And got straight to playing with director Ben’s latest acquisition… A Glidecam rig. Pretty nifty stuff.

The harness and ‘arm’ don’t look much, the package came with one of the cheesiest promo videos I’ve seen in a long time, much hair pulling involved in getting the center of gravity and balance just right, but the test footage is one sexy smooth ride and though it takes a bit of practice, the footage kept getting better.

I’m gonna also try to make the effort of starting up a video blog of the production, starting tomorrow where we’ll be doing more prepping and testing/playing with the cameras and such.

Til then…

More meetings over film preps going on. Heading back up to Auckland today to tie up a few loose ends, see some folk and possibly buy a book from Borders… Good old borders.

Be back in a flash.

Talk about a big change… from poor flatting student with little budget for food, to total Christmas festive hog down feasts. I wasn’t feeling the Christmas cheer so much this year, but I was definitely tasting it.

Feeling very cheery too after opening my present from the fantastic mum and dad team… 22 inch widescreen LCD monitor. It’s now sitting side by side with my 19 inch and my god… dual screens makes computers look that much cooler.

Also been doing a bit of working out in preparation for Pictures of You. Got out my old bike that use to take me everywhere was a teenage wanker and now I’m an out of shape 23 year old wanker. Seriously… five minutes into riding that bastard, I was already feeling the burn. A total of 20 minutes had me really feeling like I should be crawling into a grave after a damn good shower. But I’ve definitely got to get my fitness back up to speed if I’m gonna be shooting some of the stuff in this film.

Nice late night drive down and I’m back in Hamilton for the holidays. Still got the mega ammount of last minute Christmas shopping to do.

Happy holidays! Here is the trailer for Black Sheep, cause killer sheep always makes for a happy holidays. Actually, mutant squirrels make for an interesting Christmas too, but thats only if you have Llamas for New Years as well.

Extract from a conversation this morning…

Flatmate Sean: “Hey Chris”
Lazy Chris: “Yeah?”
Flatmate Sean: “We’re going to the gym, wanna come along?”
A beat of laziness
Lazy Chris: “Um… Okay.”
A beat of silence
Flatmate Sean: “Fuck.”

I hurt now. How do these people put themselves through such torture? Endorphins are good and perhaps being cut studly and buff is good too, but ow. Didn’t help the leg either. Besides, I can tackle down a mountain lion with two hands behind my back (three lions with one hand btw).

Then again, Bruce Willis can headbutt a tank and make it explode in the air, as you can see from the Die Hard 4 trailer here.

Just watched. Brilliant. A tad confusing and totally open to interpretation. But brilliant.

Tomorrow, flatmate Sean flies back off to England. I pack more stuff. And we discover the thrilling conclusion to whats under the sink in ‘cleaning up the house’.

So I’m back from a very brief run in Hamilton, meeting with people I’ll be working with on Pictures of You. Got a little drinking going on to, which is always awesome.

But it’s a little strange being back there again. I’ve been back constantly throughout the year, but I think this time, with school finally being over, with having to move out of the flat and back down to Hamilton for a bit and just being around people again, it just felt a little odd.

Maybe I’m looking to much into it, but I suppose quite a bit has happened this year. New city, lots of cool friends made, heaps of fun had. Mix that with occasional educational angst, very depressing relationship ends and my leg still acting up something cronic for the last few weeks, it’s been a blast.

But anyway, I think I’ll be looking forward to the coming year. Started thinking up of a list of things I want accomplished in a years time. Stuff will include more ventures into music, getting some film/tv projects up and running and polar bear wrestling. Cause I’m tougher than a polar bear. Totally.

And so graduation happened, and then a lot of drinking happened, and a lot more drinking happened, and then the bar closed, and then someone yelled “party at Chris Tan’s house”, and then I came home to a house that looked like it was on fire (fireworks), and then I drank some more, and now I’m sitting in a sea of bottles, typing a hungover post.

Seriously, that one paragraph took forever to write, and I’m sure I’m missing a lot of details, probably to do with dingos and steam engines and eskimos, but all thats important for now is, I hurt really bad in the leg for some reason and I don’t know why.

But anyway, past the boring usual stuff with no details. For the most of the year, and especially the last two or three months, I’ve been so bog tied down with work on so many school stuff and now that it’s finally over, I’m gonna finally make a wee tad of an effort in seeing friends whom I’ve always been meaning to see, but have totally neglected. You know who you are.

In the meantime, check out the latest video from a Japanese Jazz band I discovered last night somehow and have totally fallen in love with… Soil and Pimp. Brilliant.

Just writing this on the fly before shooting off to the graduation party. Graduating… scary thought to some.

Anyhow, drinks and celebration expected tonight, so hooray for alcohol and good company.

A bit to catch up on, but not to worry, it’s not like your doing anything else.

On Friday, we finally finished editing the film and thus, finished all needed work which thus ended the school year, which is also the course year, which means I’ve completed the course. Finished. Over. Actually did it. How about that?

Done some drinking in celebration. Tomorrow is graduation. And right now, I’m officially a bum. Waiting to pack up stuff, and disperse it around places in Auckland and move back down to Hamilton for Christmas, and then shoot Pictures of You. Fun times.

Okay… I thought that was going to be a bit of a bigger post there, but it looks like I’m being economical.

Ah well, hooray for years end.