Great weather today. Gets a happy lighting director’s score of zero. Shooting an exterior for winter, during the summer. Waiting for overcast clouds to diffuse out the sun and get this really nice cold look on screen, instead we had to force ourselves to shoot it more stark and with the hard shadows that stupid Mr Sunbeam makes.

Also got burnt some more, sweated like a pony, started getting dizzy, drank water till I felt like puking and all around felt like crap. But we’re hopeful we got some nice shots. Unfortunately, not enough people turned up as extras today, so it’ll be interesting to see how few fit that all in.

Afterwards we eventually stumbled our waywards home to writer Scott’s house. Drank. And eventually started making silly little short films just to entertain ourselves. Will upload tomorrow. Just realising that there won’t be any space for them here yet.

In other interesting stuff, Harlan Ellison does a reading of a short story here and under Prince Myshkin and does a helluva reading indeed.

Got to the location on time, just not the right part of the location. And stood around wondering where the hell everyone was. Got a little of that on tape. Still yet to finish capturing all of the footage.

But I totally did it, running around, up and down a rugby field, shooting a game and getting totally owned by the sun. Still got some very nice shots, though I left off the color grading for today, so that there are maximum possibilities to tweak them in post. Meanwhile, I’m sunburnt, depressed and totally tired. But that can mostly be resolved with a venture down to the S&M reunion shindig. Going on now as I type, I’ll make my way round there later on party and drink it up some. Also, Sohl bar closes down tonight and us faithful patrons are sending it off with a bang with drinks, drinks and more drinks.

I’d type and elaborate more, but I’m tired and need booze. Early start tomorrow as well.

Weather looks to be wet tomorrow… really wet…

Actually, have to be on set in just over four hours. Been out having some drinks with old friends form high school and playing Risk (came second, oh noes). Now I”m pretty tired and really, I’m amped. I’m psyched. Ready to run around in the rain filming a rugby game scene for ten hours. Bring it on.

Meanwhile… here are some great images taken at just the right angle to be pure greatness.

Here be a video demonstrating car drawing awesomeness can be achieved through paint, as opposed to photoshop.

And here is a nice retro video for South Seas students.

Now sleep. And hopefully I’ll wake up and not be late to the set.

Filming was a little intense yesterday. Lots of getting great shots in a really small room with 2000ks of lights heating the whole room up to a sauna level. But once again, got some nicely composed shots and some sexcellent lighting going on.

To celebrate, some of us got properly drunk afterwards. I crashed out on the couch. Woke up this morning with a +3 lvl hangover and proceeded to go to the hospital to drop something off to my mum and ended up lost and confused in the car park and just felt like absolute crap.

Now home and rested. I’m about to head out into the rain and recce the rugby fields for this weekends shoot. After that, hopefully I can get a relaxation going on and just blob out. Been a fun ride so far making this film, but today is a day of much needed rest.

Will post later tonight with the first video blog and hopefully some newspaper scans.

Shot in three locations today… Continuation of yesterdays shoot on the street, exterior shoot at the polytech grounds and finally a night shoot at Victoria Cinemas.

The continuation shoot drove me nuts in hoping the lighting was consistent with yesterdays whilst shooting crouched down in the front seat of a car, staring up at an upsidedown LCD screen also while operation sound equipment to shoot a bit of dialogue in the back.

The exterior shoot drove me equally mad with one particular camera set up that just refused to work, constantly changing lighting and weather that couldn’t figure out if it wanted to be sunny or a watering down whore.

So then after all that was done, I got myself properly drunk at the bar down the road from the next location and when it came to shooting… bang, bang, shots were down, just like that. Fantastic colours, minimal camera screw ups and lots of pretty coverage.

What a bitch.

Beginning to lose track of days. Had to check up on previous posts to make sure I’ve got the right numbered day to post about.

Today, although it was a relatively short day and we started at 2 o’clock, was so far the day that took the most effort to do for me. Nothing tricky in terms of work or camera work required, just mentally and physically I felt quite drained. Strange to say, but I think if we had started at our ‘usual’ seven in the morning, despite having shot for 16 hours the night before, I would have been more prepared to shoot for the day as opposed to having plenty of rest and going off to set in the afternoon.

Ah well, tomorrow we move location, three locations actually and start at nine in the morning.

Also a reminder to anyone that this weekend is a get together reunion piss up for us Waikato Screen and Media bums. Sam Brown’s pad, Saturday night.

Oh and we’ll be needing extras this weekend at Frazer Tech grounds to play as a crowd watching a High School rugby game. More details to come in the following days.

Holy baJebus! A sixteen hour day, the equivilant of twenty-something cups of coffee, half a bottle of vodka, one fall from a tree, one pair of broken glasses and one press photo op…

It’s been a helluva day, but totally worth it. Once again, the shots just keep getting prettier and prettier and a big eeeeh! to Daisy for providing us with 50 fandangly totally awesome sets of gels to make the lighting even prettier. It’s totally all about the pretty.

Other than that, not much else to report. I’m so freakin tired now, it’s such a relief we’ve only got a 2 o’clock start tomorrow afternoon.

And to deviate from the usual film production post, here are some photos from a really cool, but surreally creepy art sculpture exhibition where mythical giants have been posed and frozen for your freaky amusement here.

Afternoon/Night shoot went slightly overtime and involved a scene where the lighting changed so dramatically by the end of the last setup I felt absolutely depressed and a failure as a DOP, operator and lighting director. Though there is the optimistic thought it can be fixed in post, the shadows were just so dramatically harsher, I don’t think it can be salvaged. My votes on a reshoot when we view the rushes.

In some good news, we got some really great shots for the other scenes. I’m really beginning to feel the Christopher Doyle inspirado coming on with each set up.

Tomorrow is a day off from filming and I’ll just be reviewing footage with director Ben to make sure we’re on track with the look of what we’ve got so far and where we’re going next. Hopefully a trailer and the first video blog will be posted soon.

Till then, I’m gonna crash out real soon, even though I got more than enough sleep last night.

In my opinion, a very good day today.

After six hours of sleep (enough, but could have done with more), we shot today at a new location, with a different set of actors and to my personal excitement, a smoke machine.

Seriously… lighting a fogged up location gets such the prettiest shots, I soiled my pants with mondo delight on nearly every take. Will have to try and get some copy of the footage or at least some screen caps.

After today, I’m just getting more and more confident doing nearly everything under camera/lighting department. And even better yet… we don’t have to start until 2 in the afternoon tomorrow. I’m gonna be getting my sleep on tonight.

Started filming at 7. Finished filming after 11 hours. Packed down stuff, moved stuff to other location, set up stuff for tomorrow at 7.

Finished Heroes last night. Ended on a cliffhanger. Haven’t slept much. Video blog being put together. Screen kinda funky. Sleep needed.