Dominica Days

Once again, yesterday was off the meter!
We went to the Trafalgar Falls (above) yesterday to scout out the location for a short scene. At the foot of the falls are converging rivers, streams and rapids, both of which are accentuated by a dangerous and treacherous obstacle course of boulders, rocks and mini-falls. We made it our mission to hike our way up to both of the falls. To get to the first fall (right) was difficult in its own right, but every single one of us persevered. Making it to the base of that first fall was extraordinary. What a real sense of genuine accomplishment it was to swim in the water pool below, and rest on the rocks near the falls as the water pelted us like a sand blaster.

And of course, how could we come all this way and not even try to finish our journey? The second fall (left) was harder get to: the rapids wider, the rocks more slippery and loose, edges more steep, with less finger and foot holes. At one point we found ourselves in a dead-end, cut off by a wall of boulders and a mini-fall making the rocks too slippery to even attempt to climb. The group was just about to give up and turn back, but between two huge boulders I say an opportunity. After scaling up in between the two massive rocks, towards what seemed to be dead end, I found an opening at the end of a short tunnel of lodged boulders and rocks. Shortly after, we arrive at the foot of the second fall. Right now, we're on top of the world. It's a feeling like nothing can take you down.

Unfortunately we don't have any pictures form it though since we had to utilize every single limb at any given moment in order to traverse said terrain. Hopefully I can get a picture of the rocks and rapids that we had to navigate up here soon, but for the time being, they are on Natalie's camera, and I haven't a speedy means of commandeering them.

Until later,
M

Jungle Man

We’re here in Dominica, and it is INSANE!!!!
I need to spend a good deal more time here some time in the future. Only next time I need to bring along my love, JaeHee! :D

When we were on our way to our accommodations (Cocoa Cottages) we stopped the taxi along the road and went for a trek into the forest, leading up to magnificent waterfall in a clearly. A sight that words can’t describe! We played around there for a little while, drank from the pools of water, climbed over the hill to another waterfall, explored a cave, and just lost ourselves in awe of the spectacle that nature was presenting before us.

Once at our hotel we were introduced to our living accommodations. Rustic, natural, pristine. Simply beautiful, in every aspect of the word! The girls got themselves shacked up in the Honeymoon suite, the boys in “The TV Room” – an open foyer with chairs facing out towards an large floor-to-ceiling window that faces into the jungle (this window being “the TV”) – and myself, I managed to set myself up outside on a small bed hanging from chains underneath the terrace of an upstairs suite; completely open to the elements of nature. I’ve got no walls enclosing me out here, only the fresh scent of rain, chirp of the tree frogs, and rustling of the wind through the jungle fronds. If that isn’t the exact definition of heaven, then I don’t know what is!

After we dropped our bags off at the cottages we went and had a late lunch at a restaurant with a view to die for. Then it was chilling in the hot springs, jumping into brisk pools of waterfall runoff, and a “shower” under the waterfall adjacent. I defy anyone to tell me how life could get any better, aside from having your number one girl beside you. ;)

Tomorrow morning we’re going to shoot a scene near one of Dominica’s 365 waterfalls and then go scout for a location to shoot one other scene that we never had time to shoot while we were in Antigua. The scene that we’re scouting for has been alluding us for this entire time, so we’ve got this one last chance in Dominica to actually get it done, once and for all! The first day that we attempted to shoot it at Nelson’s Dockyard, we had to throw in the towel due to the relentless onslaught of tourists and cruise shippers who wouldn’t stop waling through our shot. The second day we attempted to shoot in the few hours after the tourists have left the Dockyard, but we ended up in an impossible battle with the shifting sun, with its irregular shadows and rapidly changing light quality. So this time, it’s all or nothing, baby!

-Ocean/Mountains near airport

-That waterfall I mentioned.


-Luke and Shab climbing a jungle mountain


-Beastmaster!



-Our actress, Mikel Bauer, contemplating the ramifications of micro bacteria spreading in rain runoff as a result of global warming...


-Fitzroy!


-A video that Marc-Anthony took with his digital camera of us doing what we do at the falls.

More pictures, videos and other fun stuff to come. Stay tuned!

Just About Done

First off, I need to give shout out birthday wishes to Bert (today) and Marc (tomorrow)!

Second off, we're just about done! We did our pickup and re-shoot of the the airport footage today, and the pickup of the Helicopter yesterday, and the re-shoot of the taped-over footage the day before that.

Tomorrow we're off to Dominica to film our last couple scenes in the tropic jungles of Dominica. And yes, we finally got approval from the film board TODAY! It's a pretty sweet deal that we got, with all our expenses paid for and liaisons to escort us and our equipment to where we need to shoot -- down remote jungle trails!

It's sure to be interesting, I'll fill you in soon.

Peace!

Icing on the Cake

After I finished writing my post yesterday, the problems didn't cease...

-We blew the last bulb in our lighting kit after plugging it into 220V instead of 110V.
-Our actress declared that she is "putting her foot down" and is no longer willing to do kissing scenes, due to issues with her boyfriend...
- And the cherry: we found out that some how we managed to do the stupidest thing that we could do and tape over an entire hour of footage... So that means we wasted a full day and have to pick up the entire scene with no film lights. All we have to work with for lighting are 1200W construction lights, so it won't be easy, but at least it's a possibility.

Shitty Shitty Shit Shit!

So far, today has been a total heap of shit-tastic shittyness -- and it's not even noon!

Today was supposed to be the day that we rented a helicopter to get some shots with. Our morning started with an argument between us and Bert as to how much of a shattered catamaran should be placed on the rock island off the shore of the beach, that our protagonist is stranded on. Then another argument because there was miscommunication between us and Bert, which led to the helicopter being booked for a half hour instead of the full hour that we would have needed in order to get the shots off. Once we get out to the boat, there are huge black clouds that are starting to roll in. Natalie, Marc, Bert, Joel (sound), our driver and I head out to beach in order to set the shot up. We get there, and Bert says, "Okay Mathew, here's some flippers, you can swim with me and help me put the pieces of the boat up on the rocks." Then I had to explain to him that I'm not a good swimmer, so he has to go off and do it by himself; plant the mast, the sail and a pontoon up on a small island of jagged rocks, guarded by sea urchins and barracuda.

So then while Bert is doing all that, we get a phone call from Shab saying that the helicopter won't fly in the weather because it's raining to hard on that end of the island, etc., etc. Unfortunately, the helicopter is booked almost solid and we can't reschedule for later today, so we have to push it back until Friday! Obviously, Bert is less than thrilled that all of his setting up was for nothing. Now one problem that we're looking at is that Friday might now be calm like today was, and that might make it all but impossible to get the pontoons, etc. back onto the rocks without getting killed in the breaking waves. So we shot some B-roll of the rocks with all the stuff on it from the boat, just in case we can't get the shot on the helicopter day and then we have something else to cut to later on in post.

Now we're back at the house, waiting for our actress to come by so that we can shoot some pickups of other scenes that we weren't able to finish earlier, and guess what! The sun is out again! Murphy's Law prevails, once again.

We also tested the footage from the airport (the tape that went for a swim with me) on a bunch of other people's cameras, but no luck, so we have to re-shoot it again! And that means coordinating with the airport to come back for another day of shooting on Saturday, and ONLY Saturday, which we don't even know if we'll be aloud to do or not yet.

Also up in the air is what we had planned to shoot in Dominica. Basically put, acquiring film permits for Dominica was put off until just a few days ago, and now we're in bind, trying to get in touch with the film commissioner and hopefully get permits to film in Dominica by this Friday. If not, then we have to cancel the flights and shoot the 2 pages that we had reserved for Dominica here in Antigua.

Basically, a lot of shit has gone wrong, and if anything else goes wrong... we're f$*#ed!

So keep your finger's crossed...

Lifes a Bitch When Shooting on the Beach

Well it's been a little while since my post, but that's all because we've been killing ourselves out here trying to finish shooting everything that we need to shoot -- oh and I have pics this time! We still have a lot to shoot, and it's going to be tight, but hopefully we can pull this all off in time.

We've been shooting on the beach for the last few days, and trust me that is a much bigger ordeal than you would think! We had one pretty major mishap on our first day of shooting that brought the crisis-stress level to a whole new high.

The day before the beach we just finished shooting a scene at the airport (more about that later) and being the AD (Assistant Director) and the most responsible one to keep track of all the tapes, etc. I have the footage from that day -- a full hour of tape -- in my pockets. Now on any normal day I where a pair of heavy cargo shorts with lots of pockets so I can hold all the necessary materials in them: notes, pens, markers, tapes, other papers, keys, cellphones, wallet, etc. Come the beach day, I toss on my favorite film making shorts for maximum efficiency throughout the shooting day. What I expected from the boat ride there was that we would beach the boat, then be able to hop off the bow onto the beach and never have to touch the water. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case...

We reach the beach. Waves are crashing violently against the shore. Then boat turns into the waves and people start yelling, "Go Go Go!!" like we're the gawdamn NAVY SEALS or something. The driver of the boat is saying that we have to get off the boat now or else it might flip and shit, so what do I do? I jump the F#$@ off the boat, chest deep into water...

That's when I realize, "Hey, don't I have something in my pockets that REALLY important?"... so that was a shitty start to the day... Well what else can you do now right? So we rinsed it in fresh water and tried to dry it out as best as we could to try and get all the salt out of it. Once that is done, we head out to the other end of the beach to shoot what we need to shoot for the day. And when we come back for lunch, Bert is talking with a couple from Holland who are here on vacation, the only other people on the beach that day, and guess what the guy does for a living! He works a post-production house in Amsterdam, and specializes in restoring damaged video media, just like our water-logged tape!!!

Now this is the point in the day where I'm pissed as hell that I didn't buy a lottery ticket that day because god knows that my chances of winning that would have been infinitely high than that! So apparently, there's a good chance that our footage is going to be alright, we are just waiting on a different HD Camera that we can play the footage back on. If it doesn't work on that, then we're going to send it away to this guy to fix it up for us.

Now for an interlude of pictures:


- I sliced my toe on the cupboard...


- Us (Shab, Me, Luke) planning a shot at the Copper & Lumber hotel/Restaurant


- Mr. Smooth


- Marc-Anthony (our lead actor) and I having a heated debate regarding Icecream Vs. Smoothies


- Thumbs up? Thumbs down?


- Our film shoots could be compared to a well choreographed circus act...


- It doesn't matter how busy you are; EVERYONE has to go out for Halloween!


- Natalie and I, thrilled with the anticipation of having another person audition for Memoirs of the Blue, who may, or may not be literate.

And now for the story about the airport! Yaaaayy!!! :D

Ok, so basically, we got to shoot inside the airport, with a 40-foot cherrypicker, to get a bunch of sweet shots of the planes landing and taxiing on the runway, etc. We even got clearance to film a scene where Marc is working as a baggage handler, so that was pretty cool.

That's all I really have to say about the airport though... sorry if I built it up too much and made you all disappointed, but you know how things go... :D
I'll have some pictures from that day up here some time soon though, I promise! ;)

Anyways, that's all for today.
Peace and karats!

Descention, Deceit, Deprecation, and Water Under Bridges

Well the past two days have been a bit rough. I'm not going to lie, there's been some internal conflicts the past few days on set. There's been lots of problems in our shooting schedules and with power going down during our shoot, and creative differences between the crew, tensions have been high.

But after a confrontation that brought these problems to the surface, we managed to pop team moral up a notch today and do the impossible.

Today we had 6 pages of script to shoot. Originally scheduled over 2 days, with a full crew. Then because of our actors we were forced to make it a one-day shoot that we wanted to do with 2 cameras. Then came the technical problem of the 2 cameras being in different formats. Then our sound guy said he wasn't going to be able to make it. And just when the schedule couldn't get any tighter or more stressful, one of our actresses decided not to show up, and not to answer her phone, so we had to use Natalie, one of our own crew to sit in for her. Which left everyone with 1 or 2 more jobs than we should have had. (i.e. I was at any one moment, a combination of 3 or 4 of: Boom Op, Assistant Director, Camera Assistant, Script Supervisor, Set Dresser, Lighting Tech/Gaffer)

Quote of the day has to go to Shab for the message he left on our no-show actresses cell phone:
"Hey Zahra, it's Shab from Memoirs of the Blue. We're still waiting on set for you and I just wanted to let you know that we're all really mad at you for flaking out on us, and after this you're never going to work in film in Antigua ever again... Bye..."

That's it for today ;)
Peace!