Zombie Chris

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.

My Love is Like the Border Between Greece and Albania

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.

One Of Those Days I Can’t Be Bothered to Think Up A Title For A Post

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.



Ninja and Batman… awesome.

The week still keeps churning on. 12 hour day today of teach and work and not working and working again. Tomorrow morning is more work with not enough sleep to be had, and then up to Auckland for a few hours to watch Dylan Moran (yayness) and then back down again as there is more work to be had on the Saturday morning. Which, hopefully afterwards, reserves the weekend for some 48 hour planning, drinking and more planning.

Not much else, except for this awesome article curtsey of Robbie which I will just requote here…

ORLANDO, FL (AP) — A man dressed like a ninja broke into an Orlando home, smashed furniture, attacked two people and then vanished without a trace.

Three people were inside the home watching a movie Sunday afternoon when the ninja ran in, punched one man in the mouth and then kicked another man.

The victims — who did not want to be identified — reported that the costumed man slammed the DVD player and VCR into a dresser. Then he pulled out a knife and started waiving it around. The victims say the intruder didn’t steal anything from the house but took several pictures with his cell phone camera.

When it was time for the ninja to make his escape, he didn’t disappear in a cloud of smoke. The victims say the man ran down the street to a black BMW and drove off.

Which is just great, cause as I’ve said in the past, it’s scientifically proven that anything with a ninja in it is 150% cooler.

This also reminds me of an earlier article I read a couple of years ago and have lauded many times ever since. I can’t find the direct link for it anymore as it has probably been taken down from the CNN site, but thanks to the bloggers is available to be reposted here…

A 6-foot-tall, 275-pound bearded man crashed a children’s birthday party in Oak Forest, identified himself as “vengeance,” then helped himself to a piece of cake, police said.

The incident occurred earlier this month at a home in the 14800 block of South Landings Lane in the south suburb, Deputy Police Chief Nick Sparacino said.

When the owner of the home asked the man who he was, the intruder replied, “I am vengeance. I am the knight. I am Batman.” Then the man went into the kitchen, cut a piece of birthday cake, took it into the living room and ate it.

After continued questioning by the homeowner, the man left the house and drove off in a red 1988 Cadillac.

Hooray for such oddness and fun to be discovered in the world.

To Tired To Think Of A Title

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.

Orange Ball of Love

Te he, got called into an emergency relief tutoring of VP2 this morning. Ended up rushing to the class and warping their fragile little minds with lots of mindless theoretical mumbo jumbo and crazy hand gestures, all to hide the fact that I was a little confused with the notes I was given and was pretty much improvising a great deal of the workshop.

But in the end I think (I hope) they got the general idea of what the point of the lesson is supposed to be… The camera being the audience’s eye and the world and verisimilitude created with the frame, along with the world outside of the frame to visually convey plot, character and emotion… blah, blah, blah, blah, blah…

At least, that’s what I think I meant. There were a few blank faces and I think one guy evaporated into dust, but that could have been from the heat too. Or he was a vampire. All the best to Marama in teaching them for the rest of the semester.

Also got another message at midnight from a friend about Jon, who has finally gotten his lung transplant operation approved and is probably undergoing surgery as of writing this. Its been a long wait and I’ve always hoped that this day would come and I hope he pulls through and in true Jon fashion. I know all us guys from high school are rooting for him and it’ll be an anxious wait for the results.

Now off to sleep for a bit, start a ten hour shift in less than five hours. Fun times.

Orange Ball of Pain

So today was my first day as a tutor, which I still find hilariously ironic considering my past transgressions as a former student.

A little nervous at first with mild clouds of self doubt, but by the end of the class it was overcast with disappointment at only half the class turning up and blown away by the lacking empathy and response of students toward the wonderful medium of media.

But the chuckles are still there from being a tutor. I even prepared lots of stuff for viewing from really awesome music videos, to mock trailers, to really smart advertisements. Plus I finally get to utilise my Criterion copy of Brazil, all to show how the magical world of editing can be used to enhance, enrich, or totally screw up the intended meaning of a scene/film.

On other fronts, not a helluva lot going on. Been a little apathetic on things that I should really be doing and mixed in with working the mega-uber-dumb number of hours at the video whore, achievement points are at an all time low for the first time in a while.

Orange Ball of Peace

Realising to myself I haven’t updated the blog in several days, which is pretty slack by recent standards, but I have been a tad busy lately… And its starting to get very cold around now, really quickly…

Picked up a ridiculous amount of video store hours this week which is almost killing my social life if I actually had one. Though there are some small drinks planned this weekend, which will no doubt feel very deserved.

Editing on Pictures of You continues and starting to take shape and form more and more. A minor set back of hard drive space happening when it was realised the external purchased by Ben was a USB and not firewire… silly, silly man.

Spit-Takes: A Mouthful of Comedy is almost done shooting! After much shooting over each other’s clashing schedules, there just remains voice overs, a cafe scene and miscellaneous montage shots to be done. It’s good considering daylight savings has kicked in and that leaves a lot less time to shoot during the day by our timing of things. Editing commencing soon too.

In negotiations for a job for the museum, but that’s at a really early process and not much can be said about so.

Oh, and I’m now a paid tutor at Uni starting Thursday. Which just gets the mega lolz from people considering I dropped out of that place years ago. It’ll be interesting to see how this situation will turn out. No doubt it’ll involve masses of students, things on fire, a small child saying “don’t drink the water” and me riding a rhino into battle… Awesome.

But not quite as awesome as blowing up super-huge sand sculptures and playing them backwards, in reverse…

There was also a really cool Stardust trailer-of-sorts up on Youtube over the weekend, but it looks like that’s been taken down. It was very loose in how it was put together and obviously not the proper final trailer (much like the first 300 one), but the film looks really good and with such an awesome cast and being based on one of my (if not the) favourite books, it’s gonna be great. I always dreamed I’d adapt or be involved in adapting it into a film, but it looks like they’ve done it right with this one and besides, I’ve still got my plans for that Tolkien rings thing book and that one about that English boy and magic school… Oh… wait…

Norwegians Come Down From The North Attacking the Walls of the Fortress

Some issues with blogger and little bits of apathy prevented any posts from happening this week. Plus there was actually a lot of working during the day and editing during the night that kept this site at bay.

We had our Pictures of You wrap party on Friday which was a nice affair to see people again, catch up, drink and look totally ridiculous. A big happy birthday to Old Friend Scott for yesterday… I spent Saturday well and truely hungover all day and sleeping and eating a lot and the recovery was just in time for me to work a graveyard shift where once again, I watched movies, read comics and abused drunk customers (orientation week man…). Just about to head out to film some more of Spit-Takes and knowing that I’m not gonna watch enough on a cheap Tuesday, thinking of going to a film tonight… Oscar season, always too many to go to.

Quickies… Proof that the universe’s karma is against me, Penn Radio which I’ve recently been listening a lot, had its last show on Friday. Which is a shame but I think its missing out on the rest of a Moon Landing conspiracy thread you can download the casts here and here. Which is facinating stuff, but we’ll probably never hear the conclusion to it.

The new trailer for Paprika is out and just simply look amazing. Satoshi Kon is one of my favourite directors and everything he makes and touches turns to edible gold. Watch any or all of his previous works and you won’t be disappointed, my personal favourite is either Perfect Blue or Millennium Actress… Actually I really love the series Paranoia Agent, which would just leave out Tokyo Godfathers, but I loved that film too… screw it, trailers here.

Pictures of You – Day 29

And so today was our last official day of shoot… A nice easy hospital clinic room scene with short dialogue between two characters, with absolutely no hiccups. Much beer was celebrated afterwards and now I write this from work as it is, as always, a boring night.

It’s like coming out of another world, making a film at every waking hour, going mental and crazy and creative and all and now its over and we’re all going back to menial jobs and getting the bills paid. Along with a few pick-up shots and cutaways, there is still much post production work to be done, months of editing lie ahead along with re-creating the soundscape, ADR and scoring of the music… and with a little luck, it won’t be long till we’re back in the saddle, ready and making the next film.

But right now all I can think about really is how awesome my bed is going to be once I finish this shift in five hours. Woke up Friday morning with a massive hangover, nothing paralytic, just nasty. Spent the day watching films and contemplating sleep before going off to work an hour early (as if I remember what time shifts are supposed to start) and killed time in a bar celebrating Brooke’s birthday with mates and shooting tequila (which was intended to help work off the hangover, but just made things a tad worse). At work, I was being ‘re-trained’, so there was another fellow on to retrain me, but we just took advantage of the extra manpower and took turns at napping (Jay got two hours, I slipped in just over three). After work, there was enough time for a couple hours more of sleep, shooting at one till four and then drinking, poker at a friends place and then now I’m at work still writing this. Pretty tired and don’t think I’m making too much of a point blogging all of these details. Though I must add, appologies to both Marama and Joe and Daisy and co for being unable to attend both of your respective housewarmings.

Um… thats about all I’ve got left. Oh but how cute and cool and annoying would this alarm clock be? It like wheels itself away and rolls around your room going off if you don’t wake up properly and turn it off the first time. Neat-o.