Blue sky dreaming

FYI: The Saturday 21st shoot at Bethells will have to be delayed until 7 March. 

We just aren't sure enough of the weather to go ahead, and unfortunately we need pretty consistently blue skies to successfully turn the sky red in post. There just aren't any clouds on Mars! ...And our budget can't hack it!

Meanwhile, if you're on the crew, keep the following dates marked and underlined in your diaries:

• Saturday 7 March 
  
• Saturday 14 March
  
• (the evening of) 17 March, and all day 18th March (for those of you who can make it)
  
• (the evening of) Friday 20 March, and all day Saturday 21st March, and Sunday 22nd March.
  

Have a great weekend, and we'll be in touch soon!

Green screen test

Zane: "This is rough test. note that with some more work the visor can be cleaned up. So I don't think its a big issue. The fill is too sharp still, we should bounce the fill of a poly next time. Background plate was just a quick job, we will need to put more work into that too. but it's all looking hopeful. Also for those picky folk; I realise that wearing just a helmet wont be enough to survive on mars."

Mars Screen Test 1 from Zane Egginton on Vimeo.

Rocky road!

Whew! We walked and walked and then we walked some more!

Sarah, Amie and I made it up to Red Crater during our explorations of Tongariro on Saturday, and between us got sun burnt, dehydrated, scraped, scratched and exhausted. It was super fun. Those of you who haven't been before are going to love it, but our Tongariro shoot is definitely going to be hard work. No question.

The good news is with our last recce complete, we can finally nail the shot list down to locations and get this show on the road. Yehaa! Dates will be sent out this week.

Meanwhile, check out some beautiful prop work by Kevin Jang below...

Introducing....

Good news, we've found our new astronaut: Kassie Watson! We loved Kassie's audition last week and she's just agreed to take on the lead role in Last Flight!

Kassie has acted in a number of short films and features, as well as in TV programmes and commercials. She's going to be a great addition to the Last Flight team and I'm sure you'll all enjoy working with her. 

Once we've confirmed times with Kassie in the next couple of days we will have a FINAL filming schedule which we will send out to you all. 

Roughly, we will have 3-4 weekends filming (1-2 in Tongariro, 1 at White Island, 1 in the studio in Henderson) between 14 February and the end of March. We will, however, need to also allow two to three contingency weekends during that time to account for weather delays. Please let us know if you're definitely not going to be available. 

Thank you so much for your patience! 

Prop update

Check out some of the awesome work that Chris has done on the props for Last Flight! That lad is a genius!

Auditions

We're in the process of auditioning at the moment - and we've had a great response from interested actors. We'll run our last auditions on Monday night and make a decision after that, although callbacks may be necessary, as the range and abilities of the actors auditioning has been very high!

On Tuesday we'll be testing some shots at Sunset Studios, and seeing how we go at emulating the look of Bethells and Tongariro against the greenscreen. EXCITING!

Sadly we've had to postpone the shooting out at Tongariro planned for Waitangi weekend, while we recast our lead, but as soon as we've sorted permits and so on we'll have a new plan up and out to you! Instead, a few of us will use the long weekend for another scout up the crossing, after our last attempt was largely hailed out. We'll keep you posted!