Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Finally!
[#] posted at 9:01 am (GMT +1200)
Returns!
To clarify, I forgot a payment for the webspace and the hosting server was getting an upgrade. Lo and behold, bad luck and all that, website was down for a bit longer than it should have. But I'm back now AND with a new password that wasn't not sent to me, taunting me that website was on, but updatable.
While down, I've still been creating posts to blogger, but they just haven't been going anywhere. So your not missing anything.
Plus it turn out that there seems to be quite the amount of readers of this blog now, which is cool, and from the webstats, this site is going to hit 1000 visitors really soon... awesomeness.
Labels: 1000 counter, website
* * *
Pictures of You - Day 23 blog
[#] posted at 1:21 am (GMT +1200)
Long freakin' day today.
Started at 9, shooting a scene at the museum which was fun, although we went a little overtime, which would have been okay, but I had an appointment to run off to, which didn't go overtime, but by the time I was done, I had to run off to the next location to set up for a bar/band scene, which looked great, but at this point, I was running on no food, heat exhaustion and a headache the size of a walnut... made of cyanide.
Managed to finish just at midnight, though we had to scrap a couple of shots planned for magic hour cause we didn't want to lose the small amount of extras we had at the time. Why is it so hard to find extras sometimes? Ah well.
Also got to finally do a cameo in the film... playing a drunk patron, dragged out on his arse by security. Even got to fire off a string of profane one liners for the role. Described as Will Farrel and Kevin Smith gone wrong, I shot off lines along the lines of "aw... hairy sweaty balls on your chin" and "goddamn shit in your cereal"... awesome.
Also got some interesting good news regarding the film commission, though I probably can't say much about it and I won't. Though it does bear potentialness for awesomeness.
But by the end of the day, ie now, I'm feeling like crap and not really looking forward to tomorrow. So not feeling it this week I think.
Still not fully connected to blog yet, though website is back online, I can't connect to it due to a password change malfunction and you probably won't be reading this anytime until some time since posting like so many previous posts as well. But heres a funny music video classic none-the-less...
Labels: music video, pictures of you, website
Labels: music video, pictures of you, website
* * *
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Dead Chris Day 3
[#] posted at 1:44 am (GMT +1200)
Only the third day? That can't be right.
Anyway, today was much sleeping and forgetting it was my birthday. And then I remembered it was my birthday and more sleeping ensued.
Tomorrow is a big long day of filming from eight at the museum to just past midnight at the University again... so more sleep is needed.
Discovered this which made me smile...
And now off to sleep.
Labels: birthday, dead chris day, pictures of you
* * *
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Pictures of You - Day 22 blog
[#] posted at 11:30 pm (GMT +1200)
Still no website? Ah well... A good day, shot another interior scene and got to use more lights and gels. Pretty lights and gels. Rooms heat up really quickly under the lights we're using, so once a take is done, its usually a mad scramble out of the room in an attempt to breathe some air thats not filled with hideous ammounts of sweat.
We then broke for a bit and took off to Cambridge to shoot a road scene. And I had quite a bit of fun on that one as you'll see here.
Tomorrow we get a day off. It'll be my birthday and I'll be doing absolutely nothing! Awesome.
Labels: pictures of you
* * *
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Pictures of You - Day 21 blog
[#] posted at 9:11 pm (GMT +1200)
Looks out window... snif... still no website.
But shot a hospital corridor scene at... (drum roll)... the University of Waikato! Dressed up the English department to look like a hospital corridor with extras and pot plants. Hopefully it'll look like a hospital corridor to others, to me, looking at the footage, it looks like the University of Waikato's English department, but to the uneducated eye, it may look different.
But got two more dialogue heavy scenes off. Still about a weeks shoot left to go. Hooray and aww for the end.
Hopefully tomorrows blog will actually be on a website. Else this post is just going to nowhere... how strange would that be?
Labels: pictures of you, website
* * *
Pictures of You - Day 19/20 blog
[#] posted at 1:08 am (GMT +1200)
The internet hates me and I have a bad tendency of forgetting to pay my internet space bill. But filming chugs along as usual and I write this post knowing it wont be seen til at least another day or twos time.
It's like I'm talking to the future!
Anyway, tonight the show reel is finally approved and posted to youtube. Viewable either here or just...
Labels: pictures of you, show reel, trailer, website
* * *
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Pictures of You - Day 18 blog
[#] posted at 1:11 am (GMT +1200)
Very productive day today. Shot off about two hours of footage and got off five scenes in one day today. We even had a decent turn out of extras to fill out a classroom.
As intended in an earlier post, here are some more pretty stills.
And hopefully by tomorrow, the showreel will be approved for digital distribution. Hooray.
Labels: images, pictures of you, show reel
* * *
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Pictures of You - Day 16/17 blog
[#] posted at 8:22 pm (GMT +1200)
Quick post as computer decided to suddenly throw a hissy fit at me and totally freeze, thus losing all my blogger work and images I was screen grabbing for this post.
So instead, I'm going to go finally see the Prestige and be able to say "damn, that was a great film y'all!"
Oh, didn't do a day 16 post yesterday as I simply came home, tried to do some fine cutting/onlining of the showreel, but instead collapsed in an exhausted heap and slept all night and morning. But we had a relatively short day today and boldy shot a one shot scene, which will hopefully go well when put together, but who knows. Anyway, the showreel is almost fully finished, with edits and colours awaiting full approval before I can upload it and/or mail off DVD copies to the lucky few of you.
Right, off to the movies I go. Been a long time since I've actually been to one.
Labels: pictures of you, show reel, website
* * *
Monday, January 22, 2007
Dead Editor Chris Day
[#] posted at 7:26 am (GMT +1200)
Have just finished an all nighter, cutting together a showreel for our media day today. Currently being burnt to DVD, lets hope it doesn't somehow magically catch on fire. Hopefully the showreel is decent enough, I've not had enough time to fine cut some of the edits and even less time to properly go through colour correction. Here's hoping its not going to be too bad for the press.
Right. Several more copies to make, a bajillion coffees (and some) and I'm off to shoot.
Labels: dead chris day, editing, show reel
* * *
Saturday, January 20, 2007
Pictures of You - Day 15 blog
[#] posted at 9:36 pm (GMT +1200)
Good day. Good confusing day for everyone involved. Can't divulge details, but lets just say, it was the most amusingly confusing day for many today.
Also shot a scene set in a hospital. And I think there was a bit too much of an influence from watching Green Wing recently. I think there were more silly takes of this deranged Asian doctor running around in the background, doing silly dances and waving a shotgun around the place, than there were of actual proper takes. Hopefully, some good stuff for the bloopers.
Anyway, because we were so efficiently confusingly quick today. Tomorrow is a day off and rather than being another Dead Chris Day, it's an Editing Chris Day! Because Monday, we're scheduled to have a 'media day', so I've taken on the task of cutting the footage together into a showreel to show the press.
Can I do it in one day? With a hangover? Only time will tell...
Labels: green wing, pictures of you
* * *
Dead Chris Day 2
[#] posted at 2:20 am (GMT +1200)
Woke up this morning with absolutely nothing to do. No filming. No work. Nothing. Just me, bored. Coffee, Green Wing and a lot of nothing much else.
So been trying to keep the energy levels up for tomorrow. More crowd coverage to prepare for and a little mischief on top of that. Stole some footage from Director Ben this afternoon and have been picking out certain shots and setups that I still like as screen caps.
Unfortunately, quite a bit of them are a tad plot spoilers, while others, though pretty, work better as moving shots as opposed to static stills, so I've had to restrain myself a bit in picking images, but here are some of the best of the rest of what I hove shot thats quite, quite satisfying. Some have been subjected to a little photoshop, just to enhance certain colours that didn't initally come through, but overall, I'm quite happy with these in terms of composition and lighting and pretty.
I think my eyes are watering again and I need some rest. So here are pretty images. Let me know what you think, there's still an arseload more that want to be uploaded and beg to be uploaded, but the powers of effort and criticism still hold them back.
Labels: dead chris day, images
* * *
Friday, January 19, 2007
Pictures of You - Day 14 blog
[#] posted at 1:59 am (GMT +1200)
Short day today. Had only one scene to shoot, cause an actor for the other planned scene went off to the Big Day Out. No grudges or anything, actually quite glad for the little break. Even better, tomorrow is a day off and shall be spent mostly editing and hopefully some drinking. Bring on Dead Chris Day number 2!
Labels: pictures of you
* * *
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Pictures of You - Day 13 blog
[#] posted at 10:44 pm (GMT +1200)
Good day. Exterior morning, interior afternoon. Once again, the happy gods of filming weather smile down on us and we were blessed with fandangly overcast weather and the interiors were most favourable towards flouro lighting and stuff. Shots looked like they were from a digital Michael Mann film or something.
Also, got bored and did this video in our down time...
The monkey holding the piece of paper is supposed to be holding up a sign that says "Chris Tan, Director of Photography" as a cheap subtitling gimick. The second piece was supposed to say "Pictures of You, Coming Soon"... but the damn exposure on that camera... tsk tsk...
And at the less-than-zero Pictures of You film website there are links to the photos that are supposed to be up on the less-than-zero website, but are instead hosted on a completely seperate server. But the photos that are recently up now are some stills taken from a hastily put together showreel we played back on Sunday you can view here. Unfortunately, the images are in the wrong aspect ratio, but at least for the most of them, being raw footage, they look pretty good.
Here are a couple of my favourites of the bunch, scaled properly and not color corrected in anyway. There are a lot more that I liked that haven't been screen capped yet, but hopefully will soon... real soon.
Labels: images, pictures of you, youtube
* * *
Pictures of You - Day 12 blog
[#] posted at 2:28 am (GMT +1200)
Good day.
Reshot a scene from yesterday we had to abandon due to sound issues and losing light and just blitzed through it this time. Weather was absolutely perfect this morning to have that overcast winter look. And while we had that light, we shot at another location down the road for another scene. Shot another in the middle of town with lots of nice coverage. Shot another scene in a bar on the other end of town. And then shot one more setup for an earlier scene, because an actress was unavailable at the time we were there... but did we match the lighting? You betcha.
But with all these external shoots going on, next time I look at someones script, it's gonna be counted up the ratio of interior to exterior shoots... actually, I just realised that interiors can drive me insane figuring out how to light... to hell with it. Next script, one room, two people, talking heads the whole film.
Labels: pictures of you
* * *
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Pictures of You - Day 11 blog
[#] posted at 3:19 am (GMT +1200)
This is just a hast post as my computer which has been suffering a few upgrades recently, has decided to spit something out and not start up again. Very annoying as I want to get somemore editing done after today's shoot.
Good start in the morning. Everything, actors, camera work and so on where all good and ready to go. Every blocked and rehearsed shot went without a hitch... Except for the bloody weather that had us standing around half the time, staring at the sun, wondering whether 'that next cloud' is going to actually go over or not. I swear, there was this one cloud that actually stopped and reversed backwards, just to piss us off.
Afternoon and finally, we're eating something not bloody sandwiches for lunch... pasta! Stuffed, full and onto more filming, which being in a public place, got regularly interrupted by public foot traffic, ambient noises, children, cars backfiring, airplanes, helicopters, speedboats and rowers.
Now, I love the whole indie, low budget approach to filmmaking. It's just more fun that way. But sometimes, like today, I really would like to be on one with a much bigger, more anti-anything-that-can-concievabley-come-in-and-screw-up-this-production budget.
Labels: editing, pictures of you
* * *
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Pictures of You - Day 10 blog
[#] posted at 11:48 pm (GMT +1200)
Great weather today. Gets a happy lighting director's score of zero. Shooting an exterior for winter, during the summer. Waiting for overcast clouds to diffuse out the sun and get this really nice cold look on screen, instead we had to force ourselves to shoot it more stark and with the hard shadows that stupid Mr Sunbeam makes.
Also got burnt some more, sweated like a pony, started getting dizzy, drank water till I felt like puking and all around felt like crap. But we're hopeful we got some nice shots. Unfortunately, not enough people turned up as extras today, so it'll be interesting to see how few fit that all in.
Afterwards we eventually stumbled our waywards home to writer Scott's house. Drank. And eventually started making silly little short films just to entertain ourselves. Will upload tomorrow. Just realising that there won't be any space for them here yet.
In other interesting stuff, Harlan Ellison does a reading of a short story here and under Prince Myshkin and does a helluva reading indeed.
Labels: drinking, harlan ellison, pictures of you, short film
* * *
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Pictures of You - Day 9 blog
[#] posted at 6:20 pm (GMT +1200)
Got to the location on time, just not the right part of the location. And stood around wondering where the hell everyone was. Got a little of that on tape. Still yet to finish capturing all of the footage.
But I totally did it, running around, up and down a rugby field, shooting a game and getting totally owned by the sun. Still got some very nice shots, though I left off the color grading for today, so that there are maximum possibilities to tweak them in post. Meanwhile, I'm sunburnt, depressed and totally tired. But that can mostly be resolved with a venture down to the S&M reunion shindig. Going on now as I type, I'll make my way round there later on party and drink it up some. Also, Sohl bar closes down tonight and us faithful patrons are sending it off with a bang with drinks, drinks and more drinks.
I'd type and elaborate more, but I'm tired and need booze. Early start tomorrow as well.
Labels: drinking, pictures of you, screen and media, sohl bar
* * *
Pre Day... Um... 9
[#] posted at 4:20 am (GMT +1200)
Weather looks to be wet tomorrow... really wet...
Actually, have to be on set in just over four hours. Been out having some drinks with old friends form high school and playing Risk (came second, oh noes). Now I"m pretty tired and really, I'm amped. I'm psyched. Ready to run around in the rain filming a rugby game scene for ten hours. Bring it on.
Meanwhile... here are some great images taken at just the right angle to be pure greatness.
Here be a video demonstrating car drawing awesomeness can be achieved through paint, as opposed to photoshop.
And here is a nice retro video for South Seas students.
Now sleep. And hopefully I'll wake up and not be late to the set.
Labels: pictures of you
* * *
Friday, January 12, 2007
Pictures of You - Day 8/Dead Chris Day 1
[#] posted at 12:44 pm (GMT +1200)
Filming was a little intense yesterday. Lots of getting great shots in a really small room with 2000ks of lights heating the whole room up to a sauna level. But once again, got some nicely composed shots and some sexcellent lighting going on.
To celebrate, some of us got properly drunk afterwards. I crashed out on the couch. Woke up this morning with a +3 lvl hangover and proceeded to go to the hospital to drop something off to my mum and ended up lost and confused in the car park and just felt like absolute crap.
Now home and rested. I'm about to head out into the rain and recce the rugby fields for this weekends shoot. After that, hopefully I can get a relaxation going on and just blob out. Been a fun ride so far making this film, but today is a day of much needed rest.
Will post later tonight with the first video blog and hopefully some newspaper scans.
Labels: dead chris day, pictures of you
* * *
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Pictures of You - Day 7 blog
[#] posted at 2:04 am (GMT +1200)
Shot in three locations today... Continuation of yesterdays shoot on the street, exterior shoot at the polytech grounds and finally a night shoot at Victoria Cinemas.
The continuation shoot drove me nuts in hoping the lighting was consistent with yesterdays whilst shooting crouched down in the front seat of a car, staring up at an upsidedown LCD screen also while operation sound equipment to shoot a bit of dialogue in the back.
The exterior shoot drove me equally mad with one particular camera set up that just refused to work, constantly changing lighting and weather that couldn't figure out if it wanted to be sunny or a watering down whore.
So then after all that was done, I got myself properly drunk at the bar down the road from the next location and when it came to shooting... bang, bang, shots were down, just like that. Fantastic colours, minimal camera screw ups and lots of pretty coverage.
What a bitch.
Labels: pictures of you
* * *
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Pictures of You - Day 6 blog
[#] posted at 3:22 am (GMT +1200)
Beginning to lose track of days. Had to check up on previous posts to make sure I've got the right numbered day to post about.
Today, although it was a relatively short day and we started at 2 o'clock, was so far the day that took the most effort to do for me. Nothing tricky in terms of work or camera work required, just mentally and physically I felt quite drained. Strange to say, but I think if we had started at our 'usual' seven in the morning, despite having shot for 16 hours the night before, I would have been more prepared to shoot for the day as opposed to having plenty of rest and going off to set in the afternoon.
Ah well, tomorrow we move location, three locations actually and start at nine in the morning.
Also a reminder to anyone that this weekend is a get together reunion piss up for us Waikato Screen and Media bums. Sam Brown's pad, Saturday night.
Oh and we'll be needing extras this weekend at Frazer Tech grounds to play as a crowd watching a High School rugby game. More details to come in the following days.
Labels: pictures of you
* * *
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Pictures of You - Day 5 blog
[#] posted at 12:58 am (GMT +1200)
Holy baJebus! A sixteen hour day, the equivilant of twenty-something cups of coffee, half a bottle of vodka, one fall from a tree, one pair of broken glasses and one press photo op...
It's been a helluva day, but totally worth it. Once again, the shots just keep getting prettier and prettier and a big eeeeh! to Daisy for providing us with 50 fandangly totally awesome sets of gels to make the lighting even prettier. It's totally all about the pretty.
Other than that, not much else to report. I'm so freakin tired now, it's such a relief we've only got a 2 o'clock start tomorrow afternoon.
And to deviate from the usual film production post, here are some photos from a really cool, but surreally creepy art sculpture exhibition where mythical giants have been posed and frozen for your freaky amusement here.
Labels: pictures of you
* * *
Sunday, January 07, 2007
Pictures of You - Day 4 blog
[#] posted at 1:28 am (GMT +1200)
Afternoon/Night shoot went slightly overtime and involved a scene where the lighting changed so dramatically by the end of the last setup I felt absolutely depressed and a failure as a DOP, operator and lighting director. Though there is the optimistic thought it can be fixed in post, the shadows were just so dramatically harsher, I don't think it can be salvaged. My votes on a reshoot when we view the rushes.
In some good news, we got some really great shots for the other scenes. I'm really beginning to feel the Christopher Doyle inspirado coming on with each set up.
Tomorrow is a day off from filming and I'll just be reviewing footage with director Ben to make sure we're on track with the look of what we've got so far and where we're going next. Hopefully a trailer and the first video blog will be posted soon.
Till then, I'm gonna crash out real soon, even though I got more than enough sleep last night.
Labels: pictures of you
* * *
Friday, January 05, 2007
Pictures of You - Day 3 blog
[#] posted at 10:18 pm (GMT +1200)
In my opinion, a very good day today.
After six hours of sleep (enough, but could have done with more), we shot today at a new location, with a different set of actors and to my personal excitement, a smoke machine.
Seriously... lighting a fogged up location gets such the prettiest shots, I soiled my pants with mondo delight on nearly every take. Will have to try and get some copy of the footage or at least some screen caps.
After today, I'm just getting more and more confident doing nearly everything under camera/lighting department. And even better yet... we don't have to start until 2 in the afternoon tomorrow. I'm gonna be getting my sleep on tonight.
Labels: pictures of you
* * *
Thursday, January 04, 2007
Pictures of You - Day 2 blog
[#] posted at 10:39 pm (GMT +1200)
Started filming at 7. Finished filming after 11 hours. Packed down stuff, moved stuff to other location, set up stuff for tomorrow at 7.
Finished Heroes last night. Ended on a cliffhanger. Haven't slept much. Video blog being put together. Screen kinda funky. Sleep needed.
Labels: pictures of you
* * *
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Pictures of You - Day 1 blog
[#] posted at 11:59 pm (GMT +1200)
Shooting began at 7 this morning. I was a few minutes late to set because I spent the whole night before watching the series Heroes. Comes out to NZ soon, definitely worth a watch, although I dunno how endurable it would be to watch only on a weekly basis. After saying to myself I'll just watch the first episode and go to bed, I ended up watching six episodes back to back and only got a couple of hours sleep because of it. Worth it? I'll let you know after I finish the last five episodes tonight.
But as for the shoot... it went surprisingly well for a production's first day. Very few hiccups, almost all scenes bar one went by incredibly smoothly and fast and everyone is just so enthusiastic about the project it's a nice enviroment to be around. And it better stay that way... we've got about 4-5 more hard pressed weeks to work together and the last time I spent that much time together with a whole bunch of people working our arses off... we created a robot monkey ninja to take over Iceland, which ended really badly... I swore never to either work my arse off with a whole bunch of people or to create robot monkey ninjas to take over Iceland ever again. Today, I shall be breaking one of those rules and tomorrow, I'll be creating a new rule to swear to never break... Licking strangely colored rocks.
First video blog is almost ready to be put together and posted. ETA this weekend.
Oh and two video links curtosey of mein brother...
|
|
Labels: pictures of you