drcuriosity

The other day I went to Nelson to film a scene for the short film some friends of mine have been working on. While my character died at the end of the last such film we made, thanks to the wonders of filmcraft he appears in this sequel in a flashback. So, after waiting up until 5:30am (working through Neverwinter Nights tutorials for EDUC122) because I couldn't be sure I'd wake up at that hour, people arrive to pick me up.

The sun comes up to find us most of the way across the Canterbury Plains, and we arrive up in Sunny Nelson shortly before lunchtime. We walk around the Miyazu Garden for a while, stretching our legs and scouting out the best places to shoot from. The gardens seemed a little run-down; perhaps they only bothered to clear out the algae and so forth in the ponds in the tourist season. There were a couple of carp still living there, though. We stopped for a bit of food, then into costume and makeup.

First up is a bit of martial arts practice to set the scene - two students with bamboo shinai standing on the little poles of the plank bridge. I don't get to see too much of that bit being filmed, because I'm busily learning lines. I'd seen the original English version of the script, but the Japanese translation is new on the day - written in pencil on another copy of the script.

The costume is fun - and expensive, since Japanese funerary clothing for someone of my build isn't exactly thick on the ground around here. The well-fitted kimono, haori and hakama are remarkably comfortable - warm enough, but loose-fitting and easy to move in. For makeup, pale-faced and dark around the eyes to make me look that much more like the Japanese idea of a ghost. Not sleeping last night also helped ;-) In the end the look is, I think, subtle enough to say my character is dead (or "dead inside") without screaming it.

So, then Matsuyama (the evil swordmaster, as played by me) comes around the corner of the tea house, and get his Sith on. Since I haven't had a heck of a lot of time for memorising lines, much of what I'm doing involves short-term memorising and reading longer lines off paper just out of shot, and doing my best to emphasis the right parts of the language. Then doing it again but subtly angrier, or crazier, or being more expressive with hands or body language; setting my shoulders just right, getting my sight-lines sorted. Then there's a bit of poignant student-crippling and inflicting suffering to provide back-story for the rest of the film, and the rocks run red with fake (non-toxic) blood. Only one real bloodletting injury - this time with a bamboo sword - but a relatively minor one that still looks good on film.

We managed to get everything we needed done just before the sun went down. It's actually meant to be a morning scene, so hopefully it won't seem too temporally backwards after cutting and editing. Just one of those things you have to deal with when you're filming on a shoestring budget with time pressures. A quick stop for fast food and then we're on the road again.

Brad's a good driver; I manage to nod off and grab a couple of hours' sleep while other cast/crew discuss theatre gossip and politics. I wake up well into the mountains, and people are now talking about ghost stories. We're on a dark road in the middle of nowhere, with little to see through the fingers of fog except road boundary markers and trees in our headlights. The Lewis Pass is a long and winding trip, but a couple of hours shorter than going around the Southern Alps and down the coast. Hooray for living on a country that's a giant crease between two tectonic plates.

As we head down into the foothills again, the fog has lifted and it's a warm, clear night. We're far enough away from anything that the stars are sharp points, and you can see the milky span of our galaxy spreading across the sky. A crescent moon is falling. Out onto the plains once more, and we arrive back in Christchurch around moonset - a little before 11:30pm. I'm dropped off home - last in, first out. A quick trip out into the bunker to catch up on email and so forth, and then blessed sleep.

Nice weather today - first nosebleed of the season, so obviously the weather's changing. I still need more sleep.