Illusion Squadron: "0800"

"Beep beep," Ticker beeped.
Garnin Jinn woke up from his rest. He got a shower and by 0800, he was the first person at the breifing room.

 

"Identification, please."

Cale's head shot up; she hadn't even noticed the security droid hovering next to the barrack door.

"Identification, please."

She clenched her teeth in exasperation. What she wouldn't do for a Jedi mind trick. Although she wasn't sure if they could mess with droids or not...

"I don't have my identification. It got lost. My name is Flight Officer Cale..."

"No acess without identification. I'm sorry, but you'll have to remove yourself from the premesis."

She snapped. She'd had enough. Her fingers flexed above her blaster, but decided against that route. She wasn't sure if they has fire arm sensors in place. So instead she turned to Scooter.

"Dewback soap."

His eye flashed and his processors hummed as her code words booted up a dormant program buried inside his core. A particulary nasty program. She hated starting it because it sometimes threw some of his other programs into a loop, but her patience was shot. He started rocking back and forth on his legs, then shot forward, hitting the droid and crumpling him between the astromech and the ferrocrete wall.

Finally, she was getting results.

 

Garnin yawned and his R2 beeped. The breifing should be starting soon, he thought.

 

For my upcoming fan film, me and my friend want to make the lightsaber duels really something. Seeing is that this film will do without the overdone double-bladed saber, we want it fast and furious. So we plan to speed it up in After FX. Does anyone have any tips for me? How fast can I crank it up in After FX? At what speed should we shoot. Should we act like zombies, or do it to the best of our abilites and then speed it up. Any help would be hot.

 

<<Up!>>

 

Me and my friend also thought of that for a few minutes but found that it only looks silly. My advice is to practise the fight and do it as fast as you can. That is how you make it look at it's best. And don't be afraid of hiting. That is something that you see to often. We use the plastic toy lightsabers just so that we will be able to strike towards eachothers heads or whatever without being afraid of hurting eachother.
That's my thoughts. Let me know what you think.
Force on..

 

Afraid of hitting eachother? That's the problem, isn't it. Just like Wolverine says you can't be araid to hit eachother, if you are it will show. Each blow must be delivered with the intent to kill or at least mutilate your opponent.

To gain high speed you need to get the choreography in the back of your spine. The danger of this is that you start to block a hit befor your opponent starts the strike and it will look goofy.

My tip is to train enough to know the basics of the choreography and the try to surprise your opponant (that's your friend, hopefully) so that he (or she) will need to act and not just go by routin.

I hope any of that made any sense.

 

I have to agree with Jal-Dar Camori on this one. The problem with choreography is that you do know where the next hit is coming from, and if you're not careful, it looks silly. There are traces of this in The New World, even though it was a kickass fight, it does have glitches.

What I suggest you do is, practice, and practice hard. But when you come to the edting phase, then you can speed it up about 10-15%, just to give it a little bit of zip. Perhaps you could add a touch of motion blur too, just to create an illusion of speed.

I'm a video production major at my university, and let me just say, that there is nothing wrong with cheating a little here and there. The trick is that you must not look like you are cheating. "I don't know, fly casual."

Also, I'd recommend that you have a couple of quick edits in your piece. Shots of close ups, medium shots, and wide shots, pieced together also creates an illusion of speed.

Don't EVER be afraid to try something. If it don't work, then fine. It might work on something else. Just keep it in the back of your mind. Eventually you will come up with a technique that works.

BELIEVE IN YOURSELF!!!

[This message has been edited by Happy Ninja (edited 06-03-2000).]

 

Yeah, I agree if you do, it should only be 10 or 15%. I've seen movies where they attempted this and it looked like crap. Their walking was also fast, and it looked like one of those olden day films.

 

Well, for my current test movie, I had my friend plan the saber duel. Only, when we were about to train, he told that he hadn't had the time.

Thus we improvised. No planning at all. In the end, it didn't look that bad as I had thought it would be. We simply did the following : I would defend the whole time, whilst my friend would attack me. I sure hope that he comes up with something when we start on the bigger project.

 

Wow, lookin' good.

 

Proton-are we ever going to get our breifing?

 

I wish. I have no time! Any other Illusioners are free to write...

 

Uppers, for now.

 

The hum of the laser shaver was annoyingly loud in the confines of the 'fresher, exacerbating Rob's fatigue-driven headache and making him even more grumpy than he already was.

Great, he thought to himself. First command, and I get stuck with a bunch of misfits and screw-ups. I swear, the High Command has no gratitude.

But he knew that really wasn't the case. He knew that the High Command trusted him to take this group of misfits and screw-ups and mold them into the greatest fighting force the New Republic possessed. Despite their uniformly bad track records, they were probably the most talented group of pilots he had ever seen in his eight years of flying with the New Republic. And I spent a year in Rogue Squadron, too. These folks have the potential to be even better. And that's a scary thought.

Aside from what he'd seen in the official records, he knew nothing about his pilots - with two exceptions - his flight leaders, Captain Justin Celchu (no relation to Tycho) and Lieutanant Cale Orick, both of whom he'd flown with before.

Justin had been Rob's squadron mate for quite a while, starting back when both were rookie pilots flying Y-wings for the Tierfon Yellow Aces. They knew each other well, and Rob was confident Justin would be an excellent XO. Like Rob, Justin had spent several years flying for the NR, slowly making his way up the chain or command.

Cale, on the other hand, was considered a rising star by many in the NR High Command, despite the fact that she had barely a year of service under her belt. She was one of the hottest non-Jedi pilots he'd ever seen. Nicknamed "Proton" for her vibant personality and her love of high explosives, she had served with him when he was XO of Meteor Squadron, his last assignment. Her charming, carefree nature and her beautiful features concealed a strong personality and the fact that she was deadly when angered or crossed. They were good friends, and he'd been pleasantly surprised to see her assigned to the squadron.

Rob finished trimming the stubborn stubble around his goatee, shut off the razor, and headed to his room to get back into his uniform......