Warehouse

Today we did some filming for Summer Xtreme, and did it in an old warehouse area that was just amazing.  It was so thrown together with metal bits and framework, and yet it all stayed together and served various functions.  Today's function was dealing with filming a super villain as he went on monologuing.  

The other cast members weren't there, but we used these for focal points in the background behind the camera, as you can see.  We had a few of these that we would scatter throughout the warehouse for visual points.

And as for our super villain, here he is.  Praxis is back!  Yes, this guy is a villain, but of course no where near as bad as the test that his name was inspired by.  Teachers should get a kick out of this super villain name!  Look at this location though - isn't it great?

There was so much character to this place.  We asked around for a new warehouse to do some filming, as we'd already done so much in our other warehouses.  This one was suggested, and we went to check it out, and yeah - it was just right for what we needed!

Here you can see Josh, the director, and his Dad as well.  His father was here to do the make-up for Praxis, who you'll see again in a little bit.  It's a long drive down here from his place, which we know all about having made that journey last summer on Eclipse day.

The light would beam down on this place through various openings, and cast shadows or create these paths of light that beam across the entire structure, illuminating all the floating particles and webs in the air.  Daddy's always been impressed by these random industrial structures.  

Ah, and here's Praxis.  He seems ready to take on the world, as soon as he gets that one tube fixed in the back shoulder there.  That tube gives him some power source, so if you're fighting him, all you have to do is unplug it and you're good to go.  After all, that's all it took to defeat Bane in "Batman and Robin."

But Praxis isn't going down that easy this time.  Especially because Chris there superglued those pipes in place.  They're not going anywhere.  That, and Praxis seems a little excited about the possibilities of finding himself on top of those annoying heroes that keep stopping his plans.

Here's another shot of the warehouse, where they also filmed earlier this week.  You can see light streaming down from the roof there, but earlier this week it was rain streaming down.  Huge puddles formed, and it was certainly a challenging place to do any filming.  We've gotten a lot of rain lately.

But as you can see here, today was beautiful.  Here's Praxis, outside after finishing his lunch.  We got some sandwiches, and enjoyed a few moments outside, before heading back in for a lot more filming.  It's a time-consuming process, filming is.  

All in all, it was probably eight hours that this took today alone.  We got here at about 8:00 am this morning, and were at it for a long time, filming Praxis only.  He did great, and the movie scenes with him in them should be really good.

All throughout the filming, there were chances to get serious and yell, and then times to crack up.  Madison loves the bloopers, and we certainly had a few of them today.  Here's Praxis, having just messed up a line.

And here below is Praxis with his make-up artist.  It takes a long, long time to get all that on, but the two are quite patient.  The end result is the creation of a blue meanie,  or a member of the Blue Man Group.  Either way, he's nothing ordinary.  When others see him, it's funny because it's out of nowhere:  you don't expect this to walk into a fast food place:

He asked us to take a picture with the Iron Man toy that was sitting on a window nearby.  I suspect that Iron Man could easily take care of Praxis.  Sorry, big guy.  Iron Man is pretty awesome.  Although, based on Praxis' expression here, I think he knows that too.

The great thing about filming at new location is just a change of pace for everyone.  It's something new, something refreshing.  Even if it looks like something old and quite used.

Through it all, our friend Josh has been guiding this process along.  This was the nineteenth day of filming - it's been going on for quite some time now.  But he's got each scene mapped out with index cards, and he's got scripts all mapped out.  He's pretty happy in this picture below because we're pretty close to wrapping up the filming.

We've gone to all sorts of locations during the filming.  Warehouses and prisons, yes.  But also a bank too.  We'll be back at that one soon, although it probably isn't quite as interesting as this place was today.

We'll be back here again for one more day of filming, although tomorrow is mainly just shots of the hero characters as they dive, jump and scream in front of a green screen.  Speaking of screaming, here's Praxis about to unleash a little wrath on our heroes.  It doesn't look good for them at this point.

But you know good will triumph in the end.  Or, at least I hope so!  It seems he may have the upper hand here at this point in the story.  Praxis has been with us for three years now, and he's definitely got a beef with our heroes.

This could be the location they meet their sad end!  Or not.  It could be a hero comes along, a hero of such magnitude...

Okay, maybe not Daddy.  This is Daddy posing for a similar shot to Praxis earlier on.  The shaft of light beams straight down upon him as if to say, YES!  This is the hero you need, and the hero you want.  I couldn't resist posing for a photo here.

Anyway, it was a full day, and as you can see, a lot of photos were taken.  I loved this old place.  I especially loved this aspect below:

This is indoors.  The exterior wall with the painted sign on the brick wall advertising for Southern Welding Co. still stands, although it is not part of the interior.  It added a whole lot of character to the place, that's for sure.  Anyway, it was a great time, and a great, productive day!

Daddy got home for some spaghetti with Madison and Mommy, which has been great.  There's something new about spaghetti - perhaps it's comfort food, but it used to be such an ordinary dish.  Maybe it's the way Mommy makes it.  She uses these Italian sausages, and Madison loves those.  Daddy does too.  It's good stuff.

We had some Cherry Coke today too - the reason for this was because Nancy Drew likes Cherry Coke.  We read that in our book last night, which we continued reading tonight as well.  By tomorrow, this mystery will be wrapped up.  But it will be wrapped up in... Turkey.  Yep, they're going to Istanbul (not Constantinople).

But we did get some other books today too.  Madison and Daddy went to the library, and there we picked up some research books for Anne Frank.  Madison is already reading a few of these, just very interested in her story.  Daddy picked up another David McCullough book from some time ago, one on Teddy Roosevelt.  We also picked up book one of "A Series of Unfortunate Events," so we'll probably be starting that after Nancy Drew.

It was a good day today, sunny and just the perfect temperature.  If we could just lower that pollen, then life would be grand.  Daddy is still having a remarkably bad time of it.  Madison was practicing piano today, and doing some Minecraft.  She's got this huge bit of architecture that she's been building for some time now, with all these fields of flowers in the front.  I wonder if Minecraft characters suffer from allergies too?

Tonight before bed, we watched "The Fantastic Four."  Not the most recent and allegedly horrible movie, but the one from 2005.  It's not terrible - I think "harmless" is one of the descriptions of this movie.  It's great to see Stan Lee in all these cameos, and it was good to show Madison these characters, although Dr. Doom is way off in this one and in the sequel.  He's simply the greatest comic book villain of all time, and this movie fell pretty short with his character.  Otherwise, it's a fun movie, and Madison liked it.  She's looking forward to the sequel tomorrow, at least.  It's part of our "Marvel" weekend, really.  She's been talking about "Infinity Wars" ever since yesterday, loving Spider-Man's parts and others.  We just might go see that again before it's all said and done.

But not tonight - tonight it's time for bed!