MULTIPASS

Many have seen the closing ceremony of EUROFURENCE 28 as Cheetah has presented something sticky on his shirt with the name MULTIPASS – but lets rewind the whole story of it before this “once in a live time”- moment for a fox happened.

It all began as a very good friend Aeverus Black came up with a simple idea of “Maybe we can have our own roomkeys this year” to me and the name “Multipass” for us Daily Eurofurence photographers. I was always a huge fan of the Fifth Element movie – what a masterpiece of filmmaking! So I did what I usually do when I am hooked – I start to dig as deep as a fox can dig with its tiny paws. But because all original Footage was too blurry to see any small prints on the original design, I had to design a new Multipass-card and while I was doing this, I also came up with the stupid idea “Hey, how about we gonna turn this into a Movie?! Ocean11 X the Fifth Element, that shall be shown at the closing between some other videos?!” At this point, Aeverus had no idea what I was actually aiming – so he created a small Telegram-group and we start to getting a team together.

The Idea:

I was shortly making a rough script: You came in late at the hotel, check in with the ONE card that just minutes later will be also used as your room key. Next day you are attending to the CCH, passing by the huge que to load up your fursuit badges on this ONE card, which leads you to the stafflounge that ends up in the Raddisson sky-bar where you pay with it. 3D Card, funneh associating scenes as comic relief, black, outro – done..

After a small research for some fitting soundtracks I also start working on the story and the look of the scenes. I choose the Intercity as the perfect set for the check in, cause the entrance to the counter is straight and you don’t have to deal with to many camera-axis around a corner. Since we have a limited time for all, it was supposed to be as efficient as possible. The roomkey-scene was suposed to play in the same hotel – also a planned droneflight to the CCH across the park by following Aeverus on his scooter. The rest was planned to be shoot at the CCH and the Raddisson.

The boys

Meanwhile the crew was fast build:
Jekyllfox as our camera fox. Aeverus Black for as speaker and side-role with his scooter. Sheppy for the counter at the hotel and EF-reg and caretaker for the cards. Merv as our security. I was writing the script, managing the crew, directing all scenes (in fursuit), acted as main caracter, designed the custumes/ items and cards, worked in the cut and post. Matt Husky came up later with his increddible amazing voice.

I came up with the idea of getting a Zootopia-crossover into this short film as well by having a Nick Wilde cameo in the background as a running gag. Since a new trailer was leaked from the C23, I also started to adapting the design from this trailer for real clothes. And this is how Shirefox came part of the crew as well and thats why he was wearing that dress mostly at the convention. He was the one who found a tie that I was able to paint. For this trailer, I hand-painted a tie and a fisherman’s hat in the design of the latest trailer (one tie is still available in my shop).

Pictures of closing by Merenek

And then came the convention and everything came out different. The room keys couldn’t be copied and the dummy Multipass cards where heavily delayed by 2 days. The original plan was to roll the first takes on Tuesday night – but it was Thursday as the Multipass cards where finally printed at 03:20 in the morning. During the lack of time, we overprinted our room keys with it to make it run for the film. And it was also on Thursday evening as we finally came together to start filming. It was hard for me to manage my booth while also managing the crew with different duty-times, because most of them are working in different staff positions. I almost lost my mind.

Next day, next problems:

One of our scenes was playing at the sky-bar. But it turned out, too crowded, and the bar itself was really tiny + no one from the bar-crew wanted to be in the movie too. So I had to improvice and also act as a bartender with my own shaker for just a few scenes. And because of the new roomkey, we had to change the location for rolling the “room-key-opener” scene which was a new set with a not planned floorplan and had to be improvised too. For my self – I often changed up to 5 times a day my outfit for it – also showered that many times.

One day or two?

And then it was Friday night. After I returned from Fons’ concert, I finished going trough my pictures for the day, the daily was also done with their layout and didnt needed my paws this evening. I finally started to cut the scenes together close after midnight. Meanwhile Aeverus, Shirefiox and Mad Husky still worked on the voice-over and foleys for the last scenes I also filmed between 1:30 and 2:30 in the morning. And then It was all on me to cut it all together to a trailer in panavision for the closing. Used photoshop, Affinity designer, premiere and after effects on my small surface pro 6!

It was a beautiful sunrise as I finished it at 08:15 but didn’t went to bed. I prepared some pictures for the closing and went to my room to get a shower, a nice breakfast and to greet 2 of my best friends for just a few hours at the CCH – showing them a bit the crazy convention. before I had to head into my dealers den booth again for the last day – try to sell some shirts.

It was then time for the closing – I paused the tear-down and walked into the closing to watch it. at this point, only 2 working braincells where left – all the rest where already off the grid during the long day…  And it was the moment, Cheetah himself mention the Multipass I also have made for him, one of the two brain-cells went into “stand by”. But as he announced the trailer in a big way I didn’t even asked for, both remaining braincells and so all my hopes of getting not completely crazy where gone.  TILT

Conclusion:

The trailer came in good. The audience was amused, the last 3 scenes could be better, but told the story the right way as it was planned. The stress relief after the show was as big as the fun and joy to produce this small film. (I can tell, it was huge!) Me directing the scenes was something I have learned, but never done like this before. And I’m glad, that my talented camerafox JeckyllFox didn’t killed me. Also many many thankies to all who have made it possible and supported this fun-project.

And the multipass?
The Multipass was a funny idea we just lifted it into the next level by mixing some genres together. It was – exept for the function as roomkey of course – never real and just a lot of ‘stupid bullshit’ of an underpayed arctic fox with a little bit too much creativity. But sometimes you need such a thing we called “Schnapsidee” to developt something better. And who knows what we all will get at the end?

Maybe this is just the beginning of a gamechanger for furconventions? Maybe there will be a real multipass in the future? Maybe this will help reducing waitinglines? Maybe one day, Hotels will work with us together and this will be used as “all access” during the convention? Or you can load up things like money?

Time will tell.

Yerf! :3