I’ve been on vacation since I got back from Hong Kong but I’ve slipped away for a bit to write the next chapter of the adventure.
TUESDAY - So today was the day. The last day of scouting, so we either found what we needed or we didn’t and the discussion would turn to shooting in Malaysia, which the OCTOBER guys say is the best option for this film.
Drove all out quite a ways to a house that I had seen pictures of and loved. Only problem was that is was surrounded by other buildings, which means lights at night, but we wanted to see it anyway.
The place was amazing. Two story joint with a balcony over the entrance and all beat up to hell inside and out. It’s one of these places that you know is old but you can’t really date it, like a lot of Hong Kong. And it’s a location that inspired me, the first in Hong Kong to do so. I had an idea of how I wanted this place to look while I wrote the scene but I never imagined that I would find a place that so took that idea and ran with it. I couldn’t have designed it better myself. Just a dream.
And I saw the biggest damn WASPS I’ve ever seen in all my freaking life! I know you can’t tell the scale in the photo but they were over two inches long and mean-looking. We’re going to have to do a serious clean-up of this joint if we shoot here.
Walked outside as Gregg and Matt talked about the impossibility of shooting out here because of the surrounding lights. I tell them not to worry, that the place is perfect and I can get any angle I want out here. I’ve stacked out the joint and know I can get away with it. They are pretty happy. A great start to the day.
Out to the road that leads to the house and found a golden umbrella outside a bamboo forest. Don’t know what this is about. The bamboo forest had a great entrance and the interior is sparse enough to stage some action in here. A definite possibility for a cool scene.
Another stroke of luck comes as we look into the land right next to that big house and find a perfect farm house, surrounded by woods. A few mangy dogs chained outside and barking at us! Freaking perfect. Man, three possible locations right next to each other. Our luck is a changing.
Next we drive a bit and walk down this really long, elevated sidewalk and see a few things that might work. Just really random buildings and areas out here. Found tow great places to show the main characters leaving the town they visit at the beginning of the film. On foot and then in the car.
Headed out to another pretty sparsely populated area dotted with burial chambers. We’ve seen these a lot during our trip. It seems like they’re all over the hillsides, which always makes me wonder how the hell they’re getting these large amounts of concrete out to all these places. It’s amazing.
Inside the chambers, they’re filled with urns like these, which the guys tell us are filled with what we thought they were filled with, the remains of the dead. Pretty cool and pretty creepy. Gives me an idea for how to get rid of the river in one of the scenes. We still haven’t found a good river so maybe I can work something out with these burial chambers and eliminate that logistically troubling part of the script.
And yes, Ronald completely pulled through, with an amazing area of perfects roads and fields. I’d kiss him on the lips if I knew him better. Maybe I’ll kiss him anyway. I can now start adjusting the script to what I see out here. It’s going to be hot.
More great news from the road. Matt and Man Man found a little puppy! He was in trouble, too, in the middle of nowhere next to road in some high grasses. I have no idea where he came from but he was a cute little guy. Man Man gave it away to a couple of school girls while we ate lunch. Good luck, little guy!
So we were in a good mood. Hell, a great mood. We stop at an arcade, Gregg plays a drumming game as I check out the really cool horse racing game with real moving little horses running around the track! I’ve never seen anything like this.
Next stop, an abandoned British military base. Such a cool place to be stationed back in the day. Paradise. Find a bunch of cool little wooded areas, another good choice for a farm house, a funky temple, and some great fields to work into our plans, too. Maybe we can build the whole end scene set here in the field, like Ben suggested yesterday. This place is cheap to rent, too.
We keep moving, Matt starts looking rough, like he ate something bad. But he’s a trooper. Keeps walking around with us. We kick it to this place called SUN VALLEY and it’s rightly named. So hot, but the skies were so beautiful. I’ll keep this place in mind but I don’t think we can use it for anything right now.
Our day is done and we have some time so we head over to see a KONG KONG film shoot in progress. This is the film that Ben and Charlie are working on. Really great shoot. The crew is not very big and they move incredibly fast. Reminded me of film school, when we worked fast and furiously and the crews weren’t bloated (as far as number is concerned, not weight) like they seem to get in the US.
Charlie was impressive in action, that’s for sure. Gregg, Matt and I were pretty impressed with the whole operation. A lot of these people might end working on our film and we couldn’t be happier.
To end the great day with a blast, we head over to a fishing village at the end of a long, winding mountain road. They have all the seafood sitting in tanks so that you know it’s fresh. We sit on a dock with a great view and eat another great meal in HONG KONG. And Gregg and On get hammered on Chinese wine that looks more like diesel fuel than wine. Gregg gives it to our bus driver as a gift. Even he can’t handle this stuff.
Back in the bus, Man Man falls asleep after a long and very productive day. At the start of this day, we were talking Malaysia, but now we’re talking Hong Kong again and that makes us all feel a lot better. Moving the film anywhere else will cause huge delays.
So I still have a lot of thinking and re-working to do but I feel pretty confident that I can make it work. I’ll start thinking about that next week when I get back home. We’re headed for the beach for a week so I’ll have plenty of time to work it through in my head.
But right now, it looks like we’re going to be making a film in HONG KONG, motherfuckers!
Peace.
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