In June of 2011,  coal-silvermuzzle, then chair of  VancouFur, approached me to create a promotional video for British Columbia’s first furry convention. That video, The Official VancouFur Promotional Video, debuted on YouTube later that December. In January, it preceded the variety show at Further Confusion, and I am told that it held the audience’s attention long enough to be talked about even after FC: Unleashed.

Flash forward to the eve of VancouFur: March 2012. Through Coal, I was put in touch with  Trapa, who is on staff at Rainfurrest, the largest furry convention in the pacific northwest. Would I create another promotional video, this time for Rainfurrest? Wanting to try my paw at a more story-based video this time, I said Yes. No restrictions were given to me, other than that the video had to promote the convention and play up to its theme for the year: Warehouse Furteen.

Warehouse Furteen was inspired by Warehouse 13, a science fiction series airing on the SyFy network. The series resolves around a secret government organization in charge of locating, collecting and storing historical artifacts that are possessed of the powers of their original owners. These artifacts are located and retrieved by a group of extra special agents, who deduce the nature of the artifacts’ abilities before neutralizing and storing them inside of a magnificent clandestine warehouse. (Or, to put it another way, imagine a series created about that warehouse in the last shot of Raiders of the Lost Ark .) Warehouse 13 is the thirteenth such incarnation of this location, which has existed throughout history. If the artifacts inside of it are ever unleashed upon the planet, they can bring about the destruction of the world.

All of this I would need to learn over the coming months because, at the time I was given the assignment, I had never watched a single episode and the series did not air on Canadian television. I therefore needed a partner in crime who knew the series inside and out.  babycheetah, my collaborator on the VancouFur promo, was equally as mystified and would be preoccupied for the duration of the project prior to shooting, owing to the demands of his employer (whose name rhymed with Even Steelderg). This lead me to  professor_whovianart, steampunk furry and collector of everything under the sun (and quite a few things only to be found in the shade). Through him, I was able to watch the entirety of the Warehouse 13 series. But the Professor had one additional surprise: he had his own warehouse full of artifacts. Shortly after VancouFur, I found myself walking through a storage unit crammed to the ceiling with literally hundreds (if not thousands) of cumulative years of history. We had the contents of Warehouse Furteen.

Now we needed a story. Our script had to align with the series and so sought to include as many elements as possible without infringing on copyright or tangenting into outright theft. If anything, we wanted to produce a loving homage that would be appreciated by anyone connected with the series. After a number of false starts, we mutually agreed that the overall tone of the episode had to remain positive. No artifact could induce harm upon the characters, nor could the person using the artifact be doing so for harmful purposes. If anything, the effects of the artifact had to be silly, and the person using it unaware that they were doing so. It was the Professor who then synthesized several possible story threads into the outline from which all subsequent drafts would follow.

From the beginning, it was also paramount that the city of Seattle be its own character in the video. This would prove challenging because we were in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and there was no way we could actually film the promo in Seattle. The logistics of transporting all of our equipment across the Canada/United States border were insurmountable. We had been told that the border guards, if they had discovered that we were creating a video for Rainfurrest (even voluntary), would have denied us entry (as we would be taking away the jobs from U.S. citizens). This meant that—in the great tradition of Vancouver-made films—Vancouver would stand in yet again for a city other than itself.

With this in mind, we sought to include as much Seattle flavor in the video as possible to at least create the impression that it was shot there. In April,  Whitefoot traveled down to Seattle’s Sakura-Con with the Professor to take second unit still photographs of the city. Equally as important would be the casting of Seattle-area Furries, who would provide local color and character (and NAMES that we could attach to the project). Through Furlife, we held a casting call, and in the end Michael J. Fox and  kijani_lion stepped in, graciously giving up two days of their time and making the long trek up to VancouFur to play our recruit and Warehouse agent respectively.

Meanwhile, we were building our warehouse. This was materializing inside an unused 10x30 storage locker kindly donated by Gizmo, who runs a local storage yard (which you may have seen featured in Storage Wars: Furry Edition). Over a period of two months, sometimes working eight hours a day without breaks, we painted four walls black, built four three-tiered shelves (without the aid of power tools), and transported truckloads of the Professor’s artifacts across town. The Professor then sorted the artifacts into groups for where each one would be located inside the set. Unfortunately, the storage locker’s door was broken; it would not close all of the way and lock. As a consequence, we could not dress the set until right before the actual shoot. Only on the first day of shooting did I finally walk into the completed Warehouse Furteen and my heart soared. I wanted to cry. It was the Professor’s design; his baby; his dream magnificently realized. When we had to disassemble everything a few days later, I wanted to shout, “Computer, save program!”

At last, after two months of planning, on Friday, May 25, production rolled on the Rainfurrest Promotional Video. The first scene to be completed was the first scene in the video, in which Michael J. Fox receives his invitation to join Warehouse Furteen (delivered inside of an envelope with a logo designed by the Professor). But the second scene, shot later that evening, is the final scene of the video, which takes place at the warehouse. This scene featured  captain-buck-rabbit in his debut as the Warehouse Director, and  rainrat as Rattie, the resident Pack Rat.  akariku and  wereman were good enough to step into the lonely role of Production Assistants, and Whitefoot would be on hand both days to take behind the scenes photographs, many of which are now displayed on his account. It took about four hours to shoot inside the Warehouse. Since the storage unit was quite dim, we clamped several lights onto tripods and the tops of shelves, and used additional reflectors as bounce boards. To decrease the amount of time necessary for moving between different setups, nothing was shot in sequence. Every time we got one shot locked, the camera then had to be reposition, and the lighting adjusted accordingly to maintain consistency.

The next day, Saturday May 26, would be comprised of shooting our park scenes, which take up the middle part of the video. For these sequences, our goal had been to depict a world of both Furries and Humans living together in peaceful coexistence. With this in mind, we had posted open calls for extras on both Furlife and BC Furries. As it turned out, we had only one non-suiter show up, so that idea was scrapped (although the parade of curious onlookers who make up the background of these scenes would more than suffice). The suiters included Kitten as Purpleski (the Drawing Furry);  nitroshep as the Affected Furry; and  sairyswolf—with (all of them wearing RainRat’s fursuits) “Wereman (Heliodor), Professor Whovianart (Jacky) and RainRat (Bandit)—all portraying his friends. In a lovely surprise,  dano6001/Duffy came all the day down from Penticton to take part in the video. We were also fortunate enough to have  renwaldo and  unoOtter as Production Assistants. All of our PAs were to prove invaluable during the shoot. Every time we changed locations, we had to coordinate the movement of lights, camera, tripods, fursuits, props, and vehicles, which then had to be positioned and repositioned for each camera setup. The time that it took to prepare for and execute each scene and shot was severely diminished thanks to those people whom we had on set.

The shoot itself on Saturday lasted for about five hours. It would have been longer if I had not toned down the complexity of those scenes. For example, the first shot of Purpleski was actually supposed to be the ending point of a much longer mis-en-scene, which would have begun on a picnicking Furry couple before pulling back and panning across the park—a bicyclist rolling past—before landing on Purpleski. This was scrapped when it became apparent that we did not have enough time and patience to choreography the motion of characters. Instead, I grabbed an air-filled soccer ball and told the Furries to play with it. We had also planned to have the van (“The Whomobile,” since it belongs to Professor Whovianart) driving through the park in the background, but, due to a nearby event, the parking lot pulled up quickly. Instead, we simply told Kijani to release the parking break and the van was pushed the last few feet into its spot. The day also turned out to be especially warm, which meant giving our suiters a break as frequently as possible while trying to get through our scenes with all due expediency. Poor Kitten ended up sitting in direct sunlight as Purpleski long enough to be thoroughly baked. And after two days of carrying around his camera, on top of which he had positioned a large monitor, Kheetah’s arms were worn out.

With production wrapped, post-production began. Kheetah had shot all of the scenes on the Kheetah Cam and he took the resulting footage back to his non-linear editing suite to begin piecing the scenes together. Over the next few weeks, he would send me rough cuts through ftp. I would then return notes requesting changes. Back and forth we went until the picture was locked in early July. He then set about colour correcting each shot. Although unrequested, also he went out of his way to add little graphical flourished to specific shots.

The soundtrack also had to be reconstructed from scratch. We had made the decision early on to shoot silent and subtitle all of the dialogue. This was for three reasons. First, by using subtitles we were afforded the breath of making changes to the script right up until the last minute. Secondly, it would avoid potential location audio issues, such as having our suiters speak, and the fact that our warehouse set was located right next to the Trans Canada Freeway. Thirdly, I was able to call out directions during the shoot without fear of my voice bleeding into the finished print. Fortunately, Kheetah and myself had six thousand sound effect, which were added to appropriate points in the video.  akonite, our most famous local Furry Dj and the current chair of VancouFur, accepted a commission to score the video and plunged through computer issues to get it done.

Now you see the finished product before you. This would not have been possible without so many people whose generosity in resources and time went above and beyond the call of duty. Thanks to all of our combined efforts, we have made Warehouse Furteen a reality. And now that you know the story behind Warehouse Furteen, why not head on over to www.rainfurrest.org and check out the convention for which it is advertising: Rainfurrest 2012.