Bit of a good day today… Yesterday was just an absolute shit of a day were I was working at the video store and like some magical spark plug, just the right combination of customers put me in a really dark mood for the rest of the day. And it was only midday at that point. But today… today was absolute sunshine in comparison, and pretty sunny too. Actually, speaking of which, I meant to go see Sunshine on that Wednesday night, but it turns out the damn thing has already done its Hamilton run, that was a real downer for the rest of that crappy day, but yeah. Today. Good.

New rotation of students in VP1 and this time they were actually enthusiastic about film making, engaged in learning about some editing and responsive to discussions, which is just great and actually gave me a little hope for the future.

There were also some surreal moments seeing old friends around uni again. Craziest was (and Tanya you’ll dig this) seeing Kelly Williams at the grind cafe. She took off into the blue somewhere down south and wasn’t actually gone for long and came back. She’s just started managing the grind, so mucho coffee drinking shall be had there now.

And then talking to a friend in the carpark, I get a phone call from a Marie where, at first I thought it was a Marie that was giving me instructions on my filming job for next week, but instead talked about clients and deals and what nots to be done in Dunedin and Christchurch and stuff and it took me ages to click that this Marie has got the wrong number. And after much awkward silences and uh-huhs just trying to figure out how to break this to her, its like, we both just stop and go ‘hang on… who is this?’. Turns out it was a different Marie, but one I knew and she’d gotten mixed up and stuff, but we had a lovely catch up and all and it turns out she may have some video work for me soon. Which I’m just a whore for at the moment and loving it.

Even work was good and had some really nice customers and even the more annoying ones just didn’t seem to get to me. I have no idea why this was happening the whole day, but it was like nothing was really getting me down and I’m all about being down. And awesome.

Anyway, finished work late tonight and have picked up a class to take in the morning so sleep I must soon. Also realised a distinct lack of links and videos being posted recently, but that can wait til the next one.

Back from Auckland… something about driving back and forth from Auckland to Hamilton always has me playing Tom Waits albums. Totally nothing wrong with it, I just find it a really strange reoccurance.

Long day of filming today that started out quite hungover, progressing to mindsplitting nausea, to numb headache, to nap, to all good and followed by another nap and then sweet as. But really, don’t get me too wrong, it wasn’t that bad today and there was some very good stuff shot for this promo/intro video. Which I’m so not looking forward to putting together considering the amount of work I’ve got coming up in the week.

Last night I got to catch up with a whole bunch of people from South Seas and yabber the night away about what we’ve all been doing since escaping. Of course, the people with proper jobs and all weren’t really there or showing up, but surprisingly enough, there was a lot less people there then I under-expected, which is saying quite a bit considering. But it was still a decent enough night seeing people, plus I got to drink at another student screening thing, which is always good in my books. I’m just thinking what to do for the University’s screening at the end of this year and how to make it really ‘worth going to’.

Also got to sneak a listen of the Gin (not the drink, but just as awesome musician) recordings, which sound great. It’s odd to hear it all being playing and tinkered around with in the rehearsal period and then to suddenly hear it recorded, mixed and attached with purple midgets (or whatever the music industry does when making albums). But it’s all looking really good and my favourite of the bunch from the rehearsals, which I can’t name here (because I don’t actually know the title of it) is sassy cool and I’m just looking forward to receiving a copy of the master next week…. I’m secretly thinking up concepts of videos and stuff, but don’t tell.

Also got to catch up with a whole bunch of people and cheers to Tanya for holding onto and looking after my jazzy scarf for me since her birthday last year. And hey, I finally, though briefly, got to meet her elusively mysterious man, which everyone will be happy to know is most definitely human and not a shadow lurking zombie Kodiac Bear sent back from the alternate future to hunt down fish… which not all had assumed except for… well, me and the homeless guy that lives in my garden… yeah, okay, me. But really, he’s cool and me and Dr.Hobo are quite pleased.

Its ANZAC day and all tomorrow and I’ve got to work in the morning and I’m pretty tired right now (can you tell from this rather erratic post?) There’s an English bloke sleeping in the spare room and… no, that’s all I’ve got about that really. This has been a tired, exhausted post that makes less sense read, compared to being written, but hey… yeah… ping pong balls.

Its four in the afternoon and I’m waiting to rush out the door to get to Auckland tonight for a South Seas screening. A producer to my right is talking on the phone trying to find me a lapel mic. Amusingly, I’m just bored and typing this to pass the time as he talks from one person to person trying to organise one for me and I’m just writing this as a brain waster. Oh excellent he’s now found one for me and it’s gonna be a bit of a run around to get one out of hours and a whole city away. Tomorrow morning will be some crazy run around the city filming which I’m looking forward to and tonight shall be much drinking and catching up with people post film school. Right, he’s just about finished talking so I’m gonna log off in a moment. Man, I’m tired. Gonna get my drink on. Oh great, he’s talking on the phone to another person. Always on the phone like a producer. I’ve so gotta get going now. It’s ten past and I’m really hating this haircut I got last week. Stupid hair cut. I said a trim and keep the length and right now its really really short and not as cool. Stupid hair.

Since the last post I shot off to Te Aroha to check out/hang out/help out on Marama’s new film being shot with a whole bunch of kids with a very sexy camera. It was a fun random spur of the moment action and more so when I woke up in the morning in an old country style hotel room in a sleepy quiet town and Tanya knocking on the door outside slowly saying coffee. It was so Twin Peaks I loved it. Good fun hanging out on their film too. Though location shooting and tracking so much equipment and props and stuff over a 10 minute reserve walk wasn’t as much fun.

But then, the next day, it was a shoot off to Auckland where there was much hanging out with old friends and drinking and talks, till Tuesday where I was privy to watch/film a rehearsal session of this upcoming singer/songwriter artist named Gin. Totally cool fun just to watch a whole bunch of really talented musicians in a garage playing and occasionally improvising music to her songs and just sitting there in total awe of how brilliant and precise they are with their craft. They recorded songs for the EP later on this week and if they are even anything like what I heard in that tiny garage, it’ll be a great listen. Something to look forward to.

Oh and then the night was topped off by going to finally see Pan’s Labyrinth, which totally kicked arse and is now one of my all time favourites, and even blowing nearly all other favourites of last year away. Watch it. Everyone.

Wednesday was also most amusing when I visited some friends working at ALT TV and suddenly found myself standing in front of the camera on this really weird show with this insane, uber femme Asian guy whom I couldn’t understand a word he was saying and had to role-play as a director film-maker guy and him being some girl wanting the lead role and totally acting up the femme persona to get it. Totally weird and random. Felt like Bill Murray in Lost in Translation, except for the giggles and laughter I think I could hear coming from my friends in the studio booth.

And then the night was topped off with being at a New Zealand on Air conference thingee, where there were lots of high-ups and producers and suits and stuff, plus free food and free booze which I took full advantage of. Got to rub some shoulders when I wasn’t stuffing my face, but didn’t really try much. Cool people though. I could really get into that scene of eating free food and drinking wine and talking a lot of shit for a living.

Meanwhile, plans for the 48 hour film competition is getting underway. Soon enough my dream team is gonna be assembled for it and we are so gonna win. By skills of course, not because I rigged everyone else’s toilet seats to explode.

And since coming back, haven’t been up to much. Long post again. Here is an amusing self defence video.

Weekend of drinking began Friday with going away drinks from Maree from work. Funny to get on the piss at your boss’ house, but yeah. That went on for a bit before hitting the Cock and Bull bar and filming a band playing there. I dunno why, but I was there, filming, helping and stuff for some amateur video being put together which is cool, cause I got to play with camera and get pretty, pretty shots. Problem was I was so focused on getting the pretty shots, I failed to realise I spent a good portion of the night standing in front of a very large speaker and it wasn’t until after the show and more importantly, the next day, I discovered I’d temporarily lost quite a bit of hearing in my right ear.

So then Saturday was spent not doing much, hungover and eventually there was more drinking to be had at a friend’s place which was on the other side of town from where I live, which isn’t a problem, except we suddenly took a cab, ditching my car to the other side of town, which was just a few blocks from where I live, original drinking people took off from there and I was left with a new crowd of drinkers, but by then I was pretty sober and feeling the need for more. So I decided to go with my original plan to go to Auckland for the night to party it up there, but at this point, my car was on the other side of the city and people there were having too much fun to give me a lift.

Eventually I did get across town to my car, drove all the way back to my house and by the time I was on the highway, just past Huntly, I get word that the party was dispersing pretty rapidly and my presence there would almost be absurdly unnecessary. Note that this is about 1:30 in the morning.

So I about faced and met up with some people in town, but that was dying down too, so finally I get home to watch a movie (“The Jacket”) to much disappointment and eventual sleep.

Now I’m doing another spur of the moment thing and going to Te Aroha for the night to help out on a film and then it’ll be Auckland tomorrow night to film recording studio stuff. Fun times.

More DVD goodness, this time in the form of Last Life In the Universe. One of my favourites from last year, I’m gonna be flaunting this onto people to watch and bask in it’s glory. There’s not much features on this region 1 disc, but I’m currently in the middle of listening to the Christopher Doyle commentary track and it’s like the vestal virgins making love in my ears. The man is a genius with a camera and this is such an invaluable track to be listening to I’m digging it. Totally digging it.

It looks like I’ve got the consumer whore bug again. Starting to float around more and more online stores everyday and at this rate, I’m quite possibly gonna hit 400 titles by the middle of the year, but that also has to take into account the several dozen DVDs of my own that are being borrowed and floating around the country somewhere… actually, come to think of it, one of my DVDs is in Japan… that Naoki bastard. Where the hell is he these days anyway?

Anyway… here’s Osama Team Hunger Force… have I posted this before? I can’t remember.

Finally caught 300 and The Illusionist last night and they were most awesome. 300 was just so cool and full of gusto in its action and style, I wet myself many times in delight watching it. And The Illusionist so brilliantly captured an atmosphere and mystery of the period. Both highly recommended to all to go see.

It was originally planned to spend the whole day at the movies, but Pan’s Labyrinth isn’t on yet due to not enough prints nationwide (which sucks) and missed out on the time for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which would have been some plain good fun.

I amusingly got related to a story of how someone met me at uni during a marketing the arts class, where during a break in a lecture, I stumbled into the room drunk off my nut on red wine, declared myself so, had a cigarette with some others and then skipped out on the rest of the class to go drink some more. This apparently fact. I don’t even remember this.

Have spent the last two days in a semi state of exhausted no sleep, with a little pick me up of alcohol.

Sunday was the worst, I was barely anywhere and was like a walking zombie from the lack of sleep. Made worse by the fact that it was Easter and all the liquor stores were closed. Drove me nuts all day, until I unearthed some hidden booze late at night and all was well in the cosmos.

Today wasn’t so different. Must have still been tired and it very much resembled a Dead Chris Day, causing me to miss out on some wakeboarding. But there was poker and there was a good amount of drinking instead. Yayness.

Malcolm flew off for Germany today. The bastard. Hope to hear from him soon and must make a note to work on my jedi mind tricks in the meantime so I can convince him better to stick around next time, if there is one.

And the other night, I started writing a new feature film which will be quite interesting, as I’ve never thought of stories in the dimensions of feature length before. The idea of this one has been gestating around in my head for at least six months or more and it’s a sorta/kinda ensemble of stories and stuff. The basis of its is party aspects of myself (though not fucking literally, as those introspective semi-autobiographical stories are usually boring self indulgent wank fests) and the idea is to create a view of the world that closely resembles the way I see things. It’s based mostly on people and situations I know and have seen and it has all the intentions of being made by those people, but we’ll see really… It’ll probably fall flat on its arse and never properly see the light of day, but at least I can get onto thinking up other stuff for a change.

I’m sitting here at six in the morning, bored and broken after a long haul of a graveyard shift. There is still an hour to go and it feel like an eternity away. So to whittle away the minutes and to make myself feel better, I’m putting a perspective on the week for this post…

Monday was a good start where I had coffee with a lady named Michelle who is interested in getting me on board as DP for her Wintec masters short film, yet to be titled. Very much enjoyed our discussion and I’ll probably take up her offer as we seem to get along well, which seems to be my deciding factor in a lot of things, don’t matter what quality the production is or will be, if the people are cool and fun enough, I’m in.

Tuesday was mad rush day as we prepped footage from Pictures of you to be taken by Paul the Producer down to Wellington. Almost all color correction I did to enhance the images was pretty nef and took too long to tinker with and render at that point, so I just left the colors as they are on the raw footage and they looked fine enough as they were.

Wednesday was just lots of running around and getting shit sorted for Auckland, where I met and chatted with a super cool lady who worked in many high ranking jobs for various companies and produced serveral albums, artists and music videos. I was there to discuss a small filming job coming up in a few weeks, but the cool factor came in when she saw some previous film stuff of mine and totally dug it, much to my suprise. She’ll be going to Australia in a couple of weeks to meet up with some pretty cool unnamable directors looking for young talent to work with and help launch and she wants to push for me to be one of them… awesome.

Also got word that day that Peter Jackson was now interested in seeing some footage from Pictures of You in a couple of weeks.

Thursday, Paul heads down to Wellington and I rush back to Hamilton to make it to the VP1 class and then work and then some editing. Very tired that day.

Friday was pretty much a Dead Chris Day filled with drinking and sleeping, until having to work a graveyard shift, which wasn’t so bad compared to tonight as Saturday was spent doing much more drinking and parties and hooray, engagement party of Joe and Marama where there was lots of happy in the air and pretty half arsed speeches were given. Well… from Joe anyway. But many people not seen for a while were seen again and that was cool. Plus word finally coming in from Paul the Producer in Wellington that people are digging the Pictures of You footage and the biggest compliment I’ve gotten yet of the fact that it was filmed on digital and not film as that’s what it looks like to many. Which is just too cool.

But now… now I’m at work, totally not wanting to be here and started the shift with one really nasty waking hangover… but then again, this particular shift pays really well and on nights like this where there are no customers all night, there is much lazing and relaxing to be done. I just finished watching Art School Confidential which I quite liked, but its so not as good as Bad Santa or the greatness that is Ghost World.

Sigh… One thing I noted at Joe and Marama’s was that constantly writing stuff to this blog for people to read is cool, but quite often now when I talk to friends and try to tell them stuff and news, they’ve already read about it and I’m left with not much else to say, which is sad when you think about it. My internet life is getting to be far more interesting than my real life.

Holy crap this is one long post and looking at the clock, I think I just got paid $10 sitting here and writing it. Life ain’t so bad sometimes.

Twas a very brief excursion into Auckland the other night. Less than 24 hour stay and though some effort was made, only a handful of people were seen and caught up with. But I’ll be back next week, so no big loss really.

Forgot to mention earlier, but an elite team of super ninjas have been entered into the 48 Hour Film Competition. Our team rivals others in both factors of coolness and manpower of bazooka monkey jetpack fighters. Stay tuned as world domination gets added to our ‘to do’ list.

If others want to join in on our group, they must prove their worthiness and justify what level of coolness and monkey power they can bring to the collective.