Am currently editing a video for my friend Sash and introducing his Samurai Movie marathon this weekend, which is just fun and a good excercise to keep me working. Especially since I’m currently sick from work, which is really annoying, cause I get sick only once a year during the seasonal change from Summer to Winter, but that shouldn’t happen for a few more months. This flu is way too early and I blame it on global warming. To be fair, I do blame everything on global warming, well, I do if I can’t blame it on the robots first.

Last week there was a screening of the short film collection It Came From the Swamp at the Hamilton Gardens Summer Festival. I tried to attend it, but somehow got lost in the gardens and it seemed everyone I inquired had a different opinion of where exactly it was on the grounds. But from what I’ve heard, most screenings have gone down very well and Spit-Takes is a real crowd pleaser, which is great.

At the insistence of several people I’ve uploaded an old video made several years ago. Shot on no budget and for a university music video competition, this was just fun for all involved and turned out to be pretty much one of the only videos I can rewatch without cringing for some self concious reason.

So, without further blathering, I present “I Think I Can” with music by The Pillow.

Forgot to mention the second Hamilton screening of It Came From the Swamp was on last night. There will be an Auckland screening tonight at the Wine Cellar, so if anyone isn’t up to anything and in the area up there, head on over and check out some quality films.

Alternatively you can check out this new Microsoft Zune ad. We don’t have Zunes in New Zealand and its pretty doubtful we ever will, but that doesn’t matter. Just watch this video and be amazed… hehehe.

Kick off screening of It Came From the Swamp went very down very well last night with tickets being sold out and a second screening planned for next week to accommodate futher viewers.

I got there late myself and forgot to grab a copy of the DVD, something I’ll probably have to pay for, but from what I hear, apart from being on sale during the tour, the DVD will eventually be available in stores like JB Hifi, which is pretty exciting.

Part of last night was also the first time I had sat down with an audience watching Spit-Takes and though I was nervous to begin with, people started laughing from the first gag and kept laughing in almost all the right places which is great. There are still bits and pieces which I wish I had spent a little more time polishing and shortening to really get the laughs across, but ah well.

Just to note about Spit-Takes: the version that’s touring is actually the ‘clean’ version. Where the one on youtube at the moment is full of dirt and film artifacts, the one thats on the DVD is free of all that due to the fact I couldn’t complete all the effects in time before it had to be in for the DVD mastering. This I don’t mind, I’m still half and half if it should be either clean or dirty, but I must point out that the countdown timer appears to have been cut from the start of the short which is a little miffing as it sets up the whole ‘educational film’ format, but them’s the breaks I suppose.

But anyway, It Came From the Swamp will be playing in Raglan tonight, not that anyone I know from Raglan will be reading this, but I actually wouldn’t mind being there right now as the weather for the last few days have been ridiculously hot and I’ve got a feeling I’m not looking forward to summer this year.

Have been spending the last few days (and nights) tinkering a slightly new web design that utilises CSS which is something I’ve been meaning to do for a very long time and now I know why I’ve been putting it off for so long. Ugly HTML coding is so much easier, but most definitely one ugly bitch. Anyway, be a while before thats fully up and running and also more than enough techno mumbo jumbo bullshit for one post.

Tonight is the Hamilton kick-off of It Came From the Swamp! so if your not up to anything tonight, feel like watching some high caliber short films and want to support the local film making community, come on down to the Victoria Cinemas before 8pm tonight. I’ll the be one drunk out front making rude gestures to old ladies and small children.

Its also been pointed out to me that the collection of Hamilton Short Films festival entitled “It Came From the Swamp: Short Films From the Waikato” starts its tour of New Zealand next week.

As you can tell from the title, it’s a collection of seven locally made films. Among them is Spit-takes, a short film I made (or at least finished) specifically for this festival.

Others included are Betty Banned Sweets which I mentioned earlier today, Meat, which I helped out on, but mostly hung around and smoked cigarettes with the cast and crew. Dawn Tuffery’s Swing which is a pretty damn cool animated short. Retribution and Clean As A Whistle are the only ones that I haven’t seen. Oh and of course Dark Priest which I still hold high as one of the best student short film to have been made in the Waikato.

So yeah, It Came From the Swamp. Playing next Tuesday 8pm at Victoria Cinemas, the dates for the other areas around New Zealand can be found at https://www.eventfinder.co.nz/user/nadinelee or I could post them here… nah… too lazy and have blogged more than enough today I think.

Been meaning to post in the last few days that I’ve been working on this bastard for many late nights tapping keys like a drone, banging my head through the online rendering and trying to get a proper decent quality online.

Well its now done and after so long working at it, I have no idea if its any good and without even testing it before release, I give you the long overdue… Spit-Takes: A Mouthful of Comedy. Be gentle internet.

Well its been one long week of all sorts of crazies. Completed the short film “Spit-Takes” and while I’m happy with the final result, there’s some effects thats taking its time being rendered before I’ll put it online for all to see.

Its been submitted to be screened along with some other local shorts for a touring festival in order to showcase the Waikato’s budding filmmaking community… or something along those lines. I even managed to squeeze in my good friend Sash’s Dark Priest short that he made several years ago and I still consider it one of, if not the best student/low budget short to have come out of the Waikato in recent years and its always needed a wider audience and this certainly is one of the platforms for it. I should be an agent. Ari Gold would be proud.

Other things that have happened this week include getting my car tested for a Warrant of Fitness and passing with absolutely no faults, not even minor ones to keep an eye out for. Impossible? Probably, I must have left a 20 note or something in the seat, that’s never happened to me before.

I also broke another expensive pair of headphones, and buying a replacement, thats probably my third $100 pair this year. Spending money is just awesome. I also completed building shelves for my DVDs so now they don’t just lie around in excess across the floors and now just need to track down where the hell all my borrowed ones are. As there are just so many missing its mental.

Also tried some painting this weekend and failed so instead took up drinking as a past time. That was excellent, but suffered one hellish hangover thats been haunting me all day today. Thats what I get for mixing my many drinks.

The plan for this week is to start putting together the next short film exclusive for the net, finish writing of script thats needed finishing for many many many months now and probably get around to invoicing and getting paid.

There’s an interview with Charlie Kaufman here in mp3 format and it runs for over two hours. He talks about all sorts of things an its great as you’d expect it to be.

The trailer for his upcoming film Synecdoche…

An interview with the creator of No Heroics which I caught the first episode of and now think is great. Check it out if you can, I mean there’s a guy called Thunder Monkey and he summons monkeys. I know I’ve mentioned that before but… monkeys!

And finally, here’s Well Ferrell answering some questions from the internet. Hilarious.

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.

Computer is in the middle of an upgrade to make editing Spit Takes a lot more easier. Actually, prior to upgrade, computer is running pretty sweet, but the option of more flashy bits and bobs going on inside is always a good choice.

Latest episode of House is finally out after much waiting and it is awesome. Best one in a long time and good one to watch after waiting so long for it to come out. The wait for the next episode of Heroes better be just as good in comparison to the wait… oh it better.

Anyway, trailer for 28 Weeks Later is up and I must say I am most intrigued to see it. Though Danny Boyle and Cillian Murphy did Sunshine instead, which is looking more and more awesome, this sequel actually looks half decent enough to go see. Plus zombies. Everyone loves zombies. Just like how everyone loves wild flowers and mutant hamsters.

Much tiredness going on for the last few days that’s affected my regular blog updating skills, but increased my catatonic movie watching skills. But stuff has been happening…

Professional help of awesome was given to the editing of Pictures of You over the weekend. My role in its post production is to go round to Ben’s house, watch him edit for a minute or two, start playing his xBox for an hour or two, look back to see he’s still editing and then play some more. By Friday the cutting was looking alright, but, after an actual professional editor had herself come and had some fun on it, I returned on Sunday to find a rather different looking film, many time better. Heidi (editor extraordinaire) has proposed to keep helping out on the cut of the film and I think Ben secretly breathed himself on huge sigh of relief. Just as long as evidence of some pretty bad camera work is still kept left out. She’s pretty damn awesome editor too if I haven’t mentioned it yet.

Capturing of footage on Spit-Takes is next to done. Still one scene left to film and tomorrow will be the recording of the voice-over track and a rough cut should be done by Saturday, just in time for mega drinking… hopefully.

Jon’s operation has been totally successful and there have been only minor complications at worst. Awesomeness as he’ll just be recovering now and we’re all breathing sighs of relief and joy.

To add to the joy, Dylan Moran is back for another performance and this time, this year, I shall have money to go. Plus in June, Mike Patton and Peeping Tom are playing at the St James and I’m even more in for that. Amusing as it’s only being out of Auckland, do I go to more shows there. Just got an announcement for the Mountain Goats to come up and my jar of happy-joy will burst with happy-joy delight.

And the upcoming coolness that will be Stardust finally has a trailer out and it looks awesome. You can check out the youtube clip…

…or download a proper quality of it here.

For ultimate viewing, one should watch both at the same time while wearing 3-D glasses and getting a massage from midget monkeys… hot.