Dear god my head is hurting like a motherfucker. Drank quite a bit last night.

This week a DVD for this year’s 48 Hour competition arrived in the mail. It’s pretty funky and they’ve gone the extra mile of including a 3rd disc with the best of the rest shorts. They’ve done this in previous years, but didn’t last year due to time constraints or something. Either way, it’s cool and I look forward to checking them all out sometime when I’m free, cause there is a lot of films on there. At least 100 I think.

Anyway, this hangover is quite awful. So here’s evidence of a massive black hole at the center of our galaxy here. And an article for those wHo want to test some sex toys here.

Seriously, hangovers suck.

Flu is over. Feeling much better these days. Just really hungover is all.

An ad I shot a while ago is now online here with a write up about it in the times here.

Meh, my brains not processing much else right now. So here’s a way more awesome ad campaign with a digital Bruce Lee using nunchucks to kick ass at ping pong and light matches in the air. The man is so awesome.

Can’t post anything properly today. Drank too much last night.

A two faced kitten was born in Australia and I immediately thought of Transmetropolitan. Should really send the link to Warren Ellis, reckon he’d dig it.

There’s a listing of 40 Exquisite Independent Film Posters and its a pretty good selection. Definitely a couple that I’d have on my list. There’s also an ever changing list of 100 Greatest Movie Posters which is also pretty neat-o.

A great New Scientist write up of why the universe most likely is teaming with extra-terrestrial life here.

Horribly, horribly hungover. Smell of kerosene. Drank a whole bottle of Southern Comfort last night, bar two or three drinks for friends. Drank some more in town. Came second in poker. Never threw up, but threw candy at people. Keep feeling like I made a drunken douche of myself last night on stage. Possibly came off wrong on certain people last night. Vaguely remember firebreathing. Need food and to find car. Awesome times.

Been busy working. Got drunk last night cause I could. Very hungover now. No remorse.

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.

Flash Sanders: Funk Detective recieved the following wins: Best Costume, Best Editing and City Runner Up Award. It also received nominations for Best Art Direction, Best Score, Best Actor and V Most Manic Performance.

I was so sure that either I’ll Die Before I Go Back or Shiseido and Jerry were going to win best and runner up for the region, but it was instead taken by The Playground which was alright, but yeah… what a surprise.

But this now means we’re not completely out of the competition and our film will now be sent down to Peter Jackson to check out and be screened with all the other tops and runner ups to be possibly selected as a wild card and added in with the national competitors. Not bagging on that happening, but I am just stoked enough with how we did last night. Only thing, I really wish Sash got something for his performance, he was great as Flash. Overall it was a good night (drinking and hangover now) and I’m slowly getting into the grove of wanting to do it again next year.

Oh yeah, it also means I still can’t post the short up on youtube until I get word back on how we do as a wildcard selectee. But we’ll get there. Eventually.

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.

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.

Again, posts getting infrequent. But then again, not much going on.

Some lovely bouts of drinking over the weekend. Had some ‘last’ drinks with some uni folks and got nicely drunk with Malcolm, who flies out next Monday, for quite an indefinite time. He shall be missed.

But the hangover was awesome and today is my third day off work and not much has been achieved. Editing on Spit-Takes became quite a scary task and though there is probably enough footage, at this point it’ll be debatable if anything worthwhile will be usable for Paul to take down on to Wellington. But in saying that, the current edit of Pictures of You is looking quite nice. I’ll be doing some basic colour corrections on the footage before its taken down tomorrow and hopefully be able to make it to a cheap Tuesday viewing of Black Sheep afterwards.

Also got caught with the consumerism whore bug and bought my first DVDs in a long time… actually, seven movies… Children of Men, Desperado, El Mariachi, Jarhead, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, Sonatine and The Wild Bunch. Plus a random look on trademe and I’ve found an auction for a CD/DVD rack exactly like the ones I’m currently using. Which, like when the last one (the second) was purchased, it was due to a demand to get new shelf space for the huge overflow of guilty purchases. I’ve actually had this problem for about two years now and to actually find a third one is insanely good fortune (cause they were really cheap things to buy, but are reliably good for DVD storage) and by the looks of the pile that’s already built up, I’ll be need a fourth one really soon.

Who’s looking forward to 300, Pan’s Labyrinth and The Illusionist this week? The thought of all those movies has got me so turned on.