Norwegians Come Down From The North Attacking the Walls of the Fortress

Sun, 4 Mar 2007

Some issues with blogger and little bits of apathy prevented any posts from happening this week. Plus there was actually a lot of working during the day and editing during the night that kept this site at bay.

We had our Pictures of You wrap party on Friday which was a nice affair to see people again, catch up, drink and look totally ridiculous. A big happy birthday to Old Friend Scott for yesterday… I spent Saturday well and truely hungover all day and sleeping and eating a lot and the recovery was just in time for me to work a graveyard shift where once again, I watched movies, read comics and abused drunk customers (orientation week man…). Just about to head out to film some more of Spit-Takes and knowing that I’m not gonna watch enough on a cheap Tuesday, thinking of going to a film tonight… Oscar season, always too many to go to.

Quickies… Proof that the universe’s karma is against me, Penn Radio which I’ve recently been listening a lot, had its last show on Friday. Which is a shame but I think its missing out on the rest of a Moon Landing conspiracy thread you can download the casts here and here. Which is facinating stuff, but we’ll probably never hear the conclusion to it.

The new trailer for Paprika is out and just simply look amazing. Satoshi Kon is one of my favourite directors and everything he makes and touches turns to edible gold. Watch any or all of his previous works and you won’t be disappointed, my personal favourite is either Perfect Blue or Millennium Actress… Actually I really love the series Paranoia Agent, which would just leave out Tokyo Godfathers, but I loved that film too… screw it, trailers here.

Revelations and Morphine

Wed, 21 Feb 2007

I’ve just come to the realisation that since starting ‘work’ up again, I’ve become a tad complacent. I’ve not shot anything more of spit-takes and haven’t aspired to doing any else much either. A tad worrying, but at least this issue has been noted early.

Tomorrow is also pay day for me and its going to be the most awesome feeling in the whole world. After over a year of poverty, I’m now gonna have an income and be able to buy stuff. Of course, I’m saving it all (70% of all) for whatever the hell I do next in the not too distant future.

Also today, I’ve been having the incredible hankering to go on a road trip, or to just get the hell out of the city and chase the country-side for a while. I’ve been driving around a bit at night and find myself just stopping on the outskirts of town to hang out under the stars which is totally awesome and it’s not a normal feeling for me, but I’m feeling a tad nomadic at the moment and feel like travelling a bit. Ah well.

In other, more interesting news, big congrats to Marama and Joe and Brad and all at Down by the Riverside as their IMDb page has recently gone up (I think today), which coincides with the whole site itself getting a new look (like as of a couple of hours ago)… Shiny. I remember when I first discovered IMDb in 1999 (whoa) and how its awesomeness blew me away as it still does so today. I think the film I was first looking up stuff on what Big Trouble in Little China which is also still awesome today.

New, third Simpsons film trailer is out and formats viewable here, or hi res quicktime downloadable straight from here.

Also been finding myself listening to lots and lots of podcasts of Penn Radio, which is a great listen to and I’d recommend checking out one or two if you’ve got the spare time.

Also just realised I missed out on cheap Tuesday at the movies today. Though I’ve been watching a lot of a films from the store (a lot), there are still so many I want to see at the cinemas now. Thank Jebus I’m working though, it may make going on any other day a tad more bearable.

Finally, some Morphine music video awesomeness…

Pictures of You – Day 29

Sun, 18 Feb 2007

And so today was our last official day of shoot… A nice easy hospital clinic room scene with short dialogue between two characters, with absolutely no hiccups. Much beer was celebrated afterwards and now I write this from work as it is, as always, a boring night.

It’s like coming out of another world, making a film at every waking hour, going mental and crazy and creative and all and now its over and we’re all going back to menial jobs and getting the bills paid. Along with a few pick-up shots and cutaways, there is still much post production work to be done, months of editing lie ahead along with re-creating the soundscape, ADR and scoring of the music… and with a little luck, it won’t be long till we’re back in the saddle, ready and making the next film.

But right now all I can think about really is how awesome my bed is going to be once I finish this shift in five hours. Woke up Friday morning with a massive hangover, nothing paralytic, just nasty. Spent the day watching films and contemplating sleep before going off to work an hour early (as if I remember what time shifts are supposed to start) and killed time in a bar celebrating Brooke’s birthday with mates and shooting tequila (which was intended to help work off the hangover, but just made things a tad worse). At work, I was being ‘re-trained’, so there was another fellow on to retrain me, but we just took advantage of the extra manpower and took turns at napping (Jay got two hours, I slipped in just over three). After work, there was enough time for a couple hours more of sleep, shooting at one till four and then drinking, poker at a friends place and then now I’m at work still writing this. Pretty tired and don’t think I’m making too much of a point blogging all of these details. Though I must add, appologies to both Marama and Joe and Daisy and co for being unable to attend both of your respective housewarmings.

Um… thats about all I’ve got left. Oh but how cute and cool and annoying would this alarm clock be? It like wheels itself away and rolls around your room going off if you don’t wake up properly and turn it off the first time. Neat-o.

Pictures of You – Day 28 blog

Sun, 11 Feb 2007

Just a tad overdue this brief post… but almost all the scenes for Pictures of You have been shot. Just one hospital scene to get out of the way next weekend, some pickups of cutaways and computer screens and a few aerial shots to do and my job should hopefully be done really soon.

To pick up some quick, much needed money, I’ve also started up my old job at the video store again. And the awesome part of it is I’ll be on my old rate again, which was pretty damn good for a video store.

For the most of today, I’ve been slogging away behind the desk, updating and revising the website oh so slightly. You probably won’t be seeing any changes til tomorrow or Tuesday as there are still a lot of things to be tested and such before uploading, but at least there will be 30 new header images up in the morning… yay.

Pictures of You – Day 27 blog

Sat, 10 Feb 2007

After nearly a one week break, we shot two more scenes today, including one scene we had shot earlier in the schedule, but had to abandon halfway through due to changing lighting conditions. After several attempts to reschedule that scene in somewhere for the rest of the shoot, several times actually… it’s finally been shot.

Also another scene at magic hour done and tomorrow will be our second to last day! It would have been our last, but there was a fall through on one location, which leaves it to be shot next weekend once its available again.

Meanwhile, I finally got to catch Couch Soup last night as part of a rather packed audience. Which I will remind anyone in the area, their final Hamilton performance tomorrow night, 8pm Meteor Theatre. Go. Funny. Greatness.

And also started shooting on Spit Takes: A Mouthful of Comedy last night and shot the most complicated scene first (involving 13 people in one take). The rest should be a cakewalk and hopefully all photography will be done by the end of the month and it’ll be cut together relatively easy by the end of March.

Tomorrow will be a long day/evening, but should be a good one oh… I forgot to mention earlier, but a congrats to Nigel and Shirow on their engagement and I look forward to drinking in celebration with them tomorrow night… after drinking from wrapping… flipper yay.

Now I’m gonna get a drink of water, arm wrestle a panda and go to sleep. Cause I can and pandas got nothing on me.

Pictures of You – Day 26 blog

Fri, 2 Feb 2007

Raglan day today.

Spent today shooting in and around Raglan. Plot heavy stuff, but it was awesome to finally use a tripod for the first time this shoot in a totally wrong way, hanging out of the back of a car again to shoot moving car shots and filming an entire scene during magic hour on a cliff edge area with a fantastic sunset/cloud setting.

Taken off with the tapes again to get some screen captures for this blog, but they probably won’t be up till tomorrow evening as I’m actually pretty tired from today’s activities and much sleeping and hopefully, sleeping in is needed.

Today is actually one of the last days of shoot. I’ll be spending some of this weekend alone to shoot some cutaway shots we’ve missed or left till later to shoot. And our next proper day isn’t till Friday evening for some pick-ups and a couple of other scenes to be shot next weekend. So pretty soon, principal photography is going to end for this film. And I’ll be having nothing to do.

Contemplating writing a short film to possibly make this week. Playing with the idea of making something to put at the start of the film, kinda like those cartoons they’d have at the start of old movies. Normally I’d be too lazy to do such a thing, but the energy from this film being so independant, and the ammount of tweaking I’ve worked and have control over our camera and lights now, I just can’t stop and I won’t be stopped. It’s awesome.

Pictures of You – Day 25 blog

Long day and post today.

Got up early to go to uni (which is still appropriately strange) and sat in on ITS to do an interview for the summer school students and for Big TV, which was fun to sit in on and watch students running around.

But then it was a break till 2pm and then onto shooting an interior, Boys High around 5 and then an exterior party scene at night.

I love shooting interior scenes, you can have so much control over the look and the lighting, its awesome. Even with just three lights, you can make some shots just look uber pretty. Same thing goes for night shoots, you can really play around with the lighting on them and make use of the darkness around the edges and such.

In fact, I’d say that today was my happiest day of shooting in terms of getting great looking shots. Seriously, at least 80% of the setups we used had at least some certain element in it that made me whimper with delight… especially the night/party scenes… there was this one setup… dear god, I’ll be posting a screen cap of it real soon.

We were also lucky as hell at the end of the night. Got the very last shot done and just a few minutes later… boom, lights go out, whole grid has a blackout. Had to pack up by flashlight at 1 in the morning, but we got the shots and thank god we weren’t that overtime.

Oh and I finally color bar’d to exactly –:30:00 tonight… finally after 27 tapes, it was the 28th one I’d finally done it… bloody hell.

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Meanwhile… the hit counter is currently at 1002. If no one claims being 1000, closest winner will be going to Joe, although the prize still remains unknown as of yet. Although, this would be pretty neat-o.

Pictures of You – Day 24

Thu, 1 Feb 2007

Bad day today.

Shot off one exterior scene which was no problem and then moved onto shooting another scene on a bus, which was done really quickly and within five minutes. Awesome, until we broke for lunch and realised near the end of it, that we’d left a camera bag full of leads, tapes and discs… thankfully no camera, but the rest of the day was spent stressing, chasing buses and making phone calls all over town. So far the bag is still at large and if you see a blue camera bag full of stuff, please report it as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, I personally had a downer of a day. Spent most of the morning to try and muster up the balls to contact someone and when I did, got no reply, which made me really wonder how things had gotten so bad between us when I’m still not even sure if it is. How is it possible for one to simply cut off someone seemingly right out of their lives? And how does that justify what was previously good? Well it put me in a weird place this evening after everything and I ended up randomly drinking and eating with a guy and his parents I ran into in town. Of course, the liquor didn’t help my mood, but at least the strangeness of the situation put me off from some proper thinking.

Anyway, here’s a trailer for an upcoming kick arse movie I know many will appreciate.

And here’s Bill Gates on the fantastic Daily Show.

Currently at 984 hits on the main page. Send proof your number 1000 (alt+print screen) and you’ll recieve an as of yet, unnamed prize.

Pictures of You – Day 23 blog

Wed, 31 Jan 2007

Long freakin’ day today.

Started at 9, shooting a scene at the museum which was fun, although we went a little overtime, which would have been okay, but I had an appointment to run off to, which didn’t go overtime, but by the time I was done, I had to run off to the next location to set up for a bar/band scene, which looked great, but at this point, I was running on no food, heat exhaustion and a headache the size of a walnut… made of cyanide.

Managed to finish just at midnight, though we had to scrap a couple of shots planned for magic hour cause we didn’t want to lose the small amount of extras we had at the time. Why is it so hard to find extras sometimes? Ah well.

Also got to finally do a cameo in the film… playing a drunk patron, dragged out on his arse by security. Even got to fire off a string of profane one liners for the role. Described as Will Farrel and Kevin Smith gone wrong, I shot off lines along the lines of “aw… hairy sweaty balls on your chin” and “goddamn shit in your cereal”… awesome.

Also got some interesting good news regarding the film commission, though I probably can’t say much about it and I won’t. Though it does bear potentialness for awesomeness.

But by the end of the day, ie now, I’m feeling like crap and not really looking forward to tomorrow. So not feeling it this week I think.

Still not fully connected to blog yet, though website is back online, I can’t connect to it due to a password change malfunction and you probably won’t be reading this anytime until some time since posting like so many previous posts as well. But heres a funny music video classic none-the-less…

Dead Chris Day 3

Tue, 30 Jan 2007

Only the third day? That can’t be right.

Anyway, today was much sleeping and forgetting it was my birthday. And then I remembered it was my birthday and more sleeping ensued.

Tomorrow is a big long day of filming from eight at the museum to just past midnight at the University again… so more sleep is needed.

Discovered this which made me smile…

And now off to sleep.