Production Diary 5/30/12 - Wrap for Chronicles of the Chronicler 3: The Lost World

WARNING: THIS DIARY UPDATE CONTAINS PLOT SPOILERS FOR CHRONICLES OF THE CHRONICLER 3: THE LOST WORLD. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.

Today marks the last day of production for COTC3. I filmed the last shots for the film, and what may possibly be the last stop-motion shot I'll ever shoot. I have some mixed emotions about it. Part of me is relieved that its over, and part of me knows that I'm gonna miss it.

This movie has been a crazy ride. I can't say it was the most stressful movie I've ever done, Sam's Comics holds that award... This one holds second place though. At least this one didn't drive me to the point of nervous break-downs. I would say that Chronicles 3 wins the longest lasting production award, as it started production sometime in January, began principle photography on February 11th, 2011 and ended on May 30th, 2012. Part of the reason it lasted so long is because "Sam's Comics" was picked up by the McHenry County College Film Production Club on March 7th. I did do some filming during production for "Comics", but only one clip actually survived "The Purge".

model photo taken during production for "Sam's Comics: The Movie" (2011). Earlier this day, Sam had filmed three scenes for "Comics".

The story for the third one was very difficult. At the end of the second movie, Takua mentions that he has a feeling that a new batch of Toa will come along. The original plans for Chronicles 3 was for the Matoran Jaller, Hahli, Kongu, Hewkii, Nuparu, and Matoro to become the Toa Inika (like they do in the 2006 Bionicle storyline). This idea was scrapped early on, because I didn't have the Toa Inika sets released by Lego. I was stumped for a while, but then I got new inspiration after watching "Shrek 4". This got me thinking about alternate reality, which somehow got me thinking about time traveling. The next idea for the third movie was to have time travel, but then that became too complicated. Then came the idea that became the final film: bending time by bringing the fallen Toa from the past to save the present.

There was no script when I started filming; I only knew what I wanted to happen. Because of the nature of the Toa's deaths mentioned in Chronicles 1, Onua and Pohatu had to come head to head in another fight scene. The idea I had was to have them sword fighting, but then I thought "I did that like four times already in the first two", so I decided to have them fighting hand-to-hand. This turned out looking much better than the sword fights, and effected how the rest of the script was written (like a few months later when the script was actually written...) I filmed bits of several other scenes before "Comics", but as soon as it came along, production immediately halted, only to have infrequent bit shoots whenever I had time to film between "Comics" and my school schedule. Once "Comics" was finished, I reviewed what little footage I had done already, and then made a big decision: To scrap all completed footage and written script drafts and start from scratched. This delayed production from starting in November 2011 to January 2012. I finished the script on my 21st birthday, January 3rd, 2012. By this time, I had my buddy Carl Mohr attached to the project as various voices.

Several things were changed from the original February 2011 plans. The characters Taipu (who was going to appear in Chronicles 1 before being replaced by Hahli) and Macku were dropped from the script, and the Rahkshi were given more screen time. Later in March, the script was added on to, fleshing out the plot to make sure that this last film in the series was the best it could possibly be. The biggest change made in the plot was the fact that (AND THIS IS MAJOR SPOILERS HERE) Takua, against all odds, becomes a Toa once again. He was originally only supposed to be a minor character as a Turaga, but in the end, I couldn't justify downplaying the main character in the final installment.

Another big step I took to make sure the fans would be satisfied with COTC3, I decided to film some scenes while I was on vacation in Michigan this last week.

All in all, COTC3 totals 1501 still frames and 348 videos shots. That's 638 more stills and 326 videos than COTC1, and 491 more stills and 292 more videos than COTC2!

Still some voice over recordings to do, so I'll leave the diary update at that.