"Ten": The Cast

So it's about time you've met the cast of my little film, so here they are:

The cast has gone through a number of changes, but this is basically whom I'll be working with. Starting on the left hand side, we have the two outfits of our hero: Standard uniform and Spacesuit. Next we have two of his assistants. Then we have the Administrator, for lack of a better authority figure name. Suffice to say that he's the hero's boss. The next four are the red shirts (or should I say red helmets) that serves as the bad guy's henchmen. The minifig with a wheel rim for a head will be the bad guy's requisite robot. And finally, on the far right end, is Mr. Bad Guy himself.

Some notes on the figs themselves: The torsos range all across the board in terms of LEGO themes. Both of the hero's outfits are from Star Wars sets. The assistants are from Power Miners. The Administrator's suit is from Batman. The henchmen and the robot all hail from a 2004 series called "Alpha Team". And, finally, Mr. Bad Guy himself has a torso that hails waaaaaay back to 1994 with the "Ice Planet" series.

So, enough of the LEGO geek lingo; what are the film making issues with this lot? First off, the original heads that I was going to use were the traditional yellow. It was only when I did my color test and found that the yellow blended too well with the red helmets that I decided to go with flesh colored instead. This wasn't easy as I didn't have a lot of those to work with. Most are from Star Wars, Batman and the very recently purchased Prince of Persia palace set (that's Jake Gyllenhaal's head as the hero).

Another decision I made with the heads was to only use those with pupils. I wanted to get away from the dead-eyed stare of the original LEGO smiley faces, and that eliminated some of the Star Wars flesh heads right off the bat (damned disposable rebel troops). As it stands, I think I'm happy with the heads I have chosen and will probably not have to order more... but that could always change.

That being said, I can't say that I'm entirely happy with the contrast between heads and helmets. It's better than it was, but it's still a little too close. With his white space suit, the hero should be fine, but I may find myself buying extra black helmets for the baddies to better contrast with the faces and also set them strikingly apart from the hero during the fight sequences.

One final detail: As a sacrifice for the sake of film making, I will be slightly hollowing out the hero's head some time soon. This is so I can turn his head easily when performing the stop motion shots.

I just hope Jake doesn't mind.

Next week: The Store