Exhaustipated

Well it's Saturday finally, and I've pretty much just woken up after a really deep, long-craved-for sleep. It's been a crazy 4 weeks workwise, and these days I so look forward to having no commitments on the weekend. Let me see what projects I've been working on this past week in my iCal...

I edited a lingerie commercial (!) and finished that last week for Warners (they've never done advertising here in oz), then a charity job for WaterAid (www.wateraid.org.au). i edited 2 x 60 second ads, and a 30 second spot. I think they should be on the website soon, so keep checking...pretty funny stuff, but guaranteed to make you think about the tragic state of water in developing countries. Mojo, the ad agency who wrote the campaign, apparently consider these WaterAid spots the best thing they have done all year :)

Then on Thursday and Friday I worked on a Ford commercial, adding some news shots into the campaign that's been on air since last year. you know the one with the Alex Lloyd song "Amazing" with all the 3D visual effects with buildings turning into sand. Looked like a simple job, but usually those ones that appear simple can be the trickiest...

of course, the "Staria" promos have been going on, and the illustrator Roger came in on Friday to have a meeting with us, and he pretty much said "It's good, but I think the script is really awful", which is what I anticipated he would say, so I suggested he re-write Staria's lines since he has been writing them for over 20 years and knows what would come out of Staria's mouth. Geez, the criticism kinda hurt, but only cos I get frustrated when people cannot be diplomatic about it i.e. launching straight into the negatives, rather than complimenting you on the positives, or at least thanking you for all the hard work you've done in the first place. but anyway...this is something I enounter ALL the time in this industry I find, and it's kinda depressing aye....

so yes, I've also been working on this music video for "Rekindle" - and it's actually a re-edit because the 2 directors were not happy with the edit that was being done in Melbourne for the past 6 months. so i've spent my free spare hours working on that as well this week, and it's kinda wierd and trippy music video, a bit David Lynchian, and they love what i've done with the footage they threw at me. Yesterday it was really cool to hear one of the directors Nicholas say "Thanks so much, you've really captured what Scott and I wanted to achieve, this basic idea we sort of had, that was not coming through the previous edit at all, so thanks heaps." that was really nice to hear, sort of made up for the bit of a downer I was feeling from the other job.

And the next 2 weeks are gonna be just as crazy my producer Vanessa tells me, with a Telstra comedy spot perhaps happening for me with a director I've never worked with before (scarey), and maybe a Foxtel job, and then a confirmed web short film for Roses Only, which may go to cinema. That job looks really cool, as it will all be shot vignette style, kinda like the beginning of "Amelie" i think....hopefully lots of room for creativity and some fun sequences to edit.

"Staria" will continue all the way up to October, with the 3D department downstairs now building the models for Staria on their whizz-bang computers, and they look really cool, although i think they are trying hard not to make her look like a porn star! I think the promo has the potential to be kinda cool - will be interesting to see if the concept goes ahead, and we begin making a series! not sure what my involvement will be if a series goes ahead....

yay my laundry is now done.

Staria

A few weeks ago I was given an interesting project by my boss. It was to create a promo for Staria, a comic strip character that has been around for over 20 years in Australia and published in the Daily Telegraph. She's a "space babe" in the vein of Barbarella. You can see that she has considerable "assets". She's got a good sense of humour, and considerable combat skills - she gets to fight baddies and monsters!

The purpose of the promo is to introduce Staria as a potential cartoon for release on TV. I've got no idea if there is a market for such a show, but then again I noticed that "Stripperella" (based on Pamela Anderson) is now airing on free-to-air TV.

So the promo I was asked to cut had to introduce Staria, her side-kicks, and a couple of villains and monsters - whilst maintaining the mood and style of the original comic strip. I had access to 5 full stories, from which I could choose the black and white animation cells for the promo. I was to write a script, record a guide voice track and put it all the selected cells together! Once my offline edit was approved, it would be recreated by our 3D department, in order to finish the promo as a full moving colour animation.

Anyway, this has been an ongoing project for me, to fit in amongst everything else I do at work, and it's been a really challenging and fun exercise! The most hilarious thing was editing in the characters' lines, and I credit one of my editing assistants Nat who took full charge of this and cast various work colleagues in the roles! She got young Nicoletta to voice Staria and she did a superb job even though she was not convinced she could do it! Nat also does a killer Russian-slash-French accent for one of the female villains...let me know if you require such a voice talent....

The producer who has commissioned this through my work, was thrilled with the offline edit last week, and now we have a meeting with the original illustrator Roger this Thursday. I really hope he likes it. I can imagine it would be quite scarey for him, seeing his creation come to life in the video format. Fingers crossed.

The Best Film I've Seen This Year

Last night I saw "Tarnation" for the second time at the Dendy Newtown with a friend Ian. I saw it a few weeks ago at the Sydney Film Festival with Vera, and we were both blown away!

It's such an amazing documentary, totally original and personal and heartbreaking and the first time I saw it I was on the verge of tears. This is by far the best film I have seen all year, and the second viewing last night was equally rewarding as the first. The film is essentially a self-portrait, with director Jonathan Caouette bravely documenting the first 31 years of his life and his relationship with his mentally ill mother, Renne. What a troubled life, filled with tragedy, hurt and love. I really recommend that you see it!

"Tarnation" is constructed from years and years of family stills and home movie footage that Caouette took as a young boy and young man. All of the footage is amazing to watch. There's a scene of Caouette as an 11 year old, delivering one of many "testimonies" to camera. The character he is playing is a battered Texan wife, and it's both unsettling and hilarious to watch him as an child deliver a monologue to his video camera about being beaten by her drunk husband amongst other nasty things. This sort of stuff is priceless, and just something that you could never script.

One of the funniest scenes is of Jonathan and his high-school boyfriend directing a school play of David Lynch's "Blue Velvet" in the late 1980s. They decided to turn it into a musical using only Marianne Faithful songs! I think you have to see the scene to appreciate how side-splittingly funny it is.

The scenes with his mother Renee are really heartbreaking. Her story is very tragic, as she suffered emotional and physical abuse from her parents, was also institutionalized as a young age, and given electric shock treatment. Even though I found her scenes to be really difficult to watch, I thought she was incredibly brave and her beautiful personality still shone through the pain and sadness.

Apparently the film was edited on iMovie for $218 (US), but I suspect this is a bit of a marketing ploy. I mean, it certainly looks like the editing was started on iMovie - I checked iMovie on my lappy, and recognised some of the effects hehe - but I am sure Jonathan would have received lots of help from professionals. In fact, there is a professional editor credited as well as half a dozen or so assistant editors!

I was really impressed with his music choices, which had some beautiful original pieces by someone called Max Avery Lichtenstein. In fact, I'm listening to some of that now - it's got some really lovely guitar and piano bits in those tracks. Totally gorgeous, makes me want to cry. There's also a bit of Cocteau Twins, Marianne Faithful, Dolly Parton (!) and Glenn Campbell.

I was so inspired watching "Tarnation" - I think I will have to see it again :)

Check out the website http://www.i-saw-tarnation.com/

Pat and Stick's Homemade Ice Cream

Well I just HAD to share this with you. It's a photo I took of this ice-cream-biscuit-cake thing I ate at The Lab last wednesday. The chef came around with a little basket offering these treats to clients, and it was totally yumsville.

Apparently these are made in Surry Hills, and there were other flavours like Double Chocolate and Cafe Latte.....I was going to save it and take it back to work for our receptionist Jemma (she always asks me to bring something back for her from The Lab!). I thought about it for like 3 seconds and then went "Naaaaaahhhhh, it's going to melt on the way back, so I suppose I should eat it now!"

Both Scott - the director of the commercial I edited - and I were so impressed that we took picies of the tantalising desserts before we scoffed them.

I love the packaging - I wonder if "Pat" and "Stick" look like that. It's so retro.

Margaret Cho made me cry

Last night I went to see Margaret Cho with some friends - Angela, Boon, Eden and Jonathan - at the Enmore Theatre. And what a fantastic night it was. I had only seen bits and pieces of her comedy routines, mainly when Ang was watching them on DVD's at home, and laughing her arse off. Well Margaret was just brilliant I thought, so wickedly funny and political and rude.

During the show, she kept apologising on behalf of America, and how fucked up that country has become. Very ironic considering that across town Greg Araki would have been introducing his new film "Mysterious Skin" at the Valhalla, which has gotten under the skin of the moral crusaders The Australian Family Association and the Festival of Light. Both have lobbied to have his film banned, which is an outrage, when you consider all the violent films that pass our censors. Ok, gee, I didn't really want to get on the soapbox with this blog thing...

Anyway, Margaret did these uncanny impersonations of Zhang Ziyi, the beautiful young Chinese actress who was in "Crouching Tiger..." and "House Of Flying Daggers", and Bjork when she went pyscho at that airport terminal a few years ago. Margaret also sang like Bjork..."Human Behaviour"...which was just so bloody funny that Angela and I were practically pissing our pants as well.

After the show we then rushed and bought our Margaret Cho t-shirts (in military green with Margaret as Che Guevara!) and tried to rest our jaws and cheeks from all the laughing. So if you see me wearing my Margaret Cho t-shirt, you know how I got it.

First ever blog

Welcome to my first posting!

I've been inspired by my friends Monty and Eden who have created very entertaining blogs of their own.

So I guess I'd like to share with you, my friends and family, some thoughts about "stuff" and maybe even some pictures, as I seem to be a bit short on time these days to catch up with everyone in the flesh. Hmmmmm, a bit of a contradiction there I suppose, since I can afford the time to add to this blog, but what the hey...

Anyway, I hope you find my blog interesting, and if you don't, then fine, just go easy on the abuse please ;)

And I will let you know upfront that my spelling and grammer are going to be shocking, so please forgive me!

Please feel free to add comments of course, even if it's to hassle me....I'm used to it!