Directing from in a tree.

Yeah, I'm twelve feet up a tree, trying to direct the actors while staying out of shot.

Day Five.

Waiting on set for the actors to be sent down to begin rehearsal. We plan to rehearse and block all afternoon and shoot through the night. We have an ambitious amount to get in the can tonight, but with this approach, we have a good chance of achieving this goal.

Shooting our last daylight material.

Late afternoon on day four and we have our last daylight shot in the can. Barring reshoots, from here on in it's all running and screaming in the dark for the remainder of the shoot.

Start of Day Four

Beautiful weather in the forest (perhaps a little too nice, continuity-wise) and fewer pages to get shot, means for a quiet sense of confidence. Here's hoping it is warranted.

Set dressing.

This is a bit of set that we'll be shooting on tomorrow. The dressers have done an awesome job. Come dusk, this will look really spooky.

Arriving at our principal location.

Day two of directing this film and we have reached our principal location. The rest of the shoot will be here... In the rain.

I promise I will post again soon (Part 2)

I'm still very busy, but this is worth sharing anyway:


http://view.break.com/527110 - Watch more free videos

I promise I will post again soon.

I've been insanely busy these past couple of months, but I have photos and stories to share.
For now, please make do with this video:

Womadelaide 08 - The Rest

Okay, well here's the rest of the rather incredible Womadelaide weekend.
Please bear with me if there's any strange formatting, I'm using RapidWeaver for the first time to post this blog, as Blogger seemed to have trouble uploading my images.
Let me know if this post doesn't appear at all.



This was a French brass band type thing. To be honest, they gave me the shits. The seemed to be under the impression they were funny. Someone really should have broken the bad news to them - they weren't.
Also, they kept playing while quite acts were on at a nearby stage, drowning them out.



Last year, these trees were filled with lampshades.



Mavis Staples - Soul Legend. I was so far back in the crowd that I never had a chance of getting a decent picture.



Dr Natesan Ramani and his Indian flute orchestra - very cool. Very chilled out. These guys were genuinely transporting.



The Tibetan Buddhist sand mandala... in progress.



People thronging and camping around stage one.



Finished!



A very cool Tibetan folk singer. He didn't seem to be in the program, so I have no idea who he was. A shame really, as I would have bought a CD (if he had one).



Carnivale parade.



Carnivale parade... again.



I have no idea what this is about.



Mamadou Diabate, virtuoso kora player from Mali,

with his famous kora-playing cousin Toumani Diabate. They were very good. I bought both their albums.

Cliche? Yeah, perhaps. But I defy anyone to go to Womadelaide and not take at least one photo of the flags.



From what I understand, this man is trying to get his car keys back from his friend, who is dressed as an elephant.



This is me, watching "The Beautiful Girls" play at stage three. Yes, I know I'm looking in the wrong direction.



David D'or, proving that he really is Israel's answer to Ricky Martin.



Terem Quartet. Awesome as ever. At this point, they were actually playing the theme from "Mission: Impossible" as a Russian folk piece. Genius.



Mista Savona. A Melbourne/Kingston reggae fusion outfit.



As I left, I took a picture of the rubbish, to kind of symbolise the end of the weekend. More interesting, though, was the way all the dust in the air was illuminated by the flash.
All weekend, it had been extremely dusty, with the feet of the record crowds turning dry grass into clouds of dust in no time.
When I woke up on Monday, I was coughing like a three-pack-a-day smoker.
It was kinda worth it though.

Monks

I've just had an awesomely chill time, listening to these Tibetan monks. Fantastic stuff. John Butler, please note: there are four of these guys and at no time have they tried to call themselves a "trio". Smart fellas, these monks.

Womad time again.

I seem to be surrounded by dancing hippies. That's okay though. They come with the territory. I do wonder why there are four people in the John Butler Trio, though. Someone should have a word with him about that.

Scorsese's "Silence your cell phone" ad...

Okay, I admit, two youtube videos of famous filmmakers in a row is a little screen-geek of me... but seriously, who doesn't love Marty? His awesomeness knows no bounds.