including some of our excellent photocomic brethren.
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Sisters: A Retrospective

Posted: 4th September 2009 by Anthony van Winkle
Categories: "Sisters", Behind-the-Scenes Photos, On Location
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Final thoughts on the challenges and lessons of shooting the “Sisters” vignette

The journey of the Sisters production has been a long and challenging adventure, now come to an end. Next week we return from summer break to our regularly scheduled serial comic.

Each of the three Sisters shoots had a different combination of cast members and a different production aide on hand, but there was a great deal of consistency from one day to the next which I feel helped keep the cast and crew focused and comfortable. Each day started with a 7:30am crew call, to meet out front of the Galway Arms and unload all the production materials onto the patio. Two of the three days were metered parking on the street outside the Galway, so additional time was given for drivers to find off-street parking where they would be safe for the entire shoot.
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