Happy Birthday to my main man Lucas Miguel “The Duke” Sanchez! Went to Hong Kong Disney on Friday for his birthday and then had a nice little party for him at Matt’s today as my beautiful boy turned 4! Love that little monkey like crazy.

Four more days and the shoot begins! I feel like I still could use a month or so of prep but we’re actually pretty ready to go over here. I’m looking forward to it like hell.

Auditioned with the Pale Figures again last week and those boys are getting it pretty good. Their movement from the first rehearsal to this one is much improved. Some of those boys are freaking me out, man. I was working them through some exercises, seeing who moved best on the floor and on a table, starting to break them up into individual scenes and shit. I also chose the one that is going to deliver the first quick glimpse of the face of one of these things. This guy is scary, man, and I still haven’t even seen him in the make-up.

We lost the Tiny Village location last week. We had permission from the town but some higher ups in the government didn’t want us shooting there. The place is pretty close to the mainland China border so that probably has something to do with it. Just a glimpse of the problems we’d be having if we were shooting on the mainland.

So we went back the original village that Rob saw way back during his first visit here. We had discounted that place because it was going to be a ton of work for our production designer Lau but we’re running out of options at this point and Lau actually liked this place a lot better than the one we lost. It is completely deserted except for an old man that lives out there with his dogs and the place is a mess, but with a little fixing and tweaking it’s going to be creepy as hell.

We went out there today with Lam our DP and Alan our Gaffer and they were a bit taken aback by the challenge of lighting this place from head to toe. I want to be able to take the actors through there in continuous takes so they’re going to have to light the whole damn thing, but once Lam got permission to get more help from Gregg, he was optimistic about what had to be done out there.

Riceball is in the house! Johnny Rice is here, ready to kick some major ass! Johnny is heading up our editing crew here and it’s good to have him as part of the team on another film. That boy is a good man for sure. He’s going to be editing the film and putting together a rough cut as we go to make sure we’re getting everything we need. Then he’ll head to Maryland after the shoot to assist Michael Cronin, who is coming back after his work on ALTERED. They’ll probably end up as co-editors on this film since I’m positive Johnny is going to give us a ton of workable scenes but they worked together on ALTERED so things should run smoothly. Anyway, it’s good to know Johnny is here in Hong Kong making sure all the footage gets in it’s right place.

Actor Tim Chiou got here last night. I didn’t know him very well but he’s such a good guy. He ended up coming to Lukey’s party and he hung with us the whole afternoon, then had dinner with him. It’s going to be a real joy watching him bring Yul to life.

Amy Smart gets here tomorrow night. I may head out to meet here at the airport. We start our rehearsals with her on Tuesday. Can’t wait to see her and Tim working it, man.

The SEVENTH MOON website is up. It’s just a bunch of links to the blogs and FLICKR accounts but Karcher did a fantastic job on it as usual. That boy is a freaking freak. Music is by KENT SPARLING, who’ll be scoring the music with BLAIR WITCH and ALTERED alumni Tony Cora. Just a taste of the sickness they’re going to produce.

Tons of junk to do this week. Make-up tests, final fittings, hair-cuts, rehearsals, fight rehearsals, lighting test. Don’t know how I’m going to get through it. Testing out the big helium balloon and our moving car shots on Thursday night and then we start shooting on Friday. Relatively simple day with Yul and Melissa meeting Ping and then a driving scene with a process trailer (which I’ve never shot on before), and then we get the weekend to work through any big issues and get shit together for Monday. I’m really behind on my shot sheets to I’m going to have to be catching up on nights and weekends during the first few weeks until I get it done. Going to be crazy for a while.

But Stef and the kids go back home in two weeks so even though I’ll miss them like mad, I’ll have more time to work on junk. Hopefully continue posting, too.

So that’s the deal. Friday is the big day and I’m excited as hell about it. Looks like we’re as tight as we can be right now and everyone is ready to start making this film, including me.

Send good vibes my way! Please! This film has got to rock hard and steady! Steady rocking all night long!

Peace.

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