the friedorange years

Is Vince Vaughn the older version of Adam Brody and the younger version of Bill Murray? You can see a lot of Brody's influences demonstrated as a case study in this film. Wilson is affable as the protagonist and Vaughn is affable as the fast talking improviser (or maybe they just wrote a very Vince Vaughn character). The structure was slightly different from many movies in that the usual pre-third act slump was held for much longer. But the casting, the performances and the script worked - this could be the mainstream comedy success of the year. Oh wait, it already is, at least in the US anyway.

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Mi Goreng "Beef" flavour: these are the ones with the green packaging. They taste like the less salty version of the Originals. Pretty good. But not very good.

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Academy of Strings yesterday was good. The music isn't so interesting for the 2nd violins, but in general, the pieces were fun to play. There is one modern programme-ish piece called 'Peter's Problem' in which we tried to simulate the sound of a fly. Terrible sounding but hilarious. I cannot wait to see how the audience respond.

Yesterday night: Bowling, McD's and Pool with Jeff Yeh, Gareth, Duncan and Adam. Good. I actually broke 100.

Happy meals with fruit bags and orange juice are great. You actually get a lot of apples compared to the amount of fries you get normally. We got a Tony Hawk skate-toy too.

:o)

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We're postponing music composing for Papaya until 10th of August. In the meantime I'll start writing the next script and go back to music related stuff again.

Time to play violin and vacuum the floor. Cya!

Charles Chaplin, the 1925 version. Saw this at the film screening today.

Notables:
- Bread-Roll Dance: had an element of comedy so ahead of its time, I even feel as if Chaplin travelled back in time to perform that dance. His expressions and nuances were so futuristic.
- Visual Effects: amazing. The sets were amazing, the choreography was amazing and the stunts were amazing.
- Story: Didn't go in ways I expected, and may be a bit light-hearted in its ethics, but it's still very entertaining.

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Today: I got a '2Pak' Twix bar COURIERED to my door. "Thanks for participating, here's a free bar." What nice people. Although I must say they have bad taste --> check out the winning entries (five of 'em) at the official site: http://www.chewitover.co.nz

The Twix bar was massive and good. But I'm not advertising it. If you have the money, get a Mars or Snickers bar. Anti-viral marketing hopefully.

Tonight: I was going to go to a 'Mystery Movie' advance screening, but then we realised that the possibility of it being Beauty Shop. So instead I'm going bowling as a goodbye thing for Jeff Yeh who is going to the the states soon to attend the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. Coolies.

Tomorrow: We're starting the music composing sessions for Papaya, I'm watching The Usual Suspects, we have Academy for the first time in a month (yay!), our house in Howick has an open home and I will be happy.

The Day After Tomorrow: A really bad movie.

The Day After the Day After Tomorrow: The sequel which has aliens and mutants and is coming out in 2008. This would be a really tough week for the humans.

Today's lectures were great fun. The film one was on basic film terminology and D. W. Griffiths. The PHIL 212 lecture was AWESOME. Talked about definitions of art, which was basically a whole lot of semantics. But the readings are totally cool, and the theorists love duking out their theories.

Although I have less papers this semester, for some reason I am spending more time on Uni-related stuff. Maybe it's because I'm taking Film Studies and Drama and Phil of Arts, stuff which I do in my spare time anyway? Hmmm I'm not sure, but it's kind of cool when what you do in your spare time also directly helps you in what you're actually studying. So either I'm not doing any work at all or I'm spending my whole day doing work. Either way, meh.

:o)

Oh yeah and I went to blood bank today. I felt fine afterwards, unlike last time, when for the following three days I felt like someone was pulling my heart towards the left with a vacuum cleaner on high suction. Maybe donating blood is like falling in love. Or like manually generating the effects of love. So it's like a love drug, and I'm building tolerance.

Or maybe I've just got it all wrong and what really happens is that whenever you fall in love an invisible Blood-Bank Cupid flies down and sticks a tube up your arm and starts draining your blood.

Today was an AWESOME day of classes. I went to the Drama lecture on Chinatown, which was awesome. Then I went to the very first Philosophy of the Arts tutorial, which had a LOT of people, but was surprisingly laid back, friendly and constructive. Then I went to two Drama tutorials. The first one was ok, it was a large class and some people were destructive and stone slabs, but the second one was very cool. There were only five people so I was forced to act. WHICH IS GOOD FOR ME. If I want to be a good director I have to really start acting, and this is a first step.

In that second Drama tutorial there was this European guy, I couldnt' tell whether or not he was Russian or German or French (yes my Euro-identification skills are not so fully developed), but he just over-acted EVERYTHING. It was hilariously good fun.

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Uploaded the last of the Papaya footage today. My mum sort of freaked out. "Dennis I've never seen you behave this way before. You talk like that? What the..."

Good night, take care.

I'm done! I did all my interview and close-up shots today. Had so much fun shooting and improvising [terribly]. Even tried to play a song on guitar, but that didn't work out too well, um I screwed up too many times. Acting is fun but tiring. But fun. Yeee ha! (Is that how you spell it? No standardised onomatopoeia... pfft.)

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My voice is screwed up. I get too thirsty when I act, and if I stuff up a bit too many times I can't seem to talk properly. But it's all about learning, and I've never learnt more. Hands on experience and experimentation in every different part of filmmaking is really important, and I believe this is the best way for me to gain a better (more rounded) understanding of filmmaking as both an art and a craft.

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Tiredness is like a big personified cloud who likes to run around in the fog in the hopes of getting hit by a car. I hope I don't get nightmares. Although I ate a freak orange yesterday (who had a massive 3 inch long scar) which led to a harmonious night of marshmellow dreams. May the scarred orange be with me, and with you and everyone else. Farceness? Meh.

*shrugs*

Good night. Isthat twowords orone? Goodnight. Ahhthatversionlooksmorerightandlesswrong.

I was walking around the Quad, and the fire alarm went off. So we went to Alfred and waited about five minutes. Then I walked into the IC centre, sat down, and this time the fire alarm for the Info Commons went off. Back outside for five minutes.

Sights: A guy was getting a haircut when the alarm rang, so the hairdresser wheeled him outside onto the side of the passage-way and kept on cutting his hair in front of stunned spectators.

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El Mariachi: Amazing, Rodriguez is. This movie was shot on film, was very well lit, but basically looked like a home video from beginning to end. However, the script, the pacing, the humour, the humour, the directing and and casting decisions just made this movie gold. Inspiring in the raw talent sense of the word, if Rodriguez can do this, anyone can! The book and this movie really provide three knockout sucker punches to the face for any aspiring/student/established film-/video-maker. Bedhead is funny for what it is, perhaps not a great piece of cinema, but every Rodriguez work I've seen has a real and rare sense of life.

Mi Goreng now. Bye!

Episode Two. Writing was superb. The narration still borderlines on 'telling you how to feel' and eliminating a lot of subtext, but again, finely executed, with the humour really coming out more this time. It's an understated kind of humour that really works with the subject matter.

The characters are also really starting to flesh out now, esp. Bree and Lynette. The music takes the cake again though. Thumbs up. I'd have to say the narrator has much more personality in this one too.

I haven't written on trailers in quite a while, but I thought, why not do a post on it now?

So I was watching this one for a movie called 'Waiting...', starring Anna Faris (of Scary Movie and Lost in Translation fame), and it's basically one of those outrageous non-understandable comedies. So there was this frame when it said:

From A Producer of American Pie

I find that incredibly pathetic and funny. Now, nothing against the movie, it might be really good, but the marketing is hilarious. Not that it's bad, but it's just usually there are at least 3-4 producers... and uh, American Pie (1999) had 4 Producers and 8 'x-Producers' in total. Rofl.

Guess what?! This movie is rated at 9.1/10 on IMDb right now with 41 votes or something. Hmm, maybe that may change, but that's a really interesting combination of parameters.

Anyway, here's the V for Vendetta trailer: http://vforvendetta.warnerbros.com/trailer.html

It's a graphic novel adaptation with Hugo Weaving and Natalie Portman. I think it's a very good trailer, but I'm not sure about the film. There is one shot which is identical to the shot of Neo walking into the government building (of his boots and him stepping up) in The Matrix. Except this time it's V. However, it is only written by the Wachowski brothers and not directed by them. It is directed by this first time director named James McTeigue. However, he has been a first-assistant director on more than 15 movies, including Dark City, The Matrix Trilogy and Star Wars: Episode II, so I'm confident this won't suck too bad. It might even be really good. Hmmm... I'm still curious about why the Wachowskis' are writing AND producing the film, but not directing it.

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I can't wait until the day when I see movies with these taglines:

From the Director of Photography of...
From the Costume Designer of...
From the Visual Effects Supervisor of...
From a Unit Production Manager of...
From the Third Assistant Director of...
From the Second Unit Boom Operator of...
From an On Set Caterer of...
From a Production Assistant of...

Meh, enough of this.

Saw this on tape. What do I think? Desperate Housewives takes several of the most popular archetypal characters, adds the funky music of Danny Elfman, cartoon-pace-action, oversimplification and a small element of mystery to create what I think is a largely successful pilot.

Of course, the one we saw isn't the ORIGINAL Pilot (unlike many other shows), but this is good. It is one of those one-year hit shows, this year's ones were Desperate Housewives and Lost, last year it was The O.C. - however, I think in terms of Pilot strength, Desperate Housewives is average. I can definitely see the appeal, but Lost's Pilot (and for that matter, The O.C.'s) were both much more emotionally resonant and gripping. But to its credit, Desperate Housewives is actually a free-standing one-hour show that has a COMEDIC focus in the form of a satire, so in that sense it is quite rewarding and unique. I think it is a fairly good concept with solid (but not wow-ing) writing, at last so far, that is executed very well.

Characters: Susan (Teri Hatcher) is most probably the protagonist. I'm not sure yet, but she seems very human, followed by Lynette (Felicity Huffman), then Bree (Marcia Cross), then Gabrielle (Eva Longoria) and finally Edie (Nicollette Sheridan). I look forward to more development in the characters OTHER than the housewives (i.e. the husbands), but it's very promising.

Two thoughts:
1. Much of the tension and personality of the show is driven by the excellent Elfman music, superb direction and simple crises, as opposed to the script itself.
2. It felt like a very long one-hour for some reason. In other words a lot happened in one hour, so I'm glad this is quite a fast-paced show (as opposed to Lost-speed, which is good in it's own way but just very different).

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Back later.

Today:

Shot all of Yuen's reshoot scenes: Brilliant. Superb acting and flow, he's a natural.
Shot all of my mid-shot introspective scenes: GOOD, I am satisfied with the result.

What's left in production:
My interview and close-up shots.

Later: Jammed with Sonny and Simon. 'Twas good. Not very productive but meh, music is music.

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I spoke to my Mum and Dad about 'downsizing' my equipment inspired by InDigEnt and Dogme 95 (but not as extreme). Mum was all for it, Dad sort of freaked out, because he can't understand why while everyone else is 'upgrading' their videomaking equipment, I'm 'downgrading'. I can understand what he means. I just have to think about it carefully before I make a move.

That's all for now, back later, maybe tomorrow with more details.

Take care.

Went bowling yesterday as a sort of 'cast and crew' thing for Simon's movie. 'Twas good. Was the first time I went bowling but it was a lot easier than it looked. Although I have no idea how the scoring works, I just throw the balls down the lane and it doesn't work out too bad.

As for Papaya, I've just had two of the most productive days since the project began. I woke up at 7:30 this morning, which is the first time I have woken up before 8 AM in the last month. Spent the rest of the day writing and writing and editing and editing. Yuen's going to be here any second for reshoots. This film is turning into a monster. The excitement builds. This could be my first incomprehensible film, even to myself.

Bye!

Woke up today feeling energised and refreshed. New music listening on the plate:

Joe Satriani - The Extremist
Joe Satriani - Surfing With the Alien
Joe Satriani - Crystal Planet
Joe Satriani - Unreleased Tapes
Joe Satriani - The Beautiful Guitar
Joe Satriani - Engines of Creation
Joe Satriani - Additional Creations

And also revisiting:

Joni Mitchell
Joan Baez
Eva Cassidy (maybe)

Quality songs galore!

ALSO: Jason Mraz's new album 'Mr. A-Z ' is out on the 25th. I'm listening to some sample tracks, and it's good. Maybe even better than his first album. Not sure about topping his acoustic live album though, that was brilliant.

Today was one of those far away days. I felt genuinely disconnected from pretty much every person I talked to no matter how involving the conversations. So I played guitar all night and that has somehow been a bit comforting.

Other than that I had a nice film lecture and went through all the rushes. Reshoots for Papaya have changed from tomorrow to Sunday to give me more time to figure everything out.

I forgot to talk about yesterday's Philosophy of Arts lecture - it was very interesting. Basically, there were two artists who surveyed like half the world's population or something (I don't have the stats so I may be wrong), and came up with the most desirable paintings for each country. So they did one painting for each country; they had 'America's Most Wanted', they had 'Denmark's Most Wanted', they had 'China's Most Wanted' and so on. Well it turns out, most of the paintings were very similar in composition and subject matter - lakes and mountains, and the differences were small 'culturally specific' elements, such as the Australian one having a kangaroo or the Chinese one having a portrait of a random emperor guy. Actually, there isn't an Australian one, but anyway, here is the website, VERY cool stuff:


Komar and Melamid
http://www.diacenter.org/km/homepage.html

They ALSO extended it to music as well. I really want to hear what the most 'Unwanted Song' sounds like... apparently less than 200 people in the world would like that song.

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I'm off, take care. I hope tomorrow is a better day.

The six hour day. Was tiring. Went to the Philosophy of the Arts lecture. Very interesting course. Boring lecturer. And a very, very thick coursebook.

Then went to the Applied Ethics lecture. That was also very interesting. But we talked about Euthanasia the entire time, and by the end of it I was tired, exhausted, drowsy and suicidal.

I think I might just have to drop the Applied Ethics paper and do only three this semester. I don't think I'll be able to guarantee A+ in all three (which would make my end of year GPA 8.0 exactly), but I can try. At least this gives me time to really absorb the content and write more scripts/songs. Sounds like a plan.

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Trying very hard to write up the script for that re-shoot/documentary-section-shoot, and it's very difficult. But once I get it done the hard work will be over. Editing will be a breeze after I plan this out nicely. This is the first truly pre-scripted film I've done. The next one will be a linear narrative, I promise (I want to do one like that too, beause the first three are so incredibly different).

Night, take care. I've lapsed into a period of 'non-humourous/amusing' blog entries again, but I think that's what usually happens when I'm doing a movie - the humour gets zapped out of me and it takes time to recover. Once the editing is done though, I usually get back to a non-lethal health level. Meh.

Ok, bye!

Urrrrgh. I checked the tutorial times today for the two PHIL papers I have. Very screwed up. If I fit everything in, it means that I will have 6 straight hours on both Thursday and Friday and 4 straight hours on Wednesday. Which I really do not want. I also had a good tutorial class today for ENG 109, and if I go ahead and try to fit the tutorials in it means I'll have to change tutorial classes to another one.

Ahhh!!! I'm trying to find an alternative paper right now, but it's seriously stuffed up. On one hand I know I'll just have to let go of this tutorial and switch, but on the other hand I feel destined to stay in this class. Urgh. I better decide soon...

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L'Enfant: Ok, basically the story is about this petty thief whose girlfriend has a baby, who he sells off to the adoption black markets without asking for her opinion. Then she reacts by fainting and freaking out, so he tries to find the baby and get him back. Well, he gets the baby back, but now the dealers are not too happy with him, so they tell him to work off 5000 Euros or else they'll keep beating him up. Anyway, there's a lot of stuff that happens, but basically at the end he turns himself in to the police and the last scene is just him sitting opposite his girlfriend's hand in the visitors' room of the prison, both crying. So, simple story. There was no music which I think I mentioned, and I think that added to the documentary feel of the film. It made me realise how watchable single camera drama was and inspired me to attempt that for my first feature. It can definitely work.

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Off to do some reading now!

Inspirational movie. Not the content, it was sort of depressing, I mean the filmmaking. Palme d'Or for a reason. I think this was a one camera drama with no musical score. But it made me realise what was possible in really raw filmmaking though.

Good performances from the two leads and an engrossing film. Maybe this script ain't the best one to study for Screenwriting 101, but the characterisation is about as consistent as it gets. Also there are a lot of miscellaneous every day activities that get filmed, but it's all really consistent in terms of style, and it works.

More about it in tomorrow's entry (or more like the one later today). Take care, I'm off to bed.

The first official day of Uni for me today. The bus to Uni was amazingly full with a record number of Macleans students. Had only one class - Drama on Stage and Screen from 12 to 1. It was pretty good. People did some role-playing, the first play we are studying is Brian Friel's 'The Freedom of the City'.

After that we had the most random planned unplanned Macleans gang meeting. Let me try to remember who was there... uh: Me, Steve, Henry, Ju (?), Simon, Julia, Grace, Sonny, Sam, Janko, Raymond, Nick and.... more people? I forgot. I also saw Wi Bian, Yuen, Chris, Nixon, Lip, Paul, uh... yeah it was weird.

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Before Sunrise: Saw this in the AV library (the first time this year I had used it) today because I had a 7 hour break. It was good. A lot of philosophical musings and prententiousness, but I liked this a lot more than Lost in Translation and a lot of other 'stranger-meets-stranger' films. There were also a lot of awfully long takes in which Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy duked it out with deep meaningful passages of psychobabble. Raw and basic, cool film. It's not like the greatest film of all time or anything, but the concepts the two characters spin around are quite universal.

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Seeing L'Enfant tonight. Stupid me, I should've asked someone else to watch it as well. I've used up the first 5 hours of my break by reading Friels' play and flipping through 'The Elements of Moral Philosophy' and writing more of the 're-shoot' Papaya screenplay, but I've still got two hours left. C'mon...

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Off to grab some food now. I just realised, one could actually live at Uni. Everything you would ever possibly need is here, and you could crash anywhere. Although eating costs would add up pretty quickly...

Take care. More on L'Enfant tomorrow since I get home at around 12 AM.

Afterthoughts:

Fish Out of Water - nice little story, I liked this one.
Code Orange in the Big Apple - a piece of crap.
La Baumette/The Blue Dress - extremely weird and scary. I didn't like this at all.
Pandora - also very weird, but the director must be very sensitive to the nuances of the film medium. Arty and freaky.
Composition No. 17 - haha, this was really short and sweet. Funny.
Blue Willow - an animated retelling of the Butterfly Lovers' story thing. A lot of work must've gone into this, although it still stuck to racial stereotypes.
An Indiscreet Journey - this was the most 'pro' looking film in the collection, but I found it a bit pretentious and boring. Meh.

Overall, the future of the New Zealand short moving image scene looks bright. Although I do feel like most of the shorts I saw recently from New Zealand directors leaned towards gimmicky storytelling and not much story. But definitely a lot learned and a lot enjoyed from watching these Homegrown collections.

Alright, I'm off, bye!

Semester two starts today. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I do not have any classes today. So I'm at home figuring out my timetable and listening to music and editing a bit more of Papaya. Homegrown: Works on Video is on tonight at Village Hoyts in the city. Coolies.

Birthday weekend was awesome, Simon's shoot went well, and today's a sunny day. I'll probably bus into the city in late afternoon to get some textbooks and find my rooms. Yay! Semester one was incredibly cool, but this semester I've got even more interesting papers lined up, so, I'm all amped up.

Ok, time for food. Bye!

Got to Steve's house at 10 AM. We waited and waited, then at 11:15 Lara came, then we waited another 10 minutes and Vitaly and Simon came. We did the narration fairly quickly, then headed out for Maraitai.

Maraitai was good. We ate fish 'n' chips and some other stuff. We tried to fly a kite, which went pretty well considering the amount of experience we had collectively.

After these two days of shooting, I realised the sort of progression one goes through as a director:

1. 'Puppet Master Direction' - you tell the actors exactly what to do and how to breathe and kick people.
2. 'Dramatic Puppet Master Direction' - you tell the actors how and what the characters should feel inside and what they want.
3. 'Freedom Direction' - you work with actors to come up with their script breakdowns of the main dramatic beats in each scene.

Today was very enjoyable and the weather was great for most of it.

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Saw The Aviator last night. It's very polished and well acted but I wasn't really interested in the subject matter. It's certainly better than Gangs of New York though.

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Writing/editing Papaya tonight... coming back to the short film. Take care.

Hello! Today was interesting. Very. It was a good experience I think. Let me just think back on what happened:

We went to Rikky's.
We went into city.
We drove around looking for a car park.
We parked.
We wanted to pay for parking.
We got back into the car.
We parked somewhere else.
We went to the D12 stop.
We had BK for lunch.
We went to the D12 stop.
We drove back.

Somewhere in between that was the film shoot. I'm not sure in between where.

Anyway, I think today I was just one of the 'muscle' people. Not that I'm a 'muscle' person, but you know, Simon had 4 'muscle' people lined up, and I think I just walked around and talked with people while Simon directed and Steve shot the movie.

Lara and Vitaly did great, so I thought, given the circumstances. It was a pretty cool experience, just being at someone else's shoot and for once NOT having any responsibility whatsoever and being really relaxed. Aha! So this is how fun it is, to be helping out with someone else's movie. Yay!

At around 10 AM Ajita and her parents got onto a bus, the one on which Lara got onto for the final 'goodby Yerik' scene. I also saw other random Asian people from Macleans as well taking the various buses. It was weird and surreal, spending an entire day at a bus stop.

I think I learnt a lot from today, just observing and sort of semi-being-involved and semi-standing-around. Simon also said he learnt a lot, which is what really counts, more than how this film will turn out. If we learn we will get better and if we get better we won't feel bad and if we don't feel bad we are cool. Or something. However I think the person who probably learnt the most out of today would be Steve since he basically handled the camera from beginning to end. Woulda been such a good learning experience for him. Coolies.

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Birthday! It was cool, got txt's from people and felt fuzzy inside. However, to be honest, I am way too young to be 18. I am NOT 18. They made a mistake. Haha.

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And here is the good ol' Twix ad, for Rikky:

http://s21.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=1MV3A80U1OE4S2TXRG3J6CH4IA

Again, it'll go off in a week's time. The good thing is it's really small, like 1 MB. So download like there's no tomorrow!

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Off to watch the Aviator now! Yee ha! Happiness, is it poisonous? Hmm, ahhh.

Spent most of today at Ronnie's hanging out with him, Nixon and Fung. 'Twas good. We ate KFC and watched Meet the Fockers and The Butterfly Effect.

Meet the Fockers: Funny. I haven't seen the original, but I thought this was pretty good. Had a couple of cool themes. The movie was real in its own way.

The Butterfly Effect: Except for some weird cheesiness, this movie really had a pretty cool concept. I liked the alternate realities and the real ending too, but I feel like I would've stayed with the one in which Ashton's character had lost both his arms or whatever it was. Yeah, I thought that was the best alternate reality out of all the ones that were available. It's not a perfect movie, but it's a good effort of a movie and provoked me to think about stuff, like things in my own life, so cool.

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A lot of stuff is happening recently to do with friends going away or choosing different paths, and it really has got me thinking. What's gonna happen in five years? Where will we all be? Will we still know each other? I really wonder, and that kind of thinking fascinates me.

I just want everyone to be happy.

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Went out to dinner with 'teh' family (Mum, Dad, Joy, Me) to celebrate my birthday and a coupla' other things, because I might not have time tomorrow. 'Twas good. A lot of introspection and retrospection goin' on these days, and it was good to spend some time with family - you get less and less time these days with everyone so into life. Cool.

That's all for today. I didn't do anything for the short, but it was a great day.

:o)

Take care.

I looked at all the footage, they're so funny! It seems like everything always turns out better than you hope for when you watch it in post. However I am doing some massive script revisions which will totally change the nature of this film. I'm pretty excited because:

a) this is the first time I've acted,
b) this is the first time I've used diegetic sound,
c) this is the first time we'll be doing music after editing as opposed to before. although I prefer doing music prior to editing, this gives us a chance to try something similar to the usual workflow
d) this is the first time we've aimed at something light-hearted and in a sense more 'directly youthful'.

I'm doing some reshoots for both myself and Yuen in the coming week, but I'm using almost EVERYTHING we got from the shoot yesterday.

I already have a concept for the next short, which I'm going to start writing soon. Cool.

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John [Chen] came over for a guitar lesson today. He's pretty good for a beginner - learns really fast, and with some basic knowledge of music from playing violin, he can get most things I ask him to do. Although the funny thing is he is only going to take lessons in the holidays, which means two-month breaks between every one or two lessons.

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Getting together with some old friends from 'the days' tomorrow - Nixon, Mischaberg 'n' Ronnie. Sam's in Australia checking out uni's, but I'll meet up with him next week.

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Simon came over today to explain to me some of the finer elements of his storyboarding for his first short film - 'Yerik's Stop'. The way I look at it is, it's a great script, but considering the circumstances and the people involved, it will be impossible to get it anything close to what Simon wants, and I know he has very high standards. Anyway, the shoot is on Saturday, the actors are Lara [Markstein] and Vitaly, the 'muscle' are Janko, Rikky, Paul and Chris, and Steve is most probably manning one of the cameras. And I think I just stand around and nod. Apparently. Anyway, it looks to be an interesting shoot, so I'm just going to take it easy and let it be. Since it is also coincidentally my birthday after all.

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:o)

Take care.

I am so tired. The shoot went pretty well overall, Yuen did well. As for me, I was fine for the first 2-3 sections/scenes, then there came one bit when I had to tell a very long story. It was so hard. I couldn't get the delivery right, and I think we eventually went up to around 20 takes.

I am so tired. I'm not sure if it was the directing or the acting. Maybe it was both. But I've never been this tired. Maybe it was the KFC. That was good. But I am so tired. I'm not sure if I'm going to direct AND act in the same movie for a while. But I can't wait to make the next movie. And the next one.

I haven't watched the footage in full yet, I think I'll probably do that tonight. I'm definitely running Magic Bullet Film filters on this. The camera angles are VERY basic, and I'm hoping for a really raw and... just... un-'awesomenised' feel. Believe me when I say I want it to be as it is. Obviously it'll be stylised, but just not in the way that films usually are. I really do not want to do any flash editing.

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We started shooting at around 10:30, and in general the acting got better, then worse. The first 20 or so minutes was really a warm-up period, then it got better and better until the really long story I had to tell, then I basically had one full hour of terrible performances. I don't think I ever really nailed the scene like I wanted to, but I sure did learn a lot about acting. The final scene was done well by Yuen, except I feel like the camera angles I chose were not as dramatic as I would've liked. But they told the story though.

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Alright, I'm off to play some guitar. Bye!

Yuen came over today and we rehearsed the script. Improv heaven. Two acting newbies trying to learn some lines then 'let go of the lines', then supposedly applying 'method'. *shrugs* I have no idea if we were acting 'properly' or why I'm using so many 'apostrophes' but it was a lot of fun and I learnt a lot about the process. Yuen is very responsive to suggestions and underlying subtexts and a really fast learner. Totally actor material. However, the first 20 minutes were terrible because we were trying to wash away 'pretense', like we were going from acting to being. But yes, we made a lot of progress today.

To be honest I think if we had a few more days worth of rehearsals we'd totally nail our performances, but if we shoot tomorrow we'd just nail 'em. So we're shooting tomorrow (huh?).

Yuen kindly supplied Mi Goreng for lunch today, although the rule is, if you're the director/producer you should do the catering for the cast and crew. Ahh well, I provided soup. Besides, tomorrow is THE KFC day on me.

We're warming up at 9 AM tomorrow, with shoot possibly starting at 10 AM. I actually do prefer very early morning shoots, but I have to be understanding on other people's body clocks. Ajita is doing the location sound and clapper board-ing, Yuen is lead acting and I'm acting and directing. Coolies.

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Love improv. Must learn more about the art of acting. And editing. And every other frickin' facet of filmmaking. It's totally interesting and fun, I can't wait to shoot the next short and the next short and the next short and my first feature.

Off to bed now, take care.

Saw this today. It was almost completely packed at Skycity Theatre. What I think/feel:

Truant - Dir. Michael Duignan. This one was not very original in terms of subject matter and the script was one of those 'concept' ones. The narrative wasn't linear, but the cinematography was really well done and I think with a bit of development in the script it could be a great short. But right now it's sort of not there yet, simply because I don't think it ended with a really high emotional resonance. I can totally relate to the guy character (not just cos I'm a guy, but because he seemed quite believable), but the girl did not seem 'there'.

Nothing Special - Dir. Helena Brooks. Official Cannes Selection, this was the fastest moving short of the collection. Well acted, pure, humourous and delightful, the only thing I didn't like was the way the script resolved. There was no resolution. It opened up so many possibilities for what could happen, then sort of left it hanging. However, a really good effort though, I enjoyed it.

The Little Things - Dir. Reina Webster. A soon-to-be NYU post-graduate-graduate, Webster's film really touches on the right moods. However, again, the pacing was very slow and the script was under-developed. But it was heart warming though.

Tama Tu - Dir. Taika Waititi. A lot of slow-stuff here and there, but this was a very mature piece of work. Superbly acted, great chemistry between the actors, although the artistic choice for the ending was towards a positive film and not a tragedy, which I totally respect. A really, really human film. Thumbs up from me, for it gets 'there' emotionally despite it's flaws.

No Ordinary Sun - Dir. Jonothan Brough. Beautifully photographed and acted and used some pretty cool looking special effects. Terrible script. There was sci-fi, apparent family drama, all of which was unexplained in a random 'overkill' emotional ending with a pop song and a weird 'reunion' between the main character and his family. I think there were a lot of concepts they may have been trying to get at, but a lot of people didn't 'get' the story. It was confusing and stuffed up. But a really good effort though, none of the directors are short of effort.

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Overall, really nice collection. I learned a lot about how the New Zealand short film scene is right now, and some of these works are both revelatory and inspiring.

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I just finished the Papaya script. I'm off to bed now. Tomorrow is rehearsal day (yes, ONE day of rehearsals).

Good night, take care.

Don't you guys just hate txt-spammers? I've got a new one, he's vicious. Either that or he's really stupid.

His name's 'Nunz', and he keeps txt-ing me. Urgh.

Today I arranged Red Dragonfly for guitar and voice and started writing 'song two'. Well, I started writing song two a few days ago, but you know, this time 'properly'. I've pretty much finished song one, but it's not recorded and I'm not in 'that' mood right now.

Remember my addiction to Mentos? Well I am pretty sure I have a really bad cavity between my 2nd pre-molar and my 1st molar. Ahhh hahahah. Not that it's particularly funny, or a tiny bit funny or even funny at all.

But I stopped eating sweet stuff.

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Back to the script. Yesterday was 'day one' but I wrote three lines. Today I scrapped those three lines and started again. It is about half past four and so far my script has two words. Here's a sneak peak:

So, after DAYS of 'apparent striking' the music department have posted their results...

Here we go:

Courses Attempted Points in Progress Points Taken Toward GPA Points Passed Toward GPA Grade Points Current GPA 4 0.000 8.000 8.000 58.000 7.250

Class Number Subject Catalog Number Section Grade Official Grade Basis Points Taken 11640 FTVMS 100 0001 A- Graded 2.00 Media Studies Lecture Regular Academic Session 12394 PHIL 100 0001 B+ Graded 2.00 Introduction to Metaphysics Lecture Regular Academic Session 11439 PHIL 105 0001 A Graded 2.00 Critical Thinking Lecture Regular Academic Session 14925 POPMUS 106 0001 A Graded 2.00 Music and Dance in Pop Culture Lecture Regular Academic Session

Yay! Actually, I was expecting a B+ for Media Studies (cos I averaged B for the internals) and an A- for Metaphysics (cos I averaged A- for the internals) but somehow they reversed. Ahh well, it's all G.

An A+ woulda looked nice but no worries, that's what next semester's for. I'm just quite glad I got an A in Popular Music and Critical Thinking - they were the most incredibly fun papers I'd done and I learned a heck of a lot of incredible-ness from 'em. So go incredibles. I haven't seen the movie (yes, I know everyone says it's awesome), but I will some day.

:o)

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So here's a story:

Bob and Dod go camping. It's three in the morning and they're lying in their sleeping bags. Bob says to Dod, "So, what do you think?" Dod looks up at the sky and says with introspection, "There are a lot of stars. I feel so small in this great big universe. It really makes you wonder what your role is in all of this eh? The meaning of life and all that stuff..." There's silence for a while and Dod thinks that's kind of odd, so he pokes Bob and asks, "So what do you think?"

"I think someone stole our tent."

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Good evening, take care.

Today was a meditation day. It had its ups and downs.

Oh yeah, I saw Phantom of the Opera a few days ago, for the first time. I'd never seen the stage play or heard the music before. I thought it was a bit lame in the beginning but then it got better and better, then the last 20-30 minutes were the best part of the movie. The way the conflict was resolved was an inspired decision and made the story just that little bit better than what it could have become. I must admit I have no particular love for the music of this film/show in general, but there are a few well written pieces, mainly the more romantic ones. Cool.

I'm off to rectify my body clock. Don't want to sleep too late. Good night.

Today I discovered my 'Small Tiger Team' cassette-tapes from my childhood. They were an ancient 'boy band' trio from Taiwan from the 90's, I think. They are awesome. It is like a musical renaissance for me. Figuratively speaking. I'm not sure if I should call them 'Small Tiger Team' or 'Little Tiger Team' or 'Tiny Tiger Team'. I mean, the last one is a triple T so I could call them 3T or T3, but then that'd just look like a computer product or a cyborg or a mobile phone ora classroom, so no.

Anyway, so I was listening to the tape and OF COURSE my favourite song came up --> 'Red Dragonfly/Dragonflies'. Anyone like this song? It has great lyrics (Mandarin/Chinese). I have the translation from Babelfish, with some minor edits to make it sort of make sense (excuse the screwed up grammar, which isn't really screwed up if you take it like it's a nice little poem):

INTRO
*ho-ing/humming*

VERSES 1/2
Fly, fly,
See the red dragonfly flying in the blue coloured sky,
Unceasingly pursuing its dream in the wind.
The sky is its eternal family, the earth is its kingdom,
The soaring is the life.

Our childhood is also like pursuing the wind which growth blows,
Gently blowing the dream to slow lift-off.
The red dragonfly was my little childhood hero,
With so many hopes that one day I'd fly with him.

PRE-CHORUS
When worries become many,
Glass ball beads become more few.
It was then I knew that I had slowly grown up,
Red dragonflies disappearing in my years.

CHORUS/OUTRO
We have all grown up and
Many dreams are flying,
Just like the red dragonfly we saw in our childhood.

We have all grown up and
Many dreams are still yet to fly,
Just like now, in our hearts, the red dragonfly.

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*sniff* Yeah, I used to listen to that song when I was 6-7 years old or something. Really innocent and inspiring, makes me remember why I want to make movies and music for life. If you can't do that it's all gone. I'm never ever giving in and I hope one day it's still 'we' and not 'I'.

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Today I did a lot of brainstorming for Papaya, and will start structural planning with cards or something tomorrow.

Good night, take care. Please don't ever give up.

I spent the whole day doing something. So here it is! The Fist Full of Fives Only the Hopeful site is up! Unfortunately, the video is still not online but it might be one day. At least there are a lot of pretty stills to look at.

Here you go. Heh, I put the link on the 'go' and not the 'here'. Yeah, after a day of web-designing, you really need to do things to spice life up.

I am seriously getting back to music and writing tomorrow. A day of deprivation is terrible. I really have no love for website designing or programming or the like. Yeah, although it's quite fun in the beginning (when you're thinking about the layouts and how it'd look), you kind of get progressively more braindead as time goes on, whereas with other things (such as music, a convenient example), you get progressively less braindead and more sensationally inspired as time goes on.

I'm off to bed now, good night and take care.

I went into city today. Got a monthly pass from a reallly friendly bus driver. Explained everything really clearly to me AND gave me a new plastic slip AND was nice to old people AND drove well. Ahh, the joys of bussing.

Got into city and bought my film fest tickets. Hmm, Ticketek service is really good. I'm sorry, I don't think I officially asked anyone on Tagboards or Blogger if they'd like to go to some of the screenings but I think it was mainly because I didn't want to be dive-bombed if the movies sucked.

Went over to Ajita's, showed her the Twix ad after some trouble with downloading the 'codecs pack' from that Microsoft website. Urgh. Her mum cooked a lot of food, 'curry puffs' which were different from any I had eaten before probably because they had eggs in 'em. Gooood.

One thing, while I was walking on Queen Street I was attacked twice by preachers. But this time they were 'Yoga' preachers, and anyway, so they gave me a big hard-cover book about Yoga, said it was free. Then they asked for a donation, so I gave them a few coins I had. Then they swapped my book for a smaller, crappier, worsely printed one. Doh.

The idea for the short film is totally taking form. Actors have almost almost almost been confirmed, I still need to speak with the lead. But yes, it's going to be very interesting, I cannot wait.

More progress with the song, but still more tweaking to be done.

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As for the Kodak Music Clip Awards; I'm really stoked, but unfortunately the awards evening is in Wellington on Sunday so I don't think I'll be able to make it. But I'd like to thank FFoF, the entire band (Brad, John, Dave, Thomas and Henry) for taking a chance, my mum and dad, Ethan Waters and a lot of people who hanged around (not literally, we shot this with a crew of one person, I mean just 'figuratively speaking') while we were making this. You know who you are.

As for the OtH website, I guess this gives me a reason to really complete it now, I think I ain't doing the video justice by not finishing the website. So I will work on it tomorrow.

Good evening, take care.

Came home today at 5:39 PM and checked my Inbox to discover an email from Fiona Bartlett:

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HERE ARE THE FINALISTS FOR THE KODAK MUSIC CLIPS AWARDS:

8PM SUNDAY 10TH JULY AT BAR BODEGA



NUMBER
SONG TITLE
BAND
DIRECTOR
DOP
EDITOR


K04 *
Models
The Fanatics
Mark Albiston
Ian McCarroll
Mark Albiston

K07 *
Bucket
Sourpuss
Paul Herchell
Paul Herchell
Paul Herchell

K09 *
Run To Me
Emmanuel Carella
Kezia Barnett
Ginny Loane
Ken Sparks

K13 *
On And On
Steriogram
Adam Jones
Richard Parsonson
Phil Brown

K15 *
Run Run Run
Golden Horse
Adam Jones
Richard Parsonson
Phil Brown

K20 *
Go
Steriogram
Adam Jones
Richard Parsonson
Phil Brown

K34 *
Supersiesmic Girl
Sparky's Cosmic Journey
Paul Sparkes
Daniel Greenwood
Paul Sparkes

K38 *
Only The Hopeful
Fist Full of Fives
Dennis Liu
Dennis Liu
Dennis Liu

K39 *
Alright
Flash Harry
Paul Herschell
-
-

K51 *
Fools Love Ragga Remix
Misfits of Science
Ed Davis
Rhys Duncan
Ed Davis

K52 *
Hear The People
The Exiles
Ed Davis
Rhys Duncan
Ed Davis

K54 *
Lock And Load
Baiter Cell & Schumackher (feat. BEX)
Ed Davis
Ed Davis
Ed Davis

K65 *
Fiji Baby
Goodshirt
Wade Shotter
Ginny Loane
Ken Sparks

K72 *
To The Floor
Dei Hamo
Chris Graham
Chris White
Cameron Crawford

K76 *
What I Want
The D4
Wade Shotter
Andy Commis
-

K77 *
It's Been So Long
Greg Johnson
Tim Groenendaal
Donny Duncan
Ken Sparks

K79 *
Home, Land & Sea
Trinity Roots
Chris Graham
Chris Graham
Chris Graham

K81 *
Stop The Music
P Money (feat. Scribe)
Greg Page
Ben Freedman
Cameron Crawford

K87 *
Damn The River
Phoenix Foundation
Luke Savage
Donny Duncan

K89 *
Part Of Me, Part Of You
Finn Brothers
Joe Lonie
Duncan Cole
Ken Sparks

K92 *
Swing
Savage
Sophie Finlay
John Ramsay & Ado Grishoff
Sophie Finlay

K96 *
Awhi 1
Brother J
Sophie Finlay
S Findlay, Alys Rowe, Andrew Sorenson
Mark Trethewey

K99 *
Boundaries
Rhian Sheehan
Matt Pitt & Lloyd Bapista
Matt Pitt & Lloyd Bapista
Lisa Cooper

K103 *
Sunshine
Rhian Sheehan (feat. Jess Chambers)
Peter Tonks
Roland Ebbing
Tim Capper

K112 *
Loophole
Tim Hopkins, King Kapisi, Russell Harris
Peter Haynes
Richard Harling
Peter Haynes

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Spent most of today writing that song again. Still not finished. But liking it a lot more now, chorus is tweaked, now I'm writing a new sung-bridge to go along with the other instrumental-interlude. Also still tweaking the intro/pre-verse.

I also edited the Fried Orange Agreement today. I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before, but basically it's just something everyone who takes part in any of our short films under the 'Effo Films' unregistered logo has to sign and agree to honestly. It is in it's 5th revision, and as I revise it, it gets more and more bare-bones and to the point. I keep taking away terms, there are only eight now. Cool.

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Watched a few awesome short films today, really inspirational. One 4-minute film called I'll Wait for the Next One. It has a great, tight script that tells the story very economically and wraps everything up all in the time given. The performances are also very good, and it's probably the best short film I've seen, ever. It's directed by Phillipe Orreindy, and its French title is: J'attendrai le suivant... It was nominated for an Academy award in 2003, and is available on a collection of that year's Academy nominated and winning Short Films on a DVD. It's listed on Amazon here. Check it out, it's pretty cool. The other films are also very true.

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Starting music on Papaya tomorrow!

:o)

Take care and good night.

I spent most of today writing a song, I am mostly done except tweaking some of the lyrics in the chorus and thinking up a nice instrumental bridge. I'll probably record it tomorrow and post it on SoundClick some time. The song ain't too great in that I don't think I'm really innovating with the chord progressions or anything, but it's about as honest and true as I feel right now.

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I also got an idea for a short film. I'm going to draft the script tomorrow. I've also been browsing through the AIFF booklet and since I'm on a tight budget (well, I'm buying a skateboard and saving up for... stuff), I'm only going to pick three things:

Homegrown: Works on Film - Monday 11 July 2:15 PM Sky City Theatre B Coded $10.50
Homegrown: Works on Video - Tuesday 19 July 4:00 PM Village Hoyts Cinemas B Coded $10.50
The Child (L'enfant) - Tuesday 19 July 8:45 PM Civic A Coded $13.00

There are a lot of other cool movies (well they look cool from these descriptions) like 'Hidden', 'Howl's Moving Castle' (which I'm sure I could get on DVD or something later), 'Shanghai Dreams', 'The Sea Inside' (Mar adentro), 'The Wayward Cloud' (Tian bian yi duo yun), 'Duck Season', 'Tarnation' (which I was going to see, but then I found out he re-enacted some scenes so, meh), 'Me and You and Everyone We Know' (I'm still considering possibly seeing this one) and 'The Woodsman'.

As you can tell there really are a lot of awesome films and if I wasn't careful I'd be spending around $150 for a mad two weeks of art films. And so, I'm seeing a max of four things, I've got three now and one in consideration. Check out the booklets, they are cool, although there are non left in most of the libraries in our area (east). However, you may still be able to find them in outlets such as Real Groovy, Whitcoulls on Queen, Magazzzino, Village 8 in Newmarket and... the Info Centre on Waiheke Island! The cover art and all the nice and glossy colour press photos and critics' reviews inside printed on thin paper are worth taking the ferry for, and besides, if you get hungry you can get an olive-ful pizza from the second floor of a mysterious building in the 'town centre' for $18. Mmm.

:o)

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The past few days mark the first ever 'critical condition' days I've had all year, the last time was around the 13th of October last year when I was deciding whether or not to go to Uni. It's happening again, but on a slightly more visceral and emotional level, so I'm just waiting out to see what'll happen...

Take care.

Today we got on the ferry. Then we waited until 10:30 and got on a bus. On the bus, a tour guide explained lots of stuff, such as the nudists' beach, the multi-million-dollar real estate scene, the cheap golf course, the Video Ezy chain store and the Indian restuarant.

Then we walked around and tried to find lunch. I ended up sharing a really expensive but unique pizza with Sky (Szu-Kai) and Frankie and some other people. I forgot who, I think everyone just randomly grabbed whatever was in that cardboard box.

The highlight was the visit to the music museum where the hosts (I think they were around 70-years old) showed us accordians, harpsichords, clavierchords (sp?), organs, harmonicas, windpipes, pianolas and a lot of other instruments. The main speaker guy, Lloyd, demonstrated on pretty much every instrument he showed us, which was pretty neat. Then after he finished, we got to play with the instruments. Awesomeness. That was fun-ness, and it was something like $5 for kids I think.

Great day, we suggested to Philip that we have another social function in two weeks' time, but he declined. Hope we have a trip or something next year, it'd be great, just like last time.

Waiheke is a really pleasant place, and it had a lot more civilisation than I thought. It didn't have McDonalds or KFC, but it did have diaries selling Mentos, and that's good enough for me. It'd be a great getaway.

I'm off, to write a very, very important song. VERY IMPORTANT. Something just popped up that I need to take care of. Who knows what'll happen in the future, it's all in your hands and some other peoples' hands and some other guy's fist. And I wonder...

Something stuffed up with my '.veg' (Sony Vegas) files and now I can't edit my Fist Full of Fives - Only the Hopeful music video at all. It's sort of a semi-disaster in that: I already rendered the DVD PAL, VCD PAL and MiniDV PAL output files, so that's ok. But it basically means I can't render any NTSC versions of the video now. I checked the Epilogue and Stream files, and they're ok. I have no idea why the OtH stuffed up, it's kinda a loss.

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Listened to William's new song --> For No Reason. It's my favourite one yet, especially the lyrics. Very universal and easy to connect to. I also like the 7th chords in there, and the melody in the verses have a humourous feel, while the progression in the chorus is just sweet. Cool song. Check it out at: http://www.soundclick.com/bands/8/williamchong_music.htm

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I'm in the process of recording a 'First Semester/Inter-Semester Break Covers' collection. I've done three so far through the course of semester one: Hang (Matchbox Twenty), You and Me (Lifehouse) and Cannonball (Damien Rice). They're not exactly polished recordings but it's a musical diary of sorts. I'll most probably also do 'Maybe I'm Amazed' (the cover version by JEM with altered lyrics, not the original by Paul McCartney), 'The Blower's Daughter' (Damien Rice again) and of course Everlong (Foo Fighters). Looking forward to a musical holiday...

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Going to Waiheke tomorrow, first time there so should be interesting. Ok I'm off, take care.