Another week disappears - slightly more productive than last week. Graham Wallace helped us out with ADR for one of the scenes in the movie between Tarun and me. The whole process took longer than anticipated but Graham and Tarun were kind and passionate enough to lend extra time to the process. ADR works a treat and the scene has much better dialogue now without the inter cutting background music. I finished reading one of the scripts in my inbox and next one is lined up to read tomorrow. Besides that I did a good clean of my room and managed to take out some solid amount of clutter. Amazing how much you can pile on without realizing.
I managed to catch up with Angelique briefly at the Lantern Festival but soon parted ways to enjoy some awesome food {my favorite this time around being a Vietnamese dish - I don't know the name for it but it was beef wrapped in grape leaf}. The festival was PACKED. It has grown huge over the past few years. I remember that in 2003 - there were hardly any people checking out the festival but now it is an experience walking through the crowd. The problem this time around was entire families coming out to the event {which isn't a bad thing} with strollers for their toddlers and young kids. There is barely enough space to walk as it is and every time one of the parents with strollers stopped to look at something or talk- it would stop the flow of people immediately. Also the organizers need to be more creative with their stall layouts next time around - it was essentially the same as last time and walking through the place is like deja vu. Different varieties of food available was definitely the highlight. If only they had a weekly night market with all those food stalls somewhere in central city....sighhhhh.....
Crazy week!!! This whole week I've been pre-occupied with conceiving and then editing the teaser trailer for 'The Moments In Between'. I finally managed to finish editing it today and here is the trailer for your consideration.
Besides that we had a crazy morning on Friday when one of our flatmates had to call in the cops because she heard someone in our house. There did turn out to be a man in our house and he had armed himself with our kitchen knives. Quick action by the police meant that the intruder was quickly subdued without anyone getting harmed. The incident in detail would make for a whole post {it was about 4 and half pages of writing when one of the cops took our statements about the incident} but that would be sensationalism. The long and short of the story is that pepper spray is nasty stuff and the landlord is getting a second set of front door locks put in.
Last night went to dinner at HP8 {49, Nuffield Street, Newmarket} with Benji, Shuzhen {Benji's girl friend}, Vicky & Vincent {Shuzhen's friends} & Lance. It was an amazing Sichuan meal and it works out very reasonable when you share the dinner amongst many. All the dishes were great but my firm favorite is Spicy Sichuan Fragrant Eggplant. Most of the dishes were not that spicy accounting for various tastes of the group but I did manage to convince Benji & Lance to try Dan-Dan noodles along with me. It was the spicest dish we had and Benji couldn't finish his bowl and also said that he is not going to let me talk him into trying any of my recommended dishes in the future :-). Well worth the visit.
Sichuan dishes
Trying another awesome dish
Vicky & Vincent
Benji & Shuzhen
Lance enjoying a beer to ease off his Dan-Dan noodles
It's a long weekend on account of Auckland Anniversary Day and I've spent majority of the time on 'The Moments In Between'. On Saturday, shot another scene for the movie and it was a smooth shoot. The performances were great and we managed to get it done in a couple of hours because it was just Sarah, Lauren and me. We were lucky that the weather was perfect for the shoot, especially considering that it's been bucketing down through later half of last week and even this entire weekend. Here are a few screen grabs from the shoot.
Caged
Trapped
Mistakes
Sunday was spent editing that scene and it cut together nicely. After that I went about compiling and stitching together all the scenes that we've shot, to make it look like one continuing storyline rather than individual scenes clubbed together on a timeline. So far it's working and the first 38 minutes of the movie are essentially locked for now. The task for today is editing another scene that we shot a few weeks back and once that's in place I'll be able to add another 2 scenes to the timeline. All in all - we are halfway through the movie and I'm pretty pleased with the way it is shaping up.
Last night went over to Devonport onto Mt. Victoria {it's more like a hill} to get a view of Auckland City since there were fireworks display at 10.30 PM. I was sort of apprehensive because when it comes to fireworks display Auckland is piss poor and the last couple of times I caught those - they were pretty poor and underwhelming. Thankfully the display was beautiful this time around and definitely worth the long drive onto the shore to get a more panoramic view of the city. Here are some snaps from last night.
Falling off the map: Some lonely places of the world
Finished reading 'Falling off the map: Some lonely places of the world' by Pico Iyer & it turned out to be an enjoyable journey through 1989/1990/1991 through various lonely places like North Korea, Paraguay, Bhutan among others. The writing style is unique because of the sarcastic and observational humor & it does take a little getting used to before you truly start enjoying those experiences. I am now a fan of Pico Iyer's travel writing and I'll see if I can track down some more of his books at the library.
To me - one of the lonely places of the world is our own mind. I think even though we are social animals the increasing pressures of modern world {and our own prejudices} are making us more and more lonely. And as a result the physical social connections are being replaced by virtual social connections like online gaming, chats etc. And strange as it might seem - even though we are more & more connected to billions of people via technology, we seem to be heading towards a more lonely place in our minds. 'Solitude' and 'Loneliness' are essentially the same thing with our attitude & beliefs towards it changing the meaning of the words from 'solitude' to 'loneliness' and vice versa. Hopefully more and more people decide to choose 'solitude' over 'loneliness' as I think it's the healthier of the two. Talking of solitude - I watched a documentary called 'Encounters at the End of the World' by Werner Herzog and it definitely defines solitude in a visual form. Highly recommended watch as it is hauntingly beautiful and raises some very interesting questions from within.
Last week, I've had a script meeting on 'Apsara' and the next draft is due from Angelique in a fortnight or so and I am looking forward to it since the meeting turned out to be a fantastic brain storming session with lots of relevant and positive feedback passed onto Angelique to strengthen the story. I've got a script from Mr. Mamea to read through and I've been dragging my feet because of the hectic time schedules but I intend to get onto it this coming week.
Also next weekend planning on filming another scene for 'Moments' and once that is filmed and edited, I'll be able to lock down the first 40-50 minutes of the movie. Working without money on a small movie like this is hard work and I've got to keep reminding myself as to why I started the project in the first place and keep pushing myself to finish it, even though from time to time the challenges and circumstances tempt me to just abandon the project. But due to some faulty genetic wiring in my head I can't just abandon the project. So even though the project is going way slower than I had anticipated and planned, I am still determined to have it finished this year.
The year seems to flying past faster than I give it credit for. The business presentation went really well and I am pretty happy with how it shaped out in the end. The next major thing I can remember after that is the shoot for Tessa. Tessa wanted to make a video for her Phd presentation and that involved me sitting behind a red screen and then do a narration afterwards. Angelique and Xien helped out with that and it was good fun. Here is an image from that shoot (courtesy: Angelique)
Silhouette mine
One of the fun processes for making a shoot happen on 'Moments' is the borrowing of cameras and radio mics and I've been lucky that I've had supportive friends. I had to go and pick up one of the cameras from Simon but ended up having a few drinks at Dan's party, which is where Simon had lodged himself and it turned out to be just what I needed to relax a little so I could plan the shoot for 'Moments' between Tarun, Lorraine & Matt on sunday.
Mike Lowe & me having a chat while Simon poses
Enjoying the afternoon sun and a conversation
The sunday shoot turned out to be lots of fun even though it was an improvisational scene. Tarun was funny as hell and there were a few points where I couldn't control my laughter even though I was behind the camera. Alan George - a guy I met on the shoot of 'Rhodes 2' did the second camera and I am yet to digitize the footage but know from the shoot that we have enough material for me to edit a nice scene together.
Straight after the shoot was a drive to Lance's parents place for a christmas dinner with them and Tania & Andrew and Lance & Tai & her mom. It was an amazing evening with lots of great food and great conversations and laughs. Here are some pics from the evening.
Gorgeous Sunday afternoon
Tania, Andrew & Lance
Tai's mum, Tai & Tina
Chris looking through binoculars
Through the looking glass
Chris cooking some sausages
After the feast
Clouds rising
Andrew, Tania, Tina & Chris while sharing puzzles and stories
Tai's mum, Tai & Lance
Tai & me - she is not that tall - she is standing on a couch. :-)
Watched 3 movies recently - 'Avatar'; 'Observe & Report' & 'The Wackness' - Avatar was an amazing 3-D experience but the story was pretty average and predictable. It's a good watch in 3-D is all I can say. 'Observe & Report' was pure genius and so was Ben Kingsley in 'The Wackness'. Next up is 'Sherlock Holmes' when it releases later this week.
I finally did a fitness test after 2 weeks of recovery from my left shoulder injury and it was a mixed one but tending towards positive for most of the part. My weight is 65 KG's but my body fat %age has gone down to 15% {from 16.5%} which means I have gained more muscle mass. The downside of the test was my VO2 max levels - which have gone down to 48 {from 49.8} and I guess I need to jump straight back into getting my cardio levels up again after this extended break.
It's been an incredibly busy period since my last post. I had a very short notice surprise audition come up as the actor who was originally cast for that part couldn't do the part because of personal health reasons. I did get the part and did a 1 day shoot on the TV feature and that turned out to be a fantastic experience. The other audition that I did went well and that again was a fun experience.
Since the work on 'Moments' has slowed down in terms of production, I decided that a way to speed up the process in the overall scheme of things would be to start compiling the scenes that have already been shot and edited to find out where the holes are and what needs to be done to fill those up. One of the holes was covering up dialog cuts in the scene between Tarun and me, so I went and got some pickup shots at 'The Whitehouse' as we didn't get any cut aways the first time round when we shot the scene there. We'll be shooting one more scene next sunday, which is a meaty scene and that should give me some consolation about the pace of the project. It's been a hard year but after the past couple of weeks I am declaring my year closed on a high note. Anything good that might happen between now and end of 2009 is a bonus. 2010 here I come.
Friday evening was the staff Christmas party and there wasn't anything terribly exciting that happened at the party. Yesterday I had a long overdue catchup with David & Christina and it was nice way to spend Saturday morning and afternoon. In the evening, I went to 'Christmas in the Park' along with Benji and it was bizarre event. There was something terribly off with the whole vibe of the event - it was like one huge coca cola commercial. It's supposed to be a family event but then you look around and see people getting boozed and stoned while kids and teenagers are running around. Both Benji and me almost got food poisoning over there when the thai stall served half cooked chicken skewers and they gave replacement sticks that were half cooked as well. The jerky pork kebabs from the Jamaican food stall more than made up for the earlier culinary misadventure. But to be on the safe side Benji and me decided to get a tequila shot on our way back, to negate the one bite of half cooked chicken that we had earlier.
Christmas in the Park
Beautiful sunset
Auckland Hospital
Distant viewings
Walk back
Grafton Cemetery
Bunch of people enjoying the cool air
The tequila shot
Earlier this afternoon, had a picnic lunch at Grafton Road cemetery which Angelique organized. It was an odd choice of location but a good one. It is bang in the middle of the city but it has so many trees and is pretty quite. It was an opportunity to catch up Tessa after ages and also got to meet Angelique's boy friend besides meeting some very interesting people.
Picnic at Grafton Cemetery
Sunshine
Sun and Shade
Flowers over a grave
Angelique & Kelly
Anna & Xien
Me & Tessa
End of picnic
And now it's heads down, preparing for the business project presentation that I've got to give to the TVNZ top brass tomorrow. Wish me luck.
