Back in Melbourne I used to sit around on Sunday afternoons and listen to Radio 3RRR, a community station that had this great series of shows. The journalism/politics one was just after a restaurant/trade show, and in waiting to listen to that I soon got in the habit of listening to the morning film show. I'll be honest and admit that after visiting some friends in LA in 2001 I was thinking pretty seriously about dropping the study altogether and going to film school.
All that stopped me was the thought of pretty much going back to square one in my chosen profession. Of course, no sooner had I finished the study in that chosen profession I went back to square one in the public service. But at least I get things like paid sick days, something never to be overlooked in the job satisfaction stakes.
You can imagine then that chipping in to make 'Coupled' this past weekend was something of a fulfilment of a long-standing want. So big thanks to Hayden and Mike for letting me talk them into being an odd-body on the set.
For starters I got to work with one of only two Weta Workshops crews (as far as I'm aware). A bloody nice people they were too. If you're going to be hauling your sorry arse out of bed at 6am to volunteer for 18 hour days, it's all good when they're decent people. But this also means that we've put together what, in my most humble opinion, is a pretty good film. I also think I'm not alone in thinking that 'Coupled' is not a barker.
If you're not aware of how this 48 Hours thingo works, you get given a genre, a line or two, a character name, and an event. Each of these things has to appear in the no-longer-than-7min short film. One previous character name was 'Bodil Drezney'. How freaking annoying is that? Luckily this year it was 'Robin Slade', a name dutifully applied. The genre was 'based on a true story', which isn't absolutely the worst. The film also had to include the line, "That's what I'm talking about', and a mirror.
Armed with this information, away we went.
After having seen Hayden's post this afternoon I was surprised at the company I was keeping. You'd think people with as much experience as that crew would be a little more, well, 'wanky'. But no, and should the opportunity arise I'll happy whip up a couple of roast chooks and fresh bread again.
Other highlights include.
- Being too knackered to get it together to blog about the weekend until just now.
- Trying to explain to a rather small dog that mandarins are monkey food. If his ancestors could climb trees, he'd be getting his own citrus. And then watching him eat several segments. Jay, if Charlie carks it, it was Mike's idea.
- Having to get Tom, who was exhausted from being the leading man for 18 hours, help me crash-start the Civic, it having broken down again. It lurched into action so quickly that he almost face-planted. The remainder of the crew near wet themselves laughing. Heh Heh. Fatigue makes other peoples misfortune funny.
- Attending the last few minutes of event, where people rushed to get their films in. At 20 mins to the deadline the huge 'master' clock on the wall accidentally flicked to 0:00:00. I've never actually seen to so many people looking like they just dropped one in their undies.
- Actually a lowlight, but the poor bastard I saw running his film and paperwork up the stairs at the Embassy a good five or ten minutes too late. If he'd done as much work as we had, he'll be gutted to not make it on time. Sorry bro.
All in all a very good weekend. If you're interested in seeing 'Coupled' it's screening tomorrow night at the Regent, look out for the team name 'Bongo and the Sponge Monkeys'. I'll try and get my hands on some of the photos that were taken of the days, so you can get a feel for what happened.
And honestly, if I had have known making films was going to be this much fun? I would have sought the titles, 'Music Supervisor' and '1st AC' many years ago.
Maybe.