Internship week 1!!!

Saturday

Today was a day filled with driving. 1pm I left Invers. It took me much longer to get to Herbert than I originally thought. 6pm was when I arrived. 6PM! Oh my god, my car does not like hills at all. Anyway. Not much to report on today, other than the fact that I got lost in Oamaru when I went there in search of food. I keep forgetting that Invercargill meal portions are considered huge in the rest of the country. I found some food at a fish shop, and was disappointed in how little I ended up with. I ended up having two teas, because I was still hungry after my first one and it’s disappointingly small portion size. I wanted to find the penguin colony that was signposted. But I ended up in some sort of industrial area. Booo. The holiday park I'm staying at is really nice. It has a cottage feel to it. There are little gardens everywhere, and fairy lights and solar lamps. Tiny pathways leading to various different parts of the park. Farm animals. It’s out in the country so you can see heaps of stars. There’s also a little river, with really clear water that makes me want to go swimming and fishing. The owners are really, really welcoming, and the shared kitchen and lounge area are exceptional. I feel paying $50 for the night is so much of an understatement. I wish I got here earlier, because then I would have been able to take some photos of this really neat place. If you are looking for a place to stay, definitely come to Riverside Haven and Holiday Park, just outside of Herbert. I lovvee it.

Sunday

The rest of the drive was undertaken today. I spent a bit more time in Oamaru, it's a neat place. I went to the market, and got a bacon sandwich, just cuz. I also went to the cheese factory, because I love cheese. Timaru is cool too, there was a seal on the beach.

I got to Christchurch and hunted down Sonada, which is where I'm staying. There was a bit of confusion and being locked outside of a closed office but I got into my room eventually. ^_^ I disappeared off to Whitebait TV, to scope it out, and got lost on the way back, haha.

9am start tomorrow, I'm sure I'll be able to talk a bit about it, I hope. I'm hungry. I'm going to go find some food. I'll probably get lost again. Oh well XD


Monday

Curse my ridiculous shyness. Other than that, everything went well. The people at Whitebait TV are all really great, and they seem like the type of people that I'd get along with. I arrived in the morning to be greeted by an insane amount of chirpy eagerness to start the day. It was.... somewhat creepy, but it's great to see people who are so happy with what they do. Everything was very routine, and set to a tight schedule. The flow of things was quite easy to get into. There was even a dog that hung around all day. Layla. Layla is cool. They're all obsessed with the Rugby World Cup.. It was one of the first things that someone talked about when I got there, the game between NZ and Argentina. In the way of stuff I did, there was a VT viewing in the morning, which is basically watching all the A and B roll for the coming episodes. The guy who got his leg waxed, that was an interesting watch. After that there was a walkthrough/readthrough type thing in the studio, where they went though the next four episodes and timed them to make sure it'd fit in their timeslot. There was much laughter and cheery working. I saw a couple of Sony 1000's, presuming this is what they use to shoot with. How interesting.

Something I've noticed, even on my first day, is how technically immersive the film course at SIT is. I had gotten used to all the cameras and the lighting and the editing and everything else during my time at SIT. I had started to see this as normal, everyday life. Nay, if today was anything to go by. There was hardly any technicality to be seen.

Also, I'm am finding my way around Christchurch better. I went on a big long walk that took me a few hours, and I didn't get lost. It helped that I created a story with the street names that I went down. My Peers are obsessed with Bath(Yald)hurst. The cars are all quite Ric(carton)kety, and they always use the Middle(ton) lane, but hey it's the only way to get to Blenheim. And thus, I arrived at The Warehouse, and I bought myself a neat little watch that just barely fit my wrist.


Tuesday

I had fun today. Turns out, there's at least four Sony 1000s. We shot next week's episodes this morning. It was all very interesting. I cable wrangled for the cam ops XD. I love how most of the crew were female! This is a great thing to see! Both the camera operators, and the one running the shooting (I'm guessing it would be the TV equivalent of a 1st AD), were chicks. It's great. I learnt a lot about how things flowed. It's all very set to schedule, as mentioned before. It was done well, so, and it was a very great environment. I even got to wear comms!

Very interesting being able to hear the in studio stuff going around me and the people in the control room at the same time. The director was in the control room, most of the time you could hear him laughing at something, one time it was at how ridiculously fast he was getting the two cameras to switch. "Camera 1, standing by... 1 cut. Camera 2, standby... 2 cut. Camera 1 stand by, 1 cut, 2 cut, 1 cut" There were shots lasting 1 second, almost XD So yeah, that was the morning. The afternoon was spent packaging up prizes and addressing them and what not. Whitebait TV are all great people. I really enjoy being in this environment. I wouldn't mind working there, if there was work for me there, one day. Tomorrow morning is the last I'll spend with The 4:30 Show. The rest of the internship is to be spent with What Now. I've met them. It's really hard not to, seeing as they share the same areas, heh heh. It's like, I pick up my bag off of my desk at 4:30 Show, walk 3 steps, boom, I'm in What Now area.

Wednesday

Tirred. I got lost again. But anyway. Today was fun!! In the morning I got to watch a bit of the edit, all put together on AVID Media Composer, making Pat Pat right about the fact that they use it. That was interesting. Everything we shot yesterday is now all ready to be sent of to TVNZ for them tomorrow, and it will go to air next week. Then I got assigned some research duties... Finding some articles about NZ teens doing cool things. I really like the story about the dude who sings opera and is going to compete at some point in the near future. He only discovered his talent a couple of years ago after watching "Les Miserables" on DVD by accident, and fell in love with opera from that.

Afternoon I jumped on over to the What Now side of things. It's so cool! I got given a real job today! :D Director's Assistant.... Slating and writing down the shot details for the peeps in edit. Also, hitting Ronnie the presenter in the head with a rubber chicken for a skit XD. I think my hand is going to be on What Now. Oh god, my hand is going to be faammmouuuus.

I need to SLEEP!!


Thursday

Oh wow, I'm almost halfway through this whole experience! I'm having such a great time!!! I really love love love Whitebait TV. Gosh, I sound so childish saying that... But it's just such a great place! Honestly, I'm stoked and immensely honoured that I get to be here.

Today I attended What Now's rehearsal, which was somewhat similar to The 4:30 Show's rehearsal, but different. It was in the same studio, but The 4:30 Show's set had been wheeled out and What Now's set wheeled in. It's a lot smaller than I pictured it would be. I pretended to be a kid at some point (like literal acting so they can get the times, not just what I normally doing when I don't want to be an adult), it was a great morning. I also watched a bit of the voiceover recording. Protools was the software for that. Good ol' Protools. There was another VT viewing. Other than that, opening and sorting some mail, and some prize sorting stuff to do with Excel and names and tracking codes. They trust me with their computers, oh my god. Oh, got invited to hang with them tomorrow night. Ronnie says I'm part of the family. He's cool. Annoying but likeable, but not in the same way as Mr Tarrikovich is, yip. God damn, I miss Invercargill. As much of a brilliant time that I'm having here, I do miss people back at SIT. I want to be on my class' shoooootssss.


Friday

This morning was another rehearsal for What Now, but this one was waayyyy more like a live show. The games were played and the food was cooked and the presenters acted like the cameras where really there. I pretended to be the guest star, Bailey Mes, she's a Silver Fern. It was a fun morning :]


Sunday

Live show this morning!! God, what a hive of activity!! And so many Chris's!!! There was another work experience dude in this morning, called Chris. We got to observe the show, half in studio, half in the control room. That was interesting, seeing how it's all run from both ends. Behind those cameras, man, a whoollle bunch of people running about doing what they do.

Ahh. I'm not really sure what is happening for the rest of the week. I'm not really sure if I go in tomorrow, to be honest. People be telling me different things, making me confused. :I

But anyway. That was week one. It was funnnnnn

After Shoot Halcyonity

Tuesday

I have decided that if I'm going to keep eating so much pizza, then it's going to at least have a little amount of decent pizza-ness. No more fake pizzas. I'll just eat the real ones. They may be a little more healthier. And I can build up my immunity system too! Cuz I'm bad at touching keyboards and not washing my hands before eating, ahaa.

As mentioned in my previous blog, I shot my film this past weekend. It was a grand time. I was calm for the entire time. That is incredible, as my past two end of year projects have been a hell of a lot of on set stress and my brain thinking at insane speeds too fast for me to handle. But this project, there was this overall on set feeling of calm. Even when we didn't have all the crew there, even when it was raining, or when food was later than expected, or we didn't have gear that as needed, I was happy. And I'm still happy. Happiness is a great thing. I feel the air outside and it's warmer. I look around me and there's so much more colour. Spring is here. Spring is great. Spring brings happiness. I very well could be back to who I really am, then... That is the thing hi I'm not Kim that stuck out the most for me out of everything to do with my shoot. The happiness and calm that I had. We don't need to worry about technicalities. If someone is happy, then what right do we have to depreciate them? We don't all need to be the next big name in film-making. I find that we spend too much time striving to reach an inaccessible goal that has been set on us by societal pressures.

Something I've noticed with the F55, is that you tend to end up with darker footage than what it looks when you're out shooting it. So. That is something I have to actually think about quite soon, and I'm leaving for two weeks this weekend, and animator needs to do his animator thing with the footage being at the correct light levels and what not. Now, getting it up to the correct exposure will be easy, but I'm not yet fully decided on the overall colour grade of the film. I wonder if that will be a problem.... Hmm. Either way I'll be stoked with what I get.

I have my photography journal due on Friday, and I've barely done anything. As Kevin said a few weeks ago, he's "never seen a film student make a decent journal". There was once a time where I wanted to prove him wrong. Buuuut it seems I am following the ways of all previous film slash photography student hybrids. Oh bother. My excuses include: "But I just don't think like that", "I was so busy with my trailer" and "Satan's sacrificial waterfall got in the way of me being able to complete this assignment"

I scare myself sometimes with what I write. Why do I write? For what reason do I enjoy this medium, and what effect does it have on a potential audience? I'm having trouble believing I am anything, and yet... Words that I read, words that I write, they set upon me a certain emotion within myself that I cannot access in any other way. There must be a reason for that. That brings me to ask, why?

I think I might do some editing. I don't know how to use Da Vinci Resolve very well.


Wednesday

Photography journal wasn't due Friday. It was due TODAY. >:[

Also I am grumpy because I can't understand Da Vinci Resolve. Ahhh I need to get these clips donnneee. I did something with them in Premiere. It looks better.


Thursday

There is a class in the MacLab right now. Curses! I saw Everest, just on a whim. Mostly because Jake Gyllenhaal's character looks pretty cool. Some parts of the film tugged on the ol' heartstrings. I didn't cry. It just made me empathetic. Hoorah. It was a warm sunny day today and being on Mt Everest for two hours made me cold.

Why the hell is my laptop making so much noise lately? I want to see if I can colour edit clips on the slightly different Da Vinci Resolve software I have on my laptop, but I'm scared it will give my laptop a heart attack.

Pophamcorn tried to give everyone a clock. It was apparently a game. He wouldn't tell me who's it was, but then the next part of the game was for me to give it to someone else, and not tell them who owned it. I passed it on to Allen. Who passed it on to someone else. Aman had it at some point. He gave it back to me. I gave it back to the wall. And just now, Chris has tried to sneak it back in my possession by putting it on the maclab whiteboard. I HAVE EYES IN THE BACK OF MY HEAD, CHRIS CHRIS. I put it in his locker. He found it while I was AFK, and put it on my keyboard. I'm going to hold onto it for a while. I have to make sure it ends up in its rightful place.

Help me. He's currently sitting over there complaining about Macs while using one to fix his external harddrive.

Okay so for the past three-ish hours I've been doing a thing. You guys know that music video that Skrillex/Diplo/Justin Bieber put out? Yeah. Well, I really love how the frames in it have stuff all drawn onto it. SO I had an idea to use that same technique for the transitioning between Adult Ko and Child Ko. I made a wee test thing to see how it turned out, and well, people love it. So I might stick with this idea :) Check it out >--here--<


Friday

The game continues. It's in Dan's possesion now.

Also class in which we were supposed to be learning Da Vinci Resolve but IT'S NOT HAPPENINGGGGG

Resolve learnings happened in the end

Tomorrow I am driving to Oamaru, and then on Sunday I am going to Christchurch, to begin my two week long internship with Whitebait TV. :)

The final Countdown!! v1 featuring glorious beards

Today is Monday

I start shooting on Friday.

I spent all day in the lounge, on my laptop. Classes have the maclab at the worst of times, really. I have consumed far too many pizzas over the past month. Oh dear, it's first year all over again. I'm going put on mooorreee weight. Not that I care. Anyway. I sent off a bunch of messages to heaps of people and made call sheets and what not. Still need to find two more actors. The weather says it's going to rain this weekend. That's not what I want to read. Speaking of first year, I read one of the first year's blogs, and then I was reminiscing the good ol' days. Ahhhh first year. I miss first year, and all it's blissful ignorance. But I'm a man now, and my glorious beard has teamed up with the hair on my chest to create a Southern Hurricane masculine enough to make even the burliest of Southland's gents beg for mercy. .... I really have to stop eating so much pizza


Tuesday

This morning I did stuff for Lee's film.


Wednesday

Photography today. We took some photos for a few minutes then looked at editing them in Adobe Lightroom. I found the exercise quite helpful. We were told to take reflection photos, which is actually what I'm looking at for my photography project this semester.

It's a car. Familiar building.

Also journal work

Also freaking out about trailer. This is the point where all I can do is make a bunch of weird squeaks and murmurs. ahhh ehh ah ah ah maaa rr ahhh. I hopefully have Meadow for the girl but I still need one more actor. This keeps dwelling on my brain, and making me far more stressed than I need, because everything else is pretty much sorted and good to go.

I came into campus hoping Batteries would be here so I could streetpass him. He is not :I

I'm going to need a hell of a lot of chocolate to keep me from going nuts tomorrow. I've already demolished $10 worth today. Creating shot lists, at the moment. "At the moment" is so much less of a harsh way of saying "right now".

Friday and Weekend

Shot my film. It was really fun. Check it out here

FILMING STUFFFF!!!! :D

OH MY GO YAY HAPPY KIMBERLEY. CLAP CLAP CLAP HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY JOY JOY JOY I'M JUST SO FULL OF POSITIVE ENERGY RIGHT NOW. Ahhh, I love filming <3 :D

Ko's feet, a still from the film

Friday it RAIINNNNED. But that was not enough to stop this Waughrior!!! Huzzah! We put the gazebos up and the tarps around it so the gear was at least a little bit sheltered. It didn't rain rain, so that was a bonus. It still rained enough for it to be called a rainy day though. We shot with umbrellas and rain coats and it was overall an interesting experience. We had the ever so lovely Suvarna from cert arts playing my witch character, and she did it soooo well!! She came pretty much already in character, because that's just how she dresses :D I'm very happy with it. The crew were a great help, too.

It was sunny Saturday, though. We have Meadow playing the kid character, and she was so good :) Even though we didn't get everything shot, it was still a good day. Nice and cruisy, just like I like it. I had Josh playing my Cyrin character, and he suited the costume so well, hah hah. 

Another still from the film

It was a good day, and I'm happy with what I got. Some pretty neat shots are in this trailer. I really hope to have a lot of colour come through. You saw earlier, with the purple shoes, and this shot here, that green is actually quite vivid.... Green is something that I'd definitely be wanting to have. The story takes place in a forest, so there's green there, but it can just tend to get a wee bit... Dull... after a while, and fade off, as you can see here in the original still.

But yeah, that hat is neat. Everybody had it on at some point :]

Friday was pretty sweet aswell. Back out at Seaward Bush for the first part, then at St Mary's Basilica.

We're all wrapped now, grand :)

Great shoot.

countdown

Tuesday

Today I tackled two classes at once, and went out to Seaward Bush. The plan was to hunt down and finalise locations for my trailer, and to take some 35mm photos for Photography class. Well, I found several bits and areas that could well work for all the scenes that require forestry. It would save having to go out to different forests in one day, when we could stay within the same immediate location, saving precious time. The lighting in the forest is going to be interesting. If the SLR in my hands couldn't get an exposure at the widest aperture and 1/60th of a second (I shan't dare go below 1/60th for fear of blurriness), I wonder how the F55 would hold up. Hmm. Perhaps changing the story is an idea (lol jk pls don't kill me Patrick)


Wednesday

Today was photography class. Me and Dan developed some negatives. Not much else.


Thursday

Today I sussed out location permissions for Seaward Bush and the Basilica. Parks Division were the same old same old (fill out this and this, yeah what days did you want it?) but the Basilica peeps seemed quite interested in my shoot, and super friendly. It's always great when people are friendly. I also had a meeting to suss out catering, peeps are going to eat real food on my shoot. I still need to finalise my cast. I think that's about it. Eeek, freaking out.

Friday

Film class today. My film project kept sleep away from me last night. Yayyy tired Kimberley. I'm freaking out because I feel pressured to create top of the line stuff. I want to look after myself first, and create stuff that I can handle without losing my shit on set. But, that pressure is still there, because third year, I'm a big Filmie now and I hear the other big Filmies talking about so, so much technical stuff and fussing over this and fussing over that and working with a million different people and it all sounds very huge and complicated and technical and well thought out. It's not like my own projects don't have that, but theirs... Theirs just seem to be so much more high end. You can achieve the same level with simple things, too... Ahh. I need an adult.


Sunday

WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN IF I DON'T FIND THE REST OF MY CAST, GUYS?? WHAT'S GOING TO HAAAPEEEENNNN??? D:

Also. We made loom bracelets. Ben and Josh turned up at some point, thinking there was a party. They were greeted at the door by a box full of loom bands being shoved into their arms.