Dusty Back Room.

Well here is a copy of the music video I made for my friend Simon Beeston. I would like to say its completely finished, but I basically ran out of time.
There are supposed to be six more plane shots, which in turn would have padded out the end more, and the stop frame footage of the girl in the room was supposed to be shorter and take up less time. It was just unfortunate timing that right in the middle of shooting and beginning post on it, I became one of the lead compers on a massively under quoted tv job, which took 2 months out of video making time, and my spare time......which was when I had to make the video anyway as its a freebie. That left me with little under 3 weeks to do it all, and seeing as I don't produce my time very well, I ended up spending too much time on some shots, not enough on others and none on the said six, which really would have helped the edit, because as it was I had barely enough footage to cover everything. Anyway.
I still kind of like it, but would have loved to have had another 2 months on it. But, I suppose, what are ya gonna do?
Anyway, the track is called 'Dusty Back Room' and my idea for it was based around my trips back to NZ. Everytime I go back (which now can be over a year between trips) I look thru all the things packed up into boxes and usually covered in dust. On one of these trips I found a viewmaster. I love those things. This was a few years ago now, but I had been toying with the idea of doing an animation based around the flick when you pull the lever for a while.
Simon and I also share a common love of planes (and Top Gun, haha) so I figured with the orchestral sounding track and the idea of finding things in a room, some sweet looking ww2 fighters would be a go to place as images in the viewmaster.
Being in visual fx, I mostly get to work with Cgi, and never models, so I decided to do a shoot with 1.72 model planes. I choose so small because they were easier to move the camera around, and I had to set up a blue screen studio in my spare room and that couldn't have been too big. I tracked all the planes backgrounds and the planes themselves in PF track, painted up some propellers, made a big sky texture, got some 2d cloud elements and threw them all into a 3d scene in nuke.
I never wanted the planes to look photo realistic, I always had an idea that they would look like a 1950s Godzilla movie model, or at least a bit bung but stylized.
The stop frame animation for all the stuff with the girl (the lovely Lyndall) came from the fact that I thought seeing as she was seeing moving images in a still image based toy, it might be nice to swap it around so the live action was made up of stills. I also wanted the whole thing to look a bit jumpy and not too polished. Kind of like Fantastic Mr Foxes quirky stop motion.
Anyway, I am not sure how well it worked, mainly because I have not had any distance form it yet, and I am a little sad I never got to complete it properly!

This is the most realistic video I have ever seen...

about working in commercials.




Thanks to Mr Flower for this one!

Animal Collective @ Brixton academy

The guys were still good. They played a lot of older stuff this time, which was enjoyable. Their stage show has got more lights and trippy stuff going on now too. However, the sound at Brixton academy is so shit. It was frustrating to the max. A song would come on and you'd get all super pumped and then all you can hear is the bass and the tops. No midrange. Anyway, they still ruled, was just a little sad about the sound.
Fuck Brixton Academy. Fuck it right in the eye with some garden shears.

I'm getting old.

So I was listening to this review of The Watchmen movie (which I thought was pretty good all things considered actually) and the guy reviewing compared it to those old records you used to get where you'd read along with a cliffs notes version of the movie and the records would play sound effects and dialogue from the films, and you could also read along with the story. He basically said that the Watchmen film was like a read-a-long version of the graphic novel.
Anyway.....whatever.............
I had completely forgotten about those things! So I looked them up and found a few photos of the ones I owned. I found some pictures on an antique toy website. Antique! For fucks sake.
I then tried to turn around and see if James (the fella that sits next to me) had heard of them. He is 25 so I changed it to tapes instead of records because I remember they made those as well and I thought he may be more a cassette kid than an LP kid.
He just looked at me blankly like I was crazy. So did Lyndall when I asked her.
They had no idea what I was on about.
Ugh.
Anyway looking at these pictures brings back all sorts of fun time memories of sitting on the lounge room floor and turning the page when Indie cracked his whip or R2 beeped.
Funny thing is my brain is now putting those memories in a kind of sepia tone grade, with 8mm film dust on them and lots of weave as the film goes through the gate.
Fucking arsehole brain. I bet it thinks its really funny doing that. What a cunt.

Anvil

So I watched Anvil - The story of Anvil on the weekend. I agree with Mark Keomode. It is an amazing film. I can't believe I hadn't seen it earlier.
It is a documentary about the band Anvil, A heavy metal band who should have been massive and had the respect of many of the biggest metal bands in the world musically, but somehow never made it.
Sacha Gervasi, the director of the film, had been one of their English fans when he was a teenager.
When the band had toured London, he had gone back stage and they asked if he would like to come with them on the rest of the tour. Lips and Rob (the two foundations of the band) took this 15 year old under their wing.
Years later, after Sacha had made it as a Hollywood writer he wondered, what ever happened to Anvil?
So he called, and was amazed to find they were still making music, had released 14 albums, but had had no critical or commercial success. 30 years with no success but they still believed in themselves and the band just as much as the day they formed it when they were 14. They are now 50.
So Sacha decided to make a film about them.
The thing that I found so great about it, is even though we can laugh at some of these aging metal freaks, I feel like it was all done in a loving way. I don't feel it takes the piss out of people for the sake of it which I think would have been an easy path to take. You begin to really care for Lips and Rob, and their families who support them. You are amazed at their commitment and hard work, and in particular, even with crushing set backs, the glimmer of hope that they always hold onto. I couldn't quite believe the way that you can be laughing one minute and in tears the next. And I mean literally in tears. You really, really want these guys to make it. So much so that when things do go right you feel like jumping up on your chair and screaming for them.
Anyway as you can tell I'm pretty fond of this movie. You couldn't have written better characters. What began for me as watching it for a laugh, possibly at Lips and Robs expense ended up with me, really respecting their ideals of friendship, family and hard work.
And I got this from two aging metal heads. Weird.
Anyway. See this movie.

And she broke everyones heart a little....

So the Lyndallator(ha) and I went to a nice little gig on friday at Cafe Oto to go and see this young American Indian lass called Mariee Sioux.
For starters Cafe Oto is cool.
Its a small place with tables set up where you can get Japanese food, good coffee and booze. (although we had a boozeless gig as we were riding our bikes)
So it began with Alessi's Ark first, although without the Ark part, which I gather is her band and not a boat full of animals, so just Alessi then.
She was great. Really quite quirky, and the songs were all very short and very pretty. Quick fire bursts of pleasure with nice hooks that kinda made you want them to keep going. She also had a nice way of keeping the gig really light, with a few comical stuff ups where she would just stop playing all together, apologise, then have to remember where she was up to and keep going. It was also very hot in there and seeing this very softly spoken, hippie dress wearing girl wipe her forehead on her dress like a farmer on a hot day....if farmers wore dresses, well ,it looked pretty comical.
Next up was Rick Tomlinson. I liked him the most. He played two tracks, each one about 20-25mins long.
It was just him sitting in the middle of the stage, head bowed, with a guitar. He had the guitar plugged into a multi track sampler. So he began playing what is best described as spanish-old-west-folk-mexican style guitar, sampling a bit, playing some more, sampling some more etc etc etc etc.
He added beat samples in by banging the side of his guitar, and by the end of each track, you ended up with something that sounded more like Aphex Twin than folk music. Anyway I really enjoyed it, but felt like it was a funny choice of middle act for what was essentially a folk gig. I like music that changes slowly over time like that though(of course). When you get to the end you have no idea how you arrived at this sonic place from something so quiet and your brain tries to string together the middle part, usually unsuccessfully.
So then Mariee came on. I must admit I was pretty sure I wouldn't like her as all the stuff I have listened to is pretty cheesey, but she treaded the line damn well and stayed on the good side of it. I noticed that lots of her songs mention snakes though. I think perhaps all of them.
Anyway, she is a softly spoken and pretty girl, and you get the feeling everybody would probably like her even if she didn't play songs and just came up on stage and had a chat. But she did play songs. And they were nice. And I was in the mood for nice. It turned out her friend had just died and she used to play the last song she played with her all the time. She looked like she was going to cry when she sung it. It was heartbreaking.

Antichrist

Ok. Lets get the torture part out of the way. Yes its kinda gross. Masturbating a penis till it comes blood after you smashed it with a log is gross. Cutting off your clit is gross. Drilling peoples legs is gross. The thing is. When your presented with these things quite clearly in front of your face, it sort of pushed through gross and into laughable. Its like your brain tells itself that there is no fucking way you'd watch this in real life so it must be a movie. So less shocking than I imagined. And pointless. And it just makes me think Von Trier is a bigger twat head than I already thought he was.
Aside from that, once you remove that stuff, well its boring. Its shot like an expensive commercial for banking or insurance. Which is crap. Remove the penetration shot from the shitty black and white prologue at the start and place an insurance logo at the end of it and you have an ad for accident insurance.
I pretty much absolutely hated how this film was shot. Hated it. Von Triers style smells so badly of intellectual, university, film studying cunt face.
It doesn't feel natural. As far as I see it he is a studied film maker and not one with any natural talent. Like Kevin Smith, but more of a cunt.
I liked the animals in it though.
Willem Dafoe comes across this doe in the forest with a half born baby deer hanging out its deer vagina. That was sort of good horror fair, as was the fox eating itself. The rest of it was crap though. He has tried to do that deep, resonating Lynch thing with sound, but he even fails at that.
The girl in it is so fucking annoying as well. She says all her lines in a whisper, because apprently depressed people whisper all the time.
Maybe he made her whisper on purpose so that people watching would hate women even more. Because the movie did seem like it wanted you to hate women. Anyway I'm sure there is plenty of other reviews about all that. All I'm gonna tell you is its pretty boring, and unless you have a need to see genital violence, I wouldn't bother with it.
Its not scary AT ALL. Its message seems to be a hatred of women and even if that's not what he is saying, that's what everyone thinks it is. And its Obnoxious. If you want a good torture film, watch Takashi Miikes film Audition.
In fact to save yourself watching it, imagine a slow motion shot of a penis going into a vagina and then watch this ad. That's Antichrist.

Drag me to Hell is good.

Go and see it.

The Hangover.

What a fucken pile of shit. I Laughed as much in this film as I laughed in the Deer Hunter. Which obviously was sweet fuck all.
The Hangovers poster has fucking stars all over it as well. Its the most star filled poster I have ever seen. The Poster makes you think its the best film ever made.
Don't you hate how movie posters now all have stars on them. Usually 4 or 5.
Well it's bullshit for two reasons.
1: Most reviewers are people. And people have shit taste. See Titanic and The Hangover as an example.
2: What you see on the poster probably isn't the opinion of a reviewer anyway, but a newspaper or publication getting free advertising on said movie poster.
Example: A wee while ago I was reading a discarded news of the world paper on the tube. Reputable rag that.
There was a review on Transformers 2 in there. It basically said it was the worst movie ever and gave it half a star. I put down the paper, got off the tube and walked past a man pasting up a Transformers 2 poster. Across the top it said. 4 stars: News of the world.
Aside from that. Why the fuck brag about 4 stars anyway. That's like saying, "Wow look at me I'm just above average."
Great.

Sweet stylophone action

Unfinished Business.

So my friend Brett and his friend Nick were making this film. It was all gonna be done in 2d. Anyway I posted one of the finished scenes up here some time ago. The only finished scene.
However. They did complete the storyboards and made a pre-vis version of it.
If anything this makes me want them to complete it all. It is awesome. And the soundtrack. Absolutely cracking.
If you think its awesome too, post in the comments so Brett knows it. Maybe he'll finish it then.

Part 1



Part 2

Design/Pitch/Build/Test/Approve/Sell

These seem like the process's you have to go through to get something onto the market right?
More or less.
We bought a sofabed. We did this because we have guests and gave them our bed. It should be called a sofafuckinguncomfortablepileofcunts.
As a lay awake last night I could not fathom how this thing ever got past the test stage.
Actually, even the design stage.
It has a mattress that is split into four parts and held together with zips. I'm no rocket scientist, but that sounds like a bad idea right off the get go. The four parts are different sizes too, so if you are asleep on the right side your two cushions are only 20cm wide.
I ended up sleeping/steadily getting angry on it like a drunk cowboy on the back of a horse. You know face down, legs and arms splayed over each side.
My mistake was when we bought it, I trusted that even though the design looked a bit silly that with all the testing that must have been done before production, it would surely be as comfy as a normal bed.
It certainly makes a nice sofa, and it was one of the more expensive ones (again a reason to think it would work) but for fuck sake. Who designed it and who approved it as a bed?
I think everyone involved must think that sleeping on a plane in economy class is comfy, because that's what it reminded me of.
Still. Only three more weeks. Ugh.

A Taste of Sonar

A Taste of Sonar was at the roundhouse here in London.
As you may have guessed it was supposed to be a little bit like being at the Sonar music festival in Spain.
It was just like it; except, its a lot less hot in London, Camden is pretty much a shit hole compared to Barcelona and the drinks were cheaper at Sonar last time I went but measures were huge. Aside from that, it sorta, kinda, maybe felt like it.
Jeff Mills was doing one of his crazy DVD-J sets with visuals from vintage Sci Fi movies. It was really good I thought, not least because he lowered the tempo somewhat to his normal full frontal assault techno vibe.
He also had this nifty trick of being able to trigger these two holes on the screen exactly where some of the actors eyes were and then strobe lights spewed out of them. It was a bit freaky looking and the crowd pretty much went nuts for it.
After this I went downstairs and checked out this dude called Internet 2.
This guy was funny as something really, really funny. Like cat aids. Or comedy racism. Or that joke about the holocaust and apples Simon told me once.
Except maybe even funnier because he just kept going for like 30 mins and my face hurt from laughing.
He basically had all these synth pads layed out on the floor that were hooked up to a computer via midi, and he could change what sounds any of these pads made depending on the song (I use the word song here in the broadest possible way. More like noise....but funny noise)
He'd kind of run backwards and forwards making what can be described as the Amelie soundtrack played by a thrash metal band on computers. So cute but noisy then.
The highlight for me was when he asked if anyone in the crowd were djs and for one to come up because he was going to perform a song called dj love.
So this guy got up and internet 2 pulled a random girl out of the audience, put a pad between them and made them hump, thus triggering the synth and making me laugh. He had a lot of audience participation. It was funny.
It makes you notice how shitty dance music crowds are though with their tolerance for anything outside the box, as heaps of the boring fucktards were yelling "play some music" and other such wit filled abuse.
Got fuck yourself in the eye with garden shears you cunts.
Next up was Mary Anne Hobbs. This had to be one of the funniest things I saw.
She was supposed to be playing a Dub Step set. She came out, all blonde hair and sparkles, looking for all the world like a trance-listening extra out of a shit movie made in England about how fun clubbing is. All the fuckwit cuntfaces who hated on Internet 2 seemed happy and I heard several "I'd do her" comments.
Classy.
Anyway she came out jumping around like a total fuckwad, waving her hands in the air and acting like Teisto while her first track began building up....and then the rig stopped, making the room silent and making her look the cuntface twat she quite clearly is. I don't give a shit what she has done for music. There is no need to act like a cunt. No need.
Anyway, I'd like to say I watched heaps of other acts after that but I didn't. I smoked and talked to my friends.

We won a Bafta.

For this.
http://www.beam.tv/beamreel/XqjyRydNPX
http://www.bafta.org/awards/television-craft/visual-effects,743,BA.html
The only shot I did in this edit is the vomiting rock dude.
I did four more in the actual episode.
I'd be more of a smug cunt about it but I didn't go to the awards (a whole lot of people that had no right to went instead because our boss had a brief lapse of shit-for-brained-ness for a while which I am still smarting over) and its shared between about 30 of us which makes it seem less exciting.
Pre-nominations they had e-mailed and said they had put forward two things we worked on, and the other was a show I was a lead on but for whatever reason it didn't get nominated in the end.
I would have been more excited if that had gone through.
Oh well.
Still.
I guess its pretty good.

Beirut @ the Forum.

So on Friday I went to see Beirut again. Myself, Lyndall and Papa Carter got there just as the supporting band were finishing, which I was quite pleased about cause I thought they sounded a bit arse.
To say I was excited would be a hella understatement. The forum was really rammed, as I guess the popularity of Beirut has sky rocketed since I saw them for the first time over 2 years ago.
I kind of wondered how things might have changed, seeing as back then it was all quite fresh and prior to Zacks, lets break up the band, I can't handle the pressure freak out.
They eventually emerged on stage to a massive roar from the crowd. The band looked really different. Gone was the crowded stage of at least 20 musicians of various shapes and sizes gathered from around the world. In their place, 5 people, who looked like 'A+' music school students who Zach had picked up at the local university.
So they began. Starting off with 'Nantes' which was awesome..............But.
But. But. But. Stupid But. Stupid annoying But.
The Music school guys seemed to lack the energy of the original band and maybe seemed to play more by the numbers instead of looking passionate about anything. And the sound was all over the place. The kick drum was drowning out everything, except Zacks voice. (luckily) Also Zack, looked depressed and unsure of himself. His voice however was still strong. As Lyndall pointed out though, he looked sad, and it seemed like there is something so tragic about him. Like he is going to die young somehow. Which if I am honest is quite an attractive quality in one of your favourite musicians.
However. The crowd absolutely loved it. Every song was greeted with the kind of cheers you expect at the end of a concert. And it was an amazing atmosphere to be in. Everyone was singing along. People had their hands in the air....and thankfully, the sound got better. And even more thankfully Zack got better as did the band.
It was about halfway thru and he made a slight hick up on the uke. He looked super pissed at himself, but as soon as he realized that even though everyone saw it they were all still cheering louder and louder with each song, he seemed to relax and really get into it.
People cheered so loudly in fact that they did two encores.
From that point this became, for me, the best gig I have ever been to. The whole stage loosened up and it was awesome.
Highlights for me? Zach playing 'The penalty' by himself with just the uke was probably equal highest with, 'Scenic World' and 'Sunday Smile'.
They played one of the his Real People songs as well, and it sounded heaps better being a live band and not his badly produced electronic shit.
I know I can appear cynacal sometimes,(ha) but I sure as hell wasn't this night. I didn't drink anything. I danced. I sang along. And I may have even wept a little. I guess my earlier post about Beirut being my everytime/every situation music and not having any strings attached was a lie. They got me through a really hard time last year and it was hard not to get emotional about seeing it live.
I'm a big fucking girl.
Heres a video of Sunday Smile from the night. People singing along. Sweet.

And

And

And

Reverse super hero/Super heroes dealing with crime in London.

I have spent most of the late half of my twenties in a bodily state of disrepair.
A combination of drinking too much, working an absolute shit load and going out to all night parties made my interest of looking after myself close to zero.
I looked normal enough to the untrained observer. Not fat or anything I mean.
This state is what I like to refer to as "the Reverse Super Hero"
This means that your costume or outfit makes you look like a normal person from the outside, but as soon as you strip off, you look like the skinny-fat, (combo skinny arms and legs with a pot belly) nerdy, computer welding, compositor geek you are. Add to that mix a pasty-ness that is unheard of in NZ and you have a lethal combination of shitness.
Its the antithesis of Clark Kent, who tries to look normal but really he is Super awesome.
I tried to look normal but really I was shit.
Anyway I have been going to the gym for a while now so things are looking up I guess. Although I can't say I'll ever be one of those "oh theres a bit of sun I'm gonna get my top off" guys.
And I don't think I'll ever be fully rid of my slight stomach bulge because I like eating and beer too much. Fuck giving up that. I'm just trying not to turn into John Goodman.
"Hey look.....Its a fat funny guy. How you going fatso? Say something funny fatty fats fat fatso."
Anyway.
I was also recently thinking about crime in London. It all seems to be little fuckwits that are under 16 doing all the stabbing/murdering and stealing. Where does this put your average crime-fighting-vigilante hero?
I mean Batman couldn't just go out and beat the shit out of kids could he?
It'd be a PR nightmare. Even if he was saving someones life after some of these little fuckwits were trying to stab them to death he'd get in trouble. I can see the headline now.
"Batman beats the shit out of five children"
With quotes from the kids parents saying stuff like.
"My little Petey was just standing there playing Knifeseys when this crazed maniac dressed as a bat swung down and punched him and his friends in the face. He is such a good boy and this happens. Whats the world coming too?"
I fear that this means that even if a science experiment is going horrible wrong right now and giving some mild mannered scientist the power to fight evil, he is never gonna do it.
He like me realizes that he'll just end up killing little fuckwit kids.
No superheros for us then.

Rotoscoping

For those that don't know, and lets face it that's probably a lot of you because I have the weirdo picture job, rotoscoping is when you painfully trace around the edge of something/someone so that the background can be replaced with something else. You see, if people don't shoot stuff on a green/blue screen, and you want to replace the background you have to roto the stuff. Its like drawing a mask in photoshop, except the pictures are moving. This makes it about two hundred million times harder.
And it fucking sucks giant donkey cock.
You see, roto is usually something given to juniors when they are working their way up the food chain because why the fuck would a senior want to do it. Its shit.
The lone rose in the devils bum guts that is roto, is that at the end it can be quite satisfying looking at how well you have cut shit out. But its a minor victory. You see if you are roto'ing something, that usually means you're not comping it. So you cut out all of your shit (in my case at the moment, full football team, roving camera, full HD plates, motion blurred to buggery = cunting nightmare) and then you don't get to put all the elements together. Some other smug cunt does. And because this is for a commercial that smug cunt is gonna be all like "Yeah I worked so hard on this" to the clients, even though he probably did fuck nothing. Oh wait. He might add a lens flare and some grain.
Now I have roto'd for anyone in about 4 years I think, but due to this fucking, shitting, ball ache of a recession, I have to do it for a couple of weeks till a bigger job comes along.
I don't know how I ever did this shit.
Sure there are worse jobs, like being a sewer cleaner. But you know this is my story, not a sewer cleaners.
I mean if a sewer cleaner was doing this roto marlarky, he'd be writing in his blog "Fucking hell man this shit is so sweet. I get to sit at a desk and I'm not all covered in human turds and flushed used condoms and tampons etc. Its like I'm a king"
But I don't think sewer cleaners have blogs.
Maybe Swine flu will kill off some of the overabundance of compositors in London and there'll be a shit load more work to go round.
I'm not doing anymore roto after this.
See how I mentioned the recession and swine flu?
Ranty and topical.

Gravenhurst in a church

St Giles In The Fields is a church near Oxford st in central London. I didn't really know what to expect of the church itself, I thought maybe it would be a semi-abandoned, used mostly for gigs type affair, but it wasn't. It was a full on, big, Majestic London church of the type you don't get in New Zealand.
We ventured in and got ourselves some (communion?)wine out of a cask which you didn't have to pay for, but could make a donation, but to be honest they should have made a donation to us for actually drinking it.
Inside all the pews were still in place and everybody was sitting facing the front where the warm up band were just finishing up. It was deathly quiet when the music stopped and the whole thing had a really strange atmosphere, not helped I guess by the slowly colour changing lights that were faced directly into the performers face so that they cast a massive shadow on the back wall of the majestic church.
Gravenhurst came on (by himself, no backing band) and was really really good, and uber talented in a way which is slightly annoying. He played a lot of familiar songs off Fires in Distant Buildings and The Western Lands in a somewhat unfamiliar way.
The thing I liked most about it was the way it kind of felt like just a guy, having a jam in his bedroom. It was intimate. You know how people say they went to a gig and it was at this intimate venue and really they just mean small? This wasn't one of those. It actually was.
I really like how he rocks out so hard in the middle of such quiet songs.
I didn't really like the seats.
Are Church pews made, hard as granite in a bolt upright position on purpose? Does it make you feel closer to Jesus' suffering?
Possibly. Its fucking annoying at a gig though.
Still. Great gig.

Two gigs and a Stripper.

On the one hand, I went to Matter. Its like Fabric (owned by those guys too) but bigger and dumber....if that's possible. Anyway it was a Cocoon night, so Sven Vath was doing an extended set. Not that I wanted to see him, as I'm sure some earlier posts in this blog will attest to. I think he is a shit dj. I really have to stop seeing him, but somehow I always manage to catch him. Its like a bad smell following me around. I really wanted to see Oner Ozer and Chris Tietjen....maybe Extrawelt too.
Well we got there, and Tietjen had finished and Oner couldn't get into the country because of Visa issues. I had a little bit of fun for a while (when Extrawelt were playing), but those big super club situations aren't really my cup of tea these days, and the fact that Matter was so busy didn't help. Also. Its FUCKING MILES AWAY FROM ANYTHING. Too far. Far in a kind of I wanna go home but can't be fucked because its so far. Anyway I saw lots of Vath (again fuck it) and he was doing his usual play a track all the way to the end, no matter what it is (like think of the most boring M_nus track you can and imagine doing a one bar mix at the end of 13 mins of it) and then no real mixing at all. Now if there was an awesome amount of flow to his track selection that'd be good. But there wasn't. It was rubbish.
Anyway so that was that.
On Sunday night I went to go and see Bat for Lashes in Shepherds Bush.
It was awesome. Really good sound and a nice mix of slower stuff and really up beat stuff.
I wanted to dance so much more than the night before. I liked that she had a deer head on stage with antlers that lit up for one song.
As a performer she is a funny one. She sort of has this way of appearing like she lacks confidence when she talks and that she is really bashful. It seems like a kind of an act though. A sort of look how coy and cute I am stage show.
Which is fine, because she is cute and even if its an act, its a good one, and for some reason, even though it sounds annoying, when she does it, its not.
It obviously worked to because this guy yelled out every-single-time there was a silence
"You're so hot" in a real Queer eye for the straight guy gay mans voice.
This also sounds annoying, but after he had done it five times it pushed through annoying and into funny.
After the gig, Lyndall and I were catching the tube home and what I can only assume were a group of strippers got on the tube. I assume this because they were skinny, overly made up, tanned woman with massive fake nungas. We sat down next to an Asian couple.
One of them who seemed more drunk than the rest, came over and started pole dancing on one of the tube poles and waving her ass in the Asian couples faces, and yelling
"Have you ever seen an ass like that.....no because you Asians have pan asses"
I guess she is talking about flat like a frying pan? Any help on that one would be good.
She also screamed out when the driver called out what the last stop was going to be for the train, "This train terminates at Pussy lane."
After this she continued stripping for the whole train car, got her knockers out and screamed
"If anyone of this train got me a vodka my pussy would be theirs for the night"
She then got off the train with her stripper friends and walked off down the platform, top still flapping open, boobs everywhere.
I wonder if all strippers act like this on nights out.

I am working on a commercial at the moment.

I had really forgotten how bad it is. I went down yesterday to watch with producers and clients and the like. They told me "Oh this is gonna be such a fun project!"
We watched the ad, which is an ad for juice.....a really shit ad for juice with 3d creatures interacting with real people, and they all turned around and said, "Isn't it great!" and smiled and patted themselves on the back. I smiled along too, and felt a whole bunch of dirty inside.
It wasn't great. It was seven hundred shades of shit. I don't give a fuck about it, and neither will anyone when its on TV. Its a shit, but expensive ad, for what is probably a shit product.
The really fucking annoying thing is that all the advertising cunts were talking about it like it was the most important thing in the world. They thought I was a freelancer brought in to work on it, and when I told them I was actually from the film dept, they were all like "Oh well this is going to be really fun for you then!"
Why?
I prefer working on things that people actually want to watch actually.
I worked in ads long enough. I thought maybe one day I'd like to go back, but I honestly don't think I could handle the egos. Its like the world is reverse. We have people like Del Toro(Pans Labyrinth fella) come in and be all down to earth and not up his own ass at all and shit, then you go down two flights of stairs to meet a director making an ad for dishwashing soap who thinks he is full on shit hot.
The difference is this. Geeks make films. Fashion victims make ads.
Even the awards shows reflect this. There are a million of them for ads. I am probably 200 times more likely to win an award for doing this ad cause there are 200 times more award shows than there are for ACTUAL films or ACTUAL television.
The plimsoll, skinny jean, wayfarer, stripy tee-shirt, 80s hair, suit jacket wearing cunts sure do love patting themselves on the back. Vanity to the max.

For some reason.....

I find the actor Michael Cera the most likable of characters. I haven't particularly liked anything he is in (except a Tim and eric show...which was fricken funny) but every interview I see him in, I just like the guy. He is so damn likable. Watch this interview and see if you agree.

Movies need more lines like this.

Simply awe inspiring.

I spend too much time on youtube.

The cycle of my life.

I seem to be in a never ending cycle of work until late, go home and to bed, get up go to work, work until late and then back to bed again. Even weekends seem to be sucked away into this place where I will never get them back. It feels frustrating. My life is twittering away before my eyes and for what really? If the market all of a sudden fell out of the bottom of the tv/film/commercial market I would be the most unqualified person in the world to do anything else.
I could dj and make rubbish sounding music I guess.
I just wonder though. What would I really do if not this?
Write this shitty blog?
I got depressed as I wrote this, and then I just spoke to Brett on gmail chat whatsamacallit and now I'm super happy.
So have this!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When humanity doesn't let you down.

So you know all that stuff I wrote in the previous post. Well. I stand a little corrected. They came along and said it was awesome. Even the marketing guy. They did it all in under five minutes as well. I feel good about it. But then again it was version 12. That is a lot........I guess my sted-fast, I'm not gonna change it too much from version to version and pretend like I did attitude seems to have paid off. I must have learnt something from flame and commercial clients then. So I guess humanity could have let me down then, I just tricked myself into believing it didn't.
In other good times in humanity news, three of my friends are becoming quite the Techno producers on a world wide scale.
Simon Beeston, Simon Flower and Andi Numan.
It gives me plenty of warm feelings inside to know that people I know that have worked hard are getting recognition they deserve, and also its nice knowing people that are contributing to something that I have felt so passionately about for a long time now.
Simon Beeston I used to have a radio show with back in NZ, which was really, really fun and my brain is littered with nothing but fond memories of, is reaching new heights of awesome with every track he produces. It seems like he could get on any bike and learn to ride it in a matter of minutes. He has had plenty of focus over the last three years and risked a lot by moving to Berlin to put all his effort into making music, and I am really glad it has paid off for him.
Andi Numan was someone I met through the Auckland club scene, a friend of a friend, and a genuinely nice fella. He used to come up to said radio show and dance around like a mad man in the studio to the music myself and Simon were playing. If you have ever done a radio show (especially a techno one) it can be hard to keep your energy levels up as sometimes you really have no idea how many people are listening and being techno in NZ (which is a very small scene that no one is interested in!) our show used to be really late at night. None of that seems to matter when you have an Andi dancing in front of you.
Simon Flower was a guy I was a fan of anyway before I moved up to Auckland, and as it turned out later when I met him properly is a great guy. I was lucky enough to play at a couple of parties with him where he was playing live and see that he is an ultra talented dude that was just a diamond waiting to be discovered on the world stage. He has given me plenty of demos over the years and its safe to say, that every single track on all of them is something I would buy if I didn't know the guy and I also still regularly listen to them today. Surprisingly I was listening to one of the first cds he gave me when I moved up to Auckland the other day and it had 'The Whisper had it' on it, which got released on Pokerflat a few years later.
It pleases me greatly seeing there releases in record stores and I have bought all of the records all three of them have released so far. I can't see that stopping.
Hats off fellas!

Waiting for clients.

I am doing this right now. I have been working on these shots for a film for a while. I am attached to how they look now. I like them. I don't want to change them but my palms are sweating and I feel nervous because I know someone among the gaggle of people that have to come up here with the director because said director can't make decisions on their own will suggest something stupid. Something irrelevant. Something just so they can use their stupid dumb arse voice just because they like the sound of it. This person probably won't be a creative person. Someone in marketing no doubt. But the director, who is a floundering mess, and hasn't made a film in a long time, will latch onto it. Then this one stupid idea, uttered by a person who has about as much right as a deaf and blind monkey to make comment on a film, will have to be executed through my hands, and then printed to film forever. Sigh.

I just bought a stylophone.

I can't wait for it to arrive!!!!!!!!!!

Farewell to a comedy genius.

I like stuff because its got subtitles aka I am a tit.

Once when I was younger a friend of mines Aunt, who according to herself is a 'film buff'(when people refer to themselves as film buffs you pretty much know they are twats) suggested that I go see this Gérard Depardieu film 'The Closet'. It was a comedy and it dealt with gay rights etc and was really good because it was French. Thats what she said. Its good because its French. Anyway, I trusted her because you know I was a young eager film studying git and probably wanted to appear like I was smart and I probably thought going to foreign films made me look cool. So I went to it at the local film theatre that plays all the arty stuff....Rialto I believe it was called, and what I saw on the screen was essentially a really long episode of Friends, with hysterically unfunny (ha) obvious and boring comedy. You know that look in Empire Strikes Back when Yoda says 'You will be' to Luke inside that little hut thing and looks all pissed off and evil and shit. That was the expression on my face for pretty much the whole film. That was as close as I got to laughing. That expression. Anyway everybody seemed to think that film was great and I thought it was shit and I couldn't understand, so I kept asking people and their answer was always, 'but the french make cinema with so much more heart/flare/integrity/insert- whatever-you-want-here-if-you-say-this-sentence-for-real-but-prepare-to-look-like-a-cunt-in-the -process.
Anyway. This weekend I spent a lot of time watching movies, because well, I'm not drinking at the moment and I need something to distract myself. I watched, in order: The Orphanage, After Hours, Hansel and Gretal, and Alice doesn't live here anymore. (I have a bit of a Scorsese thing going at the moment because I am reading a book about him)
This really only has to do with the Orphanage.
Firstly lets get one thing straight. Del Toro did NOT direct this. He presented it. Its the same old trick they did with Tarantino and films like Killing Zoe and Dusk till Dawn. This is a trick instigated by Miramax films in the 90s (off the back of Tarantino) to make fucking idiots think they are watching the next Pans Labyrinth. If you thought Del Toro did, do me a favour and go die a bit.
Now I know your probably thinking 'Well here goes Greg on another hate the film everybody likes rant' and I can understand that. But let me clear this up, I don't hate this film. It looks pretty, and I wasn't bored. There is a but though. It was just another hack job of a ghost film. There was nothing particularly exciting about the script, or the acting and the direction wasn't earth shattering. If you wanna good ghost film get out 'The Devil backbone' (which actually is Del Toro) or if you wanna watch this film but can't be bothered with subtitles rent 'The Others'.
If you want to be different and not watch any of these just go to your local DVD shop and look for anything with a brownish monochromatic cover and Gothic or Times New Roman-ish font in the thriller section. Brown reminds us of old and old reminds us of ghosts!
Anyway, I'm not bagging the film too much, its worth a watch, but I don't think its as brillant or as scary as everybody makes out. I felt the need to have a rant about it now though because I went outside for a smoke earlier and one of my work colleagues asked what I watched. When I said I watched a few films including 'The Orphanage' they said. 'I love Del Toro films, I thought it was brilliant and Spanish cinema is great.'
I'd like to tell you that I tripped said person or something, but instead I smiled thru gritted teeth and came up here and bitched about it on this shitty blog.
Anyway if your interested, the best film I watched was 'Alice doesn't live here anymore', which is weird cause its a film about a single mother going on a journey to discover herself after her husband dies. Sounds boring, but wasn't over the top in anyway. The human relationships seemed really real and was a great slice of life bit of cinema. If this film was made now (and not by Scorsese) it would be a fucking train wreck of monumental proportions and have Jennifer Assfaceton in it. Is it me or has she completely cornered the market on being shit in nearly every way? Anyway it would have turned out like this.

I have to say next was 'After Hours' which is another Scorsese film, this time a comedy. Anyway its quite surreal and has a really good picture on the wall of a shark eating a mans cock in one scene. I think that alone makes it a good movie.
The Korean film 'Hansel and Gretal' was better than the Orphanage. It got a little long towards the end, but it was shot beautifully, and for the first half was creepy as fuck. It got a little over sentimental, but I think the acting and uneasiness for the first half overshadowed that.
I didn't love it, but again it was well worth a watch. Plus you'll seem like you're smart cause its got subtitles.

A joke
A Catholic Priest and a Rabbi are walking through the forest when they come across a young boy tied to a tree.
The Catholic priest says: 'Shall we screw him?"
The Rabbi says: "Out of what?"

Mark Gormley is a genius

Mark Gormley is a singer/songwriter. Some people say he started singing in the 70s. I feel like potentually he became a burnout in his early years and his promising career took a nose dive when the drugs and the drink got too much. He could have been bigger than Elvis. After leaving the scene all together he could have fled to Tibet and become a monk. Everybody thought he had just dropped of the face of the earth.....but he's back.
My favorite part of Mark is his music videos (although who am I to hassle as I can't seem to even finish the damn things) which consist largely off him standing with his hands by his sides on a green screen comped over a poorly chosen background and looking decidedly uncomfortable. If you watch closely you can catch the quick glance off to the side "Are we filming?" faces.
Lens Flares feature quite a bit as well.
I also like the presenters of the show and really want to watch it. I gather that its some kind of cable access show. Its billed as the most important music show on television. Mark is quite the celebrity on it. I like the idea that perhaps it could actually be really important musically in the future, like Tony Wilsons old show on the bbc or even John Peel. That would make me look quite the fool.
I do feel quite sorry for the guy though. I mean his voice isn't bad if your into that really generic hippe shit that came out after Vietnam, and it just sort of seems like this random fan who works at a TV station has some how told him its a good idea to make these music videos and poor old Mark who did a bit much acid when he was a hippie just doesn't have the anything left upstairs to fight back with.
All in all. Genius.



I found the above one quite sad cause he ends up on the moon without his woman.







I think I need to take a leaf out of these guys books and realize its quantity not quality.
Also of note, Lyndall just pointed out he has a perfect balls on his face chin.

Panda Bear

So I have been listening to the Panda Bear album Person Pitch, and enjoying it a lot. I am having a musical join the dots. I knew that Panda Bear was part of Animal Collective, but stylistically there is a lot more repetition and filtered out echos and delays. Obviously being one guy its all made from samples and loops. It sounds acoustic and natural, but quite clearly isn't. I'd say I have been enjoying it even more than Merriweather Post Pavillion. I have been wondering why all morning.
Anyway I just noticed that the top four artists listed (I guess as influences) in the inside cover are Basic Channel, Luomo, Dettinger, and Wolfgang Voigt.
Basic Channel was one of the first of the European minimal techno record labels and when it began consisted of Moritz von Oswald (see post below about the classical record label business) and Mark Ernestus.
Luomo is Sasu Ripatti, also known as Vladislav Delay. Luomo is his slightly more pop orientated house/techno/experimental project.
Dettinger, who releases on Kompakt and Wolfgang Voight who started Kompakt with Michael Mayer.
The whole album sounds to me like something Villalobos would make if he was born in California and surfed. I recommend it.

Fuck, Shit, Cunt.

Today is depressing and looking at my screen and working on this fucking rubbish looking film is feeling similar to what I imagine injecting cyanide into your eye ball with a needle designed for hippos may be like.
I wish I got to design the movie posters/dvd cover for it so I could include that as the quote hook line across the top.
Here's an example on one of my favorite films.

La Llorona - Beirut

Off the new album coming out at the end of the month. I just got tickets to their show in London in May. It sold out in a couple of hours so I feel lucky and in an extreme state of pure pump.

Animal Collective @ Koko

I took Lyndall to this for her birthday. It was at Koko, which I think was pretty perfect for it as it has those sweet high balconies that you can look right down onto the crowd/stage from, but it still has some big ass speakers up there so you can hear everything nicely. (I have photos I'll add to this soon)
My good friend Brett loves these guys all to death. I have had a love/hate relationship with them I guess. I find I have to be in the perfect mood to listen to them. When I am its good, if I'm not I won't give them another chance for a month.
I think this gig has changed that. It was awesome.
Something about all those mechanical instruments large synthetic thunder rolling basslines and the tack-tack-tack-tack of the drum stick on the drum and the foot pedals and the volume, and the melancholy and the happiness.
I think perhaps I have been treating them more as a background band instead off a turn the volume up to eleven kind of deal and that was my mistake.
So Brett, I hope it makes you happy that I think I have found my latest musical love affair.
Well them and Tape, who I can't stop listening to at the moment either.

Techno makes it onto oldest ever record label in the world.

Carl Craig and Moritz Von Oswalds original remix of Ravels- Bolero has had another remixing with two new versions by Craig himself in his C2 guise and also Ricardo Villalobos.
Villalobos mix is called the Polyhof which apparently is a sort of horse-riding/family vacation camp popular in Germany and the Netherlands. I find that funny, but on listening to it I can kinda see why.
Recommended.