I bet you’ve never noticed the giant buddha looming above the Pickering nuclear power plant. Sanford has.
Terry designed Google’s logo after the company’s repossessed by China.
Ian sketched out how it’ll look on Oscar’s uniform.
Friday Eyecandy
Posted by – August 21, 2009
Subtle Influences of Asian Culture
Posted by – August 17, 2009
Hi Folks,
I’ve recently become enamored with the ancient Asian game Go, and it got me thinking to how Chinese culture may influence western culture, now that they dominate us economically. How could we background these influences by showing instead of saying. For example, perhaps Anton and Toth could be playing Go in their make-shift home at night, or when they go to trade in the webbing they caught for water, Harry might initially be sitting down with a friend playing Go before he gets up and does the water trade with them. Maybe there’s a Go club or Go games at the bar the business folks play in Serena’s scenes. That said, I’d like to offer my services as a Go consultant to the movie. (I just watched A Beautiful Mind, because I knew it had Go scenes, and I found it disenchanting to see how they got some elements about it wrong). Go’s influence on western culture today, limited as it is, is mainly from Japan and Korea, but it was invented in China and is still immensely popular there (as evidenced by the included image). In Korea, they have TV channels dedicated to Go (the way here we have Golf TV channels).
About ten years ago I spent some time in India volunteering, and one piece of clothing I brought back that has stayed with me since is a “lungi”. It’s a sarong that either middle and upper class men wore in place of pajamas, or as very casual house clothes, or that lower class men could wear at any time. Indian locals would get a kick of seeing me, a wealthy westerner, ignorantly wearing a lungi around the town. I still wear one today (and in fact, only recently bought a pair of regular pajama pants at the urging of my son, who I guess wanted me to be more “normal”, or at least more like himself). They’re very comfortable (and cheap and simple to make). Perhaps Oscar could wear one when hanging casually around his home (i.e. drinking beer in the evening). I thought I had a good image of me wearing a lungi, but I can’t find it. Included is an Indian man wearing a lungi down, and a westerner wearing a lungi up (a common way to wear it, especially in hot weather).
Sean
The Death Touch Draft
Posted by – August 15, 2009
…is here. Some dialogue tweaks, and some wardrobe details added from our recent brainstorming. Most significant changes are that I have replaced all references to real products with fake products, and that I’ve given Karen-as-battlebot a more feasible/less cheesy treatment.
This is the shooting script for all the scenes except the bowling alley scene and the introductory show scene, which will probably be rejigged a bit.
Mature Actors, Where are You?
Posted by – August 10, 2009
Got an older uncle or a relative who’d like to be in a movie? Check out the roles below!
So we’ve finished the pre-production meetings and will be starting to shoot in a few weeks. We’re trying to fill a couple of last roles/positions, so please feel free to forward the following URL to interested parties:
http://nomediakings.org/vidz/help_us_destroy_toronto.html
…as it’s visible to the public. Or just forward them this via email.
Actors
- The Documentarian: An older Asian man, 40+.
- The restaurant owner: A 30+ Asian man or woman.
- The down-on-her-luck lady: A 40+ Caucasian woman.
- The high-flying businesswoman: A 30+ Asian woman.
- A well-off older gent: A 50+ man.
- Extras/Backgrounders: If you don’t fit any of these, we’d love to have you as one of the crowd of doodlefaces.
Art Dept./Crew
- Sound: if you’re available and reliable, we can train you.
- Lighting: If you like to sculpt with shadows, let us know.
- Wardrobe: Can you imagine what folks will be wearing in 2040? Know how to customize Value Village finds?
- Set dec: We have to dress up locations so they look different. Hopefully you have better ideas than “a lot of tin foil”.
- P.A.s: If you’re willing to be an extra pair of hands for the experience.
Locations
We have insurance.
- a luxury car/limo
- a bar
- a doctor’s office
- a doctor’s waiting room
- a convenience store
- a toy store
Get in touch at casting@ghostswithshitjobs.com/productionblog.
Tofino International Film Festival – Call for submissions
Posted by – August 10, 2009
Perhaps of interest to some..
Call for submissions: 12th Annual Tofino International Film Festival
The Tofino International Film Festival is a non-profit festival dedicated to bringing the best in all types of film to the West Coast of Canada. We are currently accepting screeners for review by our jury in anticipation of our October 22-26 screening dates.
While we are small, we are building a reputation as a destination festival for directors and actors alike as we try to broaden our program by bringing out those related to the films. Although we can’t offer the glamour of Sundance, we can promise discovering one of the most beautiful spots in the world and its celebrated culture.
For representatives of the films chosen we offer transportation to Tofino, accommodation at one of the local resorts and a small stipend to help defray the cost of food. As previously mentioned we also do our utmost to make sure you’ll see the best that the coast has to offer. We guarantee an experience you’ll never forget.
For more information and a link to last year’s lineup please visit our website at tofinofilmfestival.com
To submit a film for consideration please send a screener to:
Kimberly Johnston
PO Box 815
Tofino BC
V0R 2Z0
Screeners will only be viewed by the TFF jury.
For any further inquiries please contact us at tofinofilmfestival@gmail.com
Bountiful Scarborough
Posted by – August 5, 2009
I’m vacationing at my mom’s place this week and took a break from insurance research to snap some pics along the lake for possible locations. It’s at Port Union and Lawrence in Scarborough and a few years back they opened one of my favourite parks in the city here.
I specifically came out here to see if I could find a place to matte a giant buddha onto the bluffs but then we came across this very photogenic bridge above water that would suit the Anton/Toph section well.
There’s a footbridge near it that allows for a bunch of different angles.
…and a bunch of nooks that Toph could be hidden in.
I made a little 360 vid under the bridge too.
Just like we found with Infest Wisely, Scarborough is a treasure trove of great underexposed locations!
GWSJ Camera Movement Test
Posted by – July 31, 2009
Here’s the Camera Movement test we did on Monday. Shot by Josh, this demonstrates the skater dolly’s capacity on a flat table, plus the monopod-fake-steadicam that Josh built. Sweetness all around.
Cinematography Notes for Directors
Posted by – July 29, 2009
As we’re having our directors/producers meeting on Thursday to discuss cinematography I thought I’d pull together some ideas I had on the subject — these are notes, mind you, not directives.
For the doc segments:
- No shakycam.
There are a lot of movies that parody the documentary style, and for this to work it’s gotta be more than “Blade Runner meets Cops”. There’s lots of comedy in the movie but I hope we’re able to pull off such a straightfaced and deadpan style that the word mockumentary never occurs to people.
- Heavily intercut and constructed.
For the segments, we’re working with a very specific documentary model — a high-minded, constructed type of storytelling. Some touchstones are the visual composition of the This American Life TV show, the social anthropology of the 7 Up series, the documentarian-as-character style in Errol Morris’ First Person.
- Intense focus on the subjects.
The explicit intent of the documentary is to get the mainlanders to emphathize with the Torontonians — but there’s an undercurrent of “look at how strange and fascinating these poor people are”. Like the tragic-documentaries that focus on say, a Cambodian rice farmer and zoom in on his scars and pockmarked complexion, that linger on the strange angles of his face — ours will do the same but with white people.
For the in-world adventures:
We need to distinguish this from the documentary. Different camera settings at least — perhaps this is shared with the in-world time with Oscar at the beginning — maybe distinctive transitions. The documentarian has pieced this together, so maybe it’s told via a number of static shots as if from a number of security cams. This is the only footage where people don’t think they’re being filmed, so maybe he’d take the opportunity for extreme closeups.
For the mainlander show bookends:
Smooth and slow camera. Classy, sedate, intelligent is the tone. Maybe even trying too hard, like Inside the Actors Studio. I’m thinking Oprah in her book club discussions, with a bit of the YOU-get-a-new-car! Oprah slipping out.
For the flycam bowling alley scene:
At the moment the scene is written so that it all happens around a table, but I think it should follow people to the counter, to the alley to take their turn, and land in weird places and at weird angles. It can catch people in the middle of conversations, and maybe give the disjointed feel without the time lapses. Slight distortion when it hits the glass trying to get out.
Insurance Research
Posted by – July 23, 2009
I talked to an insurance broker yesterday and learned a couple of interesting (OK, that’s an exaggeration — useful, then) things pertaining to the movie:
The minimum cost to getting the $2M insurance required by the city to obtain a permit is $1300. So, we won’t be getting any permits for our shoots on public laneways. However, when I talked to the lady at the city about shooting guerrilla-style, she said that although it is possible we could be fined we will probably just be moved along.
E&O insurance will require releases for the mention of any brand name or slogan. I thought we might be able to get away with it if we didn’t show the logos, but apparently not without paying much higher premiums. We might be defended by an argument of satire in the court, but the insurance company will charge us for the risk. Since it’s mostly in Tate’s spammer section, Tate and I discussed it and decided to shoot a real brand version and a fake brand version (ie. TimBucks instead of Starbucks) of the affected scenes just to give us some options.
E&O insurance will require releases even for exterior shot of distinctive buildings. I had previously assumed we could shoot the outsides of buildings with impunity, but apparently not. But if it’s enough of a background element — similar to a big enough crowd of people, for instance — it’s not a problem.
What Will You Be Wearing in 2040?
Posted by – July 20, 2009
If you have an answer to this question, we’d like to know. We’re looking for people to do wardrobe and/or makeup — and despite this being SF, it’s not enough to get a roll of tin foil / silver facepaint. We’re going a little more subtle than that.
We’re also looking for people to take on set decoration, prop making, and art direction. So if dressing up a laneway to look like a post-collapse illegal black market sounds like your kinda fun, or have ideas for people who’d be good for it, please get in touch.
The directors and producers have started our weekly meetings and things are chugging along. We’re hoping to start shooting mid-Aug and to be wrapped mid-Oct.