Archive for November 2007

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DAY 30 - I can't believe it's DAY 30!

1 more day to go! Got my ass kicked last night at the temple. Shot until 4:30 am and I was done. Good and done. Amy and Tim and all the Pale Figures kicked ass but things just didn't go as smoothly as I thought they would. The scene of Amy coming into the sacrifice room, which I estimated to take half an hour at the most, took like three freaking hours to shoot. Blew all our time until before lunch. Couldn't believe it, but it's the way the day went. Actually, the first two days at the temple were unusually hard. Tim had a big make-up day and it took so long to get him ready once he was on set. Actually, just getting him into the set proved to be a hell of a chore, since he had make-up all over his body and the set had a foot of water on the floor. He had to come in wearing my waders and had to take them off up on the sacrificial platform. He looked like a Greek god up there all made up in white make-up, looking down at his people, green waders up to his waist. Quite a sight. Then we dragged our way through the dialogue scene and then shot Amy's break-down right at the end of the night. I had her only do one take because she nailed it and we were all just freaking done by that time. I was at the point where I started feeling careless and that's not a good way to direct. It's hard enough without having this crazy exhaustion overwhelming you. Tonight was a different story. A big scene that I thought was going to be a ball-buster ended up being relatively pain-free, at least for me, because I wasn't standing in the damn water like Amy, Lam and Handsome, the 2nd AD, were. Handsome was freezing but Amy and Lam seemed cool with it. I was really worried about Amy. It's hard to act when you're cold. The wet-suit she wore under her clothes really did the trick. Her performance was great. Had Amy out of there by 10 or so, I think. Great night for her. Then started with the Pale Figures running around the temple. Got that done before 1 am. Got home at 2 am. Great short day after two crazy long ones. Have to hit the hay now. Should be getting up around this time 24 hours from now to start heading over to the landfill, the last day of shooting ahead of me. Really looking forward to getting up this early. It's great fun. But I have the day off tomorrow which means hanging with the family. Last day with Sandra and Toby, too, who are leaving on Sunday. It's been a cool trip for them. They went to the set again today and took pictures with Amy. My sister's a fan. Already having some sad feelings about ending the shoot. I really going to miss this crew and shooting in Hong Kong, even though I've dreaded so much of it. Contradicting emotions at play right now. Sunday will be an emotional day for me. Peace out and here's to the last day of shooting SEVENTH MOON! At least until the pick-up day on Monday. -ed HAXAN YOUTUBE DIRECTOR'S FLICKR PRODUCER'S FLICKR ACTOR'S FLICKR

DAY 28 - The temple shoot begins!

3 more days to go! Lord, it seems like the end would never come. 10 more script pages to shoot, 76 down. We shoot 5 of those pages tonight. The temple set looked FANTASTIC! Lau, Gloria and their crew did it right. The two extras days made all the difference in the world. Couldn't be happier with the results. Shooting inside the temple was a little tricky, but once we got the hang of it, we made some good time. Wrapped around 4 am. Amy wore a thin wet-suit under her clothes to keep her warm and was wet the whole time inside but she didn't complain at all. It was actually kind of warm inside the temple, probably because of the sun hitting the outside of it all day. I was actually sweating in my t-shirt and boots. The Pale Figures came through like champs, as usual. These guys were fine in the middle of the night with the warmth of the temple but later in the night it started getting cold and they were completely wet but they still did what they had to do, man. And with enthusiasm, too. Got some more great stuff last night, hoping to get more tonight. We have the last dialogue sequence in the film tonight and then it's all a big-ass chase for the next two days. Hoping to get some of Friday's stuff shot tonight. Wish us luck as we enter day two of the temple! -ed HAXAN YOUTUBE DIRECTOR'S FLICKR PRODUCER'S FLICKR ACTOR'S FLICKR

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Ed stole my thunder!

Yeah Ed told it all below. Man. Tough couple of days. It was great to be shooting again last night. Here are a couple of pictures to accent Ed's blog post.  I'll report tonight on the first day in the temple.

This is the very beginning of the build for the temple.  Just a bunch of rubble and 2 x 4's

Gregg talking with Lau our production designer.  She is really talented but at this moment we had realised it just was not going to work.  He would have to push the schedule 2 days.  A tough decision for any producer but I'm really glad we did it.

 The covered temple awaits.  Tonight we will see if it works.  Gregg and I were thrilled with what they had done in the extra two days.  These guys work amazingly hard and at the end of the day - they pulled it off.

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DAY 27 - Final week begins

4 days left! We are winding down on this sucker for real. Had Monday off due to the temple set not being done. Three-day weekend was great. I actually got to settle in to a normal life that last two days. I can't believe I'll have my life back again this time next week. My sister Sandra and her boyfriend Toby came in Saturday night and we hung with them the whole weekend. Went to OCEAN PARK yesterday, which was cool. Got some good sleep, too. We went over to check it out on Sunday and they still needed a few days to complete it. No way they would've been done by Monday. So we killed Monday and planned some re-shoots for tonight and we start on the temple all tomorrow, all fresh and clean like. Wasn't the art department's fault, though. We had some problems finding the location to build it and turned it over to them two weeks late. But Gregg went over to see it today and reported back that all was right with the temple. He said all the problems we had with it on Sunday are gone and the set looks damn tight. Very happy about that. Gregg said that he literally felt a great weight being lifted off his shoulders. Did some re-shoots today of the candle house sacrifice that we got boned on last week. The effect didn't turn out much better, but we got some good stuff. We had a little shot of Yul bleeding from his head that we didn't have time to get right last week so we tried to re-shoot it tonight with mixed results. I think the method we were using just wasn't going to give me the results I wanted, so I stopped after two takes. They had tubes glued into Tim's hair. I felt so bad for him. We might end up fixing what we shot last week digitally. It'll look good with a little work. We also shot some stuff with us following the car down a dark road and the car broke down right when the light was good. We've had so many problems with this damn shot. Finding the right road has been impossible and then we've had technical problems every time we try to shoot it. We finally shot the damn thing but I don't know if it's going to work. I hope it does. If not, we have to pick it up on Monday night, one night before the wrap party, which is something I definitely do not want to do. So we start the temple stuff tomorrow. We had four days to shoot it but now we're going to try to make it happen in three. Should be all right since it was scheduled very fat. Then we'll come back on Sunday morning to shoot the end scene at the landfill and we will be shot out, dudes. Done with shooting SEVENTH MOON! Can't wait. The temple should be fun if we can get it right. It has the potential to be really time-consuming but I'm hoping that with some luck we'll have a few semi-short nights this week. We'll need it dealing with all that damn water. I'm off to sleep. 2 am. Peace. -ed HAXAN YOUTUBE DIRECTOR'S FLICKR PRODUCER'S FLICKR ACTOR'S FLICKR

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DAY 26 - One more week to go!

5 more days! After 3 am and can't get to sleep. That'll teach me for writing a movie that takes place 95% in the dark! I can't get to sleep on my nights off! Finished a good week today with some shots at Flying Goose. Got home a bit after 11 pm. Stef was watching ALTERED so I watched the end with her. She had never seen it from beginning to end. We never had an MD screening of the film. Good to see the end of the film again. We actually shot during the day today which was nice. We go back to nights next week for the Temple. Gregg and I are checking the set out on Sunday and keeping our fingers crossed. They are putting the water in tomorrow. That thing is going to be ready just in the nick of time, I think. Cutting it really close. Last day of shooting will be Friday, which will actually be a daylight shoot. We'll get there early on Saturday morning, shoot during the sunrise and then shoot during the morning as day for night, hopefully be done by noon. Hopefully. Shooting at a landfill that day. Great way to end a film in Hong Kong. Actually, we have a pick-up day next Monday which we're partly going to use. We need to re-do some shots from Wednesday night, just as we suspected. The sacrificial scene looks great, though. John did an amazing job with a quick edit and Rob was actually tearing up a bit after we saw it today. There's a special effect that we want to re-do, though. We just didn't have enough time when we shot it to get it right. We're also going to re-shoot the last shot I was shooting when the sun ruined our night. Can't shoot night scenes with the sun out. Doesn't work very well. Okay, have to get to sleep now. My sister Sandra and her man Toby are coming in tomorrow night so the kids are all excited and stuff. Stef and I are going shopping with the Hales during the day for gifts for people back home. Should be a real hoot, that's for sure. Here's to a great weekend. Peace. -ed HAXAN YOUTUBE DIRECTOR'S FLICKR PRODUCER'S FLICKR ACTOR'S FLICKR

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END OF WEEK 5 - The end is near!

6 days left! What a difference a night makes. I just got home an hour ago at 1 am after the shortest and easiest nights we've had in a while. I got home last night at 8 am after a grueling night of battling a light rain and trying to squeeze too much into one day of shooting. Tonight I feel pretty great, loading more YOUTUBE and FLICKR crap and writing a new blog. Last night I climbed into bed and felt like dying after shooting literally until the daylight stopped us from shooting our final shot, which I don't know if we got. Last night's debacle was partly to blame for last week's rain, which forced us to shoot everything inside and pile on some exterior stuff onto the schedule for yesterday. Had to shoot two big exteriors (and match what we shot last week inside) and then shoot a pretty complex sequence with Tim and Amy and 10 Pale Figures. Then it started raining later in the night, not heavy to cancel the shoot but just enough to make life difficult. It was a real hoot, I tell you. The kind of days I live for as a filmmaker. Couldn't have been more different tonight. Everyone was in much better spirits and I was feeling damn good about myself. A short night and the end of the week in sight! Shot some stuff outside with a stunt driver and stunt double and then inside the car with Tim and Amy to finally finish the field crash scene. Seems like we've been shooting parts of that thing for weeks now. But that shit is in the can now and we are officially done with Tim or Amy working in that damn car. We also said goodbye to Tiger today. His last night of shooting was a short one, just a small cutaway inside the car as it drives through a field. Tiger is a good man and added a lot to the role of MAN. I know I should name him but for now he's just MAN to me. I'll see Tiger at the wrap party but it was sad to see him go. Tomorrow is a short night, too. Hopefully. The family is coming to visit so I'm excited about that. I love having Stef and the kids around the set. Makes me happy. We're going out a little early to shoot a day shot and then we have two night shots to do. It's at a place they call Flying Goose and it's this beautiful mountain park so it should be nice, even though we'll just be on the side of the road in a drainage pipe. We're making it look like the watery temple entrance that Melissa goes into at the end of the film. We'll see how Amy does with crawling into a pipe. She goes in and then we pick her up next week at the temple set that's still under construction. Visited that set today before the shoot and it's coming along. Only three more days until they have to be done and they still have a lot of work to do. Gregg is worried, of course. But we've been very generous with the schedule at this place with four days to shoot everything and even though I know it's going to be a pain in the ass, I hope to shave a day off next week. Or at least have four relatively short days. We'll need it since the entire place in at least a foot or so of water. Fun, fun, fun! Oh, yeah, Hale finally posted a blog, but on his CAMPFIREMEDIA site. I guess HAXAN isn't good enough for the White Ape. Anyway, have to get to bed. I checked out the edit today and scanned through the film and it looks pretty damn good, I must say. We might have something cool here. Just have to keep it up for 6 more days. 6 more days! Praise the film gods for a great last week of shooting. -ed HAXAN YOUTUBE DIRECTOR'S FLICKR PRODUCER'S FLICKR ACTOR'S FLICKR