The Bullet List (Day 5- introducing Suzy)

Thursday.

It finally arrived, First day of our hero with the female lead - the motive to drive the story forward :)

Target or Friend?

Last month I put out a casting call for the role of Suzy as I needed a young woman who was enthusiastic, had some dance or martial arts experience and believed in the project and endgoal.
After many applications, We found our star in Kat!

Kat as SUZY in The BulletList

 She was awesome to work with, friendly, easy going, responded to direction well and brought plenty extra of her own to the role, great expressions and projection. It was a fun shoot made easier by her professionalism. This also pushed Steve who came with some fine acting of his own. Really looking forward to editing this one. (post note, finished editing- looks good :D)

Like all film shoots, everything went wrong before we made things right but as I am known to say, smooth seas do not make skilful sailors. To be a directoor we need to Direct, that includes solving problems! We had to shoot early evening to balance our work commitments, earlier in the day was sorting the mechanic about my car, and sorting out the script/ shooting plan for Day 5. So 5pm planned start turned into 530pm once we found a park, fighting with Traffic to arrive.

The amount of time I was in my wife's car today, I felt like I just got out of a space shuttle when I got home, seriously, that little pod went all the way from Manurewa and town, twice, also to town twice as I went earlier in the day for some DVDS, the shirt for my sunday project (next blog) and martial arts shop investigation. (however didn't find the extra nunchuks or rubber tonfa I was looking for, may have to ebay these) Wish my BMW was back, driving it long distances was my favorite part of having it :|

So with fading light, ( I knew in my heart it would be close) People everywhere (joys of public shooting), threatening rainclouds (rained on the way, rained after, great timing), car alarms, church bells and passing cars - we persevered - and managed to pull off the plan and the results were fantastic! Can't wait to share the scene with you guys, even got a shot of possums in the park which was random but hey, right place right time :)

Below is another screenshot that doesn't give too much away apart from how great these two stars play their characters :) Thanks to this day, I have finished a rough cut of episode one! Five to go :)

Day 5 of shooting complete, Day 6 awaits! :)

Getting scheduling done for Bulletlist shoot and Kung Fu Elliot

The Bullet List project is finally underway. All day at work I'm trying figure out what I can do on this project when I get home. Been reading 'Three feet from Gold' by the Napoleon Hill foundation and Greg S reid, its full of inspirational stuff and living your passion, so it's great I'm back to my old habits of staying inspired via reading/watching others who have achieved their dreams and it feels nice to get some motivation back, I was suffering from self doubt there for a little minute.

"The knowing. There is a big difference between believing something and knowing."

I know I can be an action star. So what am I waiting for? I've got to get out there and start training again, get mingling and network with other creatives, take any extra jobs I can, sign up for a real acting agency and do what it is I'm really here to do. Customer service pays my bills but my soul doesn't feed on cash. With that said I'll share the little progress I've made since my last post here on the project.

I've copied and pasted the six episode scripts together into one celtx file and it turns out this project will be an hour long!! (that's if the one page equals one minute of screen time ratio plays out, it won't, the action scenes will be cut much longer). Needless to say, for a simple project this still turned out to be something ambitious. This will be the longest project I've ever completed myself but I'll finally have something to call my own!. This is exactly what I need to do.

Below is a screenshot of what my breakdown looks like for when I was figuring what scenes to shoot when so I can try make this achievable. I worked it out to be sixteen different locations.

And below is the first page of my script. Proof :)

Now that I have my jacket for the character of Mark Maxwell, I just need to find some nice kicks and design a simple Tshirt (so I can sell it via my merch site for any enthusiasts but also to stay unique) for him to wear.

Next for the project is the intended camera shots (Shooting script) Exact locations -Might get a camera on my next day off and go on a photo spree :) And then figure out some equipment. Sound is my biggest issue, and half the picture so a biggie!

This weekend I just realxed otherwise, caught up opn The Transporter TV series, definately not statham but an enteratining show nonetheless with some good action scenes, one liners, hot chicks, explosions and car stunts. Bought the wife a bike today and put it together, nothing more empowering than building something, even if I am following instructions ;) Tomorrow We are goign to watch a documentary I saw a trailer for since it's playign at NZ film festival this year. It's a docu on someone similar to myself. He's a big fan of chuck norris and 70's action films (like me lol) and canada has no action stars so he decided he would become one and has dedicated his life to following his dream, it looks funny and sad at the same time but hope for his sake he found happiness. I wanted to watch this in case there are any mistakes I can learn from and to stay realistic with myself. I know the chances of making it are small, but there's still that chance.

Anyway, the trailer is below for those who might be able to find it on netflix or something like that, til next time amigos!