The Renegade Province Production Journal

Clay Soldiers at local festival! Film at 3.

2007-04-20T10:54:00.000+08:00

Clay Soldiers is going to be shown at the Nanhai Movies festival this Sunday afternoon at about 3 or 4pm. I went over there a couple of days ago to give them the DVD and check out the place. By coincidence, it's just across the street from the place where we filmed Josh's Burmese prison scenes. The complex was apparently an old Japanese-era house with a huge yard, no doubt some official's residence. The interior is full of various art projects, and the films will be shown on the second floor.

The organizers asked me if I would attend and possibly take questions, if there are any. I'm interested in getting to know the local art/film scene better, so I'm looking forward to this thing. I'm not, however, looking forward to speaking about the project, as I never really know what to say. Talking about film, or music, or any non-verbal medium, always feels somehow inappropriate. I find most online movie/film discussions range from the banal to the outrageously stupid, both inevitably boiling down to "This movie rocks if you don't like it ur dum"-type drivel. I'd much rather just make films and let them speak for themselves.

That's assuming that this crowd, if there is indeed some kind of crowd, will actually ask any questions, and if they do, they aren't just the usual "WelcomehowdoyoulikeTaiwandoyouhaveTaiwangirlfriend" kind of thing.

Anyway, speaking of actually making films, the rough edit is coming along, albeit slowly. I'm hoping to have it done by the time Dean makes it back here so we can arrange ADR. Some scenes I'd expected to be difficult have been easier than I thought, while some I'd thought would be a piece of cake have turned out to be real jobs. Many times I've had to face the decision whether or not to include an emotionally strong take that contains a continuity error or some other problem. With mostly one-camera shooting, the actors are often doing different things, making different gestures, standing in different positions, etc., through dialogue and in action takes that make cutting a real challenge. This, of course, is one of the reasons (along with synch problems) why Rodriguez went around taking closeups of set details when he was shooting El Mariachi. I'll do what I can with what I have, and if I can't get away with that, I'll go shoot some patch shots.

As I told Dean in an online chat, it feels kind of like I'm watching the movie for the first time, just very, very slowly. Seeing performances in the proper context is a thrill, and one of the main reasons I didn't cut each scene after we shot it. It's like a row of dominoes that have to fall just so, emotionally speaking, so I wanted to cut and view the film in one emotional line before I start tweaking.

The tweaking will have to wait for now, though, no matter how much I'd like to do it. I have to get the rough cut ready to pass on to Darrell for sound and Dean for special effects.

I haven't really seen much of cast or crew recently, due to editing. Clay Soldiers has been broadcast on nationwide TV four times over the past few months, and yet IMDB can't seem to get moving on my submission. Perhaps when they say "Nationwide broadcast" they really just mean "US broadcast". Or perhaps with the advent of digital technology they're just swamped with submissions and got behind. I have no idea.

But enough talk for now. Come along on Sunday afternoon if you like. The Nanhai Yilang site is located at #3, Lane 19, Chongqing South Road, Section 2. It's just a couple of blocks from the CKS Hall MRT station.

We're practically syndicated

2007-02-01T00:44:00.000+08:00

I just got word from CTS that they will be airing Lady X: Clay Soldiers at 11:30pm on February 3rd on channel 11, and again at the same time on February 19th. Our first nationwide broadcast!

I'm still editing. I plan to spend the Chinese New Year holiday at home, hopefully finishing the rough cut. So far the film is corresponding on the whole 1 script page=1 minute screen time thing. One thing I'm often reminded of is how differently Dean and I see things. Often we'll see a scene almost exactly the same way, but inevitably his vision will be the mirror image of mine, e.g. I'll see the characters entering stage left, while he'll see them entering stage right. It might have something to do with the fact that I'm left handed. The result is that the storyboards are often mirror images of the actual footage, which can be confusing. I wonder if left-handed directors often encounter this kind of thing.

I haven't met any insurmountable goofs yet, though I've had a couple of interesting challenges where, after repeated takes, someone did something to screw up the continuity. Many times it was my fault. "What was I thinking?" is probably my most repeated comment these days.

I was reading a post on an Internet forum the other day, and I began to wonder if and when the "exclusivity" of an industry like filmaking will disappear, and what effect it will have on people aspiring to make films. What percentage of the people who desire to be filmmakers, or authors or photographers, are in it because they still cling to the ever-more-outdated notion that you have to be really special to be one of those things, when technology has passed the point where anyone, regardless of talent or lack thereof, can be any and all of those things? With online distribution of digital content rapidly taking over the game, I wonder what lengths the next generation of creators will have to go to to make themselves known to the world.

I guess we're going to find out. In the meantime, I have editing to do.

Excuse me while I edit

2007-01-19T12:15:00.000+08:00

I've been editing the film, trying to get a rough cut done before Dean gets back following the Chinese New Year break, which should be in late February. I allow myself only a little tweaking before moving on to the next scene, because I can't afford to spend the time on it.

Digital editing is considered far more convenient than editing film. My digital editing style, with two screens, one for taking parts of clips to put into the timeline and another for the timeline itself, is derived from how I learned to edit on a two-screen Steenbeck editing table in New York, with a black curtain of labeled scenes in the form of film strips hanging from a rack next to me. I have the script open in another window and my storyboards laid out on the desktop as I edit. The lack of a solid medium is frustrating in that it could all go south with one computer glitch. I'm planning to edit the film in three parts, roughly corresponding to the acts of the film, but we'll see how it goes. It is becoming clearer as I go that I will probably have no problem filling up 90 minutes. This is a big film, and I will most likely have to spend quite a bit of time going back and pruning later on.

I enjoy editing, though, particularly my own footage, and going back to piece together scenes that were shot as long as a couple of years ago is a real eye-opener. One the one hand, a lot of things came out better than I had remembered, and fit together very nicely. I'm also discovering small details and moments, subtle looks and nice angles or rhythm that had escaped my notice during the actual filming because I was so busy working the camera and paying attention to other aspects of the production. On the other hand, I've also had the displeasure of finding things that didn't work so well, angles that seem strange, series of flubbed lines that won't come together or were cut too soon. "What was I thinking?" I will often say aloud. But this just means that I've got to find an editing solution and make good on my oft-repeated catch-all promise that "we'll fix it in post."

I actually welcome the challenge. The process of editing is making me more optimistic about the film than I have been at any point in the process so far; seeing it come together into a coherent story whose arcs and swells I can mold is very rewarding, and at this point I can only imagine how great they'll be with music, sound and special effects. I wish I could take leave from my day job and my other responsibilities to edit all day, every day, but it isn't possible right now.

So, in the meantime, posting on here will probably be pretty scarce. At this point, I'm hoping the project will be completed by this summer.

The last shoot

2006-12-15T11:45:00.000+08:00

I lugged the huge, mile-long extension cord we'd gotten for the tunnel scene last year along with the rest of my gear over to Dean's on Wednesday night, whereupon he, Rowan and I headed over to Heidi's rooftop to film the last scene. Not the last scene in the movie (we filmed that ages ago), but the last scene in principal photography. It was a flashback (I know: the horror!) and Dean had shaved his beard and arranged his hair in as much of an 80's style as he could stomach.

It was drizzling when we arrived at the address, which I discovered was just one alley over from where I lived in 1991, in a small room that rented for NT$3500 a month. Heidi's rooftop is much nicer, as well as six times as expensive. We waited for her dogs to get over the excitement of strangers in the house and went up to the roof to set up. The nighttime view of the city skyline was very nice, and I set up a couple of angles to take advantage of it. We got several takes of each, but the rain was getting everyone wet, and filming on a wet, barrier-free rooftop with electric cords and lights waving around in the wind wasn't an experience I wanted to prolong. The shots looked great, though, and after the last one I called out, "Ok, I've been wanting to say this for years now." Everyone looked at me. Dean was smiling; he seemed to know what I was going to say already.

"That's a wrap," I said. And it was. That's all the scenes in the movie, now in the can, or at least on tapes and on my hard drives. No more wondering if the weather will hold, no more wondering how to get locations or enough people to fill the scene. Except for the occasional pick-up and sound-catching for ADR, it's all indoor computer work. Then comes the distribution headaches, but I'm not going to worry about that just yet.

Looking back, it's hard to believe it took this long, but it's also hard to believe that we've finally made it to this point. As Dean says, we've got all the pieces of the puzzle; now we just have to put them together. Welcome to the wonderful world of post production.

I suppose this means the nature of this account will change. Editing, sound, and effects milestones are harder to document than shooting, but we'll see what happens. As always.

Sword fight!

2006-12-14T22:51:00.000+08:00

One of the high points of the movie, at least in the script, has always been the big sword fight towards the end. As we have always tended to leave the toughest scenes for last, this was one of the last things to shoot.

In a way it was a relief after the week before, in that we didn't have to deal with so many people, and the people who were there were all good friends and dedicated to the task of filmmaking, so that we didn't have to worry (too much) about desertions.

Though it didn't involve too many people, it did involve a fancy, involved, and hopefully exciting sword fight. Originally we were going to have Shirzi choreograph it, but Shirzi seems to have disappeared. So it was fortunate when we found out that April's stunt double, Eddie Tsai, was also into swordplay and was willing to choreograph the fight for us.

Eddie, some of his fighting partners and someone's girlfriend came over to Dean's a couple of nights during the week before the shoot, to work out the layout and give Rowan and Dean some things to work on. Dean had bought four or five practice swords in case of breakage. I was more worried about sword shard-related injuries. I also wished we had more time to practice, but time was short as Dean's departure date loomed.

Early Saturday Dean and I showed up at the university conference room and started setting things up. The others showed up later, and we got just about all of the non-fight shots done with April, Sarah, Rowan, Dean and Bill. Eddie, who was leading a team in a martial arts competition both days of the shoot, showed up at about 6 or 7pm. He and his teammate dressed in Rowan's and Dean's costumes and went through the fight for us and the camera a few times. They were very good, going after each other so fiercely that they even broke one of the swords, and I began to wonder how we could get Rowan to look that good. Dean's character is supposed to be clumsy at swordplay, but Rowan's character is supposed to actually be somewhat good. That night I shaved my head and face so that I could fill in for Rowan the next day.

Saturday had been a long day, but Sunday was even longer. I managed to subsist on Mr. Brown coffees in between McDonald's hamburgers and salads. April came back and finished her crawling shots, and Dean got his makeup on. Who knows what the people in the hall thought we were doing in there, between the noise, shouting and the clanging of swords and Dean's bloody appearance whenever he left the room. One shot required a blood spurt, and as a result fake blood got all over a couple of walls and wouldn't come off. It looked good, but Dean wanted his room deposit back, so we had to do something about it. We called Paul and asked him to stop by B&Q on the way over to pick up some paint.

Although his shots looked great, Rowan had just caught a cold and was losing steam fast by nightfall. We got everything of Rowan which required his face, fighting against Eddie, and let him go. Then we got everything with Dean fighting against Eddie, and then, in order to get wide shots of Dean fighting, I put on Rowan's costume and fought Dean while Darrell operated the camera. Throughout this entire dramatic fight, Paul was adding layer after layer of paint over the bloody wall.

We slogged at it until 11 or 12, packed up and went home. It was good to get the sword fight over with after waiting for so long, between all of the different ways we filmed it, it should look fantastic.

A complicated shoot

2006-12-04T00:24:00.000+08:00

Scene 3 is probably the most complicated shoot in the movie. The reason for this lies mainly in the fact that it has more people and more speaking roles in it at one time than any other scene in this already-complicated script. I knew that expectations were building as we near the end of principal photography, yet we could only budget one afternoon for it due to scheduling concerns.

Dean wrangled a university meeting room for the location. We'd been hoping to find a better location but it never happened. I guess zeppelins are harder to come by than they used to be.

We arrived at about 11am to set up, and other cast and crew started trickling in at about 1pm. Rowan and Alex, the main players, arrived last, and we began filming with me walking backwards on top of the table, dragging the camera on a dolly as I went.

Along with Alex, Jane, Bill, Rowan, Norm and Sarah, we had quite a few new faces just for this scene. Dean had photoshopped pictures of Rowan wearing various costumes into so-called portraits of his character's ancestors to ordain the walls. They looked pretty amazing.

I was shooting according to the storyboards, but it soon became apparent that unless we cut out part of the scene we wouldn't get it done without at least one mutiny, as most of our volunteers had simply come out for some laughs and a little light filming. Unfortunately, this meant we had to ax a nice little fight scene we'd all been looking forward to since the inception of this story. It also threw me completely off track as far as the storyboards went, and spent the rest of the time going by pure guesswork.

It's not the first time this has happened, but it was worse this time because we can usually browbeat our good friends into staying long enough to get all the shots we want. This time, however, the cast outnumbered us and could have taken us in a fight, so that was that. We did what we could and wrapped up around 6 or 7pm. I was disappointed in myself for not foreseeing that it would go down like that, but as I said, expectations were high. They'll be even higher next week when we have an even bigger scene to film, albeit with fewer people to deal with. We're getting together with our swordmaster Eddie for some sword practice on Wednesday.

On Saturday we filmed some stuff up in the hills near my place. We found an old temple (I think it was a temple; I'm not sure) for some dream-sequence shots and a nearby patch of jungle for a flashback. Yes, we have dream sequences and flashbacks, two real no-noes according to script readers. Then again, our script is never going to go through that process, so screw it.

Sneaking around the love hotel

2006-10-26T23:29:00.000+08:00

Dean found a place he liked for the two scenes that take place in the Baron's study. The problem was that this particular location was a room in one of the most prestigious and secretive love hotels in Taipei, the place where all the politicos and celebrities go for discreet trysts. The management was known for its strict anti-photography policy. And the rooms were expensive.

So we went to take a look. Dean, Rowan and I took a cab over one night the week before and asked about a particular room featured in their brochure, the one Dean liked the look of. We were told that we couldn't see the room at first, but eventually they relented and let us in for a peek.

It was nice. Opulent, even. All the luxuries, decorated in an extravagant style, with a jacuzzi and large-screen TV. We were told only two people could use the room. We pressed for three, and got two rooms reserved for the weekend.

The next problem was getting the crew and equipment in unnoticed. Since there could only be six of us in there at one time, we made up a plan to rotate cast and crew as much as possible without arousing too much attention. We met up at the McDonald's across the street just before check-in. Dean, Maurice and I went to take possession of the rooms, and then we gradually brought the cast and crew in, one by one, each carrying a bag filled with equipment. Once we were inside we were ok, as long as we didn't attract any attention to ourselves. One of the hardest props to get in was the sword, as well as the Gozen engine Rowan's character is gloating over at one point.

The room looked good, but the lighting was crap for shooting. I had one light and didn't make terribly good use of it, I'm afraid. We also didn't have any time for rehearsals, so we did the scene cold, something I reconciled myself to long ago. The performances actually weren't bad.

We shot from noon to about 9pm. At one point Rowan, wearing a Nazi uniform, is supposed to have a tailor (William) fussing over him. I thought it would be better to start out with him alone, his arm up in a Nazi salute, and then have the tailor walk in and say, "Other arm, please." I don't know if this is too much comedy. We'll see how it plays in editing.

Sarah did her usual excellent Inga impression, and Norm came over later to resume his role as the eye-patch-wearing, cigar-smoking, Hawaiian-shirt-wearing henchman. The part of the Chinese messenger was played by a guy Dean met at the Taiwan Brewery named Jimmy. Jimmy is a Filipino for whom sweeping up at the brewery is just one of his three jobs.

And, of course, Dolly resumed her role as Lady X. Dolly's actually been in the news lately, with photos from her website appearing in the Apple Daily.

When we were done I almost wanted to let everyone go and just stay in the room until midnight, when the time was up, but instead we all went for drinks at Malibu.

Next up is a series of pick-ups to be filmed this weekend while we figure out the last two big locations: the torture room and the zeppelin interior. Dean has to go back to Canada by Christmas, so we're on a tight schedule and need to get everything done by then.

Clay Soldiers Finally, Clay Soldiers, which swept...

2006-11-29T11:26:00.000+08:00

Clay Soldiers

Finally, Clay Soldiers, which swept the international online "Lady X" competition in 2003, is online for general viewing on YouTube. The feature we're working on is a sequel to this and a finale to the entire Lady X series.

Check it out.

At the abandoned spaceship village

2006-11-21T00:43:00.000+08:00

In order to make our story a little less macguffinolicious, Dean and I came up with a new version of the film's ending that makes use of a kind of dream world. Of course, the first place one thinks of when one is considering surreal surroundings in Taiwan is the old abandoned spaceship village up on the north coast. It must have seemed a neat idea to the Jetsons afficionado who came up with the idea, but land disputes did the place in, not to mention the idea of fiberglass houses alternately baking under the Taiwanese sun and being blown around by typhoons.

In order to carry out the sequence, we needed to find someone to play Dean's character's wife, and he found Heidi, who is a little young for the part but looks good. I hauled myself up early Saturday morning and took the train all the way to Danshui, where I met Dean, and we took a cab out to the site. William and Heidi were walking their dogs along the beach on the other side, and we met up in the middle. I filmed a wide shot while Dean and Heidi went over their lines and blocking, while William tried to keep the dogs from running into the shot. He was mostly successful in this.

Heidi and William had to split early, leaving Dean and I to get his half of the conversation, so I read Heidi's lines while operating the camera.

Here I'd like to interrupt the regularly scheduled blogging for a minor rant: You know those long dramatic shots of characters, where you're looking at them standing there, feeling the emotion of the scene and listening to the grand swell of the music? You like those, right? But on the set, there is no grand music and people are walking around and talking and wondering when lunch is, and here's the director with his little camera just sitting there filming and distinctly not saying "cut" or "ok" or "that was good" or "well, I guess that will do" but instead just staring into the viewfinder. I can understand that it's quite annoying and mystifying, but chances are there's something really interesting going on, something that will not only make it into the movie but could possibly even raise it to another level and make the audience go "oh!" or "damn!" and send a tingling down their spines.

A lot of what attracts us to a movie lies in the pacing. It's a lot like music that way. I like to have as much latitude as I can reasonably get when I'm playing with the pacing of a scene. I aspire to cutting down on the talking heads and getting the point across with visual cues.

Ok, that's enough ranting for now. I'm not so much complaining as explaining why I tend to let the scene play itself out.

As we left the spaceship community and were waiting on the side of the highway for a cab to pass by, we spotted an enclosure with a sign saying "Beware! Electrified!" Inside the fence was an ostrich and several chickens.

We caught a cab back to Danshui and went to the foreigners' graveyard at Athelia University to do more dream stuff. I climbed a tree and balanced on a limb while filming Dean walking around the various graves.

We had an appointment for more filming in the city later, so we caught the train back to Dean's house and then headed out to the Outback restaurant at the corner of Dunhua and Nanjing Roads. Dean had talked the people there into letting us use one of their rooms to be part of our museum sequence. April and Mark showed up, as well as Eddie, an acrobat who would be standing in for April in the heist sequence. I set up the camera and let Eddie do his thing while the others munched on fried onion that the restaurant graciously provided.

Eddie was pretty good, I have to say. He jumped and flipped and rolled all over the place. He even brought a sword, you know, just in case. I'm hoping he can help us out with our sword fight later. He seemed surprised that his part was over so soon, but we had more to do in that location. We filmed Mark's scenes using my monkey statue and then April's stuff before calling it a day and winding down over a nice meal.

Dean has to be back in Canada by Christmas. Our goal is to get main photography done by then, so I can have a rough cut ready for ADR soon after that, so the schedule's pretty packed this month. We really only have one major scene to go, plus a few pickups here and there. It's been a long race, but this is the last stretch.

Torture

2006-11-15T12:09:00.000+08:00

After many months of looking for a good torture room location, we ended up about 50 yards from my front door down in Bitan, at the ruins of the old police station that was abandoned when the amusement park up on the hill closed down decades ago. I'd never gone inside before, but it was suitable, full of abandoned desks and chairs, old photo albums and cassette tapes and shelves full of mildewing park brochures. It would do fine if we could somehow get access to electricity inside. I stopped in at the dumpling store across the way and arranged to borrow their electricity in exchange for promises that the cast and crew would eat there.

On the day, however, it turned out that, due to some miscommunication, we didn't have an extension cord long enough to reach the restaurant. Dean and I knocked on the door of the adjoining apartment next door and talked with a young woman, who gave us permission to run a line out a police station window onto their balcony. It didn't look as if we could spend time waiting for dumplings anyway.

The room we were originally planning to use was too bright, even with the window coverings Dean had brought, so we used another, smaller room instead. In the end it didn't matter too much as we spent the entire afternoon arranging things and setting up equipment; we had to remove a mattress and furniture, clean up the more unsightly parts of the garbage strewn across the floor, move a rather recalcitrant desk, and set up a single light above the "torture chair" Dean would be sitting in. As a result, the sun was setting as we got our first shots of the day.

In addition to Dean, Rowan, Sarah and our tortionnaire, Jaques Van Wersch, our guard de jour was Juan, who had agreed to help us out by donning the old red and maroon garb and taking his station next to the door. The dust was horrific, but thankfully Taiwanese never put much stock in insulation, so at least we were pretty sure it was asbestos-free dust.

I started off with wide master shots, as usual. I do this to get coverage, and let the actors get used to the scene being filmed without the pressure of a close-up. Rowan, who was distracted by all the fascinating instruments on display, was having some trouble with his lines so he took a break to memorize them better while I filmed Juan's reaction shots as he had to leave.

When we got back to the main action, things went quite smoothly. The actual shooting was a challenge as actors moving into and out of the circle of light went from underexposed to overexposed and back very quickly. I tried to keep up by adjusting the shutter as well as the focus, but it was very tricky. Digital video in this format is very restrictive in this regard.

Still, the lighting, when I could keep up with it, was very nice. It will be a challenge to avoid exposure mistakes in the editing, but it should be a pretty good-looking, rather gruesome scene.

Eventually Paul and Darrell had to leave, but Dolly showed up, accompanied as always by Maurice. She was there to don the Lady X hat and glasses for the last time, a true historic moment. She looked great walking in and out of the light, smoking and teasing Dean.

We finished at about 11pm and began the long process of striking the little camp we'd made in the ruins. People left, we returned the lights to Paul, woke up the lady next door to get our cord back, and left the place for the ghosts once again.

This and that

2006-11-05T11:39:00.000+08:00

Last weekend we went around getting pickup shots, as there were no major scenes planned. Dean and I got some sword close-ups at his house and then headed out to get shots of him on the ground in front of a previous location and then running up the stairs at a nearby office building. Then we met Bill in front of Taipei City Hall for some extra shots. The audio was unusable, as usual, thanks to some major karaoke activity going on in the square where we were filming.

We also needed Dean hanging on to some scaffolding or other metal structure for a special effects shot. I'd noticed an air raid warning system tower on the top of a building at the corner of Roosevelt and Shi-da Roads, so we went up there, using the critical weapon of casual conversation to get past the old guard, and climbed up onto the tower base. After I helped Dean apply his make-up, he got up on the actual tower for close-up shots. Then I did the wide and found too many buildings in the background, so I asked him to climb halfway up the tower. Keep in mind that there was no wall or anything else separating us from the edge of the roof and a nasty 20-story drop. Dean looked a bit apprehensive, but he did it. The emotion was perfect for the scene. Later he admitted that he has a fear of heights.

Jeeps in the Jungle

2005-10-18T23:25:00.000+08:00

Update: Paul's done another photo essay/commentary page about this shoot.

Due to last-minute script and story discussions, as well as a bout of stomach-related ickiness, I didn't get the storyboards for the jungle jeep scenes done until Saturday, the day before we shot. I had a couple of performances the night before, so when I got up at 6 a.m. on Sunday morning after only a few hours' sleep and a slightly queasy stomach, I wasn't exactly chomping at the bit.

Still, the shoot must go on, so I loaded up my gear and set out to meet the gang in front of Taipei Station, where we sat in stolen chairs at a coffee shop waiting for the others to show up, me trying not to fall asleep. We got seven train tickets to Yangmei, where we would meet Doug, the guy with the jeep, and a friend of his with a car to take us out to the four-wheel-drive-only hills of Guanxi.

The train ride was pleasant but too short for a proper nap as I had to keep an eye out for our station. A couple of people who inexplicably didn't have seated tickets (we'd bought ours only minutes before the train left) stood over us as we looked through the storyboards, but didn't have much criticism to offer, instead preferring to bonk us on our heads with the books they were reading. The tuna snacks I'd gotten from 7-Eleven weren't causing any trouble, which improved my spirits, as well as travelling to a place I'd never been before, which tends to put me in a good mood as well.

The sun was shining when we pulled into Yangmei Station, a good sign. Doug showed up in his black Wrangler and introduced his friend Bob, who was to act in a scene, though I seriously doubted we'd get around to it that day. As usual, we had massively underestimated the time it would take to get everything done.

We piled into the jeep and Bob's car and set off though the little city, which seemed rather pleasant in the cool, breezy weather. At the edge of town we passed a huge factory that could have been making Saturn V rockets on an assembly line. Pretty soon we were out in the countryside, and Bob had to park his car, while we piled all the equipment in the jeep. We then walked up the hill to where we'd be filming.

The area was grassy and supposedly full of snakes, but it was pretty enough and wild enough to be a good stand in for our location in North Korea. I did the sniper's-view shots from up on a little hillock first before going down and getting ambush shots around the jeep. Josh did a nice little jump out of the jeep that's going to look good on film, and Maurice did the getting-shot-shooting-shot several times. The squib, as usual, didn't quite work, and we ended up getting more than a little fake blood on the jeep seats by the time we got the shots.

Josh was learning how to drive the jeep on relatively smooth surfaces, which helped a lot. Maurice was apparently quite attached to his pith helmet, on loan from Rowan, as it did an excellent job of keeping the sun out. Dean had made sandwiches for lunch, and he, Bob and Doug sat on Doug's collapsibly chairs and chatted while we shot. We're going to be looping everything anyway, so the sound wasn't really a priority. I got some handheld shots, and then we headed up the mountain for another location.

We hadn't seen a soul all day, but in the afternoon a bunch of four-wheel-drives began to grind past in both directions, making shooting difficult, especially when one of them began to teeter, stuck on a precupice while the cast and crew stared. Most of the vehicles were guys with families inside, most likely trying to justify their purchases of the cars.

The sun was approaching the horizon when we filmed the last scene we could film, which takes place earlier, but the timing and lighting are going to be tricky in editing, and dusk could stand in for dawn in some cases. I bolted the camera to the jeep's window and stood on the running board as Josh drove back and forth for interior dialogue between Josh and April and sometimes Maurice.

At last the light failed. I'd used up all my batteries in any case, so we couldn't have done too much more filming even if we'd wanted to. We packed up and went back down the mountain, Doug showing us a few interesting cliffs and rocks on the way down in the jeep. Doug is not the kind of guy you dare to do things, because he'll do anything, I think. At one point Paul had his camera out as we were approaching a cliff, and Doug said, "Here, take a picture of this!" Darrell and I, both in the jeep, glared at Paul as we plunged down the cliff, the jeep going alarmingly sideways at times. We also ran over a snake that may or may not have died earlier.

On the way back to the train station we stopped by Doug's quiet suburban house to put the roof back on the jeep and wash it off a little. It was a little disconcerting, because although the houses were more or less laid out in an American fashion, they were all tiled concrete monstrosities done with purely Taiwanese aesthetics in mind.

It was rather late by the time we got back to Taipei, and having skipped dinner Dean, Paul, Darrell, Maurice and I went to Alleycat's for dinner. It was good, but I kept dozing off, so we didn't stay too long. Bed sure felt good that night.

Next weekend we have castle catacomb shooting scheduled. Looking forward to discovering all the things that can go wrong with that.

Airports, cars and train stations

2006-06-17T18:24:00.000+08:00

Dean rented a car last weekend so that we could hastily shoot the last of Azuma's scenes before he left for a semi-permanent position in Hong Kong this week. Azuma, Maurice, Sandy and I met up at Dean's house on Saturday morning. Dean provided Azuma with an overcoat so that he wouldn't garner too much attention walking around Taipei in a PLA general's uniform.

We walked to the car, set up inside and started filming car interior shots while Dean headed to the train station before us. Maurice didn't quite know where we were going, and traffic was stop-and-go the whole way, it being a weekend and this being Taipei. Continuity between car-moving and car-stopped shots is going to be a real headache to patch together. At one point I saw a place to pull over but was too late in asking Maurice to pull over, so when he stepped on the brakes our ears were greeted with a chorus of squealing tires directly behind us. "Ok, uh, let's not stop here," I said.

After getting pretty much all that needed to be done in the car (I would have preferred more time and more takes, but Azuma had to get going), we drove to the train station, which would be standing in for our airport in Beijing. As Dean went to park the car, I found that our dolly wouldn't work on the tiled floor of the station, so we would have to resort to using our homemade glidecam to get certain shots, such as the two parties walking to meet each other.

Azuma reluctantly put aside the overcoat once again, but besides a few strange looks we were ok. Before doing the glidecam shots I first got the tripod-mounted shots overwith. The glidecam shots turned out shakier than I would have liked, but we got them, and that was that. We still have more scenes to do in the same location, but with different actors, mainly Dean and Azuma's wife Jane.

On Friday night after work I went over to Dean's again to get some shots of the more-or-less completed MacGuffin- I mean, Gozen Engine for the new trailer. Rowan was there as well, so I got a couple of shots of him for the trailer as well.

Next up are the rest of the airport shots, as well as some Beijing HQ shots that we should be able to shoot downstairs in my very own apartment building, sometime in the next few weeks. The narrowing-down of our "to do" list proceeds, and as always I look forward to possibly the most challenging part of the filming, at least in terms of locations, i.e. Rowan's scenes. We still need to find environments exuding "a deteriorated grandeur", which can be difficult because grandeur in Taiwan deteriorates rather quickly and thus doesn't last that long. We're also still looking for an airplane, but we might just wait until October and take a chance on the new high-speed railway, if it's completed in time.

Planes, Trains, and Toilets

2006-11-13T01:17:00.000+08:00

Hi blog readers. Me here. Darrell. "Mr. B Camera." As regular readers of Poagao's many blogs, you all know that he was pretty much tied up all last weekend gigging with his jug band, the Muddy Basin Ramblers. So, with the deadline for principle photography just around the corner, I was asked to step in and take the reigns and shoot a quick scene and a couple of inserts for scenes already completed. The negotiations went something like this.

DEAN

Hey, Darrell. I noticed your camera looks like TC's Camera.

DARRELL

Yeah. So what?

DEAN

Can we use it this weekend? TC is busy.

DARRELL

Okay.

So that was that. The planning began.

The first scene we were to shoot has a long history dating back to when the script was first written. It's a conversation between our hero, Barns, and his sidekick, Milo. Initially, the scene was to take place in the first class section of a large passenger jet. Great idea! Show a bit of scale, class, and budget. The problem was, as you can imagine, after 2 years of shooting, our film is already overloaded with class, scale and budget, so we decided to get gritty and set the scene on a train. Taiwan's high speed train. Yeah, baby! Just like Mission Impossible 1. You know the part that really sucked? We were going to do it right! So, where do we find one of these 'high speed trains?'

Evidently not in Taiwan. Not yet, anyway. We would have to wait to undo the damage that was MI:1. We still needed a cool location. What to do, what to do?

MAURICE

Let's film the scene in a toilet.

DEAN

What? Are you kidding?
(Scoffs)
Wait a second! (a light bulb appears above his head)

There's something...Yes, I have an idea...

Let's film it in a toilet.

MAURICE

That's a great idea!

MAURICE and DEAN hug. They call Darrell on his cell.

So we were all off to the toilet.

When we arrived, we checked it out and began blocking and staging. Basically, we had to decide where Dean and Maurice should be and where the camera would be to catch their performances. As an added touch, I decided to add a little more quality and production value by using my one and only NT$400 DV tape and not use a regular NT$100 tape like TC uses. As the 'B camera guy', I feel I owe it to the audience. The toilet was tight and we didn't have much room to move, but basically no one was hurt and we got our scene in the can.

Up next was our date with Noah, our sniper. We placed him in various sniping positions. For example, in the shade, in the sun, up close, and far away. SPOILER: He needed to get shot and die convincingly, so we worked on his character a bit.

NOAH

How should I die?

DARRELL

Okay. Here is your motivation. Think back to high school. Were you ever not invited to a party that you really wanted to go to?

NOAH reflects. His eyes glisten with tears.

DARRELL
Roll Tape! Roll Tape. And... Action.

What a death!

Next up was Dolly. We met her in Daan Park around 4:00 in the afternoon and I was getting a little worried because the sun was setting and there was no direct sunlight. I'm a big fan of light in movies and I wasn't sure how things were going to look. After we found a suitable location and got set up, I could see that we had plenty of light and the quality of the light was actually very flattering. No harsh shadows or blown out high lights. I think you'll agree the images are very nice! What a camera!

And that's a rap!

Another break, and an interview

2006-08-19T12:23:00.000+08:00

Dean left for Canada a couple of days ago. He'll be there for about a month, going to weddings and tending to family affairs. I'm so jealous of him, always going off somewhere while I'm stuck here, that I might just take advantage of our not being able to film and make a trip somewhere myself. Nothing huge, just a long weekend (I have to feed his cat, after all) in China or Japan perhaps.

Theoretically, there is one scene we could film without Dean, but it requires a location we don't have yet: an office or study type room, preferably without too many windows. Maurice has a tip about an elementary school principal's office that might do; we'll see if that works out. We also need a torture room (lots of tiles would be nice; you'd think that at least would be easy to find here, but no) and, of course, the rather improbable zeppelin interior. Not to mention an airplane, but at least we can hope to film on the high-speed rail system when it opens in October.

A while ago I had some ideas to change the third act a bit, to make it more emotionally resonant as well as tie various elements of the movie together at the end. Dean seemed to like the idea, though it would mean adding some flashbacks earlier in the film as well as another actor to find. Hopefully that will work out.

In the meantime, I was recently interviewed by Kate Thomas, a reporter from ACT, a film magazine based in Shanghai. Kate heard about me through Prince Roy and thought our little indie project might interest their readers.

We arranged to meet at the Haggendaz shop at the corner of Roosevelt and Hoping Roads, but when I got there the place hadn't opened yet. We ended up meeting at the coffee shop next door. Kate is from Shanghai, and we talked about the (I think) curious phenomenon of Beijing being the current film capital of China, despite Shanghai's history, relative proximity to Hong Kong, a climate better suited to filming year round, as well as its more international image. I've never been to either city (I really should go take a look), so I'm not really qualified to say. I lived in Qingdao for about half a year, and when talking with Kate, who is from the mainland, I'm afraid my accent got a bit confused, as I didn't know whether I should speak normally or try to recall the Qingdao accent for better communication. It turns out that she had no trouble understanding me, though, so I shouldn't have worried.

Apart from that, the interview went well. Kate asked questions that made me think more about objectively about filmmaking. I look forward to seeing the article. I wish she'd been able to come to one of the shoots, but the timing just didn't work out since Dean just left. He gets back in late September. I'd hoped to get principle photography done before year's end...I still do, in fact, but it's not going to be easy.

Peter Vlach, 1976-2006

2006-08-13T02:41:00.000+08:00

I regret to have to announce that our friend Peter Vlach, who played one of our henchmen in the hallways of the now-defunct Naval Language Institute, was lost at sea off Japan late last month. Besides helping us out with our film, Peter was also a fine musician, a great traveller and, despite being one of our "bad guys" in the film, one of the true good guys. Even when he was pretending to shoot the other actors, he just couldn't stop smiling.

Rest in Peace, Peter.

Fine (evil) dining

2006-08-01T23:30:00.000+08:00

My friend Michael just opened up a fancy restaurant on Ren-ai Road near the corner of Jian-guo Road a few months ago. It's called "Kodiko". He's been very busy working there at all hours. It's a "healthy eating" place that uses low temperatures and other methods to reduce the wear and tear food apparently has on the body.

It's also a really fancy, expensive place, so after Micheal invited me to lunch and I'd gotten a good look at it, I immediately thought of our fancy dinner scene. Originally I'd thought of doing it in a sideroom, but Dean preferred the space of the main dining room. This meant we'd have to wait until the place closed at 10pm and film all night. Dean expressed hope, as always, that we'd get it done quickly, but these things have a way of taking their time, no matter how many corners you cut.

I caught a ride with Sandman and Jojo over to the restaurant after a quick dinner at The Italian Job on Lishui Street. They were just closing, and some of the cast and crew had already arrived. Among them were Mark from Doubting to Shuo and Prince Roy, who had agreed to provide famous blogger cameos as guards (we always seem to need guards and henchmen). They were eager to sample the excitement and adventure of a real film shoot, despite my warnings of long, tiring, boring, repetitious chores all night and into the morning. Jojo and Chris also stayed. I think they just wanted to see Sandman get stabbed with a butter knife.

Setting up took a while, as we had to move all the tables to the side room and set up one long table in the middle of the main dining room. Darrell brought his camera for two-camera setups to save time, and Paul supplied lights (which we augmented with an egg crate) and microphone. I wanted a dark dining room, so we used mostly the lighting in the ceiling, with a few accents provided by our lights. Darrell also provided the computer readouts to be projected on the glass wall behind the table.

Soon, everyone was in costume, including the guards in their maroon and black, carrying plastic guns (Prince Roy was apparently dissatisfied with the sound of clicking the plastic clip into place), Dean in his tux, Maurice's friend Bill in my Chinese jacket and inside-out aborigine hat, Sandy in his jacket and disposable shirt and bow tie (looking kind of like an evil Jimmy Olsen) and Rowan of course in monacle and tails.

So we got down to it. Filming went fairly steadily, though there were hiccups as Rowan was having trouble with his lines. Part of this was due to the long monologues I'd wanted to do in one shot without breaking it up, the alcohol, and, increasingly, the late hour. We gave him a break and set up to shoot Sandman getting stabbed while Rowan went over his lines, and then started up again. Unfortunately, Jojo and Chris were outside (smoking, no doubt;) when we did it, so they missed it. Bill did a great job; at the time it seemed a bit too over-the-top, but looking at the footage I realize he did it just right.

Dean got to do his James Bond casino shot, and our guards did an admirable job of restraining him, or at least seeming to, though Mark's beret fell off in one shot. Rowan, when he got his lines down, was impressive in his dynamic range. The rehearsal had gone quite well and seemed to help him get a grasp of the scene, though some actors like to work "fresh".

Everyone seemed to run out of energy at about 3am, even though we'd stocked up on canned coffee. I felt wide awake, as I was responsible for everyone being there, so I just kept going. The normal banter between takes fell off, and soon there was nothing but silence. The guards conked out on the sofas during setups, and Paul retired to the side room for a nap, while Darrell filmed and held the mic boom at the same time.

It was tough, but we got through it. By the time we were done, the sun was shining outside the heavy restaurant doors. We wrestled the tables back in place and let everyone go. I roused Michael from his position slumped over the desk in the office in back, and we all went to catch taxis to our respective homes. I got home around 7:30am, didn't feel like going to bed just yet as the light was so nice (I rarely see the morning light), so I took a stroll around my neighborhood taking pictures before going to bed at about 9.

I don't know what we're doing next, I'm afraid. Sure, we could do a couple of pick-ups here and there, and we need to get another trailer out, but Dean has to take another trip to Canada, from late August to late September, and Bill is busy during just about the same time. I am still searching for an office/study as well as, of course, the zeppelin interior. We're quite close to finishing this thing, but unfortunately we've saved the most difficult locations for last.

Garage fight

2006-07-26T00:56:00.000+08:00

Maurice, Dean and I met up on Saturday last weekend to get a pick-up shot of Milo, supposedly in Iraq. The only remotely middle-eastern background I could think of was the Taipei Grand Mosque next door to where I used to live, so we went there. After being thrown out of my own apartment complex last time, I was a bit wary of filming in front of a mosque, but luckily we didn't have any trouble. The sun even cooperated now and then while we were shooting. Maurice used my 20D as a prop camera. It was just one shot, and we went to a local restaurant for lunch afterwards. Nice and easy.

The next day, Sunday, Dean and I met Azuma and Jane near CKS Hall to use their apartment's stairwell, elevator and parkade that we didn't get last time at my place. I'd never seen the place, though Jane had mailed pictures, so I wasn't sure if we'd need lights. I really wish we had a lighting expert on the crew, but even if we did, we never have enough time to spend setting up lights. It's just part of this type of filmmaking: Do what you can in the time allotted, and often that means sacrificing production elements such as lighting, on-site sound, and even performance. The former two you might be able to correct for somewhat in post production, but without performance you've got nothing, even well-lit and good-sounding nothing. Alas, sometimes even nothing has to do, and you end up hoping you can string bits of stuff over the nothing so it doesn't show too much. The fact is that we just have too much to get done, and everyone on set is there out of the goodness of their hearts alone. No unions, no rules, no catering, no safety monitor, no trailers. They all have real lives to get back to.

Anyway, after Alex arrived, we started shooting the whole garage sequence with him, Jane and Dean. We improvised many parts and even came up with a scene with Azuma and Jane's nephew who was visiting from Beijing. I dollied around the actors as they snuck back and forth through the parkade. Jane ran around a corner, fully dressed up in her PLA uniform and brandishing her gun, only to find a terrified tenant cowering behind a column. For some reason there was a refrigerator near one parking spot, and she had come down to put stuff inside. Shirzi had choreographed a fight scene that we adapted for the new location. It seemed to work well, with a little bruising as possible...I hope.

It was quite hot, however, which was good in that we wanted the actors to look like they were stressed, but bad in that they were very uncomfortable. I was ok as I was wearing a T-shirt and shorts, but the actors were sweltering in their costumes, so we stopped at around 2pm and put off the rest of the things we'd planned until some other time. I was happy with what we did, though. Performance and shot wise, we got some good stuff. Jane in particular is great to work with, very quick on the uptake. I gotta admit, she really knows how to strangle a fella.

Our next shoot will be an all-nighter at a restaurant partially managed by my friend Michael, on Ren-ai Road. It's the banquet-hall scene you see in many Bond films, basically, with a fancy dining room and as many people in tuxedoes as possible. It's the first major scene we will have shot with our antagonist, played by Rowan Hunter. Rowan's a great actor and his presence translates well on film, as we found out in the first film, so I'm looking forward to seeing him in action again in this, much larger project.

As for locations, the main on in our sights right now is a big executive-type office with lots of wood trim and a large desk. If you know of any possibilities here in Taipei or even outside of it, let me know. A library or study would do as well, if it comes to that.

touchy mainlanders

2006-07-12T11:41:00.000+08:00

I had a gig on Saturday night, so I didn't get to bed until 5am. This made getting up at 8am on Sunday for the shoot at my apartment complex difficult, but at least I didn't have to go anywhere this time. As usual, I was a little nervous before the shoot, but confident at least that we wouldn't face the danger of being thrown out, since I live here and all.

I waited in the air-conditioned goodness of the 7-Eleven's interior until Dean, Alex, Jane, Azuma, Shirzi and Darrell arrived one-by-one. We then went inside to the AV room of my building, which I was renting for NT$500. Alex and Jane changed into their costumes, which were pseud0-PLA uniforms Dean had patched together from various sources. The dolly seemed to work on the carpet, and the varying color temperatures of the room's lights were somewhat of a challenge to deal with. I ended up bouncing a light on the table top for some angles. The place had a really low ceiling, but we wanted the claustrophobic feel of an underground room.

The shooting in the room went well; Jane, Alex and Dean all did good work, and we were inside and comfortable, a rare thing in my experience. But that was only one part of the shooting we'd scheduled for the day. We still had to shoot some elevator exterior, stairwell and a big fight/chase scene in the parking garage, which we'd rehearsed beforehand.

We left most of the stuff in the A/V room, gathered up the necessary stuff, and headed over to the other building in my complex, over the footbridge between the two entrances. We were almost to the door when I heard shouting coming from behind us. It was the building manager, a mainlander who is normally a nice guy.

He'd seen our actors in their PLA costumes, however, and was nearly epileptic with rage. "STOP! STOP RIGHT THERE!" he yelled as he ran up. "What do you think you're doing!"

"We're filming, like I said before," I said.

"No, you're not! Not with people in PLA uniforms!"

"Uh, those are actors."

"I don't care! They can't be seen! Can you imagine how much trouble you're causing!" He was apparently afraid that certain mainlanders in the complex would see the uniforms and have strokes.

"We're not even showing them in a good light!"

"I don't care!"

"They're the bad guys! They meet horrible fates in the end!'" This wasn't strictly true, but I was still stunned by his irrational reaction to the costumes and was grasping at straws.

"Listen," I said. "Whoever gives you a hard time about it, just send them to me. Let them give me a hard time about it, ok?"

But he was adamant. We had to shut down, immediately. Even if we had an official GIO permit, he'd turn it down, he said. To buy some time and think the situation over, we said we'd go back to the A/V room to collect our stuff. When we arrived we hurridly took down all of the PLA propaganda posters Dean had purchased online, for fear that the manager would see them and fly into another rage. Our fears were well grounded, for he showed up soon afterwards, apparently determined to keep an eye on us until we left. It was obvious that we would get no more filming done there. Alex stood there smiling at the building manager as he watched us.

"What are you smiling at?" the manager challenged.

"Nothing, just you getting into such a state over all of this," Alex replied.

"I AM NOT IN A STATE! WHO ARE YOU TO TELL ME WHAT STATE I'M IN, ANYWAY!"

"Ok, ok," I stepped in between them. "Cut it out, we're leaving, all right?"

So. Obviously, we didn't get to shoot the parkade/elevator/stairwell shots that day. Fortunately we got the A/V room stuff done, which was the most difficult location to find and the one we would have the most trouble replacing. We're going over to Azuma's building in two weeks to try to film the rest of the stuff there. This weekend, unless we're visited by a typhoon that's heading this way, we're going to get some pick-up shots of Maurice and April in separate places. Doing what we can, as always.

Airports, cars and train stations, part 2

2006-06-27T00:04:00.000+08:00

Last weekend we filmed our first scenes with Alex Chou, a co-worker of Dean's, as well as Azuma's wife Jane. We originally cast Tony Lee from the first film in the role of PLA General Song, but Tony's disappeared. We think he may be in Hawaii. In any case, Dean had to have another uniform made for Alex, who is a bit bigger than Tony.

We returned to the train station on Saturday morning, early because Alex had to work later, and we only had the car, a black Cadillac almost identical to the one we used in the first film at CKS Hall, until 1pm. So we had to hurry, but by now I guess we should be used to it. Almost every shoot we do we're in a hurry.

Dean and Jane were already at the station when I arrived, still half asleep. Dean and I went over the storyboards while Jane changed into her PLA-esque uniform, but then we realized that she'd forgotten to bring her "billfold" hat. I liked the hat. I like hats in general. I think more people in films, if not real life, should wear hats. So I told her to go back and get it, since she lives close by.

While we waited the Caddy pulled up, with Alex inside. We had to make room in the taxi line for the car, but just before we started filming a cargo truck pulled up perpendicular to the curb and started unloading, so we decided to just add it to the scene. We do try for a reasonable amount of continuity, but I'll be the first to admit there are large gaps here and there that we can do nothing except hope they aren't too glaring or distracting.

After I got the exteriors we all got in the car and headed off to the Xinyi District. Except I'd wanted some interiors at the train station, so we circled back again to get those. Then we were off, to the building a block from the world's tallest building, where we'd filmed some scenes before, and, unfortunately, where the security guards had called the cops on us.

This time our shoot was cop-free, and I managed not to fall on my ass whilst jumping over the curb. Even a shot where Dean comes running out of the building and falls as if shot while I filmed from the Caddy window came out well. And no cops. Heaven forfend a real shootout occurs around there, though.

Alex was done for the day, though he forgot his pants and had to come back. We took the caddy back to the train station and sent it on its merry way so that Dean, Jane and I could get the rest of the interior shots there. At least we're done with all of the car shots for this film, which is comforting.

Sun was shining through the skylights, creating some nice lighting. We were lucky it wasn't storming like it has been every day recently. I shot Dean and Jane walking through the station, getting as few gawking people in the background as possible. We've figured that carrying the camera on the tripod, folded up, is just as stable as using the home-made glidecam, so that's what we're doing, since the floor doesn't work with the dolly.

And so that was a wrap for that part of scene 14, which is a real monster of a scene; really confusing and convoluted but hopefully cool and very suspenseful on screen. Next week we're all going to be busy with various national holiday events, but the weekend after that we're planning to film the final bits of scene 14 at various locations in and around my apartment complex. Shirzi and I went over some action sequences downstairs in the parking garage this morning, and it should be pretty exciting.

Prison break!

2004-12-06T13:13:00.000+08:00

We'd arranged to film the prison break: part 2 on Saturday, and wouldn't you know it? A typhoon chooses that day to become the first December typhoon in, depending on which newspaper you read, 40, 60 or 100 years. On the other hand, rain would make it seem like we had the budget for a rain machine. And I'd also brought blueberry muffins to make dripping wet cast and crew feel better about things in general.

Because of the weather, I was afraid that some of our locations on the NTU campus wouldn't be available, so before we did anything else we took a trip over to the old Japanese building I'd picked to be our jail hallways and stairwells to make sure it was open. It was, but a construction crew inside told us they were finishing up, so I went upstairs and talked to a couple of graduate students who could let us in in case the doors were locked when we got back with all the equipment.

The first order of business involved Joshua emerging from a grate in the floor. Underneath the building, we found, was a kind of bog littered with old wine bottles that looked like they were salvaged from the ocean floor after a shipwreck, and about a gazillion mosquitoes. It was hard enough to support Josh, but we got some scaffolding down there for him to stand on just in case there was quicksand anywhere around.

The shots we got are kind of dark, but they look pretty good and will look better with some post-production adjustment.

The next thing was me following Josh down the hallway with the glidecam, which didn't work as well as I'd hoped. I'm beginning to wonder if the swiveling head was such a good idea.

After that we got some stairwell shots, with Dean standing in for one of the guards. Nick Yang, who was going to be another guard that Josh fights, arrived with his girlfriend at that point. I'm always a little worried when people who haven't been on a set show up, because they tend to think it's going to be a lot more exciting than it really it.

Anyway, my little flashlight came in rather handy throughout the shots, both as a prop and as a lighting source. Josh then ascended a ladder to the roof level, which concluded our shooting in that building.

We then adjourned to Paul's office building for some rooftop shots or Josh and Nick going at it. Lighting was a problem. We were going so fast (you guys who were there laugh, but we were really going fast, believe it or not) and the extension cords were so short that we had problems getting the best lighting, though I think I could have done better in that regard.

The rain had stopped by this point, the typhoon meeting its match in the cold front on its way over from mainland China, and the temperatures began to drop. Luckily I'd brought jackets for people who needed them.

We moved upstairs to the upper roof and did a neat dolly shot of Josh coming through a door, and that was all for Nick, so he could go home. By this time it was about midnight, and everyone was tired. It was becoming painfully obvious that we weren't going to finish the shoot that night.

The last shot we got that night was a special effect shot in which we stuffed a door maglock control console with fireworks and set them off. The effect was really cool, but we only got one angle because we only had one camera.

We wrapped at about 2 a.m., and arranged to meet again Sunday night to finish up. Everyone was bushed, but we got a lot done.

Sunday night was more rooftop stuff, as well as more props, balloons and green screen shots that, from what I've seen so far, may work out really nicely. The cold front had arrived in force, though, and Josh was bundled up an a ski jacket and fuzzy hat between takes. Luckily it wasn't cold enough that his breath was visible.

Some of the shots involved Dean and Josh on the lower roof level while Darrell and I shouted instructions from the top level. Costco lights stood in for prison searchlights, which worked pretty well. We started at 6 p.m. and finished at 10 p.m. Not too bad, but still a long, tiring weekend. Josh, at least, can take the next couple of weeks off. The rest of us have to be on the lookout for a warehouse and some ham radio equipment for the next shoot, hopefully next weekend.

Wrapping April

2006-04-23T15:33:00.000+08:00

No, this entry doesn't involve saran wrap.

Cast and crew once again gathered at Dean's apartment on Friday night. Our objective this time was to finish filming all of April's scenes, little bits and pieces of several different scenes. To that end, Dean had gone to great lengths to build all the props and sets in and around his apartment, as you can see in the picture. He constructed a vent out of wood, a stand for my brass monkey, which plays a role early in the film, and a parachute rigging for April to hang off for green screen shots.

Our first task was to go over to a nearby office building, where we'd gotten permission to film in the lobby. I would have preferred to get it during the day, but we wanted to get everything done at once, and it happened to be night. The contrast during the day would have been difficult for the camera in any case. Paul and Darrell were waiting in the lobby as Dean, April, Shirzi and I arrived.

As it happened, someone was moving out of the building, so we had to time April walking in the door, across the lobby and into an elevator to avoid catching the movers in the shots. Ordinary movers would have not detracted from the shots. Movers who waved at the camera and yelled "Hallooo!!!" were less welcome. Shirzi waited inside an elevator and opened the doors for April while telling people who wanted to use the elevator that that particular one was "broken". It was difficult, with all the mirrors around there, not to get my reflection anywhere in the shots.

Once that scene was in the can, we retired back to the playground scene at Dean's, moving all the junk from an outside corner and dressing it like the interior of an elevator shaft. We'd been looking forever for a real elevator shaft, but it just never happened. I figured an unpainted concrete wall decorated with black rails and pipes would do just as well, so we did it there. April climbed a black rope from a "Batman" climbing kit. We tested the strength of the rope with all of Dean's weight, so April was secure in the knowlege that she wouldn't approach the breaking point. She was only a few inches off the ground anyway. The crew was in a line in the narrow alley, April in front, then Darrell with the microphone, and then me with the camera, followed by Dean, who was feeding April lines to respond to. One of Paul's lights supplied what we hoped looked like elevator-shaft lighting, with April descending into shadow and then climbing back out of it.

After that was done, we moved inside and did the museum/monkey shots, with April approaching the brass statue and removing what will be digital effects at some point. We had planned on using a fire extinguisher, with Shirzi on the floor waiting to provide the effect, but the thing crapped out on us. Dean tried to use a pan of milk powder instead, but it looked just like milk powder being thrown in the air. We'll see if we can do something with it in post. As always.

Then it was time for the vent, the showpiece of the evening. Dean did a really good job, and we got a lot of good shots of April climbing through the thing, looking through the grill, etc. Dean's evil cat loved to play with the aluminum foil on the other end, and we kept having to shoo him away, lest we have to write one evil kitty into the script as some kind of feline vent defense system or something.

Next on the list was the parachute setup. It was getting rather late by this time, and Paul and Darrell had to leave. The rest of us set up green cloth over Dean's mirrored wall and tried to get the lighting so that there were as few shadows as possible. Hopefully Darrell will be able to do something with these shots. April found a new respect for Star Wars prequel actors as she tried to react to invisible exploding zeppelins, missiles and flaming shrapnel all around her.

The last thing to do involved tying April's hands behind her back with what turned out to be extremely itchy twine. Between the twine, evil kitty's flying fur and a fan, April spent most of the evening trying not to sneeze. She willingly slugged through it all, though, even as we worked into the wee hours of the morning. At long last we got everything done, so all she has to do now is the looping. Which means that I have to go through all of the footage and get at least one take of each of her scenes, just as I did with Josh before he left, get the footage to Darrell and then, probably over at least a couple of days, loop all of her lines. She's leaving in August, so we have a little time yet.

Next on our list is more car scenes, which we'll probably film at Sungshan Airport or at the train station. Now that April and Josh are done, we'll be concentrating on the Legion of Doom contingent of our cast, namely Sandy, Rowan, Sarah, and a new actor.

Temple Interior

2006-04-16T19:31:00.000+08:00

The night before we were scheduled to film the temple interior scene, Dean told me he wanted to do his lines for that scene in Chinese, instead of in English as we had originally planned. For the first film I'd recorded the Chinese lines for him to practice, but obviously we didn't have time for that this time. We were having dinner at JB's and looking at storyboards at the time, so we took the script and translated all his lines into Chinese, and I wrote down the pinyin romanization for him to read the next day. I figured we'd just fix the inevitable pronunciation problems in post, which is more than Firefly did, anyway.

It was just a small thing, one of many small complications involved in doing a scene in two languages. This is in addition to filming in a temple, which means trying to be as discreet and low-key as possible. Actually, this is a big part of indie filmmaking, as we just don't have the funds to close off any areas for filming, much less the money to hire enough extras to populate said areas. So far we've had both good and bad experiences at temples in Taiwan, from being made quite welcome to being refused entrance. We'd filmed an exterior at this one, the Taiping Temple in Bitan, and I knew the manager, Mr. Xie, so I didn't think it would be a problem.

Another concern was an actress Maurice had found for us, an older Taiwanese woman to play a fortuneteller at the temple. I'd never met her and didn't know anything about her. I was hoping she wasn't one of those strange older Taiwanese woman who insists on dressing and being treated like a schoolgirl.

It turned out I needn't have worried. The woman I met at the temple on Saturday morning, Liqing, was very courteous and professional. She looked the part and did some fine acting for us. Mr. Xie was also fine with our being there, despite the fact that the head of the temple association was in the next room drinking tea. I had been hoping for sunshine and the resulting hazy shafts of light beaming down through the skylights, but instead a solid downpour outside endeavored to soak everyone and everything outside. I hoped that at least fewer people would be at the temple due to the inclement weather.

Nonetheless, the temple interior still looked very good, very atmospheric, and I decided against the added disruption of using lights, as the natural light, supplemented with candles, was good enough. Another advantage of digital video. I'd brought the dolly and got some nice tracking shots of Dean walking around the temple. Azuma was there as well, in his police uniform, and Maurice held the microphone in between getting water for Liqing. Darrell came along as well but had to leave early.

Shooting the scene went very slowly at first as Dean couldn't understand Liqing's lines. She couldn't really understand him either, so nobody knew when their lines were; even with Shirzi there to prompt the actors we got lost very easily, so I decided to film all of Liqing's lines at once, and then all of Dean's lines, and then cut them together later. After that things went pretty smoothly, and I got some nice shots and fairly powerful moments in the can. Afterwards we ended up at Rosemary's Kitchen, down by the river, with Maurice buying his customary wine with lunch. The rain, which had stopped when we were in the temple, resumed as soon as we were finished.

Next on the list is a cornucopia of April's scenes, which we are going to attempt to wrap up in various corners of Dean's house next Friday night after work. April's leaving this summer, so we have to get all of her stuff done as soon as possible and get her looping done. After that and some car/airport scenes we'll have most of the good guys' stuff done and can concentrate mainly on our baddies.

Girl fight!

2006-02-26T20:25:00.000+08:00

I knew from experience last year that we'd be pretty much off for Christmas and New Year's, so I wasn't surprised that it took us this long to get filming again after the break. Nonetheless, it was a relief to get back into it after such a long time.

Shirzi and I met Sarah, who plays a major evil assistant to our baddie, at the Yuanshan MRT station on Saturday morning. Sarah was decked out in dark green, with leather jacket and long black boots, de rigeur for evil assistants this year, I believe. Our destination was the old abandoned and derelict naval language lab/base where we filmed Josh, April and Dean late last year. April lives in Neihu, so she was going to meet us there. "I hope the place is still there; it's been so long," I joked as we put our equipment in the back of the cab.

As soon as we came in sight of our destination, however, I knew something was very wrong. Instead of the barricaded gates, large metal plates had been laid down at the entrance, the kind used for large trucks. "We may have a problem," I said as we got out and walked over to find that the entire complex of multi-story buildings had been reduced to rubble. Bulldozers were still working on bits of it, concrete-breaking machinese clanging away.

Just next to the entrance, a couple of single-story buildings still stood, one of which even still had a roof, and we took cover inside to avoid being seen by the wreckers, who had yelled at April for coming onto the site when she had arrived. I had originally planned the fight to take place in hallways/entrances of the bigger buildings, but it occured to me that there might still be hope in the smaller buildings. I scouted out a room in the only remaining intact building, and we hurridly set up angles for the three stages of the fight that Shirzi had come up with, based on what we had to work with. The place was filthy, of course, with clouds of mosquitoes buzzing around heaps of leaves, broken glass, puncuated by the occasional derelict office furniture. Shirzi liberated a picture of Dr. Sun Yat-sen to decorate his new digs in Xindian.

Sarah and April practiced the moves on the spot as the sound of the wreckers went on in the background. I hoped they wouldn't be tearing down that building any time soon, but we had to work fast in any case, as April had plans later on. The actors getting used to the moves took th most time, and just when they had it down and had done one segment a few times, we had to move on to the next segment. Shirzi and I would do the moves for the girls to watch, and then they would practice until it was reasonably smooth. They ended up doing a great job, considering they were not martial artists and yet had to learn it and get it down on the spot.

There's a part where April kicks over Sarah, who ducks to avoid the blow, but one time April didn't quite clear Sarah's head, instead kicking her right in the head with steel-toed boots. Sarah was ok, though. The only other injury, besides Sarah's leather boot that lost a heel, occured when April cut her leg during a fall. Fortunately there wasn't too much blood.

We got out of there by around 3:00, and I was sure that the building wouldn't last another day, as they were obviously clearing the whole site. Talk about cutting it close. We bade farewell to April and took the MRT down to Bongo's. People on the train stared at Shirzi Sun Yat-sen picture the whole way.

As for what's next: Dean's in Canada at the moment, but once he comes back, we'll be ready for the final push that, hopefully, will see the end of principal photography. I, for one, will be very glad to see that day.

More jeeps

2005-12-16T23:24:00.000+08:00

We didn't get all of the jeep stuff done last time, so we had to go back over the course of a couple of weekends to get all of Maurice's stuff done before the weather turned too nasty. The first weekend was iffy, as it was raining throughout Taiwan the day we were down there, but we still got a few shots done. In order to get up the hill faster, Dean and I hung on to the sides of Doug's jeep on the steep bits, where it was pretty hard to hang on. Dean got a bloody hand in the effort, in fact. I got a shot of the jeep driving over the camera, which is fine as it has more than enough clearance. In between squalls I wiped the lens off, the rest of the camera in rain gear, and got shots of Maurice in the back of the jeep, jumping out the back of the jeep, rolling in the grass, and reacting to an explosion. For the explosion we created "debris" by throwing things, including the jeep's spare tire, at Maurice. This was a lot of fun. Another high point was when we shot Maurice's leg getting shot. The sun came out just as we were ready with the squib, glinting off the spraying blood.

That was about all we could do that weekend, but the next weekend was much better, almost too much better, as there wasn't a cloud in the sky, and the other weekends featured overcast skies. Hopefully the audience won't care too much about the changes in weather, and we can fix it to a degree in post. Norm, who was in Clay Soldiers, agreed to come down with us and be a cigar-smoking, Hawaiian-shirt-wearing henchman. He did a great job, as did Doug. At one point we shot a struggle between Maurice, Doug and Norm, after Maurice shoots Doug's gun out of his hand, which they went at with great gusto. Another time we needed a red jeep to drop off our henchmen. There was a hill-climbing contest going on just up the mountain, and we got one of the guys to help us out.

I'm not going to even try to explain this.

So we finished that scene and crossed it off the list. Now, it being he holidays, with sucky weather, people on vacation, and other various reasons, we're taking a little break. Same thing happened last year, so it's not really a surprise. We'll probably start pushing the pace again after Chinese New Year's, depending on what locations we can find. In the meantime, have a Merry Christmas.