The Bullet List (Day Four - Boris/Gabriel scenes part one)

So today Friday 20th finally arrived, this was an important shooting day as we would do the majority of Boris's scenes played by the excellent Walter Marsters and Steve got to perfect his acting chops with more drama with Gabriel.

Walter Marsters as BORIS and Steve heke as GABRIEL today. Awesome!

 The night before the shoot I made sure I made a shot list so the day would run smoothly and pretty much stuck to it, a couple of inspired moemnts but you will see, as long as you can follow the story the camera works not too important as long as it shows the reactions and actions at the right time :) Pic below :)

I rearranged the living room of my house to make it look like it was lived in by Boris and had scouted a great location for a meet the day before, a man made park across the road from my work!

 I checked it had ducks or it wasn't going to work, sure enough to my surprise it did have ducks and plenty of them!


After a mix up in meeting times and locations we finally arrived together on the location of the park scene. And sure enough as Murphy's law would have it a tractor mower was scouring the lawns. We shot nonetheless, aint nothing going to bring us down, still, a great lesson for the future :) Apart from me saying action! And the ducks Quacking on cue before my actors could speak, the shoot went smoothly. A pic below :)

Arriving at my house we quickly got into characters and shot three scenes in our 'set'. I have taken reference photos for continuity for next shot when we shoot the finale fight so lets hope we keep it similar, after all, I have to live in it :) Below is one example of a shot today, great shoot with good results :)

On the way to pick up my wife from work my car, lost power, I was on the motorway doing 100 while everyone else was doing the same and suddenly I couldn't accelerate anymore. The gas just went. I was in the 'fast' lane, 4 lines from the side of the road where I needed to be and there was a big truck (read missile) in my next lane and a cop in the next. I had to bear grylls my 'descent' as I coasted and avoid these cars and pull over.

The cop didn't seem to notice/care and I was so happy I had charged my phone before hand and that it was a payweek and had some cash for AA. No better time to sign up for roadside assistance than now right? haha. Life. God giveth God tketh away. On the bright side got my footage shot and car worked fine then, and dont really need it this weekend as can walk to work (not ideal but smile)

Picking up my baby :|

Final Destination. Now the fix up begins...

Anyway, that's the only news for today really. Keep you posted, looking forward to the casting the lead/solo female of our series (some good responses so far) and shooting the action scenes and getting this finished by early may for release in June :)

Below is a pic I snapped while shopping with the wife at Sylvia Park, thought it was amusing to catch a dog in the act trying to drive while owner away, dog's expression was one of 'hey, wait! its not what it looks like!' Funny lol.

Have a great day, see you next post!!

The Bullet List (day three) -Bush

Shooting Day 3 arrived. We had to shoot after Steve finsihed teaching his class and I finished watching the chelsea PSG champions league game, however it went into extra time thanks to some crappy reffing so left home at 11.15am so when the dust settled and all relevant parties had arrived, we started filming late.

Not to mention after cruising around in the morning to decide a location (originally I had settled on a beach but the location was an hour away and we had to be finished shooting by 2.00) the area with bush did not have said bush. It was just farmland. After an hour of searching we finally decided we were in the right place and the location was a little walk away. Since we were pressed for time we shot the old school way, the point and shoot, nail it, next! way. The footage we got was pretty good and I was happy with what he walked away with. 2 Screen shots below. I'd share more but that would give the story away, enjoy ;)

Toutai as FELIX, Bad guy number 2. Will he finish off GABRIEL?

Steve as GABRIEL, imposing as always :)

 Looking forward to Day 4. SO happy that this project is headed towards a finish line, and a 'bigger' picture :)

ps. special thanks to Toutai, always a trooper, his enthusiasm for the piece was boundless, looking forward to shooting the car chase scene with him and Steve next month :)

The Bullet List (Day Two) - Airport scenes

My little brother came up from Christchurch for a couple weeks with his girlfriend so we went out for couple dates and all 4 of us played pool, bowling, futsal nights, restaurants, theme park and lots of Fifa and board/fun games.

Also have been focusing hard on work, eyes on the prize, heart and my mind. And this sunday recently completed the round the bays marathon, 8k so great entry point and haven't really trained so was a little worried but in the end finished, really should have done better. Was kicking myself, thought had 2 k to go but it was the finish line! Conserved way too much energy, next year I will get a much better time, this year it was 49minutes which was disappointing for me, but first time :) So OK, for now ;)

Anyway, Little brothers returned now, and no other distractions so I can return to focusing on the dream and step 1. Finishing The Bullet List!!

Since Steve was teaching a class this afternoon we planned a quick shoot and all the scenes at the airport were shot today.

Scouted the domestic terminal when I picked up my brother a couple weeks ago but far busier today, just that time I guess. Parking still cost me 9 bucks even though I tried to stay under an hour but hey, can't leave my car out in the open lest it disappear thanks to security. To be honest I was surprised. I thought we would have been stopped or asked for ID or permits or something as we were putting our bag on the baggage carousel and taking it off again as well as just loitering around the airport but because my camera looked touristy and we weren't suspicious or troublesome(I hope) we weren't asked to leave or noticed so that worked out OK and we got the shots we needed which was great!

Paticularly proud of this shot as wrote smoke bursts from the tyres in the script so surprised to actually get it on film, nice!

After I dropped Steve off I returned to the airport to wait fro planes to land/take off and get some footage for some cutscenes. So overall got all the shots we needed for todays schedule. Tomorrow is Day 3 and the gun fight :) scripts good, let's hope it turns out that way :)