Every single night I listened to the 'Legend of Zelda 25th Anniversary' soundtrack CD that came with the Skyward Sword 2011 release. It was so easy to get lost visualizing scenes to match the emotions and tones conveyed that I would end up reenacting little battles and speeches for hours. That obsession for The Legend of Zelda quickly paved the road for my most ambitious project to date.

 

I wanted to express this love in some fashion, but I was unsure of what direction to take. Ayana and I toyed with the idea of having it be a stage production, but neither of us had much background in theater and my fourteen-year-old self was too shy to present a playwright to the high school we had freshly entered. That became the grounds for the next idea; make a movie or film series.

     

The thought of creating a live series was exhilarating, especially for something that inspired me to such extent. I went straight to Word and wrote a 'script', but due to my complete lack of experience with filmmaking, not much consideration was given to any other aspects of the pre-production process. (Although this doesn't necessarily fly in the industry, it was a valuable lesson and example to my older self that luckily didn't have to be learned through error. Seriously; just START).

     

I called up Aimee and asked her if she would play the role of Zelda. It was probably the last thing she was expecting, but she agreed, nonetheless. It took a bit of coaxing to get Ayana to agree to play the role of the villain. After much pestering and pleading, she gave in and accepted the role. Another character was needed to make an appearance in future episodes, so Glynis was recruited. Even though her character, Cecili, doesn't appear until the second episode, she was with us in Episode 1 behind the scenes as Ezio from Assassin's Creed.

     

Now that the key characters were covered, it occurred to me that we would need appropriate costumes, and perhaps a recording device or two. It just so happened that my mom, on a whim, picked up an odd mask from the grocery store. That would become Dezerax's mask. She also provided a few more costume pieces from her Narnia closet. My dad and I crafted the master sword and shield from wood which were to be used in future episodes, but they were later replaced with replicas and a LARP sword. My grandmother and I crafted Zelda's dress, then I chopped off most of my hair to better suit the role of Link. Apparently, wearing a wig did not occur to me. 

     

Everything was coming together and soon it was time to shoot the first episode. It was January of 2013 when we started filming and we had to wade through the knee-high snow while simultaneously trying to establish some sort of filming method. We went out with a small purple camera, a Flip camera, what amounted to a script outline, and little to no pants.

 

From what I've been told, everyone was under the impression this would be a weekend project. Seven episodes and six years later is one long weekend if you ask me. 

     

Going back, Episode 2 had to be re-filmed four different times due to scheduling issues, school, or someone getting sick and throwing up on a dead tree that bloomed later that year, which was interesting. When we finally managed to wrap this episode, my family needed to move to Florida for a year. This put a big halt on production, but I switched to homeschool during the hiatus and ran a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo. The funds raised went entirely towards upgraded gear and set materials for when production resumed. Homeschooling also gave me time to edit episode two, re-edit episode one, finish writing all of the scripts, learn my way around the Adobe suite along with the new camera, design and tweak costumes, get required studies out of the way, and come up with a game-plan. 

     

When the fam and I moved back in 2014, the team hit the ground running. We held meetings to review the script, practiced our combat sequences with more choreography, and played around with the fancy new camera. The Episode 3 shoot went exceedingly well and there was admittedly a large boost in the production's quality. Showing no signs of slowing down, we filmed Episode 4 afterwards. This ended up being the only summer we managed to film two entire episodes back to back. It was so much fun painting Aela's Potion Shop in the middle of the night with everyone and constructing Dezerax's dungeon walls out of insulation sheets with a heat gun. Testing our luck, we dipped into the fifth and even sixth episode, although that quickly proved to be a bit too much for one summer.

     

When Episode 5 officially rolled around the next summer, it was difficult to keep the momentum. At that point, everyone had jobs to juggle on top of sacrificing their only recovery time from a hard school year. Tensions rose and some night shoots lasted well beyond midnight, which is not a good mix if you need to go to work at 5am. On the bright side, this worked out for the tense scenes since the exasperation needed was felt naturally. We did ease up on each other once the daytime shoots resumed. It was one of the more difficult summers, but we were able to to turn it around with good results.

     

Enter, summer of blood, sweat, and fear. To kick it off, Ayana suffered pollen allergies and couldn't continue to film because Episode 6 was located in the San Juan National Forest; a.k.a. pollen central. We went ahead and filmed the end of Episode 7 when Ayana was to make her final appearance. With all of her scenes wrapped, she went back home and Raven stepped in to cover the role of Dezerax.

 

It became rather lively between the scouting days and the shooting days. Gunshots regularly echoed in the distance and we constantly had curious onlookers everywhere we went. 

 

At one point, a man suddenly appeared out of the bushes. Without any strange looks given to the weird elf with a sword and shield fighting with a tall masked entity with a black morph suit, he simply told us he was with the Forest Service and advised us to relocate because they were coming through with giant bulldozers to thin out the forest. He then disappeared into the trees.

 

We packed up and circled our site for a week, keeping watch. They still hadn't reached our location, so we decided to just continue until we could actually see them. Aimee and Raven went to investigate how much time we had before they closed in, but instead they came across two bear cubs up the tree they were standing under. The mom was undoubtedly just around the corner, so they booked it back to camp. That was definitely the fastest we ever packed up.

 

When peace returned to the location, we filmed the final episode. This is where the blood began, as two of the sword combat scenes ended in Raven accidentally getting jabbed in the throat with the LARP sword, and me getting stabbed by Dezerax's replica sword just above the eyelid and somehow not in the eye. Raven's accident was far more detrimental, but thankfully she recovered quickly and we powered on.

     

The final episode was originally filmed in 2016, but that version was completely scrapped in 2017 and re-filmed during the summer of 2018 with just Raven, Aimee, and myself. I reworked the script, drew new storyboards, and consulted with Raven on some battle choreography since she had a bit of prior martial arts training. We took a crack at filming with our smartphones, but realized later that half of the footage we shot was in a different resolution due to switching between two phones and failing to double check settings. After a few personal slaps to the wrist, it was time to celebrate a hard-won victory. 

     

 

 

 

 

 

Those six years were an adventure that I would not trade for anything. So much passion, drive, and strength was demanded, and it forged so many beautiful memories I dream of reliving. I am grateful for the chance to make the most out of my late childhood and give something to a dedicated community that I am proud to be a part of.

     

Due to our initial inexperience, the early episodes were fairly rough; but so much was learned over time. Each new episode would be better than the last. I now have a Film B.S. and can't help but see the flaws and improvements needed, but I am also immensely proud of what we accomplished. 

     

I don't think I will ever be able to express the depth of my appreciation for my friends for everything they went through and everything they sacrificed. Similar to the after-credits scene in Episode VII, we have all taken our own paths in life now that the era of 'The Later-Life' has come to an end. Though we are living different stories now, I hope we may come together again soon and experience a new grand slam adventure. 

   

Good luck to fellow aspiring filmmakers and Zelda fans alike. 

 

 

 

Goddess-speed!

      

      

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