Headless Stormtrooper and AWESOME News!

I haven't had much time to work on our movie this week, but I still wanted to create a blog post because:
1) I improved the shot of the "Hover Gurney Stormtrooper" getting his head blown off, and
2) I have AWESOME news that many of us have been waiting for for a long time!

First, here are before-and-after pictures of Scene K603b when Brad (represented by the CG Stormtrooper in the foreground) shoots the "Hover Gurney Stormtrooper" in the head with a blaster:

Isn't that blood splatter cool? :D

Here's another before-and-after, a few frames later:

We have to re-shoot my "Hover Gurney Stormtrooper" footage anyway (the current footage was just proof-of-concept footage for our animatic), so we'll add blood splatter during the re-shoot to tie the "blood splatter" layer in with the "live Stormtrooper footage" layer and make them look like a single, homogeneous image.

I know you guys may think I just did this because I'm morbid (which may be true), but I also added blood because it makes the shot look more realistic. Plus, if I recall correctly, earlier versions of the script specifically described the Hover Gurney Stormtrooper's head disappearing in a "cloud of red mist." So I'm only being faithful to the script. :D

But here's the REAL news...

We finally have the super-cool Nikko R2-D2 projector!!!!! (Well, almost...)

Here's Nikko's promotional video showing all of its amazing features:


I've wanted one of these ever since I first heard about them, but they were pretty expensive and I didn't really need one. But Nikko only made 1,000 of these R2-D2s and before I knew it, they were sold out and I couldn't find one for sale anywhere, at any price! :(

Fortunately, I setup an auto-e-mail notification on eBay to let me know when someone posted a Nikko R2-D2 for sale. I got a notification on Tuesday and bought it within 5 minutes!

Unfortunately, it hasn't arrived yet. :( I can't wait until it gets here! We'll probably have a small R2-D2 party and use him to show "Star Wars" (how appropriate :D ).

Also, once our movie is done, we'll use the Nikko R2-D2 at our world premiere because I'm planning to rent a movie theater, but our movie will be on DVD, not film, so we'll have to provide our own R2-D2, um... I mean "projector."

Later,
Bob