If you don’t know how to use an apostrophe, look at this: The Apostrophe Protection Society. Of course, most people who don’t know how to use an apostrophe don’t know that fact itself. The vast majority don’t read this blog, either. So spread the word: take some liquid paper next time you visit the greengrocer/vegie shop. Go wild.
The world needs more revolutionary grammarians. And fewer Bushes.
Finally a time: this coming Saturday 30 October, our film Pursuit will play with all the other films @ 7pm in the Suncorp Piazza at South Bank. We might win something! Come along (it’s free) and shout loud in the audience participation. Bring any friends who can yell.
If you can’t wait or are a long way away, you can now see it online. Alas, no voting, but it’s up on my mother’s new site: riananderson.com with downloading instructions. Hope you like it. Please remember the sound was all done in the last two hours before we handed it in, and yeah, nothing’s perfect. Can’t wait to see the competition.
It’s been raining, for a change. We could do with some more, but for now, the coolness is welcome.
Last night, I got to meet someone whose work I’ve admired for many years: Bill Plympton. He’s an animator who’s made some fantastic films, including 25 Ways to Quit Smoking. The Brisbane International Animation Festival (#5) had secured his new film, Hair High and him to present it. He’s a cool guy. There was a previous feature film of his, Mutant Aliens, there for sale on DVD, and he was signing anything. So here we are.
Last year’s Oscar winner for best animated short, Adam Elliot, was there too. The more famous people I see in person, the more they’re just like the regular people they should be. Sure, the most famous need bodyguards and live in gated estates, but I’m sure if they haven’t been utterly screwed up by their fame, they have as much chance as the next person to hold down their side of a decent conversation. Both of these guys (and yeah, I realise animation is not the way to fame) were friendly and approachable.
The celeb mags put forth a vision of stellar beauty and talent on a pedestal, but if you want to make a film, just make one. If you want to make music, go ahead. If you want to battle through the legions of Australian/Pop/American Idol-idolising music/TV/film industry bureaucrats, then best of luck. But it’s a lot easier to just DIY.
“Pursuit” went pretty well, and as planned. Saturday was the shoot, and apart from there being generally too much running and not nearly enough drinking of water, we got almost all the shots we wanted. Towards the end of the day at Reverse Garbage, we hadn’t really planned the end of the film so we used the backup “disappearing” plan and explained it in the voiceover.
But hang on, that’s way ahead. There was a smaller-than-expected meeting with about 15-20 groups present from the 32ish that had registered. A box held the genres (action/adventure, thriller, mystery, horror, comedy, western/musical, sci-fi, mockumentary) which don’t really inspire confidence. I mean action is just stressful (though we ran as much), thriller is tricky, mystery requires a plot, horror implies shlock, comedy is the kiss of death (I’ve written comedy before but not under pressure like that), western/musical (oh, the pain), sci-fi will be tacky like horror, and mockumentary kind of writes itself, but not very well.
We got sci-fi. Two poor teams got western/musical, one got comedy. That was almost all from the meeting, though there was some consternation from a Gold Coast team that a Brisbane landmark had to be included. Every team must also include Jerome Scott, Gigolo, a parking ticket, and the line “Why is there no wasabi in this sushi?”. An initial evening of mad brainstorming ensued.
Our plan included a voiceover to eliminate the pain of location sound, and music from Soundtrack/Garageband to pump it up. I wrote most of the voiceover with the core crew in the brainstorming session on Friday night, and it’s a chase film. SPOILER WARNING! DO NOT READ THE FOLLOWING TEXT IF YOU WANT TO SEE THE FILM! IT WILL BE ONLINE SOON!
If you want to ruin it for yourself, just select the following invisible text to make it visible:
Male criminal/asylum seeker from future lands in present, female cop/agent chases him. Jerome’s car is stolen after his parking ticket distracts him, interlude while cop looks around South Bank, crim located at Reverse Garbage, final confrontation outside, The End.
So back to the shoot. It all went OK, we covered all the shots and finished just before nightfall. Went back to watch a depressing election night on the ABC. Slept, not enough, woke up, picked up Hayley for a second opinion and voiceover talent, then cut, cut, cut for about 5 hours, music for another 45 minutes, another hour of voiceover, turned the lovely anamorphic edit into (requested) crappier matted widescreen, got in the car, handed it in @ 7.10 pm, with 50 minutes to spare.
Though I’m too close to know, I have a sneaking suspicion that it’s pretty good. There are a ton of pits you can fall into making a film in 48 hours, including:
And that’s just from the top of my head. Incidentally, the day after this was finished, I had some major technical issues with a firewire hard drive and my camcorder. First, the camcorder developed a firewire connection problem, so I had to use an old backup camera to get a master copy of the final edit off the computer. Right after that, the hard drive stopped mounting. If either of these things had happened the day before, we would have been royally stuffed.
But we got there. The showing is at Suncorp Piazza, South Bank on October 30 in the evening. Not sure of the time yet, but I’ll post it. It is free, and there’s a prize for the film the audience likes best, so if you’re coming, yell long and loud for “Pursuit”.
So this weekend, I’ll be part of Team Funwithstuff, entering the 48 Hour Film contest in Brisbane. We have some ideas, but no script – because we’re not supposed to. Everything creative must be done within the 48 hours from 7.30 tonight. Should be fun. Though some people will stress out, we’re going to take it as easy as we can and still produce something worth watching. We hope.
Oh, if you’re looking for a good book, and haven’t read Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson yet, do so. It’s fab. If you have read that book, try the prequel, the first in a trilogy(!) of enormous tales, Quicksilver. Great stuff.
Will let you know how the film goes.
My favourite quote recently is from the host of Gardening Australia. Yeah, I’m watching a few more housey programs since we got back. Anyway, this guy, Peter Cundall, is in his late seventies, and a bit of a comedian as TV gardeners go. He said: “If you cut a worm in two with a shovel, you don’t get two worms, you get one dead one. And they don’t forgive you.”
So use a garden fork, and don’t risk the wrath of the worms.
Yesterday we bought whitegoods: a new fridge and an older Volvo station wagon. We didn’t want a boring or ugly car or fridge, and I’m pleased to announce that neither is either. The fridge is big, cheap, looks good and is made in Queensland. And the car: if you’re looking for a not-too-old station wagon, the Volvo is a hell of a lot less boring and more comfortable than the Camrys and Subarus we looked at first. And the stereo rocks. Today we’ll be taking it down the coast, playing Flaming Lips, Scissor Sisters and Tricky very loudly.
So laugh long and hard: we aim to change the world’s view of Volvo drivers. That won’t happen, so at least we now have an excuse for any driving quality lapses.
Swings and roundabouts.
So we’re back and finding our feet. Almost three weeks back in the country and we have a new (to us) scooter, a deposit on a new (to us) car and we get to move into our house in six weeks or so.
I’m now going to be teaching at a Brisbane university for a short time, which is exciting. Great new campus, fun things happening, and the potential for a career in academia, probably what I’ve been gravitating back towards after these several years in the cruel, dull, real world.
Life here at my mother’s place is settling down, though you never really want to move back in with your parents, do you? Normally, this event would be an admission of defeat, a mark of failure, but I promise you we have not; this is simple convenience. Plus it saves on rent and moving twice.
Brisbane is still the lovely place I remember, no rose-tinted glasses required. The weather is stunning every day, the traffic not an issue, the trees everywhere and the people relaxed and friendly. Some things are more expensive than we remember, but not many. These days, there’s more of an air of sophistication as the town becomes a city.
Air is clean. Cats and kids have space to play. Fruit and veg still taste like food and cost (more or less) what they should. Haven’t found any decent French bread yet, but will continue the search. Across town on a weekend morning, crap is sold from garages instead of car boots.
Friends are found at parties on verandahs, at their houses up hills, or not at all if they sleep right through the plan. Family is close, or close-ish. But they’re nearer than they have been, just a quick drive and a long chat away. That’s a valuable thing. Apologies to our other friends and relations to whom we are no longer near; hope to talk to you soon.
By the time you read this, the grand trip will be over. It was… 4997 miles driven by us in the USA, more as we were driven, more on trains, more in the UK. Of course many more miles flown. This trip has been an orgy of energy use, consumer activity, pay-before-pumping gasoline purchases, scouting out motels and campgrounds, gazing at amazing things, and movement of all kinds.
As another travelling friend has recently written, travel broadens the mind, makes you a better person, and gives you plenty of stories to bore people with at dinner parties. I’ve been a fish out of water for so long that I’ve nearly forgotten how to have a conversation that somehow doesn’t lead to a discourse on the different ways people in different countries interact, how weird this country’s food is or how bad this other country’s weather is. I’d like to be in a place (mentally and physically) where I can just shoot the breeze and talk about simple things like how good this beer or that movie is or was.
This message is being written in an appropriate place to assist: I’m sitting against a pillar in LAX, gate 25, with the Mac plugged in and Nic sitting across from me. A gentle American voice is warning us to maintain visual contact with our personal property at all times, a girl is mouthing along to a song on her iPod mini. There’s a mobile phone call or two, a few empty water bottles scattered, and two other laptop users sitting at a pillar nearby. They may be writing something insightful, balancing their chequebooks, or playing chess; I don’t know.
Most travellers here have that resigned look that you get waiting in airports. We all know we have an hour until boarding, and then another fourteen hours just for this flight. We have another three and a half hours of flying to reach Brisbane. This flight is an interesting one; you’re meant to sleep. Takeoff is at 11.30pm, and arrival at 7.15am, but there’s six hours time difference, and if you can sleep that long, good luck to you. And maybe we’ll be woken up stopping in Honolulu in the middle of the night.
None of that really matters. Flying is like a fast bus journey with increased security. OK, it’s very much faster, but it’s not as fashionable as you might expect. Lots of sitting about waiting. The end product, though, is that you get to go around the world, passing through timezones like a hot knife through soft cheese, and return home in a flash. In less than twenty four hours, in fact very likely before this message is posted, we’ll have finally seen, for the first time, the house we bought about a year ago. (Ask me if you don’t know the story.)
That’s a big, big thing. We’ve been counting down for what seems like months and has, in fact, been that long. Now, we get to see it, and my mother, and my parents-in-law, and Bianca the cat, and other friends, and all the Brisbane stuff I’ve lost touch with. Here’s a handy comparison chart from a couple of days ago which you can try yourself: fire up weather.com and check out the ten-day forecasts for “London, United Kingdom” and “Brisbane, Australia”. London was rain or showers every day, though warmish (11-25°), Brisbane was slightly cooler (9-24°) but sunny daily. Don’t do this if you want to stay in London, it’ll only depress you further. Do it if you need encouragement to leave.
Actually, the weather in LA’s been great. We’ve spent the last day and a half hanging out with Amy and Cam, two Aussie expats spending a few years away from home. Amy showed us around the nice bits of LA (Venice beach, Santa Monica, Rodeo Drive, Hollywood) and took us to nice restaurants and cafes. We swam in the Pacific, in pools and jacuzzis, drank beer. Hung out at their place, talked about TiVo, politics and music. An entirely pleasant way to leave the country, and the only way to enjoy LA. It’s worth a visit if you have a guide, as you need to know where to go and a car.
But that’s LA, and though we’re still here, an airport doesn’t count, it’s anonymous, international ground. The same overpriced food, magazines and duty-free liquor, the same symbols and the same blank looks. Nobody wants to be at an airport, unless, like Singapore, there’s a game show and a massage to be had. Here, they make you pay for internet access and trolleys, so we’re simply leaving.
This post, though, isn’t the last post, simply the last for a while. There are people to see, jetlag to defeat, parties to go to and family and friends to hug. More emails to write, new connections to forge and old ones to strengthen. A knitting book to design, websites to maintain, DVDs to plan, meetings to attend. Colours to pick out, contractors to hire, cars and bikes to buy, consumer advice magazines to read closely. There’s a long trail to follow, and I’m sure I’ll be waylaid. We’ll be more stationary, but hopefully not less interesting.
I’ll let you know.