UPDATED: Ender’s Game Movie Wraps Filming

Posted on by June 11, 2012

Ender’s Game Film Enters Post-Production

Edit: Updated to include more pictures!

Today is a bittersweet day for Ender’s Game fans. Today was the last day of filming which means that movie has officially entered post-production. We’re one step closer to seeing the movie on the big screen, but it also means that the Jeesh breaking up (for now at least).

Earlier this week on Saturday, the producers hosted a wrap party at the House of Blues in New Orleans. See pictures from the wrap party below.

The young cast sitting around a table

Asa, Aramis and Khylin

Producers Lynn Hendee & Bob Orci (Love them!)

Ender's Game Ice Sculpture

Dragon Ice Sculpture

Many of the cast and crew tweeted their farewells and promises to visit with each other back in Los Angeles (where many of them live). Khylin Rhambo even tweeted this photo; he had the whole background sign his hand.

Khylin had the background sign his hand

Speaking of extras, extra @kelv_harr tweeted this picture of glassware he received, telling us that it was a gift from the production.

Glassware production gift

Suraj received this gift from Conor Carroll.

Gift to Suraj from Conor

And Khylin tweeted this dog tag featuring a Dragon for Dragon Army that may or may not be a gift from someone on set.

Khylin's dragon dog tag

And on a final note, Jimmy Pinchack returned to New Orleans this week for a few short days to film some final scenes. This seems like a logical conclusion to the filming, because it has seemed that the filming has been shot in chronological order. They are growing children after all. You can still follow the cast and crew on Twitter here.

Ender’s Game Production Blog #11

Posted on by June 8, 2012

Costume Design

After a two week hiatus the Official Ender’s Game Production Blog released a new post on costume designer, Christine Bieslin Clark. They dish flash suits (finally!) and how many yards of fabric it takes to make a costume for Sergeant Dap!

” For ENDER’S GAME, we wanted to make a future that looked both functional and logical.  We wanted it to be a future where you can picture yourself in their shoes. […] Christine built the flash suits from virtually non-existent fabrics designed by our incredible production team.  The idea was to take cues from “extreme sports” to inspire our design, using real world practicality as opposed to the heightened reality of superhero spandex and a cape.”

Read whole article here.

Blue Hawk Aviation Featured In Ender’s Game Film Production

Posted on by June 2, 2012

Earlier this month the Blue Hawk Aviation, an aviation service and consulting company, announced they were contributing to the Ender’s Game film production. Though, not much detail is given to what they did for the production there contribution is on strict silence, so we will have to wait until the storm of the premier to find out what they consulted.

The company has also been in works with Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel, which is due in 2013. Any thoughts on what scenes they worked on?

Ender’s World Book: Ask Orson Scott Card

Posted on by May 31, 2012

Q&A with OSC! Ask now!

The people of Smart Pop Books want to ask all you Ender fans out there: “What have you always wanted to know about Ender’s Game?”

The team is gearing up to release Ender’s World, a collection of Ender-related essays edited by Ender’s Game author, Orson Scott Card. Your questions will be answered by Orson Scott Card throughout the book.

“We’ll publish as many answers as we can in the final book, and give you guys some sneak previews this fall/winter leading up to the book release over at our Tumblr.”

You don’t need a Tumblr account to submit you questions, so get on over to the Tumblr here to ask your questions! Ender’s World is due out February 2013 and the deadline to submit your questions is July 1st.

Young Mazer Cast in Ender’s Game Movie

Posted on by June 10, 2012

Confirmed 

You may have heard rumors about an actor cast as a young Mazer Rackham in the Ender’s Game movie, but we finally have an answer. We’ve confirmed with the Ender’s Game PR that a young man has been cast in this role. Meet Kyle Clements. He’s a Louisiana actor who’s been in a number of TV movies like Searching for David’s Heart, Queen Sized and Quantum Apocalypse. You can read more of his credits here.

The addition of a young Mazer means that we’ll get a glimpse of the Second Invasion and maybe even an inside look to what was going on in Mazer’s head during the attacks.

He tweeted this comment earlier:

 

 

 

You can follow him on Twitter @kyle_clements.

The older Mazer Rackham is being played by Sir Ben Kingsley. Do you think he looks like a young Sir Ben? Tell us in the comments! Thanks Darian for the tip! P.S. Have you guys liked us on Facebook yet?

Introducing THE PHILOTIC ANSIBLE Podcast: The First Battle School Engineer

Posted on by May 4, 2013

Interview with Steve Sywak, First Battle School Engineer

We are very pleased to present the first of (we hope) many podcast features resulting from the partnership of The Philotic Web Ender Fan Community, and Ender’s Ansible. Please read the bottom to learn how to subscribe (it’s free).

2010-01-24 22.24.16This, our first, features an interview by Alea (from Philotic Web) with Steve Sywak, one of the original Five Founders of The Philotic Web over a decade ago, and the first ‘official’ Battle School Engineer. His designs, science, and practical explanations of Battle School technology were featured at Orson Scott Card’s EnderCon 2002, an in depth chapter on Battle School technology and design for The Authorized Ender Companion, and are the basis for the designs of the Battle School as seen in the Marvel Comics adaptation of Ender’s Game (see below).

Listen here: Philotic Ansible #001 – The First Battle School Engineer (mp3, 30:33 – Right Click to Save)

 

In this insightful podcast, recorded a few months ago, Steve explains his history, background, and experience, such as being lead mechanical engineer for the Cirque Du Soleil show Ka, which, according to Steve, featured the best, and closest approximation to live Zero G Battle sequences he could have imagined. (After listening to his description of the “battle belts” Steve engineered for Ka, you might re-visit OSC’s set visit, and description of the Zero G fight system being used in the film!)

NOTE: While Steve has worked with OSC on developing this material for the Ender fan community for over a decade, as far as we are aware, his visual designs have not been utilized by Summit Entertainment for their film version of the Battle School (Much to Steve’s great disappointment). Thus, what you see below most likely has no connection with the film’s version of the Battle School.

Images below present Steve’s engineering work and design, as realized by Darian Robbins, Marvel Comics, and himself!

Darians_BattleschoolBattleSchool

Click to subscribe (it’s free):

Ender’s Game Production Blog #10

Posted on by May 25, 2012

I.F. Logo! Bean’s Role! Time! And More!

if_logo

New Production Blog, with some more fantastic fan-submitted questions, and a fascinating picture! Here’s three of my favorite below – go to the Ender’s Game Production Blog right now to see the rest!

Joey Oliver asks:

How much of Bean’s story will we be hearing about?

Bean who?  Oh, Bean!  You should know how much Orson Scott Card advocated for as much Bean as we could muster, and really encouraged ways to make him pivotal.  You’ll decide if we succeeded!  I think we did. And we’re even more excited for you all to experience Aramis Knight’s fantastic portrayal of Bean.

Katrina asks:

How has the book been adapted to script to work with the ages of the actors?

Time has been compressed impressionistically.  Though we don’t specify how much time has passed, leaving it somewhat up to your imagination, it is clear that the time span is not as long as the book’s.

Sarah Pezzat asks:

Is it still about using empathy as a weapon?

One of the great themes that is explored, in more ways than one, is how empathy can be seen as a weakness or a strength. How understanding an enemy makes you also understand their weaknesses.  And even how withholding empathy can also be a weapon.  The fact that the audience is going to want nothing more than for commanders to show these young people warmth and understanding, but that it has to be weighed against the fear of it being not in the young soldiers best interests in order for them to do what they have to do, makes for fascinating stuff.

Oh, and what are your thoughts on the newly revealed International Fleet logo design?

Opinion: We Want to Be Teased

Posted on by May 26, 2012

This week, a few major sci-fi and geek websites posted articles with an Ender’s Game movie teaser poster and some concept art. Ultimately it proved to be fan made, but it got me thinking. When the posters and trailers do arrive, what do I want to see?

Teaser posters kind of take care of themselves, just type teaser poster into Google Images and you’ll see a few examples, you can probably spot one of the teasers for another Gavin Hood movie in that selection. The point being, the normal industry standard does a good job with teaser posters and posters in general, whetting the appetites of the fans.

Well now on to the real deal, our first look at some movie footage – the teaser trailer. So I reckon we have a minute at most, remember it’s a teaser and we don’t want to see too much plot at this point. So how does this sound? The first few frames of Earth burning after the 1st Formic attack, overlay this with text (or voice) to this effect “after a devastating interstellar attack the IF is tasked with the defence of our world”. Then we can see some shots of the fleet and perhaps the battle school space station. Then more words, “One boy is destined to lead, humanities best chance” Then cut to Ender walking from behind (similar to the picture released of his monitor), and finish with “Our fate, his training is… Ender’s Game.” Flash the release date and we are done – Boom!! Opps, I didn’t intend to be so specific, but that is my vision of a teaser trailer, what do you think?

Now don’t worry I’m not going to go into as much detail about what I expect from the other trailers and TV spots, but I will say a few things that I do consider vital, to avoid anything being spoiled for me (a massive fan) or for those less familiar with Ender’s Game. It should be okay to show anything from what I imagine in the first twenty minutes, you can imagine – Ender leaving his family, traveling to battle school and meeting the other battle school students… but perhaps not the fight with Stilson. The next thing is a MUST. Please do not show any of the battle room sequences, these were some of my favourite parts of the book and I am mega excited to see them on the big screen. These scenes should be epic and I am looking forward to them smashing into me on opening night, also what an awesome surprise they would be for someone who hasn’t read the book. Wow. That’s the kind of thing people will be talking about after seeing the movie, telling friends  “you must see this” that doesn’t happen if it’s already been seen in the trailer. Lastly don’t hint at the twist by saying something like this is the last fight, or final battle, remember it’s a “game;” maintain this illusion. I know Ender’s Game fans wont spoil this twist for people who don’t know the storyline. Keep this in mind and the promotion will be top-notch, and the film can blow us away.

So that’s what I think, but I’m just one guy, what do you want to see, or not see as it may be… you know me by now, comments are welcome below.

 

My Visit to the Ender’s Game Movie Set

Posted on by May 4, 2013

Did you know they eat alligator in Louisiana? 

My visit to the Ender’s Game movie set on Tuesday May 22 was a mind-blowing all-day experience. It was great meeting everyone on set and from the press- especially Kelly from Ender News, Crystal from EnderWiggin.Net, Erin from Ender’s Game Fansite, and Katie from J14 Magazine. I love you girls. A special shout out to the people on set who said that they read our articles everyday, hi and thank you!

I still can’t believe I was encouraged to see, touch and ask everything and anything. If I didn’t have my press badge I’d think it was a crazy dream. The missed work, delayed flights, sore feet, and jet lag was worth it. Sincerely, thank you everyone who made this set visit possible (especially Ryan)!

I have roughly 5 hours of audio and 50 pages of handwritten notes that need to be converted into something readable. When I finish and I’m allowed to tell my readers wonderful things I promise you guys the longest post ever. Until then I agree with Kelly; I already spent time in their time-out-room and I don’t want to go back (haha).

I will say this: In my personal opinion, nothing I learned from my visit to the Ender’s Game set is going to ruin this movie. Quit worrying about Gavin Hood (you guys should be cheering the fact that we have such an amazing director), or who was cast to play certain roles, or if this is going to be an accurate portrayal of the book. The Ender’s Game movie is going to be successful in the hearts of fans, and timeless.

Read what the others had to say about the set visit:
EnderWiggin.net
EndersGameFansite.com
EnderNews.com 

Ender’s Game Concept Art? And exciting things to come… [ UPDATED ]

Posted on by May 23, 2012

UPDATE: From Summit PR, regarding the below post:

These are NOT from the film. The Ben Proctor image was a personal sketch that was done years ago, before he was ever affiliated with the ENDER’S GAME production. It was his own fan art and not something that is or ever was a piece of concept art for the film. You’ll note that Ben is taking this down from his personal site, but it’s only to ward off further confusion. The David Levy image is also not a piece of concept art from the film. This is actually from a video game project he worked on years ago.

So while great examples of the high quality talent working on the film, they are not, repeat NOT official production art from the film.

****

Over at his fantastic  Art of Darian blog, Darian Robbins has presented artwork he has found that may have a visual relationship to what we see in the Ender’s Game film. The first piece comes from one of the Ender’s Game Production designers, and is specifically listed as ‘Sketch of a scene from the classic scifi novel ‘Ender’s Game’, and looks to be the Command School simulator. [Created as Fan Art by Ben Proctor, before he was affiliated with the Ender’s Game film.]

enderssketching_spacecommandsimulationdeck_bp090520

The other is a corridor scene from the senior concept artist from the movie [As per the update, this was from a design for a Video Game. Not Ender’s Game].  Darian takes that shot, and compares it with one of the Ender Production Blog shots, for some interesting results!

See the other image and all of the rest of the information over at Darian’s blog. What do you think of the style?

P.S. – In other news, observers of Twitter may have noticed that Our Dear Webmaster was on the Ender’s Game movie set today with other Ender fansite webmasters (such as from EnderWiggin.net and EnderNews.com) for a slick press conference. Her lips are currently sealed with details as per an agreement with Summit Entertainment. But be sure that as soon as she is legally allowed, there’ll be some fun stuff coming up. Keep watching!