Bionicmanenator

Right, this is the last time I am logging in, damn you Blogger!! I resent the number of times you make me sign in and the loops I have to jump through to post (yes, I am a lazy son-of-a-bitch AND I probably have A.D.D, and no I do not want to give you feedback about it.).

So I am moving over here:
http://bionicmanenator.livejournal.com/
Not looking the greatest at the moment, but it will suffice for now to keep all and sundry abrest of my travels.

Yes, TRAVELS...

For I am off to Auckland to live.
Not sure where, how long for or if I will find a job (although I'm feeling uncharacteristically confident about them all), but the idea at this stage is to go up for Film Festival (and a couple of other things that are going on up there) and will just going to "forget" to return home.

Don't know when I'll be back in Christchurch permanently. Maybe never. But I'll certainly be back for holidays with the family now and again.

I've talked about this for so long. This time it's for real.

Bye for now. See you on the other side.

Congratulations to all winners and good luck to The Outwits who now go on to the Live National Final on C4 on Sunday, July 1st, 8.30pm.

Winner
Carboys & The Indian – War/Western – The Outwits



Runner Up
Mondo Christchurch – Grindhouse – Visualeyes


Best Cinematography
Carboys & The Indian – War/Western – The Outwits


Best Damn Teen Team
A Tale of Tied Hearts – Puppet/Fairytale – Oldschool Cinema

“V” Most Manic Performance
Virgine le Brun in Bloody Vengeance 2 – Grindhouse – Frond Films

“Instant Kiwi” Most Thrilling Moment
“The Opening Sequence” from Memento Mori – Grindhouse – Spooce Media

Best Actor
Tom Trevella in Anyman – Religious/Educational – Volcano Café

Best Actress
Eden Canon in Reed Between The Lines – Crime – The Orange

Best Script
Mondo Christchurch – Grindhouse – Visualeyes

Best Original Score
Hamish Oliver for Carboys & The Indian – War/Western – The Outwits

Best Sound Mix
Bound – Horror – Witness Relocation Programme

Best Costume
Bloody Vengeance 2 – Frond Films

Best Art Direction
Reed Between The Lines – Crime – The Orange

Best Make-Up
Bloody Vengeance 2 – Grindhouse – Frond Films

Best Use Of The Line – “What Do You Call That?”
Biocab International – Religious/Educational – The New Embassy

Best Use Of The Character – “Jerry Reed; A Hypocondriac”
Painkiller: The Sick Sense – Superhero – TBALC

Best Use Of The Prop – “A Rope”
Bound – Horror – Witness Relocation Programme

Special Award – Best Single
Anyman – Religious/Educational – Volcano Café


Audience Awards
Heat One
Crime Stories – Crime – Burn The Dog

Heat Two
Bloody Vengeance 2 – Grindhouse – Frond Films

Heat Three
A Tale of Tied Hearts – Puppet/Fairytale – Oldschool Cinema

Heat Four
Humpty’s Return – Unnecessary Sequel – Roggley

Heat Five
Painkiller: The Sick Sense – Superhero – TBALC

Heat Six
Carboys & The Indian – War/Western – The Outwits

Heat Seven
Bound – Horror – Witness Relocation Programme

Some photos that were taken at the finish line of 48 Hours, last weekend:




To that kid that came screaming through the door with one second left on the clock (pictured in slideshow above): you made my fuckin year, dude! THAT moment is the complete reason I run this competition. To see a room full of people explode into spontaneous sustained cheering for nearly five minutes like that is one of the most awesome feelings I know of. I also totally get a kick out of knowing how much fun, anarchy and sheer creativity comes out of this single weekend.

Now, we await the judges decision.
Finalists announced on 3rd June - keep an eye on the countdown!
The Christchurch City Final is on 7th June, at Reading Cinema, where we announce all the prize winners and the film that will go head-to-head with the rest of the country's regional winners and Peter Jackson's Wildcards.

Less than 10 hours to go before one of the biggest weekends of the NZ Filmmaking year!!

Good luck to everyone around the country who is competing this year.
There will be tears, heartache, rapture, frindships destroyed, gear broken, bones busted, sleep-depirved paranoia, crazy situations and more fun than infinite monkeys can shake sticks at.
I look forward to see some amazing (and some not so amazing!) results.

See you all at the starting line!!!
http://www.48hours.co.nz/

Officially, my first appearance on YouTube.
I am such a goddamn bad-ass, if I do say so myself.

48 HOURS FURIOUS FILMMAKING is back! Bigger and badder than ever.

It's all going down over late May to early June. With the Grand National Winner announced live on C4 TV in late June.

Registrations have opened on the website. Go sign up for what will be the most fun you can have with a video camera in a single weekend!

This years TV promo (made by last years winners): HERE

The above quote, from Pauline Kael, kinda sums up my mood at the moment...

I held a movie binge last night, to which ONE person showed up (he knows who he is, and can hold his head high) after I had gone to the effort of sending out invites to ALL of my friends.
A scant few people had said they were going to be able to make it and by the end of the day I had only one apology for non-attendance (get well, pharmacopaeia).
What happened to the rest of you pikers? Grrrr, I am not happy...
This has made me consider never doing this kind of thing again, or at least not inviting anyone I know will not show up or condemn me for trying to be a balanced film afficianado.

I ended up throwing the whole program (bar 3 films) outa the window and allowing my guest to choose the line-up. It was pretty fuckin' entertaining all told.

1. Some Trailers for upcoming movies
2. BANILIEUE 13
3. THIS FILM IS NOT YET RATED
4. A video mashup, provided by a friend.
5. LADY TERMINATOR
6. THE BEYOND
7. SOUNDSTAGE - THE ANDY KAUFMAN SHOW
8. NEGADON
9. BLACK DEVIL DOLL FROM HELL
10. THE THING

(#3 was one of the best docos about the movies I have seen in a while.)
(#6 was something of a revelation. Gory, surreal and completely jaw-dropping.)
(#9 killed us both, as it is designed to.)
(#10 never goes amiss in any circumstances.)

So, having my weekends back is starting to bear many forms of fruit, like a higher creative time and general personal productivity. This weekend was particularly good.

On Friday night I went and saw PAN'S LABYRINTH
This is simply Guillermo Del Toro's best film and will certainly appear in my list of top 20 films of 2007. Beautifully shot, superbly written, perfectly rendered effects, with a stunning cast living their roles. This deserved the visual effects Oscars it won and should be recognised as a modern masterwork. My only complaint is that I saw it on a screen that was far too small to do it justice and with the sound at about half the level it should have been. I am looking forward to seeing it at a multiplex soon. (I never thought I'd ever find myself saying that!)
Walking home afterward, through the manic desperation that is the Christchurch Friday night "meat-market", I realised that what Del Toro has made is something that is woefully missing from the world, the wonder and imagination of childhood reflected through an adult sensibility. So instead of going and having a few drinks, I walked briskly home, content that I had seen one of the finest films of the year, while the rest of the world wallowed in its usual fetid state of decay.

Woke early Saturday morning with my day mostly mapped out, working on two short student films that I had been asked to do.
The first, BOGART MUTATIONS, by amphibious-one was shot about 15minutes north of Chch at her home and involved me (and a few other DramaSoc buddies) being various shifty FBI types (you know that we are coz we have "FBI" tags on our lapels) plotting the demise of an inbred family of crazies. A labour of love six years in the making, these shots are the final touches that shall wrap the whole piece together and bring it to its conclusion for the director's 20th Birthday, where it will be premiered. All good fun, with a director we all lovingly referred to as having a bit of an Ed Wood quality - gave us direction, set up shot, captured shot, "OK, great, let's move on!".

Finished filming there about 11.40 and got a lift into town with entomocephalous, the director of the second film of the day.

His was something much different.
As an assignment for his Uni Fine Arts Film Course, he had been given 100m of film stock, an Arriflex 16ST and told to put something on film. He got me, ambulans and searlo as his actors, trundled us down to a local park and improvised a short cyclic "annoyance on a park bench" routine. Being film, we rehearsed pretty rigorously (which was probably the biggest difference between the two films of the day) before commiting anything to celluloid. I never knew the sound of actual film running through the gate as it captures could be so exciting. We originally thought we'd only have just enough film for the rehearsed material, but by the time we were done there was about 20ft left, so we improvised a small fantasy sequence for my character.

After that we all had Popsicles and K-Bars, and the sun did shine and we were all happy children. :)

Headed back to Andrew's house to watch the rushes of the documentary we made while shooting. The small amount I used the camera made me realise just how heavily I have been influenced by the films of Russ Meyer - I certainly like my low angle camera and fast, flashy in-camera editing! The semi-voyeristic shot of two Asian schoolgirls didn't go unnoticed either!

Went home and spent the rest of the day chilled out - watched episode one of HEROES, about half of THE BODY BENEATH and did a bit more work on the trailer compilation for next weekend (a little more on that below). Then early to bed.

Sunday: pottered about most of the morning - getting supplies for the coming week (and next weekend), doing washing, usual mundane shit - then headed into town with some of the FilmSoc crew, making sure our flyers and posters were well spread around the central city.

Got home about 5pm and have been playing WoW all evening, not even stopping for dinner (ok, so there was that 15minute pause where I had to sign a bunch of cheques...). I finally managed to complete three quests that have been aching to get done and picked up the first fragment of my key to Karazan. The next two parts require a flying mount, and I am about 80 gold short, so all in-game time shall be devoted to making a bit more cash before finishing my full key. I'll hopefully have it by the end of Easter.

By god, it's been a well-balanced, fun weekend! And I'm looking forward to several more like this in the forseeable future! Time for bed...

Coming Up:
As previously mentioned, I'm having another of my famous all-night movie binges next weekend. If you're interested in having your mind melted by all manner of cinematic brain rot, message me and I'll send you more details.

GRINDHOUSE is looking like a 31st May release in this country, after its release in the US later this week. The only review you may ever need to read about it is HERE. Possibly the greatest review ever written. Period.

48 Hours registrations open sometime in the next 24 hours. Am busily getting prepped once more for the craziness in May/June. Have you got your team together? If not, why not? It's gonna be a super crazy funtime competition this year and bigger & better than ever!