So, it’s bitterly cold and you’re in an Anglo Saxon village filled with a bunch of Orcs. What do you do? Well I guess most people would run for the hills but this just happened to be the set of the new film, Born of Hope. Born of Hope is a Lord of the Rings inspired, non commercial film being directed by Kate Madison. It’s on a truly tiny budget but from what I’ve seen it looks amazing and I can’t wait to see the final film.

Anyway, back to the Orcs… While not needed on set I decided to shoot a few ‘alternative’ shots from the main feature. My idea was simple, what would an average Orc do in day to day life? Well firstly I reckon they would make pretty awesome poker players so with the help of some of the cast I set about creating an Orc poker game.

This was no easy feat. I chose to use one of the buildings on the set at West Stow Anglo Saxon Village (a recreation of a real village discovered during an archaeological dig). The first challenge was to create the scene. The building unfortunately didn’t contain a table so the table you see them playing on is actually the fireplace. I managed to firm down the ash just enough to make it look like a sensible playing surface. The chairs are two three legged stools and a clay jar, again we kind of had to improvise there…The rest was just props we could find, I scattered swords over the table thinking that any self respecting Orc engaging in a game of poker would likely want to have his weapon close at all times…

Lighting, well I wanted that to be dramatic with nice fall off into the shadows. As such I used an SB900 in a white shoot through umbrella high camera right as main. It was choked up to make the light slightly harsher. Camera left is a low silver umbrella about 3 stops below the main.

All in all I think it works quite well and I really love the final result.

More from the shoot after the jump…

After the fun I settled down to doing some work. During the film Orcs raid a village, while the parents fight, the children hide inside. This was lit by a single SB900 inside the hut with a 1/2 CTO gel. I then under exposed the ambient by about 2 stops for the Orc looming outside.

I suppose I really should show you a couple of shots from the action. Let me introduce Arathorn (Christopher Dane) fighting Gorganog (Lewis Penfold).

And finally one more Orc life portrait. In the camp there happened to be a hut with a bed. Well yes you guessed it, with my twisted sense of humour I thought it would be cool to have an Orc sitting on the end of his bed.

Again here I went for quite moody lighting. Key is from a choked up white shoot through high camera left. I added another ungelled flash behind to give a little rim light, really adding depth to the photo. People might think I’m crazy but I like it!

Well next weekend promises to be a mad photo weekend. If I get time though I might head back on Sunday. If so expect more craziness to ensue.

EDIT: If you like this, you might want to check out Part II, Orc Airborne

Alex