Filming Day Two, The Winding City
Yesterday was spent at Nick and Nasia’s house, filming scenes for Conan’s web TV project The Winding City. It went really well, with the shots being set up and filmed quickly and ahead of schedule.
I have been in a shockingly bad mood since Thursday, so I wasn’t quite in the frame of mind I was in last time, but being reunited with the people on this project got me right back in the swing of things. The other actors are just so much fun to work with. Especially my girls and the bathroom improv songfest while waiting for the director to call action so we could come in the front door (bathroom door).
I was involved in three scenes, two of which I had to speak in. Those two scenes were long, like five pages each and we shot them in one take. The first one, where the girls are introduced for the first time has a lot of people coming and going and a lot of movement which should look awesome on camera. Unfortunately this meant it was complex to film and if you missed a cue or called someone by the wrong name then we had to do the whole thing again…plus I had extra *spoilerish* things to worry about, although I managed to pull it off each time. Oh so secretive! Hee hee.
I was pleased with my most-of-the-time remembering my lines (studying them beforehand actually does help! Crazy.) And I think I was able to follow direction from both the director and the cameraman (Lee again). Especially the direction “think Gilmore Girls”, which was helpful for the pacing of my lines. My character is a chatterer and most of the time my lines end with me being cut off, interrupted or otherwise distracted, so if someone else misses a cue I get to improv how I think the rest of the line will go. The other actors are all such professionals it can be a little intimidating, but they’re so easy to work with, and they give so much that I relax pretty fast. I missed Rowan though!
It was also really fun getting a scene with Norm, as in the Kapcon LARP we know each other well enough, and there’s enough trust that we can be physical with each other and it’s fine.
I made ginger crunch and afghans for the day and they were much appreciated as well. Must think of some healthier snacks though, there’s so much sugar in those things and you just crash out after a while. I find it hard to get hungry during a film shoot. I notice it at the 48 but also in these one-day shoots, I don’t get hungry. It could be because there is fairly constant snacking happening, or it could be because you’re just so focussed on the job at hand that you forget. I ate a double meat and salad sandwich at lunch but only little snacks during the afternoon. About an hour after we came home I suddenly got really hungry. It was pretty weird.
Anyway, the point I’m trying to make is that the shoot went well and I’m feeling really good about the project. Looking forward to seeing the finished product for sure…
Winding City linky!
Conan’s wrap up with exclusive never before seen pictures of the cast and crew of The Winding City!
My report of day one’s shooting.
Facebook group….still a little quiet but it’s there.
Writing Transformation Challenge
So, it’s only two days in, since I decided to start doing this on Saturday afternoon during my blogpost, but my Icing Transformation Challenge has already been rather successful. On Saturday I did at least an hour of new writing, working on my seekrit project and getting something out to my collaborator. Only like, a month later than I meant to. Even though it was tough just at first to get back into that character’s head I pushed through and came up with a neat quirk to make her a little more three dimensional.
Sunday I managed a half hour of copy editing done before my workmates turned up for a My So Called Life festival. (We heart Jordan Catalano, we love the way he leans) Then we went to see Slumdog Millionaire….I’ll talk about that in a second. Then before going to sleep instead of reading I did some more copy editing. I’m still in the pen and paper stage of copy editing by the way. But I’m in the big action sequence part of the climax so I’ll be done with that soon, then it’s the digital side of things. It’s slower than just doing it digitally in the first instance, but I see the words much clearer on paper. Plus, the more times I go over the thing the more typos I find, so an extra step is all to the good.
So. Slumdog Millionaire has been nominated for a bunch of Academy awards, and I think it deserves them. I also think it is very hard to watch. I’m no good at torture scenes and that’s where the movie starts out. There are also some nasty sequences showing just how awful Jamal’s slum childhood was. It was hard to watch, I pretty much dealt with it by not looking or by telling myself that nothing that awful really happens in real life. Which is probably the opposite of the point of showing all that stuff but I’m sensitive. I can’t handle that much cruelty.
My So Called Life stars baby Clare Danes and baby Jared Leto. I never watched it when it was actually on TV, but yesterday I watched the first five eps and one from later on in the series. It was very good. I think I can pinpoint the scene where Jared Leto invented emo. I also love the amount of moody leaning he does in pretty much all his scenes. It was great fun to watch.
Also. I have the coolest new tshirt ever. Must alter it and then wear it and take photos of it…
addiction
For me, it’s the addictions I don’t know I have that I really should worry about. Twice lately I’ve not known I’m addicted to something and then had it revealed.
The first is relatively harmless, after watching seasons one and two of House I found myself craving more. I was like “what do you mean we’ve run out of House? There must be MORE!!!!!1!!11!!” It took a while to grow on me as a show, and although I knew I liked it, I thought I could live without it. Apparently not.
The second reveal is a little stranger and more expensive. I blame my twin-bearing friend Katy. When I was making baby quilts, the lady at the store told me that I must always use cotton batting in baby quilts. Usually I use polyester, because it is much cheaper.
Well, I went ahead and bought the baby-safe cotton and found it quite pleasant to work with. When I used polysester batting after that it was puffy and fluffy and slidey and horrible. So, I used cotton for the quilt for my swearing niece and thought that it was a bit expensive but probably worth it.
Today I went to get batting for Giffy’s wedding quilt and since I’ve spent rather a lot on fabric already I thought I would get polyester batting and thereby not spend so much. However, when the lady at the shop asked what kind of batting I was after my mouth went (all by itself) “Cotton” as if there was no other option feasible. I didn’t even realise I’d said it until later on, when we’d worked out the amount I’d need and she said that “it’s 225cm wide, so you’ll just need the length”
My brain caught up. Well, I guess cotton batting is nicer in a whole heap of ways and I certainly don’t seem to want any polyester.
Surprising. Expensive. Also softer, warmer, more durable and hypo-allergenic. *shrug*
at least it’s not cocaine.
PoF: Batman
CO: patchwork
I shop for patchwork supplies at Nancy’s Embroidery on Tinakori Rd. You can view their very bright green website here.
weekend update
Nearly finished the quilt for Swearing Niece, just one short edge to bind and then it’s done.
I have a book out from the library about customising tshirts and I started having fun with it yesterday. I cut the neck out of my Raro Girl tshirt so it’s a scoop neck and much more elegant. I rennovated a Melbourne tourist tshirt mum bought me into a boob tube with a fold down off-the-shoulder neckline. I have big plans for turning an ancient Death from Sandman tshirt into a slinky boob-tube mini-dress, and there’s a really cute style with strings on the shoulders that I’m trying to match a tshirt to, it’ll either be my Princess Rock one or my Fragile, Handle With Care/ milk jugs one.
Customising is fun.
Last night we watched the last few episodes of Dead Like Me, and it was really really cool. I am sad it’s over and I want a Daisy, Daisy Adair icon. Wants.
I am sick with a very productive cold. Coughing, sneezing, hacking and nose running. All bad. My head she is stuffed with cotton wool.
Filming on Saturday was very good, playing with a dolly is awesome fun. We filmed a very complex final scene with mutliple angles, dollying and interesting backgrounds. Plus the Bond shots should be fun, since they include Norm shouting about his shiny silver box. Not much left to do now.
It was a very windy, very sunny day and my face was all red and burny afterwards. I think it was a small amount of sunburn and a large amount of wndburn. Liberal applications of aloe vera and moisturiser seem to have sorted it out.
I did a bunch of school work yesterday, which is good because it’s due at the end of the month. Then I went and bought my copy of Fragile Things and Lee and I both went mad at the Central Library. They have the best Graphic novel collection y’know.
I’m reading Hicksville by Dylan Horrocks now. It’s interesting, kinda weird. Not quite half way through.
Whooosh!
I had a good weekend. Saturday morning started with a run, and I did my ordinary route coming back on Mulgrave and found I could have run longer. The route took about 15 minutes, which is pretty quick for me, so I must be getting fitter and running more than walking!
Then Lee and I had brunch at Arizona (Mmmm flapjacks) and he bought me some very nice and very expensive running shoes. I tried them out briefly in the afternoon, jogging to the supermarket and back to pick up some stuff we’d forgotten earlier.
We had an impromptu dinner party with Seraph, Zephfi and Jase and that was very nice indeed. Ate roast beef, brownie cheesecake and icecream and played Shadows Over Camelot. We won! Yays yays! I played Sir Percival, the knight with the pansy heart shape on his chest plate. I got the grail and then spent most of the rest of the game in Camelot healing and kicking siege engines.
Sunday was a blustery rainy mess of a day, so no run for me. Instead I finished the task I was supposed to hand in weeks ago for school, messed about on line and did some patchwork.
In the afternoon we visited Lee’s sister and family and admired their new 42inch LCD TV. Lee’s sister is unsure of the size and thinks it is too big. It is very big, but I’m used to the projector so… *shrug*. Swearing niece was in good spirits and demanded Lee read a Thomas the Tank Engine book to her three times.
After that Giffy came over to work on her wedding invites, and I sat and quilted swearing niece’s quilt. I’m getting it done quite quickly because of watching all this Quite Interesting. Man, I love QI. It’s just so entertaining and educational. Did you know, for instance that the largest living thing on earth is not the Blue Whale? It’s a honey mushroom in some big National park in America. The mushroom’s root system spans like, the whole park or something.
Today dawned bright and sunny so I got up and went for the long run I had intended yesterday. It was the same one I did the day before my birthday, up Hobson, along Tinakori and back along Hawkestone and Molesworth. I did it in about 25 minutes, so I’m feeling well pleased with myself. After about the halfway mark my right ankle started giving me gyp, complaining about all this bending I was making it do.
My right shin started getting shooting pains too, I think I can officially call it shin splints, since it continued to hurt a while after I finished and running my finger up and down the muscle gives me pain. Just writing about seems to have caused it to flare a little again…I don’t know what that’s about. Anyway, I let myself walk the last bit and that seemed to ease it a little and then I did some squats on the balance ball and that definitely worked the right area, although that hurt some too.
I am wearing pink/pink superstripes, grey and white striped long sleeve t with black Kapcon t over top, pink hoodie over all that and denim pleated skirt. My shoes are my black nosweats and I feel cute, although suspect I will get cold as the day gets more and more Southerly-tastic.
Le sigh.
PoF: cute!
CO: running? Socks! School work
Whooo the wind
Bits from my weekend:
Friday night played Shadows over Camelot again, and I loved it even though we lost to the forces of darkness. Stupid Morgan card taking away our life just as I was about to beat the Black Knight. Grumble.
Pleasant Saturday afternoon with patchwork and movie writing, something about sitting around with friends and creating something together in a low-key way is very very nice.
Saturday night party, crazy Waikato supporter screamy lady was a bad thing. Catching up with old friends is an awesome thing. Especially awesome is constructing a whole story set in a similar universe and populated with friends over the course of an evening. My Life as a Superhero (or alternate title) is totally going to get written.
Sunday was nice and relaxing, got some school work done and let myself do some patchwork as well. Met up with my parents-in-law and saw An Inconvenient Truth. They came out changed. My Father in law, who is quite the down-to-earth skeptic was saying that the movie should be free to view and shown in schools. I pointed out this would probably happen when it comes out on DVD but you do get the sense that people need to change their lives now.
Dinner at Kazu was very good, although they don’t make okonomiyaki anymore and that makes me a very sad panda. Didn’t get any takoyaki either…*runs off to cry*
Monday I started with a run. I was doing that sleeping in thing where you doze a little and then wake up over and over and I didn’t want to feel dopey for the rest of the day. It was a nice morning for it actually, if a little cold. My legs were pretty happy to be running but the cold hurt my chest a bit. I managed quite a lot of running and came in at only 20 minutes for my slightly extended up and round Tinakori and back along Mulgrave route. I’ll have to start going further if I want to be running longer.
Lunch with my family was nice followed by more school work. I got a lot done so that’s very good of me.
Lee and I have been watching this TV show from the BBC called QI which stands for Quite Interesting. It’s a panel show hosted by Stephen Fry where the panel (which changes apart from Alan Davies, who is Jonathan Creek) has to answer very obscure questions but they get more points for being interesting. I learned heaps from watching it, and it’s really funny because a lot of the people they have on are comedians. Bill Bailey has been in two that we’ve watched so far.
PoF: black and white and warm
CO: hotdog for lunch maybe?
Edited actual good news! Lowest road toll for thirty years for Labour Weekend.
Who will love me now?
“Who will love me now?” is my new favourite song, it’s by PJ Harvey and if anyone has a copy of it I would much appreciate to borrow it. As it is I have to keep going on youtube and watching the emo Logan from Veronica Mars video. Which isn’t really that big of a trial, I’m just thinking an MP3 would be nice too.
Friday afternoon I went for a special long run, since I had the time and inclination. I went up Hobson St like normal, did a circuit of the blind gardens lawn and then up to Tinakori Rd. I ran along there, well, walked and ran and got angry at having to wait for the traffic lights so often and then came back on the Mulgrave St bridge, crossed at the Molesworth St lights and back home. It was a pretty hard run, but that was kind of the point. I wanted to push myself and get to where I’m jogging for about a half hour. I’m not that sure how long it took but it was longer than my usual run for sure.
My breathing was pretty good, it was my legs seizing up that held me back. That thing where your legs say ‘nah, we’re done running now. Thanks anyway.’
Shopping in town after a nice shower was fun, I bought pink sparkly earrings, a pink sparkly magic pendant, pink lipstick, a fun box of eyeshadow colours (the colour range is named “cheerleader” the brand name is “Chi chi”) two books: Lemony Snicket The End and the new novel in the Otori series The Cry of the Heron. Then I went to Flying Burrito Brothers for dinner with Lee’s parents and brothers and got a bit silly on one Corona (apparently running after lunch and not eating after that makes a 6pm Corona more potent). Then we had strawberry margaritas and they were so good. Mmmmm. I ate a Chicken mole enchilada and it was very good, although the sauce got a bit rich after a while. Churros to finish and it was all very delicious.
My birthday was very humid, the cloud was very low and the wind high. Lee gave me the complete Jonathan Creek on DVD which makes me a very happy panda. Then we missioned out to Petone to get Lighthouse vouchers for my brother and sister-in-law and over to my sister’s place for family birthday fun. I gave my neice the Rainbow Fairy I made two years ago and she really liked it! It’s always nice when your creations are appreciated.
I was given a book of Regency paper dolls, which are almost too nice to cut out and lots of scrapbooking stuff which makes me want to clear off my desk and actually do some scrapbooking. I’m on too much of a patchwork kick right now though. (I cut out the first block for Giffy and Beau’s wedding quilt this morning!) Plus chocolate, a rose mug, a ‘princess’ necklace, and some other little things.
I had a nap in the afternoon, aaaaah luxurious birthday napping.
Lee and I arrived nice and early at Blend (I was all princessed up in my wedding dress and much pink make-up) and had some sitting around time since we really didn’t need to get there that early. Blend was an awesome venue, the staff were so friendly and took wonderful care of me (I got free drinks and a big slice of chocolate birthday cake) and they gave us a 20% discount on food and drinks all night. I must write a nice email to the manager and let him know how much a I appreciated it. Also a special thank you to the Dread Pirate Roberts for being (overly) honourable all night.
Lots of people showed up, which was lovely. Thanks to everyone who came! Also thanks for all the presents! I went home and rolled around in them like Matt suggested. Yesterday I wore new socks, new necklace and new earrings out to the movies. I was looking through photos from the party this morning and unfortunately the low light setting on my camera is also the Mondo Red Eye on Everyone setting. If anyone else has photos I’d love to see them, I’ll have to have some fun editing my pics before I can do anything with them.
Yesterday we went to see Little Miss Sunshine and that is very good. Kind of tragic-comedy-drama about the ridiculousness of modern life and the importance of family. I really loved it actually and the climax made me laugh so hard I cried. Bought some DVDs with birthday vouchers: Batman Forever, Batman and Robin and My Neighbour Totoro. Still have a few vouchers left because once you can buy anything, there’s nothing you want.
This morning I went for another run, longer than my standard but not too long. Managed a lot of running which made me feel good. It was a nice morning for it, really. Warm in the sun but cool with the wind. Hopefully the promised Southerly change doesn’t eventuate.
PoF: Be Afraid
CO: too many things to do
emo tear
I read the newest Phyllis Reynolds Naylor “Alice” book in just over a day. I just adore them, as you’ll no doubt remember. Alice has become my friend. C understands, she read the book this week as well. It was called Alice in the know and ended rather sadly I thought.
I shouldn’t have read it so fast, but I have so much other stuff to read I couldn’t help myself. I am half way through Monster Blood Tattoo which is a kind of Alaizabel Cray/Phillip Pullman -ish thing. I am quite enjoying it.
I also started Mirror, Mirror which is a Gregory Maguire book retelling Snow White but all mixed up with the Borgia family. I know nothing about the Borgias so it is quite interesting and I’m not far enough through yet that I’m hooked. I remember Wicked was quite hard to get into, it was really after the first part ended that I enjoyed it.
Re-watched the Little Mermaid last night, I still remember the words to every single song, which is not a surprise to me. It was my sister and my favourite album for about three years and we’d sing along on car trips to Taupo so….I was surprised to realise that Ariel does the fruit-cup girl thing to get the Prince to take her home off the beach right when she’s first human. She’s all “I’m so helpless and need a big strong man to take care of me!” just, without speaking, and he’s all “I have to take care of you because you have no one else and you’re so thin I worry you’ll evaporate.” (She really is very thin).
New Lost and new Veronica Mars were great like woah. I heartily approve of all this psychological theory showing up in TV. I don’t want to give away spoilers so I’m just saying it’s neat is all.
PoF: I remember why I don’t wear this hoodie, it has a lingering pee-like smell WOVEN INTO THE FABRIC!
CO: wheeeeee My Birthday! I am getting excited!
virtuous me
I went for another run this morning. This one was more like an actual run and not a stumble and suffocate like Sunday. I ran the same circuit as always (apparently I fear change) and there was quite a lot of running and not too much suffocating and I’m feeling pretty good about the world this morning.
Watched some more season TWO House last night and man, I love Wilson. Robert Sean Leonard is just so very adorable. One does wonder how he puts up with House’s behaviour though.
I love spring. The early sunshine, the late light, the slowly thawing Jenni, the pretty blossoms all over the suburbs. I hope it doesn’t rain this afternoon like they said it would, that would make me a sad catching the train panda.
PoF: black M43s
CO: food
nothing much
The physio told me yesterday that the likely cause of my shoulder pain is a pinched nerve on my neck. (C8 vertebrae to be precise, and one that is so common it was actually broken on his plastic teaching spine. Where do you get those fake spines? I really want one.)
I didn’t sleep very well, because I was always making sure I was in a good position for keeping the C8 nerve open on my right side. Annoying.
This morning I feel exhausted and my stomach is upset to boot. On the upside we had a great turn out to movie night where we ended up watching first episode of Dead Like Me instead of a movie. I liked it.
Also, have a possible theme for my birthday party. Actually two very good ones were suggested: Stereotype Of Your Job party and Come as Your Favourite TV Character from Childhood. I think I prefer the latter because it means I can make a Rainbow Brite outfit, but on the other hand, Stereotype party is easy for everyone, therefore more people will come in theme.
Ah, it’s such a trial…If I make a Rainbow Brite outfit I can then wear it to Auckland Armageddon (if I go, which I am seriously considering) and it’s like my Cosplay is already done for me! Especially if I make a little Twink plushie to carry around. Kawaii! (Also, TP said she might dress as Tea Bag and that makes me ridiculously happy.)
PoF: boring
CO: Xmen Legends
PS: my submission of the Daily Goddam is up today! Here!
