the friedorange years

Yesterday I AD'ed for the first time. It was good, I learnt a lot. We also shot in a really beautiful house on Parliament Street. It was a 12 hour day but it was really good - Sam R (Mr DOP Director) knew what he wanted with every set-up so we moved very quickly. We also stole a wheelchair from someone's relative for our dolly. On Tuesday Spoons wrapped. I was Best Boy.

Right today's a nine-to-nine day. Wooo! I've started researching for the fight scene - found a bit of stuff on the internet but not much, will blog on it later.

See you soon!

:oP

I just realised something today:

I need to learn to play the piano.

Ahhh.

In other news I found a new emoticon - the squinting reverse lick:

Xd

For those times when you're having yummy spicy food. Or when you're concentrating real hard.

James' party. Was good. We totally had him. Lots of film love (on everyone's knuckles to be exact), including a nice tribute video cut together by Jack with audio courtesy of Sam R. If you want to know what happened some of us spent a large part of the evening trying to make the longest possible grammatically correct PG-13 sentence on the fridge:

That didn't last very long, especially when the exercise was hijacked.

Today I'm editing the mystery short film. Here's a poem from my portfolio:

Rave Ally

Two nights ago
I wandered down the street and met my
Rave Ally.

She showed me how those bodies intertwined, their
movement without pretense or any
sign of age.

At this moment I realised that
nothing could stop the imminent fraying
of my shoes.

So I asked her:
Will you help me survive in this
Galaxy of mastication?

Recorded (re-recorded?) two existing William Chong songs today. These will be the basis for some experimentation over these holidays - I'm trying to learn more about sequencing and synth stuff. I also figured out a more Foo Fighters-ish version of his new song in my head.

Music software stuff
Propellerheads' Reason is surprisingly intuitive. I guess I shouldn't say surprisingly, but I guess I was just a bit intimidated at first by all knobs and things on the screen, but compared to Steinberg's Cubase (which I tried out yesterday), it was far easier to grasp, at least conceptually. But Reason doesn't record stuff though.

Oh I forgot to mention, Kelly Clarkson is really good. I just started listening to her stuff last week and she has a really good voice, not to mention her Breakaway album has such close links stylistically to Avril Lavigne's stuff (even the songs Lavigne didn't write/co-write). I hope her career goes well.

Have a good night and a great holiday. Take care.

Wooo! Today I recorded an acoustic cover of P!nk's Who Knew. Not gonna upload it though, I got pissed off when I heard her other song Dear Mr President. It's such a bad song.

In other news (Uni News to be exact):


Night.

Morning. I woke up realising there were several things on the list I forgot to write down:

- Record/produce a William Chong song.
- Make a William Chong music video.
- Do score for CJ's animation.
- Do a jingle for a radio campaign advertising the importance of drinking water to the Aboriginal community of some place in Australia (I know, wtf huh? Ask me about it in person).

Um. 14 days. Totally impossible. If I made a start today I would have to quite literally complete one of these things or at least complete 1/14th of every one of them every day.

Better cross some things off. Rarrr.

:oP

TODAY. Handed in mid-term portfolio for Poetry 343! I'll post up some of the poems a bit later.There's so much shiznit I wanna do this break, but as usual, I know I won't get all of them done (read Ray's post for a similar situation). But it's better to aim for more. I am so psyched, but at the same time I wanna just clear my head. Get back to playing some guitar, chill out, and really clear my head. But here's the list:

- edit improv short film from Samwee's shoot
- shoot a fight scene
- crew on Becks' spoons movie
- crew on Sam R's shoot during first week
- do 1-3 Masters [filmmaking] Exercises with in new group
- make a short film (will I fit this in?)

- muck around with Reason
- do another original
- do another cover
- do stuff for Creative Toilet

And of course Uni urrrgh:

- figure out my step outline for FTVMS 303's final screenplay
- finish my ENGLISH 343 presentation
- do another two blog entries for FTVMS 203
- begin on my two 2nd assignments

and

- do more pilates and eat healthy.

This break will be fantastic. But like everyone's saying - we'll be lucky to actually get a break.

-------

Sneaked in to KMC to observe/film bts-footage of the recording of the theme song for Samwee's Back to You. Fun fun fun. Moana - aka resident sound technician aka dodgy French guy (DFG) is an incredible personality, not to mention he has a wealth of knowledge on both sound and filmmaking. Hong Yul - the songwriter for Back to You (and the entire BSSF musical) is so smooth when it comes to improvisation that the mere act of listening him 'muck-around' is a joy.

Aiya, it's so early in the morning now. See you in a bit. Take care.

Today was such a rollercoaster in terms of the good and the bad.

Got onto the bus without eating breakfast. Ended up with the worst case of car sickness in 7 years. I was feeling so terrible that I didn't even think I could make it past Newmarket. Ended up sleeping in the IC Commons for two hours. Did manage to catch the very end of the poetry class, but I missed out on the field trip. Arrr. It was really weird, it's been a long time since I've had the same kind of sickness - the woozy feeling lasted for the entire day, I can still feel it now.

303 was good. Step Outlines are so useful. I don't know how I feel about treatments (I think my one wasn't too good, I was way too detailed with some parts of the story and then skimped at some bits because I was running out of space), but step outlines are definitely really really cool.

Time for bed. Night.

Yesterday's tasks:
Blacking out lots of windows and doors
Sandbagging stands (think I did this like fifty times over the course of the weekend)
Attempt at Boom-Op-ing (didn't work, got called back to do lighting)
Miscellaneous Cam Assisting (= making sure the cable doesn't get mangled up)
Getting power to miscellaneous equipment
Changing tubes
Cabling

Lunch: More food than I could handle.
People: Cool.
Learning: A lot.
Experience: Priceless.
Film: Looks pretty sweet. Lots of fight scenes, three deaths (including Death herself) and a wheelchair race. Wooooo.

I've gotta finish off my treatment for 303 tonight. And do some more poetry stuff for the portfolio due on Friday. Hmm.

'Waiting...'
This film is hilarious. Looks pretty low budget, but it didn't detract from the narrative. Crude humour at it's worst - it carries the movie. I think William nailed it when he said something along the lines of, 'This film has no social value.' Ok, it was more the subtext of his expression, but yeah, this isn't the kind of film you'd show little kids. Dirty dirty jokes. But funny. But uh, yeah, it really is kind of bad when you think about it, this is the kind of movie where they swear every two words and R16 doesn't do it. Um. Enough said, watch it if you want to laugh at bizarre lines of dialogue (that make you think, 'Wow, I'm truly blessed that this got through the censors'), or just don't see it. Not a bad effort, Reynolds was funnier in this than he was in Just Friends.

Ahh, test on Wednesday for Folktales, I forgot about that. What a week. See you in a bit.

Take care.

I forgot to mention that I drove to the Shore yesterday. First time I've driven that far.

Today's jobs:
Cabling
Setting up lights/stands
Blacking out a window

Christian, the DOP mentioned some nice tips while he was talking. The great thing about these lighting people is they're so relaxed and good at explaining things. Heh. Going back again tomorrow.

The bad thing? The house we're filming in got trashed last night. Broken windows, paint all over the floor, a stolen camera (a nice little HDV one too) stuff written on the walls, beds and wheelchairs thrown around and beer cans and lollies thrown all over the lawn behind the house. Urgh.

Academy eh? Neil Guyan is great. The rehearsal was good.

William came up with a suggestion for the music video and the concept totally works. Woo. Gonna try and film that this holidays if we can.

Jack: Yes we should shoot a fight scene.

Oh I forgot to mention the movie I'm helping out on this weekend is called Musketeer. I won't reveal the story but [not surprisingly] there are many sword fights in this film. So it was fun watching the fight choreographer guy do his magic and seeing swords clash and people yelling and going, 'Ahh!' Although they did the same fight like fifty times yesterday to get all their shot-reverses and pickups.

Right, dinner time. See you!

Crewed today for Musketeer, a Masters thesis film. I was:

the Cable guy

and

the Smoke Machine guy.

Learnt a lot. Stood for hours. Had nice food. Saw nice gear.

Basically the department head you report to first becomes your boss. I happened to speak to the lighting head so I am now lighting assist. Which meant smoke machine guy today. Wonder what's happening tomorrow.

Night.

The truth: I typed up a 5 page summary of what I'd been doing over the last few weeks and then my computer crashed right before I pressed 'Publish Post'.

The short version: I don't have a nice and detailed post for you.

The long long version (an attempt at recreating that post in three paragraphs): Over the last few weeks I've been involved in several student short film shoots. Roles ranged from Director of Photography to Camera Operator to Gaffer. I learnt a lot. Filming is fun. Chick flick wrapped on Sunday. That went well. Next is the Spoons movie I've already mentioned. Then cam-op-ing or just crewing on a suspense-thriller.

I'm taking papers I like. I ramble on about how enjoyable they are. We had a pitching session on Tuesday for 303. That was fantastic and eye opening, and one of the most helpful experiences I've had as a film writer. The atmosphere for both 343 and 303 is great. Technoculture paper mainly consists of class discussions about interesting websites like lulu.com where you can publish your own book and homeless guy, where a homeless guy blogs. Here's a hypertextual novel. Poetry paper = cool because you get to try many different styles and read and hear poetry from other people. Small classes, meet new people, etc. Folktales is fun. All papers recommended. Lisa Samuels and Michelle Leggott are fantastic lecturers/instructors, I'm going to just take any paper convened by them next year because it'll probably be good.

I've been listening to Liz Phair, The Knife and more Electric President. I'm hardly watching any movies or TV. No Scrubs or Monk or Entourage for me at the mo. I want to make a 2-minute short film during the break. I want to make a music video for a William Chong song. I want to do a Jay Chou homage, or an Electric President cover, or an Aimee Mann or KT Tunstall cover. I'm learning to use Reason. I'm driving longer distances. I'm doing more push ups. I saw some short films by ex-Masters students yesterday. They were good.

I guess it'd take one more paragraph but that's about all. Things are fine. How's it going? [asks reader]

Exercise and eat lots of healthy food. Sleep well. Take care, I'll see you soon.

:o)

It just came to me today how fondly I will remember these years of my life.

Going to bed. I hope I'll get time to blog tomorrow.

:o)

Until then, night.

Right guys, here's an exercise we're doing in ENGLISH 343. Online poetry.

Hi. How are you. Wooo. Ok get this, Lisa Samuels, the poetry lecturer actually read my blog. Is she reading right now? Hmmm.

[space space space]

Ok, I'll post a poem later, but in the mean time, you should check out Sonny's blog, since he's posted a poem. About wind. You can try and find it on Google. That'll be more exciting than me giving you the link here.

:oP

Take care.

Hello. Academy yesterday was hilariously echoey. We got moved to a different room cos the people somehow double booked the venue. Hah. Meant everything I played sounded the same.

Shoot yesterday went very well. One take, two takes, wooo.

I've driven into Uni three times now! *makes fist*

303 Adaptation: Going well. It's so hard to merely transcribe a text from short story to screenplay. Even while I was trying to do that I was already 'adapting'. So I just went along with that - and so far I have an elliptical screenplay. What's good? I've tried to economise and reduce the amount of dialogue necessary to pretty much the essentials. What's bad? The story seems to end too soon. Hmm.

More work tomorrow. Take care.

:oP

I already said this like ages ago but Electric President is awesome. The song Grand Machine No. 12 is almost as good as Insomnia. Insomnia. Ahh! Such a good song.

Ahahhaha... they can adapt anything into a film. First they adapted Pirates of the Caribbean from a theme park ride into an epic pirate adventure trilogy. Now they are adapting Transformers from the Hasbro action figures into a new film. Anything that has a large enough consumer base seems to be a viable film adaptation option. What's next?

iPod, the movie. Based on the popular personal entertainment device.

Hello. With the way my timetable is this semester I think I'm gonna be doing the weird thing where I post on Thursdays-Sundays but not from Mon-Wed. Anyway, I happen to have a break now. What's up?

Well first things first: Saying hi to people is back in fashion this semester, and I still haven't got the hang of it. Analysts say it's not a fad - it's here to stay. Say hi to all those people you've always wanted to say hi to. Reach out and give them a hug. *note to self*

What else? Things are pretty good these days - but the workload is pretty intense. FTVMS 303 is fantastic but very demanding, and I'm trying to make the most of the course. The current project is adapting a Langston Hughes short story into a short screenplay. Yesterday in class we did a speed-transcription of the opening scene of Fargo onto screenplay format.

Note to self: Read Coen Bros. and Soderbergh screenplays for great character descriptions.

What I need to work on in my writing: Characters who are more extreme (for want of a better word). Right now I've created characters who are 'easy to relate to' because they just seem like people you know, but they're not stretched out enough - a short film rarely has time for timid toddlers - bang, woosh, end of story. I have yet to decide if my short screenplay will be a character study or concept driven. What I do want though, is if it is a character study, for it to still have a very active plot and protagonist, cause-effect, etc. I've decided to get the structure done first and then worry about symbolism or whatever - otherwise what I'd be doing would be essentially adapting a folktale into a short film.

Time to read stuffzz. Take care.

:o)

The month before 15 Mins of Fame (the Uni film festival) is insane. I can't even remember what last year was like. If you got the same day a year apart and compared how many student short films were being produced at this very instant at Auckland Uni, you'd get a heart attack. Intense but great.

I need to come up with an idea, fast, for the whopping 50% short film screenplay for 303. I have one now, but I need to find a folktale that I can use for symbolism. Muahahah. I wish I could make movies with no dialogue. Like all body language. Wait, I think I wanna make one like that next. Ok I'll make a gestures movie next. Sweet.

Time to sleep. Take care.

I just noticed how fanboy the last post sounded. What the. But whatever, the movie's still very moving. I need to see it again.

:oP

My computer actually crashed three times, every time just as I was about to make this post. Well, long story short, I watched Me and You and Everyone We Know again today. It's no doubt one of the most 'good' films I've seen in a long time.

Fantastic film. If you get Magnolia, American Beauty and Lost in Translation and mixed them together, you'd get this movie, maybe. Something tells me this movie is better than every one of those films. People are bound to disagree, but it has been a very long time since I've been blown away by such a film. Put it this way: It's not better, it's just unique. Oh so unique. Yet so very common. There are so many things in this movie we've all seen before, but the way it's told has so much 'ness'. Personality.


What a beautiful movie. It's arty but it's grounded in moments and feelings you just know are real. It's so frickin' authentic that it couldn't be pretentious if it tried. It has this really transparent eye. The central character, Christine, is beautiful (ok, I'm running out of words here). The movie's really ordinary but it gives itself all those opportunities to drift into fantasy, and it does. Miranda July and the entire ensemble and all the filmmakers involved are to be commended. The world needs more movies like this one. Life is shit sometimes, but life is beautiful. This movie's just under 90 mins, and that's all the time it needs. Poignant, like no other. God, thank you for this film. I am truly moved. Amazing debut.

Hello! How's your week been? Tonight I went to Jack Woon's Be Sharp See Flat wrap dinner thing. Awesome. At the end of the dinner Jack played a behind-the-scenes retrospective look, plus a clip from the film.

Now if I remember correctly, I think it was the same clip that was showed at the beginning of the year at film lectures. But woah it looked really different. I remember seeing it and thinking, 'Oh man that looks cool! *signs up for film group*' But I didn't remember it in that much detail. Did more footage get added to it? Or maybe, I've grown as a filmmaker in the last few months and have learnt to appreciate the subtleties of the Bollywood musical (yeah probably that). Or because I can actually recognise the faces of the leads now. I dunno but there was this really frickin' amazing 'ness' to the clip. The all important 'ness'.

IT LOOKS INSANELY AWESOME.

FANTASTIC WTF.

Double you tee eff.

October 3rd. World premiere. !

!!


Then saw this film called Me and You and Everyone We Know. I didn't catch 80% of the dialogue, but it looked fantastic. Definitely gonna see it again. It looks like the kind of movie I'd really like.

Night. Take care.

Is this blog dying? No, not yet.

But for now, I will see you later. Check back soon for something 'mega super awesome'.

:oP