shooting running raining

Everyone is running around all crazy trying to get all the shots and there isn't time to get the shot with the guy in the thing so you wonder if you need it and you change the dialogue in the last scene to make it not matter so much about the thing but then it rains and you all go running and hiding under the place and your feet get drenched all crazy and the make up girl is crying because her boyfriend or something and the rain stops but the electrics are mashed up and nothing is working so you dry off in the place where there's coffee and you drink a coffee your thirteenth coffee and it makes you feel tired when it's meant to do the opposite and the camera has rain in it and you're like let's shoot and the camera guy is like are you sure and you're not sure but you're sure you're sure so you round up the actors and they're pissed because when they ran for cover they tripped over some stuff and the continuity person is freaking and the producer visits and wears a suit and everyone is running around all soaked and confused and the script pages are all smudged and drowned and the daylight is signing out and won't return calls and you have exactly four minutes to get it and the actor says why would I react in this way and you ramble an answer for two of the hour minutes that makes no sense and you yell action and the actor is crap and you wonder why you're a failure in life and everyone looks at you like you know what you're doing and you mumble something about energy and you point at something and reference an old movie and the actors look at you like you've told them their pets died but you say action again and they nail it all good and you realize it's pitch black now and you're soaking wet and the power is out and you need to get the things you can't see into the van you can't see and you have exactly four hours of sleep before you're shooting again and someone moans about the union or something and you eat a cheese roll that you've seen lying around for days and then you fall asleep. 

Care to share?

Tweet

GEORGE CARLIN on being an ARTIST

I'm an entertainer first and foremost, but there's art involved here. And an artist has an obligation to be en-route. To be going somewhere. There's a journey involved here. And you don't know where it is and that's the fun. So you're always going to be seeking and looking and going and trying to challenge yourself. So, without sitting around thinking of that a lot it drives you and it keeps you trying to be fresh, trying to be new, trying to call on yourself-- call on yourself a little more.

Care to share?

Tweet

That's A Wrap

People smile and laugh, and they think "We've done it!"

But you never get it back again. You assembled a family and you shared a purpose and you ate chocolate bars at 3am and you had in-jokes about the producer and now it's done, finished up, gone.

Because this family never comes together the same way again. The actors move on and the make-up girl dumps the director and everyone goes back to their homes where they eat lots of fruit and you help pack the lighting kit into the van just as the sun rises through the ice cold fog; and you realize it's truly over.

You make the film and it acts like an old photograph, providing a memory of a time when you were happy and had a purpose. But you never get it back again.

You can do a sequel or a reunion show or invite everyone to a party but not all of them will show, not all of them really care. Some actors think they're bigger than it and some crew members get sick and retire. That moment in time that you felt so strongly at 2am in some gone September when you waited outside the studio with the broken camera and crazy crew survives only as some warm spark in some barely reachable part of your brain.

Most of life we're in coffeehouses talking about it, and it's meaningless. When we're finally out there, shooting a film and working with mad passionate souls, it's everything. Delve into it and feel everything because before you know it, it's gone and distant and that snapshot of life reveals itself to be temporary and as fictional as the story you're creating.

Care to share?

Tweet

Good Riddance Old Media

The newspapers are about drunken celebrities and political cheapshots. They always were but now it's even worse. I've been realising more and more recently that they've got nothing to offer me. I've grown out of wanting news with a political or nationalistic slant. I just want the news.

We get that online. We subscribe to the feeds that tell the truth. Ideas can't get squashed anymore. Every point of view is represented on YouTube. And you can argue like crazy on Facebook until you get to the bottom of an issue.

Big corporations want to hold on to the empire but it's crumbling. We don't need reporters talking down to us anymore, we can find bloggers who resonate with us.

Of course there is still quality journalism out there, but now we can pinpoint it and subscribe to it.

It's fashionable to ridicule Facebook and Twitter but the truth is, they're making us democratic for the first time ever. Sure, sometimes during court cases or national scandals things get blocked and closed, but we're still learning. There'll always be voices of those with vested interests looking to silence our freedom, we just have to be on the lookout for it. Luckily the world is so interconnected that it's getting harder to be an oppressor.

The internet is playing a big part in freeing countries from dictatorships and giving the oppressed a voice. You think Occupy Wall Street is nonsense? At least now you can tune out. Or if you're curious you can delve further into it.

The film studios and record labels have always controlled how much the artists earn. Napster changed music and the film industry is hanging on to 3D for dear life.

As artists, thinkers, and audiences, we have different choices now. It's unlikely we'll make as much money in the future but it's unlikely that any film star or director really needs 20 million dollars.

We need to embrace all this technology. My friends bully me about being addicted to the internet and my phone, but they don't get it. We don't have to watch The X Factor and read about drunken celebs. The world has opened up and if we're interested enough, there's so much to learn and participate in.

Care to share?

Tweet

BEGINNERS - Great Movie

Yes yes yes! It had been recommended to me a heap of times but I never saw it in the cinema because other things kept coming up. I remember one time specifically making plans to see it, but I can't remember what happened.

I finally watched it and wow, yes! Fantastic! I remember reading some time ago that this is a very personal film for the writer/director Mike Mills, and it shows -- the film is full of the kind of subtlety and nuance that you only get if you've lived it.

The structure is all crazy. And sometimes you're laughing, sometimes you're close to tears, other times you're getting swept up in the moments.

When films are great you don't think about the story or what anything means or anything like that, because you're too busy coming alive inside as you telepathically communicate with these characters on the screen who are nothing like you yet exactly like you. And this is the best work I've seen Ewan McGregor do. Christopher Plummer is beyond incredible. And you will fall in love with Mélanie Laurent. She's a class act. Her best moments in the film come when she's being silent.  McGregor's character feels it, and we the audience feel it.

Don't you just love it when a movie is amazing? It gets rarer and rarer, right? That's why we spend most of our time floating around on Facebook rather than watching movies, because a lot of the time they're hardly worth it. It's why we just watched 'Forrest Gump' for the 50th time. When you find a new piece of greatness, it's amazing -- it reminds you why film is so important to us. 

This film is poignant. You'll love it. You read this blog because you like the stuff I like, and 'Beginners' is a perfect example of what I like.

Care to share?

Tweet