Just a short note this morning: the first three segments of Trenches, a short science fiction action/suspense movie by Shane Felux (Star Wars: Revelations; Pitching Lucas) are now online at Crackle:

http://crackle.com/c/Trenches

I first saw Trenches at the Farpoint science fiction media convention in February of 2009. It’s great. I wrote a short review of it at that time which you can find here:

See “Trenches”

Polaris will be making a presentation at the Farpoint science fiction media convention at 11:00 AM on Sunday, February 14, in the Dulaney 1 Room. We plan to show a short scene from the movie, currently in production.

We’ll also be participating in filmmaking panels throughout the weekend, including (as of the latest revised convention schedule):

Saturday

5:00 PM - Lighting On a Budget (Dulaney 1)
6:00 PM - Writing For Small-Budget Films (Chesapeake 2)
7:00 PM - Building Sets On a Budget (Dulaney 1)

Sunday

11:00 AM - Starship Polaris (Dulaney 1)
2:00 PM - Deciding On Your Fan Film Business Model (aka How to Pay For All This Stuff!) (Chesapeake 2)
3:00 PM - How to Find Good Actors & Directors (Chesapeake 2)

If you’re following us online and you see us at the con, please say “hi!”

Jason “Vektor” Lee has proceeded to building the CG mesh for Polaris, based upon his earlier design sketches (which can be found in our Concepts and Design Art gallery and at his own site, www.vektorvisual.com).

Jason says

These are, of course, preliminary, with lots of parts and pieces yet to be added and lots of detailing to be done. Much of it is still subject to change but I felt it was time to move beyond the concept sketches, especially since Dennis and his team are starting to look at 3D assets for the effects work.

More cool views of the mesh can be seen in our new Models and Animations gallery as well as at VektorVisual.

Other news: We’ve been invited to make a presentation about Polaris at the upcoming Farpoint science fiction media convention, the weekend of February 12 to 14. More about that in a couple of days.

Okay, I understand the theory: the idea of blogging is to write about what’s going on, and the point of a news blog is to write about what’s going on NOW.

Too much has been going on for the last month. All of it good. Most of it wonderful. I was too exhausted to write, and too exhilarated to place it in perspective and to find the words.

I’m still exhilarated. Something may be broken; I may just have to stay this way for life.

Just the basic facts, for now:

Last week, from December 7th to December 12th (actually until 2:00 AM on the 13th), we shot the sequences of our movie which take place aboard the spaceship. Our studio was a warehouse in Fort Washington, MD. The weekend before we rolled was one of sleepless, frenetic activity devoted to finishing the sets and costuming, collecting and setting up lighting equipment and so forth. Cast and crew call was 10 AM each day; for the first two days the camera didn’t roll until around 3:00 PM in the afternoon.

By the end of the week, under extreme time pressure and very limited conditions, we’d shot 33 pages of script. Everyone involved performed their jobs magnificiently, with patience and skill and without temper or off-screen drama.

The possible exception to all that may have been the director, who tended to check out and start walking into walls late in the day. Once we got him out of the way, work could be done.

More later.

We wrapped at the stage somewhere around 2:00 AM this morning, and locked up at around 4:00. It’s already gone.

To the magicians, mind-readers and muses of Polaris:

Maurice - I could never do your job. You saved this ship.

Paul - the leader of the cast. Entered as Chaney and wrapped as Bogey. And I so touched your ass.

Gina - you gave voice and a human heart to a silly tale of rayguns and rocket ships. Save for you, my words are sand.

Nick Cook - I think it was a half apple. What’re you all looking at?

Susan C - She walks in beauty…

Case - it’s been a privilege, sir.

Garrett - it is very cold, in space…

Lucie - you sure Nick’s console isn’t booby-trapped?

Susan H - that was one of the bravest things I’ve seen with my own eyes.

John B - Dying is fun, ain’t it?

Alex - Okay, now I know the difference between God and a Director of Photography. I’m still not clear on the 85 and 50 mm, though. Dolly moves.

Chris - A-Team, all the way.

Cynthia - Lord of Chaos. Bring the rage.

Paula - the clapboard art goes on the DVD, for sure.

Doug - you, me and Brad Naylor. This is fun!

Romel - Krypton wants their rocket back. Dude, can you jump back in time five minutes and take care of that?

Carol - You gave Beauty her face. Hanging with you was lovely. And I swear I thought it was a toy.

Mike B - master of 26th century bling.

Nick G - looking forward to three-hour coffee breaks on Ellsworth, again.

Thank you. As I said to several of you over the week:

You never gave me what I wanted.

You gave me what I never imagined, what I wouldn’t dare to ask for, and all I could ever need.

I love you all.

Heartfelt thanks to Richard, Rick, Carl, Nick, Fred and all the other folks who came, saw, worked with us and contributed so much.

Alex has to keep correcting my quote, as he does so many other things, so I’ll reset and go again: We done the impossible, and that makes us mighty!

Cut. Moving on.

FGG!

- Dennis

Gina Hernandez

Gina Hernandez will play Doctor Valerie Young in Polaris.

Although Gina has been an actor since playing Molly Pitcher for a school project in the fourth grade, it was her starring role as Taryn Anwar in the independent film “Star Wars: Revelations” that challenged her to pursue acting as a profession. Her recent work has included stints on “Ugly Betty,” “Law & Order” and feature films “Precious,” “It’s Complicated,” “Wall Street 2″ and “American Gangster.”

Gina currently appears as a nurse on the Showtime hit “Nurse Jackie” and an FBI agent on USA Network’s “White Collar.”

About the character

In Polaris’s era, the deck of a starship is the last place you’d expect to find a citizen of Earth. As Earth’s interstellar empire has disintegrated and many of her settlement worlds have formed the nascent United Worlds, most of “Old Blue’s” dwindling population has turned its back to the universe beyond the Solar System.

This makes Valerie Young an eccentric from a world of eccentrics, and a puzzle to most of her crew mates. Having abandoned hereditary political power and social privilege for the life of an explorer and scientist, she now oversees Polaris’s civilian science staff. She’s served aboard the ship longer than anyone save Fredericks himself and, allowing for required military courtesy, they regard one another as equals and as friends.

Susan Cirrincione

Susan Cirrincione will play Lieutenant Commander January Howard in Polaris.

Susan has combined a career as a model with acting assignments that include television dramas “The Kill Point” and the pilot for “Three Rivers” as well as upcoming features “She’s Out of My League” (Dreamworks) and “Love and Other Drugs” (20th Century Fox). Other recent appearances include national commercials for brands like Mercedes-Benz and participation in the “Visit Pittsburgh” tourism campaign for her home town.

About the character

The outbreak of galactic war a decade ago transformed the loose trade confederacy of the United Worlds into a military alliance with what remains of Earth’s once vast empire. Most officers serving aboard Polaris are either recruits from local planetary fleets or graduates of officer training programs established in the first years of the war.

“Howie” Howard is the exception. A top graduate of the Royal Naval Academy on Meridian and scion of a noted military family, she serves as Polaris’s intelligence officer.

We had quite a productive day at the stage yesterday (Sunday). The parts of the production are beginning to gel.

We’ve constructed just enough of the Command Deck set to begin walking through possible blocking and camera angles for the opening scenes. Alex, our DP, showed me some ways to frame the actors given the various levels and configurations of the set. He discussed where to put the dolly tracks. We talked about lighting with reference to movies like “Crimson Tide” and “The Hunt For Red October.”

Doug, our construction supervisor, set up tools and equipment to do considerably more precise work than I’ve been able to manage with my jigsaw and drill. He also explained to me the difference between bow and crook in lumber (which shows you how unqualified I am to build anything).

Paul (who has to fly this spaceship when it’s completed) and I leveled out the platforming and made a run to the hardware store for carpeting and more construction materials. I guess we’ve now got about 70 percent of the materials that we’re going to need to finish main construction. Then Paul worked his ass off carpeting part of the Command Deck while I walked around waving my arms and talking about the Big Picture - a division of labor which sadly suits my napoleonic proclivities.

And Alex re-introduced me to an electronic props fellow named Carl who in turn introduced us to a whole new dimension to bringing some of the instrumentation on the ship to life.

Saturday I hung out with the Farragut folks (I was gonna say “helped out” but I’m really really working on the “lying” thing) at their “Just Passing Through re-shoot and recruited a few pretty exciting folks to round out our cast as well as another expert prop maker who’s willing to lend us a hand on design and fabrication of a key prop.

My biggest challenge at times like this is to turn my ego down a notch below “11″ and let myself be led by people who know more than I do about everything. I’m surrounded by them right now, and for that I’m grateful.

Jason Lee keeps doing amazing things as he refines the design of our ship. This version adds “hyperspace sails” of which he says:

I decided to try to have the best of both worlds by making the sails transformational. Ordinarily, they are folded back in a standby position like you see in the first sketch, but they can also rotate forward into a “deployed” position, probably when the ship is about to jump into hyperspace.

There are two new renderings of this latest version in our Concept and Design Art Gallery, and you can see more of Jason’s work at Vektor Visual.

This weekend, in addition to getting together with other folks to keep building Polaris on our stage, I’m going to be involved in the shoot for Starship Farragut’s latest short. Hopefully I’ll be a help in some way rather than a nuisance. The Farragut folks have been an enormous help and support to Polaris, and several of the group’s principal members are among our cast and crew. If you haven’t checked out http://www.starshipfarragut.com yet, go do that now.

I’ll wait…

John Broughton (Farragut’s “Captain Jack Carter”) also has his own blog devoted to things Farragut and beyond, at My Captain’s Blog.

As for us, we’ll have another casting announcement early next week, and maybe some more pictures of the sets.

Garrett Melich

Garrett Melich will play the enemy military leader Andros Gaitanis, in the independent science fiction film Polaris for United Worlds Entertainment.

If Garrett looks familiar, you may remember him in the closing scene of the 2007 movie “Rescue Dawn” with Christian Bale and Steve Zahn. Currently, he’s completed work as a Secret Service agent in the comedy “Law and Disorder” (where he also faces off against Polaris cast mate Paul R. Sieber) for Beaver Dam Productions. Garrett has done work as a fight choreographer and heavy in the upcoming Roman Pictures production “Signals” and is slated to play the character of “Grayson” in Roman’s “Time Refugees.”

Garrett will be featured as an FBI investigator (and in a separate segment, as an accomplice in a 1983 murder enactment) in the Investigation Discovery series “Prison Wives.”

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