A late post I know, but I spent a wonderful weekend drinking, socialising and generally keeping away from the computer. Now that that’s over, I’ll be getting back to dealing with the growing pile of work thats filling my plate.

But to recap, we didn’t win 48. Not nationally anyway, it was a long shot, but damn was it fun. I had a bit to drink, but still very much enjoyed the whole night and the show that was put together for the finals. Lots of great films on display and I await the DVD to rewatch them all. Our film seems to have been a small topic of debate on the 48 forums, there’s actually been a lot of flak flying around over the choice of winners, the direction of the competition and blah, blah, blah. This seems to happen every year, but this year in particular it seems to have spawned a lot of debate. In our particular film, when actually mentioned (which isn’t much really), people either loved it and thought it was a top contender, while others hated it and thought it was a cheap piece of crap and either way, I don’t really care. It’s good to have made a film that got a reaction and you can’t please everybody and from reading more and more of the forums that don’t stop getting posts and replies, it sure is the case.

I haven’t gotten around to uploading our film online yet as I seem to have run into a few compression issues, but it’ll be sorted out by the end of the week hopefully. In the meantime, you can view it on the C4 website and vote for us in the audience award, though I think there’s only a day left on that. Man do I leave things late. Ah well. Check it and all the other finalists over at https://www.c4tv.co.nz

Just over four hours to go. Just found a nice write up in the Herald about the finals tonight, plus Peter Jackson has finally announced his wildcard picks, none from the Tron unfortunately, but both I’ve heard quite a bit about on the 48 forums, so this’ll be fun and interesting. Our description was…

Sum of All Parts
Horror, by Guerrilla Monkeys (Hamilton)

Unnerving serial killer nasty which casts Kerry Post as a psycho nerd with a thing for dismembering his women victims, its grimness offset by an amusingly eccentric soundtrack and Ross MacLeod’s impressive lead performance.

So cool we got a mention on the soundtrack and Ross’ performance. Awesomeness. The full article can be read here.

Think it’s time for me to get off the computer, tidy up a bit and get ready for tonight.

Bored, but the Hellboy campaign entertains me greatly. Here he is on Inside The Actor’s Studio.

Awesome.

Quite possibly the greatest lightbulb commercial ever, if not the greatest ad ever.

This seems to have been a good week of catching up with people I’ve not seen in a really long time. Or at least heard of in a long time. Even briefly chatted to old friend Malcolm who’ll be getting married in a couple of weeks over in Germany. Wish I was there for it, best of luck to the both of them.

Meanwhile it looks like I’ve kicked off the most of this flu, which is good and there’s now less than 24 hours to go till the 48 finals are played and the winners are announced. How am I feeling? Relaxed for now, like many others I’m just putting it in the back of my mind for now and trying not to think about it. Might be harder tomorrow evening, but that’s where liquor comes and saves the day. Thanks booze. I’d marry you if it weren’t illegal.

I even got brief word from a friend in Auckland who had coffee recently with the Auckland winners. If I remember correctly, they were also quite surprised at their win, trying not to think much about it and generally feeling pretty much the same as me. I wonder if that’s what it’s like for all the regional finalists.

Anyway, today has been a day of cleaning and organising, though not very well having already watched all of the first season of Entourage today, which is very good fun. It’s amazing how much crap I had piled up in my desk drawer, but the more daunting task is my computer which is almost full again and will require hours of sorting and burning just to clear up over 1 terabyte of music, movies, film projects and other random junk I keep accumulating without sorting. Can’t wait.

Wow, I just spent a whole paragraph describing the act of cleaning. Were you excited? I was on the edge of my seat. Here a Tom Waits press conference to make up for it.

Now announcing it here first, the 48 Hours competition national finals screening for Hamilton will be at the Academy of Performing Arts, top lounge, this Thursday from 8pm onwards. The actual screening is on C4 at 8.30pm (til 10.30pm) if you can’t make it to the actual thing, else, see you there.

Mammoth magazine interview with me regarding our 48 Hour film and the finals is now out. Did the interview late last night, or early this morning via the sensual Matt Scheurich, where we had a general gander on the film and general stuff and he pretty much printed it as I said, which made for a more ‘personal’ interview and hopefully one not too offensive or weird. Pick up a local copy now or check it online here.

Meanwhile, I’m still recovering from this annoying as fuck flu that just wont go away. It’s not crippling and I’m not bed ridden, but it’s dropped my energy levels and everytime I think it’s going away, it comes back, throws up a banner, blows some really annoying loud whistles and then kicks me in the nuts for good measure. Doesn’t help I haven’t actually been resting much or drinking over the weekend, but hey… I got nothing. Almost nothing. Bought several seasons of Arrested Development, the Neverwhere TV series (score!) and the Tarkovsky box set which is pure awesome and will provide lots of good viewing when I get the time to.

Several film projects coming up, and quite a few that need finishing as well, but that’s for a later post. In the meantime, here’s Michel Gondry following up solving a rubiks cube with his feet, with solving it with his nose.

God I love him. Oh, and just to end on a hilariously gross note… Clitter!

Forgot to mention the other day that on Wednesday night there was the most insane of thunderstorms happening overnight. About 1500 lighting strikes over the Waikato and 20000 all together around New Zealand over a 24 hour period. Total madness and pure awesome.

That night I just opened my curtains, sat with a whiskey listening to some Phillip Glass and watching some of the most intense rain and lighting I’ve seen in a long time. Really amazing time to be had.

Anyway, several videos to post and that’s about it…

Amazing video of these people doing something called the pikapika project or something. It’s in Japanese so I’m not too sure, but this video is awesome (if you don’t pay too much attention to the music).

Hilarity in the form of some guy doing 500 impressions in 2 minutes. Must watch to get the greatness of the gag.

And finally, the awesomeness of Hellboy 2 continues in this brief clip full of slapstick fun and no giant red guy is above sweet slapstick fun. Can’t wait. Video here.

So it turns out I’ve been generally sick most of this week, which would explain why I’ve been sleeping ridiculously long hours all week, the headaches, the sore throats and not doing most of the things I thought I’d be up and able to do. Strange I didn’t really put two and two together properly like that. It’s also part of the reason I’ve not blogged as often as usual recently, so here’s a beach whale to make up for it…

Monday night I got a phone call and it was nothing but Arnold Schwarzenegger quotes along with some Samuel L Jackson one-liners. This went on for about 20 minutes I’d say something and then something from an Arnie film would be quoted back to me. The conversation ended when, well… I guess they hung up. But I never got a call back and I still wonder now if that was a radio station or just some jokers pulling one helluva elaborate prank.

Tonight has been just as interesting. Last week, the local papers did an article on the 48 and our win. We had a picture put in and that ran on Thursday afternoon. I’ve worked two shifts since then and had completely forgot about it till tonight when no less than six customers have come up to me wondering at first if that was me and me sheepishly saying yes. Weirdness for it to just happen suddenly and so far only in one night so long after the fact.

But there’s still over a week till the 48 Finals are televised and its starting to come to the question of where exactly we’re all going to be hanging out to watch the show next Thursday. So far it’s just at someones house, but I’m heavily considering hiring out a room at the Academy, but we’ll see for now.

Other than that, not a helluva lot has been going on. I’ve still got this bout of sleeping a lot, which is odd as I’ve been eating alright and well… just being alright. For the last few days I’ve been sleeping in more and kinda staying in bed a lot. At first I thought I was getting sick again and even had a semi-sore throat going on, but since then the throat has gotten better and well… We’ll just see after tonight.