Spit-Takes on the Road

Wed, 12 Nov 2008

Kick off screening of It Came From the Swamp went very down very well last night with tickets being sold out and a second screening planned for next week to accommodate futher viewers.

I got there late myself and forgot to grab a copy of the DVD, something I’ll probably have to pay for, but from what I hear, apart from being on sale during the tour, the DVD will eventually be available in stores like JB Hifi, which is pretty exciting.

Part of last night was also the first time I had sat down with an audience watching Spit-Takes and though I was nervous to begin with, people started laughing from the first gag and kept laughing in almost all the right places which is great. There are still bits and pieces which I wish I had spent a little more time polishing and shortening to really get the laughs across, but ah well.

Just to note about Spit-Takes: the version that’s touring is actually the ‘clean’ version. Where the one on youtube at the moment is full of dirt and film artifacts, the one thats on the DVD is free of all that due to the fact I couldn’t complete all the effects in time before it had to be in for the DVD mastering. This I don’t mind, I’m still half and half if it should be either clean or dirty, but I must point out that the countdown timer appears to have been cut from the start of the short which is a little miffing as it sets up the whole ‘educational film’ format, but them’s the breaks I suppose.

But anyway, It Came From the Swamp will be playing in Raglan tonight, not that anyone I know from Raglan will be reading this, but I actually wouldn’t mind being there right now as the weather for the last few days have been ridiculously hot and I’ve got a feeling I’m not looking forward to summer this year.

Chris Cunningham

Tue, 11 Nov 2008

Been ‘listening’ to a lot of music videos while I’ve been web building and figured why the hell not post some of my favourites by Chris Cunningham…

The wonderfully controversial “Come to Daddy” by Aphex Twin

Equally offending, but brilliantly hilarious “Windowlicker” also by Aphex Twin

The Horrors’ “Sheena Is A Parasite” with Samantha Morton looking even more crazy.

Cunningham’s crazy Playstation ad that I remember seeing years ago on TV and it doing nothing bu freaking the shit out of me and going what the fuck?

Quite possibly my favourite music video of all time, Bjork’s “All is Full of Love”

Ugh…

Have been spending the last few days (and nights) tinkering a slightly new web design that utilises CSS which is something I’ve been meaning to do for a very long time and now I know why I’ve been putting it off for so long. Ugly HTML coding is so much easier, but most definitely one ugly bitch. Anyway, be a while before thats fully up and running and also more than enough techno mumbo jumbo bullshit for one post.

Tonight is the Hamilton kick-off of It Came From the Swamp! so if your not up to anything tonight, feel like watching some high caliber short films and want to support the local film making community, come on down to the Victoria Cinemas before 8pm tonight. I’ll the be one drunk out front making rude gestures to old ladies and small children.

Morning Peons

Mon, 10 Nov 2008

Enjoy the first week of your new government and three years of hell.

Pokemon beats politics anyday

Thu, 6 Nov 2008

Had written several paragraphs editorialising the election and thoughts on our one as well, but forget all that. This is how politics should really be done…

Bye America

Wed, 5 Nov 2008

Good luck with your election. I’d say don’t fuck it up for the rest of us, but then again, since when have you listened to the rest of the world?

Just remember, when your in that booth, vote Lando Calrissian.

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

It Came From the Swamp!

Tue, 4 Nov 2008

Its also been pointed out to me that the collection of Hamilton Short Films festival entitled “It Came From the Swamp: Short Films From the Waikato” starts its tour of New Zealand next week.

As you can tell from the title, it’s a collection of seven locally made films. Among them is Spit-takes, a short film I made (or at least finished) specifically for this festival.

Others included are Betty Banned Sweets which I mentioned earlier today, Meat, which I helped out on, but mostly hung around and smoked cigarettes with the cast and crew. Dawn Tuffery’s Swing which is a pretty damn cool animated short. Retribution and Clean As A Whistle are the only ones that I haven’t seen. Oh and of course Dark Priest which I still hold high as one of the best student short film to have been made in the Waikato.

So yeah, It Came From the Swamp. Playing next Tuesday 8pm at Victoria Cinemas, the dates for the other areas around New Zealand can be found at https://www.eventfinder.co.nz/user/nadinelee or I could post them here… nah… too lazy and have blogged more than enough today I think.

Stolen From Warren Ellis’ Blog

INTERVIEWER: So why is there no more rock ’n’ roll, then?

NICK CAVE: Maybe because you’re not allowed to smoke indoors anymore.

More here

This One is Mostly About My Friends

Back. Got to see a model over the weekend crying her eyes out. Was a wonderful mixture of gross tears and model hotness. Awesome.

Also figured out a bill payment I made a week ago went into the wrong account, so this week will be the hunting down of the misplaced money and whining a lot about it. Not so awesome.

The short film I worked on “Betty Banned Sweets” just had a really nice write up on it in this weeks edition of The Listener (page 46). It’s a really nice write up with lots of praise for the director Micelle and for the main actor, my good friend Matt and thats definitely awesome. I haven’t been kept in the loop on the films progress, but according to the article, it’s soon to be playing in the Show Me Shorts festival that’ll be screening up and down the country from Thrusday through till January. The article can be viewed here, but you need to be a subscriber to read the whole thing unfortunately. And more details on the festival can be seen here.

Speaking of other festivals, my friend Fin’s short film “Killing Time” is playing as part of the Manukau film festival this Thursday. So if your in the area and you’ve got nothing to do, go see it and support awesome. His blog is also something that’s become a regular read for me. He does a much better job of updating his and keep up to date with various news and other weird internet stuff he comes across. Bookmark his site here.

And while my friend Dom has recently lost his show on Alt due to management doing what they usually do of fucking up stuff. He’s now once again a member of the dangerous group that is motorists in Auckland and no longer has to ride public transport like the hobo he secretly wishes he could be. Just thought I’d point that out for the hell of it.

Hast Thou Considered The Tetrapod

Fri, 31 Oct 2008

Its been a long week of work and filming and am now in Auckland for the weekend filming a fashion show. Been in my hotel room for about half an hour and already I’m bored and over it. Never was one for hotels, the novelty of it wears off pretty quickly and by the end of it, your trying to figure out how get rid of the dead hooker. Typical.

Anyway, in other news, there’s word of a Preacher movie again, this time its ‘confirmed’ with Sam Mendes directing this time. The last I heard about this project, it was going to be an HBO series, but turns out it got dropped for being ‘too dark’ and ‘religiously controversial’, which is kind of the point right? Well anyway, I hope they don’t fuck it up, cause I friggin’ love Preacher with all of my body (including my pee pee).

The Mountain Goats have finally announced their return after postponing the Australian leg of their tour and breaking my heart. December 17th, I’m there and so should you.

Man, I’ve now had this tab open for so long and can’t think of anything more to write about. Not that you’d notice. I’ve been clicking between tabs and keep coming back to this window with the blinking icon saying “finish writing this post you lazy fuck. Stop ignoring your blog. Update use more often. We maybe annoying like a herpes sore, but we’re yours to deal with for the rest of your life”… okay… shit, I must be really tired. I’ve just written a whole paragraph of my train of thought and am now writing about me writing about writing my train of thought… wow… I’m actually confused now. Oh and if your reading this Ross, I forgot to return that library book and its up in Auckland with me. Will return it on Sunday. My bad.

I need to sleep.