The past 2 days have been super busy and I desperately waiting for the weekend. I was supposed to go for an audition on monday evening right after my acting lessons and because the character I was auditioning for was supposed to speak in an american accent I scurried around for an accent coach and I got in touch with John Dybvig, after recommendation from Mike [my acting teacher]. The time was fixed for Monday late afternoon -straight after work and I was excited. Then early on Monday morning the audition got cancelled but I still decided to go through with the accent coaching as it is something that I had been meaning to do for a long time. So I went over to John's place for my lesson straight after work. The class was extremely helpful and I intend to keep at it, so that I have an additional skill set if need be. After the lessons I drove over to my acting lessons in the evening and then came back home and cooked some Keema Curry to wind down after a long day. By the time I hit bed I was dead tired. A 16 hour day in total.
Yesterday was no less busy as I went home straight after work and started working on To'ona'i. I started implementing the changes that I had discussed with David and I got into the flow of things pretty quick. Editing is not about cutting - it is about intuition and working from the heart rather than from the mind. Anyone can cut but not everyone can make a story flow - it is a craft (like writing or acting or any other creative art form), which you just develop as you gain more and more experience. I made some interesting discoveries about length and the time of a cut, that I am pretty pleased about.
Funnily enough I lost track of time and missed my physio appointment and ran really close to the line with my salsa lessons. The lesson was interesting in the sense that there were more girls than guys at the class - which was a problem as you can only dance salsa in pairs and the steps for girls is different from that for the guys and the fact that guys are the ones who have to lead the dance. It was a good workout, especially after the 2 private classes I took before this group class. A lot of what the salsa teacher taught in the private lesson started to make sense including the observation that kiwi girls are really hard to dance salsa with [not all of them obviously but most of them] and the guy has to work extra hard to make them work to the signals. Kiwi girls forget that in the dance it is the guy who leads and they just have to follow the signals and they try and control the dance. Typical!
Anyway after the salsa lesson, I came back home and went about authoring a DVD for Mr. Mamea and I didn't finish it till 12.30 at night. And by the time the DVD authoring was done and I had tested the DVD on a couple of machines I was on auto-pilot mode and was glad when I finally hit the bed. With post production schedules I hate running close to the line and I always like to keep aside contingency days just incase shit hits the fan - luckily in this case it did not and everything went to plan. So I did have a good sleep knowing that I had done my bit even though it was a 17 hour day and it was my 4th day of doing 15+ hours a day. So yeah I am eagerly looking forward to the weekend but that's not before I hand over the DVD to Mr. Mamea tonight and discuss further post production action on the short film.
The 60 second version of the Xbox 360 advt that I recently acted in found it's way onto youtube and is screening in US at this point (I think)..The video encoding on the advert for youtube isn't great and the colours and the quality is off by miles but still gives you an idea. :-)
The NTSC DVD for FIVE is being designed by Lucas, so that can self-distribute it internationally through b-side.com. Plus the movie will be available for online viewing through either Cabinetic or www.film.com sometime soon. Let's see how this method goes for making money from the movie.
The weekend disappeared in shooting for the ad and it was heaps of fun. I was originally rostered onto work at TVNZ over the weekend but my team leader supported my endeavors and swapped my days so that I could do the ad. It was a blessing really that it worked out. It also means that I have been working straight from last thursday and my next day off is on Wednesday - next week; making it a straight tally of 12 days of back to back work. I am not complaining - far from it I feel refreshed and raring to do stuff.
You get to see some crazy and weird people on K'road in the early hours of saturday and sunday morning. It is a source of constant amazement. We shot the ad on K'road and it was a surreal experience because of the scope of the ad - it was big. The director was great to work with and the best part was hanging out with other actors and doing fun stuff during our down time. The other great thing was that Caren and Claire from my acting classes were also in the ad, so we got to actually work together and get paid for it. Definitely an event I will treasure. Here are some pics from the shoot over the weekend.
The location and 'the set' - K'Road bridge/bus stops. We had atleast 100 extras and an equal number of crew besides the main cast. This was taken during the lunch break.
A view from across the road (there were points where we had the whole road blocked off at both the ends and we had it to ourselves)
Stephane showing magic tricks to David while Claire and Madeleine look on (we experienced a lot of those while waiting between takes)
At the pub - after the shoot: Garth (the director) showing stuff to David, Bonnie and Hayley
Stephane, me and Caren
David, Caren, Claire, Dwight and Hayley
Madeleine and me
As of yesterday I am officially a New Zealander. The ceremony was kind of boring but I guess everyone who wants to become a NZ citizen has to go through it. Yay!!!! I can now apply for my NZ passport and then for OCI, so I can still remain a citizen of India.
The industry screenings for 'Five' have been set - October 19th @ 10.30PM and October 20th @ 11.00 AM and 10.30PM. Not great times but something is better than nothing. The DVD is going to be released for rental the following week after that.
The ferry terminal on a foggy morning
The misty woods right next to our house
A beautiful sunrise
The amount of things that I need to do to keep sane is pilling up again and that includes replying to mail. I guess the next chance I get to reduce the workload will be next week. In the meantime I am hunting myself a new car - most probably a 2000 Toyota Vitz - keeping fingers crossed on that one. :-)
Well - here are some good reasons I am feeling elated right now.
> 'Five' won Best Feature - Action/Thriller at Microcinema Fest (don't know how it played or went down with the audience yet) > I got confirmed for my first advertisement that will be shooting soon. > My NZ citizenship ceremony is confirmed for next week. > I finally got around to watching 'Before Sunrise' and was not disappointed at all. > I got rid of a lot of my 'extra' clothes and put them in the recycling bin.
A minor blip in the whole proceedings is that I need to spend a couple of hundred bucks getting a minor problem with my car fixed. That set off a chain of events and I have decided to get myself a decent car [by decent I mean something that's not 18 years old - the current age of my car].
Crazy times.... It has been almost a week and half since the last post and it is hard to believe. It has been insanely busy at my end. In the last post when I wrote that I had only 2 X 16 hour days coming up I was being pretty optimistic - the truth is that ever since then I have only had 18 hour days and today was the first time I got to sleep for about 8 hours. So in total it has been 2 weeks of 18 hour days and it is a minor miracle that my work rate did not drop + I didn't make any mistakes especially since every single moment was important.
The visual component of 'FIVE' is locked while the first part of the audio segment is almost done for sending off the DVD for the audience test screening at Paekakariki. I extended the 2.0 mix deadline by a week and half since the amount of audio post on the movie is massive - especially with the amount of ADR we have done (close to 30% of the movie).
During this time I also went to my first audition for a TV commercial and I was on hold for the job till this morning but ultimately didn't get it. It was great just being on hold since it was the first thing I ever auditioned for. I also got my head shots done on recommendation from my agent and it was a good experience - I will get to see the results sometime this week.
Ilke Gers has delivered the poster for FIVE and I love it since it captures the mystery of the movie. The poster at this point obviously has lots of space but that will be filled up once reviews for it start coming in and stuff. I am not sure that this is the poster that the distributor will be using but it is definitely the one I will be using to send as part of press kit to festivals.
Well - the last post was a bit of a bummer because of the thing with post non-funding for 'Five' but then you have this week happen which keeps the spirit alive and truly kicking.
First - the script for 'Urameshiya' came in and it looks like it is going to be my next project. I have always wanted to work with John Dalton and this project seemed to be something that both of us have grown attached to and thus the progression into a script. The genre is comedy-horror and even the first draft is pretty funny. I am treating what I have got as the first draft since it was developed from an existing script that John had worked on earlier that did not go into production. Since there has been a change of director and producers and countries - the direction the script was going earlier and where it will be going now has changed considerably. Overall - the script is touchingly funny and would be fun to work with. Currently we are sorting out the third act - which is not a satisfying resolution to a good story. Once that is sorted - it will become even more hilarious and I am seeing it more along the lines of 'Shaun of the Dead' in terms of tone and mood. You will be hearing more about this project in the coming days as things start picking up speed with it.
The building had such beautiful art on it that I had to capture it (Taken from my car)
Second - I didn't have an agent till now as far as acting is concerned - which is not surprising considering that I have only just started taking acting training and have mainly been involved on the other side of the camera [not counting 'Five']. So I dropped in an email to one of the top acting agents asking them how I should go about the process of getting myself some representation and one thing lead to another and thanks to Mike S (and obviously Graham) - I am now on the books of Auckland Actors. It was an awesomely pleasant but thrilling experience and I was on a high for 2 days straight. It is just the first step but still a very important one because having a good agent can make heaps of difference in terms of what you can be put forward for. Now there is this whole new world of auditions etc which I will start experiencing but I am taking things as they come. For now I will just concentrate on my acting classes and practise sessions. The acting practise sessions are now turning intense but they are fun at the same time - it is like losing yourself in it and then discovering yourself through the process. And the thing I really love is that we have an awesome bunch of people in the class and that makes the whole process that much more exciting and fun - I feel lucky in every way.
Chelsea, Claire and Brett in the acting practise session
Drew McMillan has joined the 'FIVE' team as the second composer since we are running short on time and expecting just one person to score the entire movie is a tough ask which puts enormous pressure on them. I am waiting to hear back from Auckland International Film Festival if 'Five' has been selected into the festival or not - keeping fingers crossed that they see something good in it. I am bracing myself for the rejection letter anyway, so that the fall is not as hard.
Fading light
I am currently listening to 'Grey's Anatomy Vol.2 - OST' (the first CD I bought in ages) and it is an awesome soundtrack with a good range of music and it is really alive. The only other track I wish was included on this one was 'Cosy in the Rocket' by Psaap - which is part of Vol.1 OST {you hear the tune in the end credits}. Found the track on Youtube and you can watch it by clicking on the play button.
Not that the blog is going to become a weekly kind of a thing but it just happens that I got drowned in sudden splurge of work - small things which needed to be sorted out straight away.
Weekend was a lazy one for the most part but had a lovely Sunday with Mary. We went to Muruwai beach and it turned out to be a beautiful day - not sunny and it didn't rain either. Oh and my usual way of making french toast received an upgrade with some fried banana and bacon and maple syrup (courtesy: Mary) ; and it was yummy. Muruwai beach was really busy for some reason - even though it was a Sunday. Oh well... here are some photos from the Muruwai trip -
Muruwai Beach (the far end - thats why there are less people)
A view of the beach from top of the hill
Mary is amused
"I will do anything for catching that one little fish"
The Gannet Colony - the trademark of Muruwai beach
A lady taking her baby for a stroll
"Give me the stick. I wanna fetch it."
Mary and me
I have just come back from the first class with Michael Saccente and the only way to describe it is that I am feeling very alive. It is a great bunch of people in the class - coming from different backgrounds and I am sure that it will turn out to be a really exciting 80 weeks. :-)
Earlier last week - I had a catch up meeting with Richard Collins over 'Nowhere' and trying to sort out how we move the project forward - including sorting out the rights to the script - which has become a little bit entangled because of the project has shaped up. Unkreative Artists started off the project and paid for the initial amount for the script - which meant that Unkreative Artists holds the rights. As the project gained a couple more producers and a new company - NTL Ltd., was formed for the purpose of the movie - the rights related to the script were never really sorted out and it was assumed that the rights would be transferred to NTL Ltd. Jordan - the script writer, luckily enough (for Unkreative Artists) did not sign the renegotiated contract because of delays on both sides in sorting out the renegotiated contract - which meant that I finally had the chance to sort this mess out, as Unkreative Artists is afterall a company. And to me it just didn't make sense that Unkreative Artists pays for a script which will be exploited by NTL Ltd. - so I got talking to Richard and we have already made progress over the course of action. Now it is just a matter of implementing the steps properly - in order to resolve the matter satisfactorily for the 3 parties involved in this. There were a couple of other matters and they too need sorting out. Once all those things are sorted then we will take the script back to the treatment stage and start working on it again. The other thing that I am going to do is take down the 'Nowhere to Love' website till the project regains momentum and gets back on its feet again - and then NTL Ltd. can pay for the website and design.
In the meantime I have started designing the website for 'Five' and I have finally settled on a design which I like - so now it is a matter of finishing it off and uploading it. And then there is the upcoming shoot this weekend - where we will be shooting the opening scene and a couple of pickup scenes to tie things up with the movie. It looks like the score for the movie will be delayed a bit but hopefully we will still hit the deadline for the Auckland international film festival.
On the movie front - managed to watch 'The White Masai' - which is very nicely done and is mesmerizing and beautiful; 'Hot Fuzz' - a movie which has you chuckling for its entire running length but still you need to be an action movie aficionado to laugh out loud. On the documentary front I watched 'Scorsese on Scorsese' which was enormously entertaining - the best bit was the American express credit card advertisement featuring Martin Scorsese. Check it out
The other documentary I was looking forward to was 'Behind the Scenes' of 'Children of Men' - I really wanted to know how they managed to pull off some of the incredible sequences. I was a bit disappointed that they still did not touch on how they managed to stage the single shot war sequence towards the end of the movie. The interesting bit was seeing how they managed to pull off the opening blast in the movie and also the car chase sequence where the camera is always inside the car following action inside and outside the car.
It is great that India is out of the cricket world cup. I think someone needs to drive some sense into the Indian masses that it is not the end of the world. Every country has it's sporting obsessions but I think Indians go a bit overboard with their obsession for the game. Let me correct myself - the Indian sub-continent takes the game a little too seriously. The keyword is that it is just a game - nothing more and nothing less. Personally, I think the cricket world cup should be stopped because of Bob Woolmer's murder but that's a fool's wish because there is so much money riding on the game that one person's death is not important in the overall scheme of things.
Check out the new look MicroCinema Scene website - it is a fantastic resource for people making movies without much money - the true independent cinema (not the 'independent movies' that the major film studios put out). It has gone through a major upheaval and now looks pretty slick and has some pretty cool film makers from across the world on their forums as well. Definitely a place to hang out if you are wanting to get into film making.
I met up with Michael Saccente for an interview about my interest in doing his acting class where he teaches the Meisner Technique and I am thrilled beyond words as I have been accepted into it. Looking forward to the whole new learning curve.
Currently I am also dealing with Department of Internal Affairs about my citizenship application. NZImmigration Service screwed up and gave wrong information to them, based on which they basically said that I wasn't eligible for being a citizen yet. But when I told them that I am eligible based on the information I had and I had the letter from NZIS stating the original dates to prove my point- DIA asked me to send the original letter in, so they can clarify the matter with NZIS. Besides that there is the matter of the birth certificate - which I am not going to get into but anyway it is now a 'wait and see' game as 2 government departments figure out what the hell is going on.
I did a quick search and found that New Zealand citizens and permanent residents have virtually the same rights. But if you are a citizen then you can: * Freely enter the country without a permit[kind of handy but as Permanent Resident you can do that as well - it takes an extra 5 minutes at the airport to get your passport stamped] * Avoid deportation [applicable only if you commit some serious crime or something..] * Get a New Zealand passport with visa-free access to about 50 countries [definitely handy and possibly the main reason I was applying for the citizenship] * Seek consular assistance while traveling overseas [handy if you are stuck while traveling] * Stand for local and central government [not interested in politics -so irrelevant for me]
For a moment I was seriously tossing the idea of withdrawing my application but then decided to go through with it and see if DIA can sort the stuff out. There are reports in the media that the government is interested in having more migrants becoming citizens to develop a sense of national identity etc... A word of advise for them though- you can't get someone to develop a sense of national pride especially if the front line organization responsible for it makes things so bloody difficult at the first possible step for no particular fault of the applicant.
I had my first proper swimming lessons today. I definitely need heaps of practice just to stay afloat - literally. It was fun though.
Acting workshops are going well. Improvisation is so much fun and that much more challenging because you have to be in that moment all the time. It is so close to production that it is hard to believe - a week and a half and we will be shooting the movie. Need lots of sorting out to do this weekend -especially with buying food supplies, accessories etc. We now have public liability insurance and statutory liability insurance along with third party damage with fire and theft cover for the company car. Learning from the last movie - insurance is a definite must even for 'no budget' films so that they remain no budget movies and don't end up being a twenty thousand dollar movie because you accidentally damaged something worth 20K.
SIPF decision came out for October round of funding and 'Nowhere' still hasn't got the financial support it needs [a sophisticated way of saying that we didn't get the funding]. I don't know if I will ever get any kind of funding from New Zealand. A bit disappointing but oh well, cest la vie..
The weekend trip to Tauranga and Mount Manganui was heaps of fun. We (Julia, Barbara & Me) went in Barbara's car and it was a fun road trip. It was overcast for most of the weekend but thankfully it did not rain till today i.e Monday.
Friday evening workshop extended till almost 10.00 PM and it was great fun. The characters are shaping up nicely and I am almost killing myself with nervous anticipation of things to come.
Richard with Marjan
Marjan
Anita
Anita, Marjan and Richard
I was too tired to heat up any food after coming back home at 10.30, so Benji and me went to this Asian restaurant called 'Momo Tea' (close to our house), which stays open till 3.00 in the morning. It was an experience and a half - I asked Benji to look around and see how everyone was so fashionably dressed even at 11.00 at night while we were casually dressed. Benji laughed and said that is probably not the reason we would stick out - as it turned out everyone there was Asian except for the two of us. The food wasn't bad at all - will probably go back there when midnight hunger pangs strike.
On Saturday - the road trip started early. I drove to Barbara's place and dropped off my car there and we then picked up Julia en route. Our first stopover of sorts was at Owharoa Falls and then we had another stop over at Waihi where they were having the monthly arts and craft market. [P.S - All photos are enlargeable if you click on them]
Owharoa Falls
Owharoa Falls - at the base Sleepy town of Waihi
Arts fair in the community hall
We were famished by the time we got to Tauranga. We had lunch at a Turkish place called Zeytin and the ambiance felt really authentic and to top it off the food was finger licking good, it impressed on us so much so that we had our lunch there the next day as well. Once done, we roamed about the CBD for a while before checking into the backpackers.
Lunch @ Zeytin
The backpackers we stayed at, Pacific Lodge in Mount Manganui was a cool place. The guy who runs the place, Murray, was really funny and eased us into our room. It was a good place to meet people from different parts of the world- all nomads or people in transition. We dropped our stuff off in our room after that everything is a blur in terms of the number of times we were in Mount Manganui and Tauranga. We avoided climbing Mt. Manganui straight away because it was overcast and it looked like it would bucket down with rain any minute. The weather cleared up early in the evening which gave us the opportunity to hike up the mount.
Mount Manganui (from the beach) Magic Hour
Empowerement and liberation
View from the top
Barbara, Me & Julia
View of Manganui Beach
A Beach volleyball tournament in progress
Tip of the Cliff
Julia is ecstatic over reaching the end of the cliff
Who are you looking at?
Just before we left Tauranga on Sunday evening, I bumped into one of my mates from South Seas - Bren Frank at the cinemas. It was good catching up with him again after a long time. He is currently working in the lighting department on '30 Days of Night' which is shooting in Auckland.
A guy fishing in the Waikato river
We took a detour through Hamilton and had a brief stop over for a stroll plus dinner before returning to Auckland. All in all it was a fun trip which came at the right point in time.
Today morning I went over to David M' place to check out a couple more locations in the Waitakeres and went for a walk even though it was raining (it has been raining the whole day). It was good but then I had a realization and we cancelled the hike to 3 other places. Now this week will be busy with organizing stuff and scheduling for 'Five' along with the usual workshops.
A walk in the Waitakeres
I have put up a couple of items on trademe for sale - a comic book and 1GB of laptop RAM, so if you are interested or if you know of someone who is looking for that stuff then bid on it.
I'll sign off for now. Till later, Amit
[P.S - I have started taking swimming lessons since I thought it would be a good idea to know how to swim considering that NZ is essentially 2 big islands.]
oooh. And one more thing - you can watch the first 4 minutes of BORAT here. Be warned that you could find a fair few things offensive within those 4 minutes.
Some people just can't sleep. And I am not one of them. I sleep like a baby 95% of the time and it takes a fair bit of noise for anything to wake me up, which can be testified by my numerous friends and family members who have tried waking me up when I am in deep sleep. Special mention to the time in Delhi when I fell asleep in the afternoon while mom went out shopping. I woke up to loud banging on the door and opened to see mom all flustered. I didn't understand the big deal but it turned out that the entire neighboring apartment flats were helping mom in pounding the door for close to 30-45 minutes before I opened the door - I barely heard the noise. In retrospect - i actually find it really amusing that I can sleep like that.
So what am I doing typing this blog at 4.15 in the morning? INDUCED INSOMNIA - involuntary too.... Now I can't go back to sleep, so thought I might as well update the blog and start working on 'Five'.
Friday night was fun - first went to a farewell party for Kirstin and Karen (& Jerome) - who will be leaving New Zealand soon. After that caught up with Anita, Marjan and Andy for a different kind of workshop for 'Five'. Extremely productive and it served the purpose I was intending it to. Here are some photos from there:
On saturday the one thing which really shook me up was seeing a cat run over by a car. It happened like this - I took a turn to get onto a main road and slowed down immediately as I saw a cat make a run for it to get across to the other side. It was running pretty fast but the first car coming from the opposite direction hit it and I saw bits and parts shatter. I didn't look in detail because I was afraid on what I would see but at that moment it really sunk in as to how temporal all living creatures really are. We live a fragile life in a fragile world and it doesn't take much to shatter that fragility.
[P.S - The soundtrack for 'Pulp Fiction' isn't bad at all. Also check out a music video from a NZ music group called Minuit - they are definitely one of my favorite NZ music groups - Ruth has an enticing and different voice. I used one of their tracks in 'Memories of Tomorrow' - with permission ofcourse.]
I finally managed to get around to eating out at the Mongolian BBQ restaurant I was wanting to try for ages. Originally I had planned to eat out there on my birthday but since that turned out to be a non event, I postponed it till the next opportunity - which was today. No special reason - just was able to save up enough money for the treat and thought it would be a great opportunity to catch up with Anita for 'Five'.
The restuarant we went to was Gengy's Restaurant in Newmarket (at the corner of khyber pass road and crowhurst street) and it proved to be an awesome experience. It was great value for money and the customer service was really nice as well. There was a special offer on where lunch was NZ$ 14.90 per head for all you can eat and it was great because I took 3 servings of food besides the dessert. There are different sections where you have a selection of different meats, vegetables, oils, spices, grounded ingredients - all you have to do is create your own combination of meats and vegetables and oils etc. and take the bowl to the chef, who then cooks it in front of you over a round flat hot plate which has a constant heat temprature of 600 centigrade. You eat your food and then go back for more servings (and possibly experiement with different combinations of meats and cooking oils - I did). It is definitely a great way to have a relaxed lunch which is also fun. I will definitely go back there sometime soon. [a tip - you can easily skip the salads and the soup in order to enjoy the main meal better]
I finished watching a really interesting documentary called 'The Oil Factor' and it was an eye opener. It just made me really angry at the state of the world we live in. Did you know that - At current rate of production, North America and Western Europe will run out of oil in 2010 and almost 1/2 a million U.S military personnel are deployed overseas near oil fields and oil routes. For those people who argue that the current conflicts around the world are not related to oil but for making the world a peaceful place all I can say to that is - Stop eating bullshit which the mainstream media keeps feeding you without questioning the legitamacy of the reports. As a documentary the first 10-15 minutes were kind of mendearing as it sets up the factual basis for the arguments but once the images start streaming in from Iraq and Afghanistan, all you can do is watch in horror over whats happening.
For the past few days there has been something that has really been bothering me - I keep looking out of my window and keep pondering about the meaning of love. What is it? What does it mean? Why is it? I wish Monty Python had made a movie called 'The Meaning of Love' as a sequel to their classic 'The Meaning of Life'.
Just back from my small acting part in Alan Brash's short film 'Love Among Toys'. It was heaps of fun. I have uploaded more photos to the photogallery and they will be under the 'Moments of Life' section . One of the funniest incidents was some customers coming into the dairy and presuming that I was the real dairy owner -they wanted to pay me for the goods. Everyone had a chuckle while I pointed them to the actual shop owners.
For now enjoy some pics from the location.
Tanya and me acting in one of the scenes
Point of view from where I am standing
Alan Brash -checking the shot composition
Right now my mind is a muddle and will write later after clearing up some workload at school
Thats what the whole day has been...but it was fun all the way through.
The first meeting was the team meeting and the read through for Alan Brash's short film 'Love among Toys'..it is a really interesting story and it is funny..there are small nooks and cranies in the script where you can't help but chuckle to yourself. I will post up the pics of the team meeting later tomorrow morning as I locked my digital camera in Unit-6 and can't access it till tomorrow morning. This short film is gonna be really interesting. And the other interesting aspect was listening to Alan direct -he has things clear in his head and he knows what he wants out of everyone but at the same time he is really humble and polite. I am looking forward to this one. I will have to brush up quite a bit since i have not having done any serious acting in a year -the last one being a fun role of 'Black Bart' in a student 48 hour competition - where there was literally no acting at all- it was all fun.
Then was the school meeting with Paula, Darryn, Matt, Allie and Sandra - the meeting went well...the point of rewriting the unit standards for editing came up and i have another meeting with paula tomorrow for the same. Matt seemed a little stressed today for some strange reason - with the amount of work he does and the responsibilities he has - i am not at all surprised, if I were in his palce i would probably got a heart attack by now. Had to sort out backup editor for Lavinia's doco - which got sorted with help from Kim Oyston and an approval from David Blyth -who is directing that short film, now Dong Ding will be editing that project. At this stage looks like Triangle Show might not be going ahead this friday but it is still uncertain - will get to know for certain tomorrow morning. Touchdown got back and they said that they are looking to hire an offline editor later on but for now they have said no to both Annette and Russell - which is kind of a bummer but not really for there are more opportunities to come by.
The evening went in a couple of meetings -first was the meeting with Dan and team for his short film and it was great seeing Jonathon Moulton on board. I was being slack and did not type in a rough schedule as the locations weren't locked down but that obviously wasn't looked favorably upon. So i typed up the rough schedule while the team was still discussing the finer points of the shoot. Dan's short film is again gonna be an intense experience because it is a hard hitting and emotionally raw piece. The labour weekend is gonna be a long weekend.
The last meeting was with Delaney and it was great. She is really talented and it is great having her on board. At this point neither of us know what marketing strategy we are looking for promoting the film but then where there is a challenge there is a way. It will obviously have to be a combination of usual techniques mixed with new ones which i invent ourselves. I am looking forward to that process as well. And yeah...Delaney has been confirmed a place on next year's course at South Seas {Angela rang her up and told her so, though the official letter is yet to reach her}which is great because i think it will give direction to her talent in the film and tv industry. And from what I have seen on her portfolio - she is a really visual person.
Anyway - i think i am done for now. Will update more pics and stuff later. ciao amit
Yesterday was really eventful...and i will try and give a brief summary of things because today can turn into one eventful day as well...
I will be 1st A.D on Dan West's short film which we will be shooting over the labour weekend. It will be interesting to shoot and a roller coaster weekend. I will be acting in a small part in one of the final production at school - and guess what I am playing- a diary owner who loves cricket..heeheeee....talk about stereotypes. That particular short film is being directed by Alan Brash -who created the TV series 'The Strip'.
Darren did most of the work on finishing off the couch...it is nearly done -we are a meter short of cloth..and once thats done it will be onto painting the room :-)The school is helping us out with the material and stuff -which is really kind of them.
attended the Berlin Film Festival seminar...it wasn't too hot -i mean the lady just spoke what was written in the brochure and nothing more. Also i feel like an outsider to this industry. Film in NZ has to truly grow from the grass roots and the systems have to change before we can become competitive. NZFC commisions about 2-3 major feature film projects and several other smaller projects but that is not gonna make the industry competitive... In a country where money is scarce - digital is the way to go..instead of following models of bigger countries and trying to break their backs by trying to attain it - they should create their own rules. They have started moving in that direction but the change is too slow and it does not address the need for digital theatres. But then again sometimes i get the feeling that film making is no more a creative art - it is more about business. Is there a balance between art and business - i don't know.
things are gonna get interesting with Triangle today as the Grass valley SPG needs to be replaced and we have to do a make shift solution for now. Keeping my fingers crossed that it will work otherwise it is gonna be a long long day. Other than that had a text altercation with Rachel -one of the leads of the film...something which I will refrain from discussing on here. Let's say I was really tempted to close the entire project down. Independent film making is such an invaluable learning curve.
