And here are the actors!

 This is Alexia Van Den Bosch, playing Fanny. She's adorable.

 Here's Jake Dowling as Jack. I actually got the suspenders in the wrong size and we were trying to make `em work. Alas, young Mulvey had to do without. He ended up looking perfect for the part!

 And here's the two of them on the set. (Our bed.) In reality, there'd be a lot of shadows everywhere but I wanted to make sure everyone was visible. The lighting situation was perfect as we just used the overhead can lights which evened everything out. When this gets edited and finaled, it will probably be darker.

 Here's another view. My bedroom just wasn't that large. If I had a bigger budget, we'd be doing this in a huge room with a huge fireplace, but on a shoestring we had to make due with some flickering Ikea torches and a lot of imagination.

 Jake wanted a funny picture towards the end of the day.

Everyone was getting tired by 4:30. I like this picture because everyone looks exhausted. Or bored. That's Karen in the back, there. I don't actually have any good pictures of her- Her eyes were closed in every picture but this one.

Props for the shoot!

Here's my spread Friday night. Blimp/spaceship- mostly done. Book? Not even started.

Here's some of the props in their "native" environment. Mad scientist blocks, a toy fishing boat I picked up last May in Greece, a Primer and a Battledore from the eighteen thirties... Once the kids were added, it started looking crowded!

This is the book that has young Mulvey entranced at age eight- the thing that is going to inspire him for the rest of his life. I made it out of cardboard. What's really cool is that Jules Verne mentions a bunch of scholars, priests and writers that wrote about travels to the Moon and back before anyone really applied science to the problem. I used illustrations from Cyrano de Bergeracs story about the Moon, Edgar Allen Poe's tale of moon travel and a score of others. The results were pretty amazing.

I'm not sure if they even had a book like this in 1851.

This is the rocket ship that Fanny found so inspiring. 5$ bird house from Michaels, with a bunch of rivets to add a little foreshadowing.

This lantern was made from CB2's gear candle holder. We found these cheap wall sconces at Lowe's, pulled out the wiring and hot glued the gear onto it. Then we added the glass cups. Wow. Too bad you can't really see them in the shoot.

And here's the final blimp toy. Since the birdhouses were pretty cheap, I bought a damaged one as well. I ripped off the nose, sanded a part of the rim down so it could lock on to the back and then I made the gondola out of some thin wood sidings, balsa accents, wagon wheels I found at Kit Craft and rivets. Lots and lots of the little buggers.

The shoot worked out great!

Having never worked with kids before, it was pretty challenging... Especially near the end as both eight year olds were rapidly approaching their tolerance levels as the last shots were being recorded.

Nevertheless, they were awesome. It was a fun day and for all that, I'm glad it's over.

I'm snookered.

I'll post pictures and whatnot as I get them!

Rehearsals went well...

Everyone arrived about 10:15. It took a little while for the kids shyness to wear off, but after a while the performances we were getting were great. Cut some stuff out of the dialogue (haha silent film) to make it easier on them, and got some great ideas for some camera angles.

The props turned out really well, although I over-engineered the book so it wouldn't fall apart and now it doesn't open all the way. *sigh*

Have plenty of duct tape to mount the tripod to the ladder, though!

This is fun!

We'll start shooting after lunch. Everyone is on break now.

One more day until the shoot!

Been driving about like a madman getting stuff we need.

Props are done, except for Mulveys Moon Book. I found tons of great pre Civil War era illustrations of the moon and its creatures which Mulvey leafs through before he disassembles his blimp. Which looks awesome, BTW.

Tomorrow we prep the room for shooting, I need to get the picture of the president printed and finish off the book. Then we'll be ready!

Huzzah!