Ok, I'll see how much I can churn out here before dinner.
On Friday I left work early to get to the Paramount for 6pm. At the Paramount a huge group of people gathered...there were so many teams in the competition this year!
As soon as we were released to go at 7pm I got on the phone to the writing team...well, I called Svend but his cellphone rang and rang unanswered (he'd left it in the other room) so I tried again with Matt and Debz's phone and when Debz answered we were both very confused but eventually I told her the genre we'd been given (Disney Family Movie) and the three elements. I didn't try and give her Bodil De Rezney's name as it seemed like complicating matters.
Lee and I ate a quick kebab and drove on over to Svend's house where they'd already come up with a story and main characters. I was briefly tempted to play the one they'd based on me but decided against it since directing is what I'm really excited about. The writing team was awesome. Universalis worked its magic, I got a heap of input and the atmosphere was co operative and wonderful.
Lee and I bailed at 11pm-ish taking Celeste with us so we could get some sleep for the next day which was starting bright and early at 7am. I woke up at 3am wondering how it was going and thinking about props and costumes, etc, etc.
Waking up before dawn was a new and not entirely unpleasant experience. I expect I may do it again. Just not this week. The sunrise was quite stunning and I took a couple of photos of it just to be sure. Almost everyone arrived on time and jobs were assigned. We were very onto it Saturday morning everyone rushed off to source props and costumes and came back and we went out to Otair Wilton Bush for filming the first jungle sequence.
Huge props to Seraph for this whole weekend. Playing the bad guy who gets redeemed meant he had all the shitty things happen to him and he never complained! Pelting him with bananas caused a huge amount of joy amongst those who shall now and forever more be "Banana Wranglers" in my eyes. Unlike everyone else Sokky and I stayed clear of them. After seeing them get all squished I ate no more over the weekend too. (apart from the one smothered in icecream and chocolate sauce and marshmallows I had last night that is...)
It was a gorgeous day for filming, if a little cold. We got through a lot there and at the library in the afternoon and I even was convinced to do a cameo in the storytime scene.* Actually, this may have only been suggested since the kids listened to me and having me there kept them happy. I wasn't complaining though, even when Norm questioned my tshirt appearing in the film ("Big F Little f what begins with f?")
Looks like dinner's nearly ready...right before we left the library was another of my favourite moments from the weekend: everyone calling out "Sensible! Sensible! Seeeeeeennnnssssiiiiiblllllllee!" for the audio plot poijnt hammering. I still laugh about that to myself and continued to shriek "sensible!" at people for the rest of the weekend, even when no one thought the joke was funny but me.
We had a pizza break and then the LARP. Those members of the team who didn't attend the LARP seemed happy to have the break and those of us in the LARP got all dressed up and had a good time. I had a great time, but I'll blog LARP later. Right after that a large number of people stayed behind to help us out with the fairy court scenes which was just fantastic. Thanks to all those LARPers who gave us another hour or two of their time for nothing but the chance to be on film. The scenes looked wonderful when I finally got to see them on Sunday afternoon.
We had to be out of Turnbull House at midnight so I got home shortly after and crashed out. I had a little trouble sleeping but when I woke up in the morning I felt quite energised and fussed around tidying and getting dishes through the dishwasher. Unfortunately we had more filming to do so the Dell was the first destination. The filming went relatively fast for what we needed and it was with joy that we took a quick "everyone who's present" photo and moved on the Norman's house.
I'll blog Sunday afternoon and my massive emotional journey later.
*bringing me in line with such awesome directors as Hitchcock and Peter Jackson.
Posted by jenni at May 16, 2005 06:23 PM