Posts Tagged ‘costumes’

The Penultimate Finale

Posted: 11th February 2011 by Anthony van Winkle
Categories: Behind-the-Scenes Photos, Episode 5 - "Reversals", On Location
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On the various casting, costuming, and shooting challenges for the “Three Speeches” finale of Episode Five

Despite terrible weather battering the Midwest, the presses for Night Zero: Volume Three are alive and on-schedule. We expect to start shipping preorders the second week of March, with delivery to comic shops and the rest of our orders shipping the fourth week. If you enjoy reading Night Zero, if you appreciate the free thrice-weekly updates on a completely ad-free website, please show your support and preorder your copy today. Just twenty four dollars, independently produced and proudly printed in the USA.

On last week’s blog I talked about the movie-montage inspirations for the “Three Speeches” closing of Episode Five, as well as some of the developmental stages we went through to piece the whole sequence together.  That’s all essential to the pre-production, but coming up with a concept is only the beginning. The true success or failure lies, of course, in the execution of the design, and on that front I’m pleased to say it came together swimmingly.
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An Intertwining Web of Tales

Posted: 1st October 2010 by Anthony van Winkle
Categories: "Devon", Behind-the-Scenes Photos, Concepts & Development
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On the evolution of the “Devon” vignette’s storyline

As time moves forward and Night Zero moves towards the finale of its serial story (coming Summer 2011), I become more and more certain that I will continue producing vignettes at least through the end of next year, if not indefinitely. They are so much fun to produce and the ideas in store are limitless.

Development of the “Devon” vignette went through a number of different concepts and drafts, although the visual focal point of two characters meeting in a dark bar was a constant in all of them. Knowing that Serling was a character to be created and killed in the span of the story, it was a challenge to construct his character justifiably without excessive exposition or gaps. The earliest drafts saw him betraying Yevgeniy for favor with the powers that be, but as a character he was hard to understand; later revisions established him entirely on Yevgeniy’s side, but this lacked the tension that I wanted to build between the two men. In time it settled in the middle, where Serling was playing both sides and trusted by neither, and I’m quite happy with the result.
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Approaching Midnight

Posted: 12th March 2010 by Anthony van Winkle
Categories: "Jezebel", "Midnight", Behind-the-Scenes Photos, Concepts & Development
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On the origins and story development of the “Midnight” vignette

Two quick announcements to start: first, we will be spending the weekend at the Emerald City Comicon here in lovely Seattle, so if you’re attending this year’s comic culture celebration, make sure to stop by #708 for some free gore makeup and an HDR photobooth; and second, I’m pleased to announce the launch of a Night Zero sister site that focuses on the production and behind-the-scenes of the project, check it out at http://www.thephotographicnovel.com.

Regular readers of the NZ blog know that one of my favorite topics of discourse is the “origin story” of a particular piece, and the Midnight vignette is no exception. Of all the vignettes to date, this one was the most difficult to get through conception, because it was not stemming from any particular need or opportunity. Jezebel started with “trapped on Night Zero”, Sisters started with “backstory of the Nazarov women”, and Special Delivery started with “shipping container yard”, but Midnight had no core inspiration. Lack of an anchor may seem freeing, but it’s hard to build up from nothing.
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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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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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