First and second day

Just got back from watching a pretty bad movie with Gregg. It’s midnight here and we’re trying to stay up late to get ready for night shooting, which starts tomorrow. Going to be a real hoot. At least it won’t be as hot. Today was horrible for a few hours in the afternoon.

First day of shooting wrapped last Friday evening in Lee’s Village. Everything went really well and we got everything we wanted and we finished on time, which is always good on the first day. We shot with Amy, Tim and Dennis Chan on a process trailer with Lam and I outside the car shooting through the windows as we sped down the road. No problems there. The shots looked great. I let them improv some of the dialogue and they really got into it.

Then we moved over to Lee’s Village to shoot the scene that happens before the car scene we had just shot, when the newlyweds meet Ping at his car. It was hot as hell that day and we were waiting for the sun to go down a little bit, since it’s supposed to be a dusk scene, and a dude from the town starts freaking out about something. Obviously, we have no idea what he’s talking about but he’s yelling and pointing at shit and our guys are trying to calm him down. Turns out he’s the Village Chief. That’s what they called him. I thought we were going to lose our location.

A few old ladies in the village were upset because we had some signs up that said Ghost Festival or something like that on them, and they were freaked out by them and thought they would bring bad luck to their town. Old chiefy was mad because he thought this was a romantic comedy or some shit, about a couple coming to town to buy something. I guess our location person hadn’t exactly told him the truth, which I kind of understand judging by the reaction they had to the signs. Anyway, we took the signs down and he was cool after a while. Lau and her team came in quickly and tried to decorate the town as much as they could with the little time they had and with non-offensive materials. They did a great job.

And that really was the most exciting thing that happened on the first day of shooting SEVENTH MOON. The actors were great, the crew really worked well together and we got some pretty good stuff in the can. And then we had two days off! I should’ve been damn happy.

But I wasn’t. Fell into a major bad mood about everything. The ghosts of ALTERED and the nightmare I went through last Fall swooped down on me and left me as depressed as I’ve been in quite a while. I was exhausted, physically and emotionally, and was feeling BAD, man. Just not trusting my instincts and honestly wanting to quit, right then and there. Scared. Even watching the second episode of SURVIVOR: CHINA failed to cheer me up. I was in a serious funk.

I was better the next morning and by today, when we started our second day, I was back to my normal self. I guess that was something that I had to go through after what happened on my last film. My head was back on the chopping block yet again and I guess I wasn’t as comfortable with it as I thought I was.

Hopefully the fear has been conquered, because I got none of that sinking feeling when we wrapped today at the old Hong Kong airport. I felt good. Damn good. We started the day in Kowloon City, shooting the stuff with Tim and Amy that will cut together with the footage we shot at the end of August at the real Hungry Ghost festival. We faked the parade and shot a ton of the couple just walking around, drinking fake beer and shopping, seeing all the sights and smells that the town had to offer. It was actually pretty fun.

Then we headed over to the airport where Lau had built us a cool area matching what we saw in August at the festival. We burned a huge King of Ghosts and shot a bunch of Amy and Tim walking around acting totally like the American tourists they are in the film. Burning the King of Ghosts was cool as shit, too. We burned three half-sized ones to shoot through the flames at Amy and Tim and then burned a full-size one with the crowd of extras going nuts, throwing peanuts and rice at it and shouting and stuff. Very nice footage. A lot of fun, too.

So the second day is done, and we are now moving to nights until the very last day of the shoot. We’ve got a long way to go but at least we’ve started. Two days down, 30 or so more to go.

Tomorrow night we shoot the first scene with a Pale Figure. We just catch a glimpse of him in this scene but hopefully it’ll be a good little look. Should be fun. We start out with a dialogue scene in the car between Amy and Dennis. It’ll be a good start to the night.

I’m off to bed now. 12:45 is as long as I can take it.

Peace from Hong Kong. Heading into nights…

-ed