We wrote it. We filmed it. Now it’s time to edit it.
To mark the occasion of going into post-production, I’ve updated spectre-movie.com with a few neat things. First, I’ve updated the main page of the website to be far more interesting than the one that was there before. Take a look if you get a chance.
Secondly, I’ve added a Photo Gallery with 89 photos taken during our 9 days of production. I’ve mentioned before that over 2,100 photos were taken in total. What I did was rate them from 1-5 stars. Anything that was 4 stars or higher was considered for the website. There were 300+ in that category. I then did a final pass and weeded out photos that were more appropriate for the crew DVD (which, yes, will have more photos), and for photos which might reveal elements of the story that I prefer to keep undisclosed for now. So I hope you enjoy this photo gallery, and I’ll be sure to add to it over time.
Also, I added a link to sign up for a mailing list. So if you want to get email updates when something big happens related to the movie (like, a trailer comes out, or we finish the movie), then sign up and we’ll keep you posted.
Now that the photos are up and the cat’s out of the bag, I want to talk about the Spectre sword. A couple of years ago, when our then-small-sized team and I realized this movie was actually going to get made, we knew that the Spectre sword was going to have to look good. There’s a lot of swords available to be bought online, and many of them are great. But we did not find one that “looked” like Spectre. So I called up the owner of Arms of Valor, an arms and armor catalogue company based in Florida, with whom I had had previous dealings. I asked him about the possibility of making a custom sword for our movie. He loved the idea and agreed to do it.
Vicky and I went through many, many sketches before we settled on our final one. Here’s what we settled on, and what we sent to Arms of Valor. (Click to enlarge)
Arms of Valor then sent this design to a sword manufacturing company in Canada called Dark Sword Armory… an appropriate name! They forged it, and here’s how it came out.
Three copies of the sword were made for our movie. Two were identical, and the third had a slightly different pommel. The flared pommel was an improvised addition that the manufacturer added to help give the sword some extra balance. I debated whether to use that one or not, but certain factors led us down the road of using it in the film. So when you watch the movie, the sword will always have that flared pommel.
Of the three swords that were made, only one survived until the end of shooting. The first one to break went before shooting began. I had asked Jason (the owner of Arms of Valor) to “age” the sword and make it look beaten up. So he took one of the three swords and clashed it against some other swords he owned. Spectre made a lot of dents and dings in the other swords, but those swords failed to make any real impact on it in return. (It is, afterall a “magical” sword!) So Jason took the only thing known to man to be stronger than a Spectre sword: a lawn mower. Being the professional that he is (ahem), he used a lawn mower blade to carefully nick-up the sides of the blade. It was going well until it just went a little tooooo far and SNAP! Spectre #1 broken.
But that was okay! We still had two for filming. Always the optimist, I asked Jason to square off the broken edges. The sword blade had broken at a really great place and we could use it for a scene in which Spectre is driven through somebody’s chest. That’s exactly what we did in filming, and it looked great.
The second Spectre broke right before we were about to film the first scene where it was needed. It was about mid-day through the first day of shooting, and Jason (who flew out from Florida to be a part of the production) and another crew member were doing some basic sword rehearsals off to the side. The first time Spectre got a good hit, it broke right at the point where the blade meets the cross-bar. It was a pretty clean break, and fortunately one of the crew members, Kurt, knew how to weld. So he and Jason left to go to Kurt’s shop where they were able to repair the broken sword. We were able to completely conceal the weld, and it held great! Actually, that particular sword was the one that we used for the majority of the movie. It easily survived everything we put it through, including the big sword-fight scene where those swords were hitting each other hard at times. (I’ll write about how we staged the sword fight another time)
Alas, even our weld didn’t hold up in the long run. On the last day of shooting I was showing David how I wanted him to drop the sword for a particular moment in the movie. I demonstrated, and the sword hit a rock just right. That was the end of that sword. It broke in the same place it had before. Oddly enough, the camera happened to be running when I did that, and we captured the moment forever on film. I’ll be sure it gets into the behind-the-scenes features we plan to put together.
Today, here are what the three swords look like:
With all this talk of breaking swords, I want to be really clear about something: Darksword Armory and Arms of Valor made a great sword! The first one to break was our fault, and the second one was probably due to a small flaw in manufacturing. But remember, this was a prototype! Like any new product, these initial ones are really just proof of concepts. And we were really putting the swords through a lot. Most people don’t swing swords like we were anymore. (BTW - We had two professionals on set who had safety in mind at all times!) When Darksword heard about the broken blades, they immediately offered to replace them at no cost to us. These are excellent swords. Not fake props, but actual, real swords.
Finally, if you love the sword and want one yourself, you’re in luck because they’re for sale! Arms of Valor is now taking pre-orders for Spectre swords. Get one for yourself, or buy one for a friend. They look fantastic on a wall.
