Awesomeness… here.

Goddamn school is driving me nuts. They expect you to make a 3 minute short film called “The Meeting” within the space of half an afternoon and make it about two characters in separate environments and meeting at some point… and make it good.

Actually, that wasn’t so hard, except the equipment issued out was screwed and we didn’t figure this out til an hour into the shoot and by the time we chased the problem back to school and got it fixed, there was only two hours left to shoot. And being the supreme genius that I am, I wrote a script involving multiple set ups, multiple locations and yada yada yada… and miraculously, it would have almost turned out alright. Had we not lost that one hour, we would have got the interiors shot and had a begining and an ending to the film. Instead, we got a middle filled with funky lights and dreamlike realities. Which look really cool, but pretty pointless when not put into context.

Returning to school, we were told that there will be no reshoots, it’s all the camera operators fault and although I got pretty damn pissed off for a while (haven’t been that angry in a long time actually), I’m not blaming anyone and have figured out a way to salvage the footage we’ve got.

I call it “The Meeting 2: Electric Boogaloo”

Two favourites being adapted have finally got trailers up.

First up is the Scorsese remake of “Infernal Affairs”, now titled “The Departed”. Was skeptic at first, but my faith had waned and now I’m healed. Free us lord Martin! Trailer downloadable here.

Second, the screen adaptation of James Ellroy’s “The Black Dahlia”. One of my altime favourite books, being done by Brian De Palma and secretly, I wanted to make this some day, but meh… there is always Stardust. Oh wait… trailer here.

Starting to get a little movied out, but still enjoying it. Mind Game is practically at the top of my list of films seen at this festival and the Science of Sleep is pretty damn close behind. I think i can afford to make it to maybe one or two more films, but that’d be about it for this year.

Thats the one great thing living up here in Auckland. Down in Hamilton, during every film festival season, I’d make a trip to Auckland to get me a copy of the festival booklets and work out how the hell I’m going to see what I want to see in either city during whenever. It’s just nice to have them all in one city for a change.

Anyway, been coming up wiht multiple ideas for short films to be made for the end of year, but have yet to stick to one I actually like and is worth doing in a student film enviorment. I’ll bet our screenwriting lecturer is enjoying recieving pages after pages of different treatments from me, as I’ve simply shut off my filter in handing her stuff and I’ll just drop off whatever now. Gave her five treatments on Friday and I have a feeling I’ve got four more for her tomorrow.

Anyway, because ninjas are cool here is a trailer for one kick arse ninja movie coming up… well… if your into that and turtles… here.

But a more worthwhile trailer to download is Aranofsky’s new film The Fountain to be downloaded here.

I am definitely looking forward to seeing this film. French production. Aimed squarely at a mature adult market and it just looks freakin’ awesome. Trailer can be downloaded here.

Absolutely brilliant re-edit. That Vader is one cool cat.

Watched A Scanner Darkly last night. Great film, lost itself partway through, but still great.

Second day of school and I’m tired as hell. Still not used to having to go to bed early and waking up early. Anyway, filming tomorrow and got myself over 50 stuffed toys, most of them mutilated in some way, ready to be used tomorrow.

Back after a three week holiday and dear god… If it were a two week holiday, maybe it would have been easier to get some motivation going on, but no. Three week holiday, and now I am a lazy slob that can’t be bothered with an ever increasing workload… either that, or I’ve just got to get used to waking a tad earlier than one in the afternoon again.

Anyway, shooting another lousy assigned short this week and I’ve been cutting up teddy bears, pulling out stuffing and stitching them up with black yarn. Over and over again. This can’t be healthy. We’re talking late nights, sitting in dim light and just cutting up these cute little bears to serve as props in this less than average short we’re assigned to make.

Ah well… okay… at least I get some pleasure from the trailers to Farrell’s new film, Talladega Nights. Can be found here and here.

Trailer for The Prestige is finally out and holy crap, this looks to be a helluva lot of cool coming our way. Trailer to be downloaded here.

The film festival is back and let me say, Thank You For Smoking, Sympathy For Lady Vengeance and Fearless are pretty damn good and worth watching should it swing by your way.

School starts back up on Monday and I’m dreading the day. Got an arseload of work that needs doing and well… still not as much done as I had hoped to do. Ah well.

Oh and crazy story: I’m bored and don’t have much to do for the day. Our flatmate Sean hasn’t contacted us or anything about when he’s coming back from Japan. I figured, ‘well… It must be sometime today’, so I check out the flight times from Tokyo and there are two coming in at the same time in the afternoon. So I figure, ‘screw it, I got nothing else to do’ and I head on down to the airport and what do you know? He ain’t on the flights and I’ve spent nearly two hours hanging around arrivals. So thats it, I decide to leave and I’m texting flatmate Albert that I’m coming home, when out of the terminal steps Elana from school. Such a freaky cool coincidence it is.

Anyway, I’m tired from doing very little else. Time for some school work to be done.