Update 127-01 Update 127-01 HEAT 28th February 2007 8:20 AM
It's been excruciatingly busy lately – Something which I'm pretty sure you folk in Singapore can associate with. It appears that staying up late on Saturday nights is starting to become a regular feature of my weekend. I stayed up to 3 AM on Saturday night Sunday morning filming 'Heat', a big and over-hyped rock and roll/rap concert at the university. We operated 4 different cameras. My friend's SLR that has a live-LCD display sucks. Warning to all you potential shutterbugs out there: DO NOT BUY DSLRS with live-LCD display screens. Anyway, I had some fun that night. We even got some All-Access Passes that granted me authorization to enter anywhere at the event. *Muhahahaha.*
Anyway, the concert has relatively enjoyable. The first part were just random DJs though – Which essentially just entailed random drunk people getting high and dancing around with even more random people whom they don't even know.
It strikes me how deceiving events like this are – They showcase all the unpopular bands first and the better performances only come on later during the night... Or morning in this case. Like Moving Units – Who seem to be like 40 year-old Rolling Stones.
Then this guy, Lupe Fiasco came on. I'm not really a rap fan – Okay fine, I'm not one at all. The point is, his manager pissed me off. The fellow tried to bounce me off the stage after I stood in front of him with my uber video camera.
“Yo yo man whatcho ass doin' on the stage dawg!” “Uhh... I'm filming this for the university. You'd better talk to the coordinator...” “Listen punk! I'm Lupe's Manager man. I ain't talking to nobody!”
I was seriously about to get some caps busted up my ass before a university official came to save me. I didn't know jack about this chap but I found out after that apparently he's some three-time Grammy Award winning up-and-coming artistic about to take over Usher or something along those lines.
Got home at 3 AM (Again) like last Saturday. But whatever, I'm not complaining – We had free flow of a few different kinds of pizzas and other interesting (non-alcoholic) drinks. So there was a decent amount of incentive for us to stay up - Oh, and most importantly, from our high vantage point on the stage, we got to laugh (Sadistically) at the crowds of a few thousand people transitioning from queuing into various stages of drunken singing, and most importantly, attempted moshing before getting bounced by buff guys in black jackets.
Update 126-01 Update 126-01 Film Shoot 21st February 2007 11:40 AM
Okay okay I know I should update more considering I have some sort of viewership to cater to (I hope). My apologies. Thanks to everyone for wishing me a good CNY – Except that I don't really celebrate it. Yep, even in Singapore. I appreciate the gesture nonetheless though we always use the opportunity of an extended vacation to go into Malaysia to buy pirated stuff cuz the guards are slacker then. Hehe. Call me insensitive or ignorant if you will, but having an extremely small family that neither resides in the US nor Singapore doesn't help much. Luke calls me a 'Cultural Bastard' and I tend to agree with his label. Ah well... Guess what I was doing? Why, making a movie of course!
Coincidentally enough, there's this random and useless holiday called 'President's Day' that happens to fall on the day after CNY so I shot this film over the CNY weekend here in Amerika. I guess I was going for a more realistic, grittier, and hardcore noir-thriller film than I usually do. Well, what can I say? I don't have a SWAT team here, you know... Though I will... Eventually... Anyway, don't expect the usual BLT-guns-guts-gore extravaganza that usually characterizes my movies. Inspired by The Departed, I wanted to try something new: A more realistic, scarier, and nasty film.
Fine fine... Call it an excuse to hide my lack of a SWAT team if you will....
As per usual film shoots, the shit hit the fan as soon as we met to start. Firstly, our token minority character – An African-American gangSTA', did not show up, claiming his brother had met with a 'car accident'. I was kinda cheesed and wondered if he got into an accident stealing a car or... Nevermind. I shalln't be so racist – T'was just pissing me off. So we replaced him with another guy which probably turned out better anyway. I subsequently forced the only Asian guy on our team apart from myself to act as a doctor (The cliches!!) so he missed his Chinese New Year dinner. Wierdly enough, his name is called 'Hans' and someone broke his $200 gas-powered SIG 226 when he lent it to us for the movie. o.0
I also forced this girl to stay behind (Even though it was her birthday) to act as a random extra/blood cleaner. Muhhahaha.
Oh, and I coerced this other dude to not book in for work at Target so he could act as a thug. Looks the part, doesn't he? Hmm I hope I don't get him fired...
Then, stuff starts to go even more wrong! Before we start, we discover that our Director of Photography, this guy here, forgot to CHARGE HIS (camera) BATTERIES. *Den Den Den*
Uh huh. That was what I wanted to do...
Yeah, I'm a rather sentimental turd – I decided to wear the same outfit I've been using ever since our very first film, Titus Andronicus. Also, note my trademark holster + utility belt (: I was acting under the assumption such voodoo would bring us better luck – Probably because we needed it.
So he ran to K-Mart to buy a mile (Literally) of extension cables so we could use his camera powered from the wall socket. Next, our homemade 'squib' blew up on us and into this poor 'Doctor's face. *Mutters under breath* For what it's worth, it would've been a good shot if done properly... It seems that a hallmark of all shows I do is a poor actor lying for hours in a pool of his own blood – And this film was no exception. As you can imagine per past films, it was a bitch in cleaning up the blood. Some of it even leaked through the floor and appeared dripping through the ceiling of the level beneath us (Think cliched horror movie). Damn, I pity the Chem students who have classes there this week...
2 Years doesn't really change much huh?
Next, our outside scenes were characterized by an acute shortage of light – Nothing new there though. However, one of the cars we were supposed to use didn't show up so we ended up randomly asking this guy with a MERCEDES to star in our film along with his girlfriend (She's a photographer I invited). Phew. Lucky break there.
It's now 3 AM and the streets are deserted. We had been dutifully traveling in a 7-Car 'Convoy' so we decided to race each other along the empty streets to loud rap music and other bling-bling things that I can't quite pronounce. I think we were pretty close to losing our minds so everyone just kept driving fast (and furious - Hur hur). Then we lost each other and wandered into some completely obscure wilderness to shoot our very last scene but got chased away by some cowboy-hat wearing, shotgun wielding, vulgarity-hurling hillbilly who must've assumed we were frat boys hazing someone. Gah. Such is life in the US of A.
All in all, I guess BLT had a fun time but it was rather scary at moments when the hillbilly was chasing us with a pack of (Metaphorical) wolves or that one cop car kept circling around our film shoot repeatedly. Speaking of which, I actually got the cops to AUTHORIZE our guns and let us use firearms on campus publicly. Muhahahahaha. BEAT THAT SINGAPORE!!
I'll post up more frame grabs and pictures as time goes on. Till then, have fun with Chapel bathroom forms, bi-weekly hair checks, and searing tropical weather! (:
Update 125-01 Update 125-01 Jew Karey 16th February 2007 12:32 AM
Alright it's been an interesting week so expect a long-ass entry. Oh before I forget: I'm wondering if you jackasses got the 100 DVDs I got someone to send out. If you haven't, tell me! If you have and still haven't told me, shame on you for forgetting about BLT only 6 months after he left! Okay fine I digress. But honestly though – At least drop me a message or let me know somehow cuz I put in quite a lot of effort into coercing convincing someone with money and threats to send this stuff out. Thanks Ben! (:
I have a strong suspicion that I score better for subjects I don't study for here in the US. For instance, I studied really hard for my philosophy and psychology midterms but I only managed to get 80++ for both (FYI, before you studious people start gasping, 80% is a 'B' here in the USA) To my surprise, I got a 96 for my Political Ideologies and 90 for my American Politics midterms – Tests which I did not read a SINGLE page of reading material from during the entire term. Ironic ain't it?
Speaking of grades, I was accused of cheating and plagiarism two days ago by my English teacher because she claimed my essay was 'too advanced', 'too verbose', and 'too good' for a Freshman. I thus made an angry, insulted face full of shock, horror and disgust and subsequently gave her an electronic copy to scan through with the 'plagiarizing-detecting machine'. It checked out, obviously. (For the record, I don't ever ever EVER cheat on essays. Okay fine – Even IF I ever did, I would never be dumb enough to get caught; thank you IB History! ^_^)
Anyway, she kept apologizing to me today in front of the whole class and I was even bestowed the dubious honor of being forced to articulate my essay in front of the whole class – Something which would ordinarily be inviting except I kept stumbling over my over-inflated vocabulary. Yes, for those of you who are wondering, I used 'gargantuan'.
On other fronts, it looks like history repeats itself again – Or rather, rears its ugly head once more as I did my uni's student council Homecoming Video this week. Although they chose us over the MPAC-Reincarnate equivalent here on campus, something which I was particularly proud of and led me to agree readily, I began to wonder if MPAC-Spawn had deliberately rejected the council's request to do their video. I soon found out why. We were supposed to film with the school's mascot and all that in some really cheesy video but they didn't show up at all – Typical. Next, they hand us EIGHT bags of oranges and tell us to do 'whatever the hell our creativities wanted' – Typical. Lastly, they want it shot, edited, and handed to them on a silver platter within 24 hours – Typical again.
But.... DoubleTeeEff? What the hell are we supposed to do with 8 bags of friggin' oranges?
As usual, councils always put me in tough spots like that. *Nudge Nudge* Remember the Council vid? Anyway, so we basically came up with a 'feasible' idea to have crazy college kids run out of lecture theaters a la Drew Carey style. Most of the lecturers we approached were kind enough to make an announcement for us to ask their students 'run like hell flapping their arms around like chickens'. One ancient but kind biology professor whom I'm guessing is Nordic or Eastern European did it rather humorously – Albeit unintentionally. “I vant you all to run out-ta here viff arms karzy krazy. Run like Jew Karie. I zoo not know who zis Jew Karie is – But vrun like himz"
She then did an imitation of what we wanted them to do. Imagine an 80 year old Grandma doing that. It was hilarious. Unfortunately though, the results weren't quite so fantastic – For the first 6 lecture theaters we visited, a total of almost 5,000 people, not a SINGLE person ran out of the auditorium doing anything! Considering it's friggin Amerika – Land of Borat and MTV Whatever Things, I assumed people would be more spontaneous, fun, and cooperative over this sort of thing.
Unfortunately, they turned out to be rather Singaporean and glanced at us with weird but unmistakeable 'WTF you doing with that camera?' looks. Pfft – And I thought apathy and ignorance were Singaporean traits... Well, we finally managed to get a grand total of SIX people to do it out of the tens of thousands of students we approached. Being BLT, I had multiple cameramen shooting simultaneously so I just put it on loop from different angles as if there really were crowds of people doing it. Yep, 5 seconds of footage plays over and over again.
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Update 124-01 Update 124-01 Auditions: Part II 10th February 2007 8:15 PM
Muhaha we had auditions again on Thursday – The turnout wasn't that big but it was a testament to how racially diverse America is.
First, this lady with the name of 'Blanco Blanco' came in and started reading the script in a totally weird accent.
“I will crush you personality!” (I think she meant 'personally')
Then this Korean dude came in that couldn't really speak English... Qnd yeah... I'm pretty sure you guys can imagine the stereotypes...
As with the stereotypes associated with the following people:
We even asked this guy to improvise a drive-by shooting:
Needless to say, it was a rather interesting evening.
Anyway, I finally finished this MTV highlights for that one party I shot sometime ago at a bar. Don't blame me if ya'll don't find it terribly exiting because she wanted it long (5 minutes) with her own choice of music. Anyway, enjoy it for its artistic talent – I shot it virtually no light at all; hence the pixels and gain. I'm surprised the video came out at all, really...
As much sadistic fun I'm having doing all of this, I still can't help but miss doing the drama trailer... They have some equally "dynamic" personalities involved:
Update 123-01 Update 123-01 Auditions 5th January 2007 11:25 PM
I went down to the Malaysian Counsel-General today to do some admin work. Not to be racist or anything but its amazing how cultural values are held even by those living overseas. I ended up waiting 4 hours for the fat, donut-eating security guard (Cliched but true!) to come back from his lunch break clutching a week-old copy of the 'Straits Times'. I am then informed that they were already closed and that I would have to come back the next day to see the Counsel General.
The guard then tells me to 'relac lah boi. Amerika got many many things to do yah...'
What a helpful sod.
Anyway, I heard that people had to AUDITION and go through rigorous interview sessions in order to join ACDC this year. How do I know? Well, this trailer is a testament to it.
As such, in light of how elitist AC Drama Club has become, I have decided that I myself am not exclusive enough with my own organization. Therefore, I decided to hold auditions for our group on Sunday.
Only after undergoing the process myself did I realize why ACDC did it – It really is such a kick! The immense power and discretion it grants those folks behind the desk is something fascinating. We started out humbly enough – Only snickering slightly when they started doing stupid things (Unknowingly).
On the whole, we tried our level best to keep a poker face. After a while, we got bored and start making them do stupid improvisations and cold reads.
Like this guy whom we did an interesting improv session for:
“Pick a fight in a Southern bar”
And this dude who we forced to act like a retard as part of our 'casting process':
“Convince the owner of the local McDonald's that you're a not THAT retarded but you actually are.”
Interestingly enough, we even had a John Travolta look-alike try out.
As well as an extra from 'That 70s Show'.
And Dr Xavier miraculously healed without his wheelchair.
After a while the people coming in became more and more bizzare. Firstly this dude came in that was like the William Hung of film auditions:
I would actually love to put all their auditions up but I'm too lazy. Sorry.
Then this guy came in and did an impressive and spectacular monologue that could've came right out of a 'Scarface'.
I thought he was putting on a Tony Montana accent to enhance his role. Then, we discovered he was an Italian guy (Yes, all the way from Rome) auditioning to act. I suspect he's gay (Not that I'm discriminatory, of course). He put 'No problems with nudity' in bold, capitalized fonts all over the audition form. Go figure. Oh and wierdly enough, EVERY SINGLE person we auditioned claimed they had 'Kung Fu Skills' and fired 'Shotguns' before. One guy even told us he could 'throw peanuts' like no one else could'.
After a while we couldn't take it any longer. My friend brought along metal – Yes, METAL guns for us to play with. Following which, we effectively became a gun club meeting with each of the members trying to shoot each other. Muhahaha. No more crappy Chinese blackmarkets! Woots! Oh by the way, Desert Eagles are friggin HUGE and HEAVY. I can't imagine anyone in real life actually shooting that damn hand-cannon.
Being the professional, well-versed, and trained pros that we are, we even had a disclaimer on the back of all the audition forms which stated:
We got them to sign and date all of them.
Muhahahaha. The things power can do.
This is a sign that we should audition more people.
