Stray Cat Strut

Yes, its official Pip and myself are producing a documentary based on the mystery black cat of Mid-Canterbury. This is one story that refuses to die and to date nobody has focused on some of the important facts and asked the right questions. In our research we have uncovered some fascinating information, and are quite excited about the filming that we have planned for the next couple of months. Watch this space.

If anybody reading this has their own experience of alien cat sightings or anything similar then please post a comment wiith contact details and I'll be in touch. Just to whet your appetite here is an image of a cat photographed by Mark Brosnahan in 2003 near Lake Clearwater in mid-Canterbury.

The Curse of Ulva Island

Its been a while since my last post but it would be fair to say that a lot has happened since then. I have started writing film reviews for the ODT, am putting together a shooting script for my diploma film and had an opportunity to spend two weeks on Ulva Island for my Internship.

Is it a curse being offered the opportunity to live on a pristine island for two weeks assisting in the construction of a film? Initially when given the opportunity I was extremely enthusiastic and realistic about how far out of my comfort zone I was putting myself (two weeks without my coffee machine and Green Wing!).

Anyway, three weeks ago I endured a typically bumpy crossing of Foveaux Strait to be met by Scott Mouat at the wharf on Ulva. Scott is a one-man band production house called Elwin productions and has a contract to produce a 50 minute documentary on Ulva Island, in particular the birds. I won't give all the specifics but you can see details of the work in progress if you click here.



Anyway, being met by a guy head to toe in camo fashion with rain blowing sideways I soon realised that this wasn't going to be a simple filming exercise. For the first week it was pretty much a military exercise as we humped film equipment all over the island from sun-up to sun down. Not only was it a test for my fitness, I had to get used to the idea of sitting silent in the bush for hours at a time waiting for animal behaviour. Gee, the island might be teaming with native birds but do you think they will do what you want them to. After week one we decamped to Stewart Island proper for a decent meal and a shower with some well earnt beers at the pub.
That was when trouble started.



On the Sunday afternoon, I took an axe to my thumb when chopping firewood. Determined that it wasn't going to need stitches I started doing a repair job with my new first aid kit when I collapsed on the floor, for the first time in my life I think I passed out. Anyway, this was just the beginning on a fun couple of days, that night I was bitten by some heinous bug that left 4 big welts down my left arm. To keep things interesting the next night I started projectile vomiting and when that subsided 24 hours later I had developed a runny bottom. All this time I continued to act as a pack horse for Scott and keep the shooting schedule up to speed. We actually grabbed some great footage and Scott is well ahead of schedule, if only those damn Saddlebacks would breed!




Midway through the second week the back to nature experience had lost its appeal. The weather was lousy, there is mud everywhere, the hut used by six people was smaller that our bedroom in Dunedin and having a wash outside in a hailstorm is not that much fun. This is nothing on the loo conditions, where the long drop was so full that we almost had to start poking it down with a stick before assuming the position.



Lets just say that going home was such a treat, even if the crossing back to Bluff was rougher than the way over and the car wouldn't start when I got there! My lovely partner Tracy had a great meal waiting for me and a bottle of wine, it nearly brought tears to my eyes.

I have a whole new respect for Natural History Filmmakers and the patience and determination that is needed to collect those couple of magical seconds. Scott was a great guy to learn from, he is very focused and extremely well organised. His shooting script was tight and well constructed and his ability to rough cut footage at night in the hut assisted us no end when heading out the next day to grab some shots. I'm really looking forward to the finished product and think that it will be quite stunning, especially is the sunrise that we filmed is anything to go by.




Ulva Island is a special place to visit and the sights and sounds are quite unique. If only the water was 20 degrees warmer, the sand-flies not so vicious and there was a good coffee cart! Ah well, I can now tell the difference between a Robin and a Saddleback call and know where to look for good Huhu grubs and worms.

Steam is the word-The Trainspotting Files

Steam is the word

Dunedin was steam central on the weekend as the Railway Station celebrated its 100th Birthday. To anybody who has ever visited Dunedin I'm sure the Railway Station will be remembered as the fantastic architectural achievement that it is. If you think I'm over-exaggerating, it has been rated as one of the world's 200 must-see places.

How better to celebrate than bring a whole host of steam locomotives to town. Turning back the clock to a golden age of transport, the city was inundated with train-buffs from throughout New Zealand and overseas. Trainspotter's heaven. 99% male, these guys raced from viewing site to motorway overpass to snap excitedly at the marvelously restored steam trains delivering passengers to Port Chalmers and Wingatui.

Trainspotters

The fun of recording train numbers and dressing up in train gear is not restricted to these guys. Click here for a train spotting simulator.

Cameras loaded with film (yes film), these relics of yesteryear (the trains) were a real treat as they reminded those of us old enough to remember to great romanticism associated with riding the rails. Sadly, this has been largely forgotten as we have gone highway heavy.

All Aboard

The city reverberated all weekend to the sound of steam being let off and at one fantastic moment on Saturday morning, all the locomotives sounded off at once. Munching on a bacon buttie, I nearly soiled my pants, but quickly recovered to laugh at all the children screaming and their parents frantically trying to calm them.

Here's to you Mrs Robinson

Once again politicians think they have the answer to societies ills, don't let em have it and all will be fixed. Sadly, this has never worked.

Lets give this blog some context, we have a binge drinking culture in New Zealand that seems to straddle the generational divide. I'm not advocating drinking to excess, in fact I'm getting kinda annoyed about stepping over vomit on the way home from town. However, setting the drinking age at 20 rather than 18 where it is now is rather regressive. It will not solve a few issues, namely:

1.The law is not being administered now
2.Kids will still get access to alcohol, just not in licensed premises
3.We have failed in educating people how to enjoy alcohol, without whacking some poor sod over the head!

In researching this blog I discovered out of the various NZ political parties, only the Greens Frogblog have an element of sanity. I applaud them for their 'less government, more personal responsibility' approach to this issue.
I'm 35, so I'm not too worried that I won't be sharing the pub with 16 year olds, but its not about me. I feel for the music loving fans who want to see their favorite bands and will prevented from doing so by this ridiculous legislation.
But, as with every hair-brained poorly thought-out piece of legislation there is a solution. Pair up with an older partner. Lets face it a bit of experience never hurt
anyone.

Guys, check out that friend of your older sister (tell her that dating you will be serving some form of community good), girls pick up a sugar daddy and let him buy drinks all night. A definite win-win.

However, what do we do about the alcohol binging culture inherent in the youth of today? Well, once again, with a bit of thought a better solution presented itself. Stop selling cheap nasty alcopops and bland beers with an emphasis on quantity rather than quality. These drinks aren't meant to be enjoyed socially, they are mere alcohol delivery vessels. Get pissed quick tools.

Make the kids fork out top dollar for Emersons and see how many continue drinking in huge quantities? Make top Pinots and Single Malts more available and if nothing else we might start to cultivate a culture of 'taste'.

However, people still have a right to get drunk just as long as they don't drive, defecate on the pavement and hurt somebody else, whatever happened to host responsibility and the law against serving grossly intoxicated people? Enough said.

We only have sixty years on this planet

Sixty Years-The Music Video

After a very successful screening of 12 music videos from the NHFC diploma students on Friday I have decided to see what the wider world thinks of this little ditty. Any comments, suggestions, likes, dislikes would be appreciated as I really want to learn what works and of course, what doesn't.

I had a great time making it and learnt a lot in the progress. The whole thing was put together in imovie which is pretty limited but still a pretty cool piece of software that is free for OSX users. If anything, I think the limitations of the editing process stopped me getting distracted from the flow that I was trying to create. I am learning the power of Final Cut at the moment and have instantly seen areas that my creative ideas could have been realised. However, it is really good discipline to put a lot of focus on getting images/sound right in the first place and not relying on fixing problems in post production.

This coming week will be quite interesting as Pip and myself will decide what film idea to run with. We have had no shortage of possible story threads thus far and have narrowed our pool down to three ideas. Watch this space. In the next few weeks I will also be departing for Ulva Island where I will be assisting a film-maker who is compiling a DVD of island bird life. I'm really looking forward to helping out and sapping any knowledge I can. Wildlife activity and animal behavior is totally foreign to me so this will be a good chance to get out of my comfort zone and have a go. Just one thing though, I'm a bit worried about coffee making facilities so I might just pack my mini grinder and a couple of kgs of good beans to keep me going, especially as we are supposed to be rising before daylight and filming birds waking up!

Don't underestimate the importance of music

In this whole filmmaking process that I am engaged in at the moment, I am learning some really good lessons about how to write for images and importantly how to be tight when editing our own words. The ideas for my diploma film is being shaped at the moment and images are being sorted in my head as I settle upon story threads and get them to paper. However, in all the instruction we are getting and the corresponding exercises, we have yet to work on scoring music for documentary.
Personally, from some of my favourite documentaries (and features) I tend to remember the odd static image after the film has receded from my retina, but it is the soundtrack that I can often recall in more detail. I guess where I am going with this blog is that I am now starting to think about possible sounds that will work with the visual stimulus planned for out diploma film.
This week, I was given The Veils second album to review for the Otago Daily Times and it has the distinction of receiving the first 5 star rating that I have dished out. Quite simply, singer songwriter Finn Andrews is a major talent waiting to occupy the huge void left by Jeff Buckley. Sure that's a mighty big call, but the intoxicating concoction contained on Nux Vomica gave me so many film ideas that I'd love to get this guy to score a film. Perhaps, he could be the next Damon Gough. I have attached the glowing album review below.

Bullshit!

Searching for something decent to unwind with on tv can be quite difficult, especially as the Classic Album series on C4 has finished and Top Gear only screens one night a week. However, Prime have been good enough to repeat the fantastic first series of The Office on Tuesday nights followed by Bullshit, presented by Penn and Teller. I should tattoo somewhere on my body a reminder to watch this as it is really that good. Seeking to pour scorn on all sorts of things, last night they had a go at AA (alcoholics anonymous). It was a hoot, they sent up the overwhelming Christian bias that this organisation uses to 'supposedly' clean up drunks. I say supposedly because they put forward information that demonstrated you have the same chance of cleaning up on your own as you do going to a backwards religious organisation like AA, just 5%. The crux of their argument was to dismiss the idea that addiction was a disease, and I tend to agree. Hell, cancer is a disease, but addiction? It seems that everybody suffering from some weakness in character seeks to absolve personal responsibility by labeling their weakness as a 'disease'. Try telling someone with leukemia that your addiction to over-eating is a 'disease'. Enough said. Watching this argument unfold I couldn't help think about the way Fight Club parodied American fixation with self-help groups and the 12 step process. Making oneself feel weak and worthless just so you can give yourself over to some higher power seems like a crap way to deal with addiction, gee I'd be heading straight to the bar after a meeting with some of those god squad loonies.
Speaking of skeptics, I noticed that the NZ skeptics society had their annual conference last week. Their website is a great starting point for anyone who might be curious. A notable local member is the potter Peter Lange, brother of the late great David Lange. If you see weird things in the night sky over Auckland, chances are it will be Peter and his chums setting off his U.F.O hoaxes.