Currently working on Paul Barlow’s Orb of Ra youtube series as part DOP, part actor. The thing about this particular gig is that we’re filming in full frame 4:3 aspect ratio. And I hate that ratio with a passion. It makes the composition of shots really hard to get right and again, with limited lighting and stuff, it’s a tough stretch. But I’m getting there.

Still not completely happy with what I’ve done so far, but we’ll see how it turns out in the end. Problem most of all with this shoot is the fact that I’m not going to be there for all of it and having to act as well could possibly throw me off in either role. But it’s a new interesting challenge to get past and it’ll be fun.

This weekend I’ll be making a late entry into the viewing of the film festival. Already missed a few films I’ve wanted to see, but I’ll do the mega catching up real soon. Plus, there are still a few interesting one’s that’ll be in the Hamilton run that I can possibly afford to miss in Auckland. But drinks on when I’m up there.

Oooh, and posters for Stardust have started turning up online. The international one is fairly nifty, though it feels like it should be a spot more up to awesome. Hoping too much for the movie itself? Let’s hope the hell not.

And for the gaming geek and fans of awesome, here’s a video sent by Cam that makes me soil myself with simple delight.

Work, work, work. Right in the middle of my third weekend of overnight video store work, which means I’ve depressingly been having little of a social life, but I tell myself I’m doing these shifts so I’ll have ridiculous amounts of money to whore myself out to the Film Festival in Auckland. Next weekend will have me up there for a few days, scheduled the hell out to watch a lot of movies in a row. Plus drinking. Can’t forget that.

Anyway, with a new semester of uni just started up and plenty of fresh new students to pass down my knowledge and wisdom and to corrupt at the same time, I’ve also been right into the planning stages of another short film from wintec. This time with the more prestigious role of DOP and I’m gonna go all out to make this one both pretty and very fleshed out in its thinking of how the shots are composed, which means lots of storyboarding, shotlists, colour palettes and general filming dogmas to adhere to. Which is just gonna be fun.

Actually, I’ve been a little too focused on such things, I’ve slightly miscalculated my schedule and have to go to another shoot in five hours to also DP on. Better get some sleep from now till then, so here are some fun links…

Article on a man robbing a bank disguised as a tree can be read here.

And one on giant badgers terrorising an Iraqi port city to be read here.

Hilarity all around.

The thing about being hellishly busy sometimes is the fact that you find it hard to stay consistent with posting and stuff. I have no idea how I kept it up during the Pictures of You shoot, but that’s because I’m Superman. But then again, when you’ve got nothing going on and you’ve got plenty of spare time to blog, sometimes, there just isn’t anything interesting to write about.

I worked this weekend. Second week in a row of doing graveyard shifts and this weekend is probably the least amount of work I’ve ever done and that’s pretty exciting if your me. Or the loch ness monster. Then again, he ain’t up to much these days.

But I did watch quite a few films and worthy of mention is Idiocracy, where Luke Wilson gets frozen and ends up in the future where everyone has devolved into idiots and he’s the smartest guy on earth. And it was good and very insightful into how I feel sometimes… or better yet, how people feel around me. Cause I can be a goddamn moron. A sexy moron. But a moron none-the-less. And when I’m working and customers come up with their um… opinions… a little bit of myself keeps dying in hope of the human race. Actually, I’m in retarded but good looking territory right now. Up all night and writing a nonsensical blog about nothing and just ranting on about nothing in particular and whatever pops into my head… Pigeons… See?

Currently at work and it is a quiet night for a change. Which is good, considering today’s is a ten hour shift and I’ve been in need of a little down time from the past few days of madness.

This afternoon saw me with a minor brain numb and a house full of empty beer and wine bottles. Turns out what was meant to be a few drinks with friends and such at the end of the Wintec shoot I’ve been helping out on and off on for the past week, became what I guess is the semi-official wrap party. Strange how they can evolve like that. All I provided was a venue.

But yeah, was a most interesting shoot and I’ll say that tensions were high at times, which fed into a very interesting night for me last night to observe the looks and thoughts between people and drinks. Then again, I was drinking a lot, so maybe I’m looking too much into that.

Oh, but Friday morning, I should be recieving a prize from the Waikato Times newspaper as I’ve won some thirty odd DVDs from them for a competition I didn’t even enter. Funny and awesome.

Still going and several more days of ridiculous amounts of video store work to do. Still got Pictures of You to finish rough cutting. Next week uni starts and I’ve got a fresh batch of students to corrupt. And the week after that, production starts on Paul’s youtube series The Orb of Ra, where again, I’m whoring myself as a DOP plus an actor this time. I’m such a cheap date.

So where the hell have I been? Everytime I wake up in the morning, I ask myself that same question. Usually followed by what the hell is a traffic cone, orange wig, empty cases of import beer and one pissed off monkey doing in my room? But enough about how I cured cancer, on with the update…

The deadly life threatening flu that I contracted has all but gone and has dropped down to orange alert, annoying tickling cough. Would have been over it faster, but have been keeping myself way too busy, mostly with video store work and helping out on a wintec short film, which has been interesting to say the least. Lots of very cool gear being used and at one point, there was a 30 ft crane on set that had me changing my pants several times from pure delight. But the set is on a farm that was at first stinking to high heaven of sheep shit and now after some wonderful winter weather, reduced to a mud field of very squishy proportions. Its not so bad, but for some reason, walking around the dark at night, the constant squishing sounds of the mud just gets to me, even though no said liquids are in contact with my person. Washing machine is getting its run for its money though.

Best part about this is the fact that to both of our surprises, my friend Rob who disappeared from my life years ago to Wellington, turned up out of the blue for this film and he’s awesome and reads this blog. But yeah, its an interesting shoot and only being a helping hand on this one, it’s always still facinating to me to watch how other people’s productions run. Especially the other low budget stuff, its almost overkill how professional this shoot is, there are a couple of industry professionals here and the set ups are being rigged in a very industry professional manner and that on the level of this kind of production is making for facinating sideline viewing for me. Details another time no doubt.

At the same time, I’ve been juggling my work and pulled off the ridiculous amount of hours at the video store this weekend (28ish in 48 hours), but meh I say. Worst off is the fact I have a couple of corporate videos that need cutting and the deadline is only a few days away and the time to do so is getting tight. Oh and forgot to mention earlier, but the damn computer with Pictures of You on it is now sitting in my room waiting for me to start chopping into it as well, that’s my job on it now, but that’ll have to wait just a bit longer as I vainly attempt to clear up my workload.

Also to mention, I finally got myself a copy of Auckland’s international film festival booklet and as thought, the list is sweet. Already planned several times to just go up and watch as much cool stuff as possible. One particular weekend has about nine films pencilled in as “yeah, I’d really like to go to this one and that one and oh, this one will be cool” blah, blah, blah. Fact that I’m working this year will probably mean I’ll be seening more festival films in Auckland than I did last year when I was living there. Go figure.

Oh yeah, and the national winner of the 48 Hour competition was announced tonight. Hamilton’s entry didn’t win and to my disappointment, Lemonade Coup didn’t get Cinematography (though they still get a nice panasonic dvx102… dastards), but it was a very interesting line-up of finalists. Auckland’s finalist was a surprising winner and it’ll be interesting to see how it actually compares to their finalists. My bet was on the Christchurch entry that come in second and was just great, but in the end, Lease, one of Peter Jackon’s wild card entries took the top spot.

Now its off to some much needed sleep, been getting so little in the past week, and that’s not gonna let up for a few more days, so here is two highly amusing videos of street magic and stuff.