Day seven part 2 of New York Filming

There are so many space shuttles engaged in a giant space battle at the end of the movie that we needed to shoot a lot of different actors for variety in the battle scenes. Think Star Wars or The Battle of Britain and you might get an idea for the amount of different pilots we want to have involved in the final showdown.  One of the ideas about the way the secret organization SABRE works is that they have their own military division, taken from the ranks of the worlds military. This includes ground troops like our Special Forces as well as pilots and for the final showdown they have trained as many pilots and military personnel up as possible to crew the X74 space borne fighter.   Agents who are not flight qualified have retrained as weapons operators and occupy the right hand seat of the fighters operating weapon and defensive systems. We have shot numerous actors as pilots in various locales from actual flight simulators to Blue screen stages in London, Australia and today we add the US to the list. We were rejoined by actors Malcolm Madera and Bobby Moreno to reprise their roles as military forces , this time in combat in the cockpit of the X74 fighters.  Another high energy day recreating the action of dog fighting with alien spaceships but sitting in front of a green screen in the producers living room. Ah the lack of glamour, but it’s going to look amazing on screen.

Day seven part 1 of New York Filming

Today is my birthday and the original intent was to throw a party at the apartment but with a late change in the production schedule and filming still in full swing with a lot of work to get through that wasn’t going to happen. It’s far more important to get these sequences in the can so we decided to cancel celebrations, shoot through and try to fit in a beer at the end if possible.

A lot more green screen shooting today but with a change of pace away from the more comic elements of the 1970s and into the action packed sci-fi sections of the movie. The opening scenes of the film involve the shooting down of a UFO , the Moth, over the Nevada desert and its recovery by a Special Forces team sent to bring it back to Area 51. Much of this sequence has been filmed in the UK and is locked in the edit of the movie but the all important footage on board the Special Forces Blackhawk helicopter has only existed as animatics and storyboards up until now. It’s a high intensity action scene with a lot going on and we needed a couple of actors who could deliver the right military style and intensity, so we were delighted to get the chance to work with Malcolm Madera and Bobby Moreno who played the Special Forces team perfectly. It’s not an easy thing to sit in someone’s apartment living room on a chair in front of a giant green screen and to convincing convey the impression of flying at high speed only feet above the desert floor in a Blackhawk chopper heading into a combat engagement but these two actors nailed it. We can’t wait to see the final composited sequence when this footage will be placed into the chopper in amongst the action packed opening sequence of the film.