Workload has crept up on me out of nowhere. Well, not nowhere, I could have avoided such a pile up, but… meh… I’m still lethargic from the weekend. But in the next day or two I’ve got a stack of unmarked assignments to finish off, an article for the university’s magazine to write, video to edit and just general paperworks to sort out. Pity I used my recent day off to watch a whole season of the Sopranos instead.

Ah well, I’ll finish my shift tomorrow, mark the assignments, get annoyed and channel that energy towards the article (cheekily titled “I Hate It Here”) and by then, be so tired, I’ll hit a creative high in cutting together this video.

Meanwhile, just got off msn with Eric Zhang if those who read this know who that is. Bitch came back to New Zealand and is living in Dunedin at the moment doing doco research work, which is both cool and surprising. He’s also got a doco idea in the pipeline which sounds pretty damn interesting to say the least. But yeah, just thought I’d mention it, cause I’ve got to pad these posts a bit if there’s to be any regular updating.

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.

Finally! The fear is sinking in as the shooting date for Moneta draws near. Next week we begin a three/four day shoot and then go straight into post with lots of funky effects and animation stuff. But it’ll be no problem… really… I can wrestle no less than three polar bears to the ground with one hand behind my back. This should be easy.

Three more cameos this week, starting on Wednesday at 1am I’m a surgeon, 8am I’m a war doctor or something and 11am… something else. Such a background whore.

Uh… not much else to say, except this clip of David Lynch promoting his new film on the corner of a street with a cow…

And a photo of the shuttle launch taken from the International Space Station… found on Warren Ellis’ website… awesomeness.

Been helping out this week on one of the students’ horror shorts. Fun times running around dark tunnels and haunted houses late at night and getting a head injury from a falling electric plug.

Anyway, not much to report recently. Just starting to get the heavy work done on my own short (about time some say) and still cameoing in a lot of other people’s films. Current count is at about 10 appearances.

Right… here be a trailer for a Norwegian animated film where the English dub has been written by Simon Pegg… eeeeh!

So yeah, once again absent, but this time I’ve at least got around to putting a few updates to the rest of the site. Some art stuff is finally up and added a couple of photos to the ever changing header. Sub-sections for films will eventually go up along with downloadable videos. It’s all in a bid to make myself a little more pro-active and less depressed about the things I’m being slack at.

Elsewhere, our end of year films are starting to get made and they’re shaping up quite nicely I hear. Mines still chugging along slowly, but thats only because I’ve been too busy curing world hunger… and not because I’m lazy.

Yesterday I got to finally go to the Armageddon convention and sheer geekiness poured out of every window that was allowed open. Got some great bargains on cheep DVDs and comics, whilst touching myself a lot watching Blade Runner on the big screen. Totally awesome, but totally poor too. Still, I’m looking forward to it next year.

Oh and this should have been posted a lot earlier, but the trailer for 300 is officially out and dear god… it is also something to touch yourself over. Downloadable here.

Two teaser trailers for the sexy Hot Fuzz here and here.

And two hair pulling movie title trivia games here (with office stationary) and here (on a cryptic painting).

Been a while? Only a bit.

Finally on Holiday… and celebrated it with a heavy dose of drinking and partying and all that stuff. Spent all of yesterday recovering from it and still feeling a bit of the burn.

Lets see… since the last post, I went to a drama camp for school and spent a weekend at Port Waikato Camp. The freakiest thing was it was a camp I had gone to about 11 years ago and the whole time, I couldn’t shake this crazy sense of nostaliga.

After a couple dozen treatments, four and a half scripts and a lot of stressful indecision, I’ve
finally decided on a script to shoot for our Term 4 project. It’s still a little shaky at best, but there’s about 10 weeks away till we actually shoot so in that time I plan on getting a lot of re-writes, storyboards and other various pre-prod stuff that’s always a pain in the arse.

Apart from that, not much else has been going on. Or not much worth remembering… I think.

This week we’re filming a bunch of 2 minute short films… on film. Pretty exciting stuff, we get to work with some actual professionals, have really huge crews, each working on itty bitty tiny little details here and there and generally have a good time… most of the time. Only real issue is the really shitty weather we’re having to put up with. Really bloody cold.

I’m one of 12 in the writer/directors course that have been picked to shoot on film and I’m getting to go luckly last. By then people are going to be burnt out and can’t wait to end the week, so luckily my set ups and everything aren’t going to take long. That’s my goal for the day, be the fastest shoot of the lot. Don’t matter about quality. Just fast turnaround television.

Being affixed to the wonders of Wikipedia, I came across a page on Aphex Twin and in particular, the Windowlicker single and discovered that the end of the second track, if played and viewed through a spectrogram, you can see the face of Aphex Twin himself. It’s a crazy image that plays for just 10 seconds, but it’s really cool. To see a sample of it, this guy’s page here has all the details.

Meanwhile, deadlines loom and pass over at school as I’ve yet to turn over a script for a short film to be made at the end of the year. It’s like the wonderful life of a real writer as people start demanding to see pages and results and you do your best to justify the delay.

Thusfar, I’ve been able to come up with a multitude of ideas and storylines and characters etc… but have yet to settle on one that I actually like and am willing to further develop. So this weekend I’m setting myself a goal to get at least one script done by Sunday, else… screw it, else nothing, I gotta write something.

Oh yeah, and a minor happy thing, Microsoft have finally released the hotfix for Windows being unable to hibernate due to “insufficient system resources exist to complete the API”. Been waiting almost a year for the bastard and you can finally download it here.

Goddamn school is driving me nuts. They expect you to make a 3 minute short film called “The Meeting” within the space of half an afternoon and make it about two characters in separate environments and meeting at some point… and make it good.

Actually, that wasn’t so hard, except the equipment issued out was screwed and we didn’t figure this out til an hour into the shoot and by the time we chased the problem back to school and got it fixed, there was only two hours left to shoot. And being the supreme genius that I am, I wrote a script involving multiple set ups, multiple locations and yada yada yada… and miraculously, it would have almost turned out alright. Had we not lost that one hour, we would have got the interiors shot and had a begining and an ending to the film. Instead, we got a middle filled with funky lights and dreamlike realities. Which look really cool, but pretty pointless when not put into context.

Returning to school, we were told that there will be no reshoots, it’s all the camera operators fault and although I got pretty damn pissed off for a while (haven’t been that angry in a long time actually), I’m not blaming anyone and have figured out a way to salvage the footage we’ve got.

I call it “The Meeting 2: Electric Boogaloo”

Starting to get a little movied out, but still enjoying it. Mind Game is practically at the top of my list of films seen at this festival and the Science of Sleep is pretty damn close behind. I think i can afford to make it to maybe one or two more films, but that’d be about it for this year.

Thats the one great thing living up here in Auckland. Down in Hamilton, during every film festival season, I’d make a trip to Auckland to get me a copy of the festival booklets and work out how the hell I’m going to see what I want to see in either city during whenever. It’s just nice to have them all in one city for a change.

Anyway, been coming up wiht multiple ideas for short films to be made for the end of year, but have yet to stick to one I actually like and is worth doing in a student film enviorment. I’ll bet our screenwriting lecturer is enjoying recieving pages after pages of different treatments from me, as I’ve simply shut off my filter in handing her stuff and I’ll just drop off whatever now. Gave her five treatments on Friday and I have a feeling I’ve got four more for her tomorrow.

Anyway, because ninjas are cool here is a trailer for one kick arse ninja movie coming up… well… if your into that and turtles… here.

But a more worthwhile trailer to download is Aranofsky’s new film The Fountain to be downloaded here.