Tauranga Road Trip 2015 - 3 day Vacay!

Yes! Bay of Plenty Roadtrip 2015, we had talked about this plan for a little while as we haven't explored this area of home before. I had managed to organize leave from work around Anzac weekend which gave the wife and I some much needed time off to unwind and relax.

Day1
On the first day we got everything ready, beach clothes, toiletries, warm clothes, and even bought the new death cab for cutie album for some nice road trip music (been meaning to get this). The drive to Hahei Beach was beautiful, a little windy as it snaked its way through the hills but very picturesque.

 When we got there, we parked at the car park which led to the pleasant 40 minute walk to cathedral cove, which adorned many a placemat as a popular tourist attraction. To grasp the history of how long it would have taken over the years for the water to make it's way through the cave like that. Some other rocks in the area will have a century or so before toppling over I imagine.

Here are some pics from the walk. Took some for the album, took some for my website, Pleased with the photos. Got a lot of ideas for my feature film, especially since the paths were quite photogenic.

Other than being bullied off the road by a herd of cows ;)

We eventually arrived in Tauranga at our booked Villa, Seascape villa, It was beautiful. The Photos didn't really do it justice, I was saying to Melody, when we finish up, I want a place like this. It was modern, the design was aestheically pleasing and the room was comfortable.

 

 We unpacked then headed for a fantastic dinner at the Neighbourhood Beer garden. Not normally a fan of BBQ pork ribs but wow, tasty, also, if you plan on being refined, this is very much a handheld food lol.

 Day 2
The next morning came and the lord blessed with a gorgeous day!

We had breakfast with our hosts. This was a different experience for us as used to staying in hotels and the like, but they had a very mom and pop feel, they wanted you to feel at home, offered advice when you wanted it, their knowledge on the area was superb and they had led very full lives, both mornings our conversational topics were quite varied. While eating on our selection of cheeses, meats, breads, cereals , jams and drinks - we enjoyed our company lot.

The city was a lot different in the day time, everyone was at the beach no doubt soaking up the sunshine :) We parked the car and headed on up.

The walk itself up the mountain was pretty easy, it wasn't too steep (a little more on the final leg though to be fair) and we enjoyed the walk/trek up the mountain alot. We snapped heaps of photos (which probably didn't help the traveling time) but we relaxed and made the normal rocky/final countdown jokes of all the training montages we liked and enjoyed the journey - The destination of the summit was the icing on the cake. Here are some of our favorite pics from our time there;

 
After this we went shopping at Bayfair which was their biggest mall apparantely

Then explored more of the city before a private hot pools session :)

After this we finished off the night by watching Avengers 2 in 3D :) Wow, I was sort of over it to be honest but halfway through it became exciting again, Iron man is definitely the character that holds them together :) Great film, Ultron was a good baddie too :)

Day 3

The LAST day of our holiday :( but arguably our best :).  We said goodbye to the Villa and went kayaking. Kayaking! I've always wanted to do this but never had the time/opporuntity. Today was the day :) The weather was overcast so perfect for not getting sunburnt and the river not too busy, so Melody and I had a peaceful relaxing time kayaking upriver. There was one cow which must have been quite jealous because it stomped its foot and looked like it was going to come in after us. It's easy to laugh now but I'm sure we wouldn't have gotten away lol. Imagine a swimming cow coming for you like Jaws, I must put that in a future short film :)

That Black cow in the middle. Thats it. I hope it doesn't read my blog lol.

 After kayaking we left Tauranga and headed down to Te puke to see the much talked about kiwifruit and also take the tour which was quite informative. Who knew we were so innovative? Plus kiwifruit jam, soaps, chocolates and the like, so many uses? I was impressed. Great tour, brought back memories of my day as a produce store man.

Driving away from Te Puke we headed to a Live bee display near Tauranga, Did you know that bees only live for 6 weeks? I learnt alot of different things there. That if a Queen bee dies, the next of her eggs the worked bees feed them royal jelly and the strongest of the 3 is the boss. They fight and the others will work with the rest. Amazing.

Last but not least was the L and P bottle statue n Paeora. These monuments look so big in photos you get there and all like unimpressed, then after taking photos you realize how big these things really are. And Yeah, that was us. We headed home on the main highway which was great as it was straight roads for the majority and got to watch the sunset :)

Overall a great trip and tomorrow I'm doing some extra work in a NZ feature film, then it's back to real life work. Looking forward to the next holiday :)

The BulletList (Day 6 -Suzy/Gabriel Drama scenes ep2/3) and Commercial Shoot

19 April 2015 - Bullet List Day 6
Shooting digital at night was a learning experience. The eye can see things in a lot more detail than my little old camera can so making sure I was in an environment with lots of light sources was a priority. Sunday night was a work night but I needed to get some action happening on The Bulletlist project, as those following my blog will know, it's taken me a couple months just to get 6 shooting days done!

Anyway, May is the month we can hopefully wrap things up and get it all together in time for late june release each week :)

So for the night shoot it was 2 secenes, one from Episode 2 and 3 respectively, between Suzy (Katherine Mewett) and Gabriel (Steve Heke). I have shared some screenshots with you below. It was a fun, quiet shoot, (apart from the cafe, so much background noise, will have to overdub it later I think....) and the night ranged from asking a coffee place if I could shoot just before they closed, to a retiree who was sailing the world, mentioning the giant behemoth of a boat we shot near was worth 35 million. That's some expensive rubber duck lol - the maintenance alone would be worth more dollars than what most people make in a year.

Suzy (kat) and Gabriel (Steve) get to know each other in Episode 2.

The night, street light contrast was beautiful, Kat brought out the best of it.

This shot might not be in final edit but I'm so damn proud of it! Director Matt lol.

22 April 2015 -Plans, Commercial, Feature Film, 48 hour film competition

Busy week, after the shoot Sunday night, got home 11pm, had work Monday, football Monday night, work Tuesday, work function night and football 9pm Tuesday night, then today, Wednesday, off work and working on a commercial for a credit card company with a sport star, Tonight have an investment seminar to attend then away for 4 days on a long weekend road trip with the wife to rest from work/dreams/sport for a breather.

Once the Ad is finished I will share a link with you guys, won't talk about anything regarding the content to avoid breaking any contracts but it was nice to get back out there and do some filming again. Awesome to see the cameras the big boys use, people lugging around lighting materials, sound crew setting up and away again and the AD's herding the extras - it all definitely looks like a lot of work/fun. Can't wait to get to that stage myself, but for now slowly building my team :)

My feature script is finished now. Just choreography and locations to decide. Will do this once get back from our trip. But I'm super excited to get started on this, just have to sort out a sound guy and I can start my super low budget feature, a feature nonetheless, the action has to be spectacular to stand any chance on video shop shelves and he story has to get people engaged to watch until the showdown in the end.

48 hours 2015 competion coming up 1st  May 7pm -3rd May 7pm. I'm a bit anxious for our entry as this is the first time I have done the 48 hour film competition since settling in Auckland. But I have assembled a champion spirited team and much ass we will kick! (or at least entertain)

Watch this space :)

Powerstation - Finished short film link

As promised here is the Powerstation test short film we shot as Plan B to an original shoot this easter (fullstory last post);

Hope you enjoy! I'm working on creating more things, maybe a couple more short films before Bullet List is done and I start on the independent feature film I have been talking about for so long :) As normal, I welcome any comments/suggestions in the comments section.

ps. Sidenote; The last shot had to be the sound effect as the battery was dead and the last 4 or 5 shots of the day were one takes, and sadly I didn't have a clear one of the final kick, still, looks good for a first time working together, love acting again lol looking forward to more this year :)

Fist of Justice/ Power Station (shortfilm) Making of.

Seriously?

The rain hit the ground trying to inflict lasting bruises on the pavement. The heavens above literally opened up and pissed itself. All this deluge as I open the door on a cloud filled day ready to shoot my short film I had spent the whole week preparing for. No. Not today. For every problem there is a solution. I just have to think. Breathe. Ok.

I've scouted a great outdoor location, problem. outdoor. Raining. Mud. Equipment. Shit.

I drove the around the neighborhood. Something with shelter. Somewhere public. 

Solution. It's Easter Sunday, why not shoot at the mall parking lot, not many people if any, no damage, no advertising or offended companies, should be sweet?

So the plan was changed. I met LJ (my DOP/ camera girl for the day) and Kamy (first time actor) to shoot 'Fist of Justice'. Cool title right? Hope no ones done it before, then again, I don't care, its my short film so I'll call it what I want :) Anyway, I asked them to follow me to the parking lot where the story wouldnt have to be altered. I had bought a blue french shirt to play the part as a traffic warden/cop a couple days earlier ( I mentioned this last post) and wore dresspants and shoes and bam! Character done :)

LJ owned an awesome DSLR camera and she definitely knew her way around it, she even changed lenses for some of the shots and had her own stedicam like rig. I smiled as I knew I'd talked to the right person to collaborate with. I was impressed. I had never met her before today or Kamy, so life has a funny way of working out. He had come to India some years ago, has a TKD background and has learnt other arts on the way, he wanted me to refer him as a ninja since is his latest martial art of choice to study. He had done a TV commercial before and some modelling and had a passion for martial arts his whole life and had wanted to do a film like this for a long time. So our paths crossed and we combined to make the magic happen on screen :)

We barrelled through the drama shots building the story up as the cop catches the thief and the end drama scene. (no spoilers here). SO all the acting was done, the part, the meat of the burger, the FIGHT scenes were all that was left to shoot, saving the best for last :) 

The fight scene will have to be shot another day. This is all that remains. ps. yes, equipment in shot lol.

So we stopped for lunch, then returned to the location -to who do you think?

Mallcops. 

Seriously? I explained to them I work in this mall (I do) and didn't think we would harm anyone shooting a film on an empty lot which didn't influence/intimidate/inconvenience any customers or show any company logos, that the owners wouldn't even recognize the damn place unless we pointed it out. However the two security guards in their golf cart explained now they had seen us they couldn't permit us to continue., lets call them brains and brawn, and pack up our stuff.

I suggested couldnt they turn a blind eye and forget they ever saw us? we have been here the last 4 hours and you didnt show up once? I wanted to ask management for permission to shoot here however as its a public holiday they are closed so catch 22? I didnt even want to film here. Complain to the weatherman. Brains says come back tomorrow when the are open and get permission. I say, how? we all have work tomorrow as you know. Let us finish the hour or so we have to go and I will get the permission form them tomorrow, just for you -.

In the end, there is no winner to an argument, everyone loses. Either respect/ face or integrity. Seeing a waste to valuable time ( we were losing daylight!) I gave him my businesscard and said terminators line (I'll be back) and I asked the team to follow me to the original location, The park beside the powerstation and we'll shoot a practice fight scene there and make a short film out of it. No script, improved fight scene and see what happens. We got this far, lets finish somthing and come back to this later.

So here we are. Old school Matt. A camera and 2 actors ready to go at it for camera. This time the camera moves though with an awesome camera person who took direction really well as well as creative solutions of her own. Decided to shoot this way the way I was planning on shooting JUSTICE. 

I've been watching alot of oldschool 80's HK actions films over the last 2 weeks, keeping myself inspired I guess. They use the zoom ins and zoom outs to great effects so chucked them in there, as well as still WIDE shots with long takes, as well as some of the handheld stuff the Raid series was so good at making the most of. I like it :) Looks good, hope you agree once you see the finished product :)

POWERSTATION is the title of todays film :). This short test film will be edited by myself by the end of the week hopefully as finished rough cut tonight. I just need to add music to it and all done :) Check out some screen shots so far :)

Great shot by LJ, awesome composition and balance :)

Taught Kamy and LJ that people come from everywhere when we shoot in public, this interesting fellow popped out of the bushes behind the container lol. He smiled, nodded and watched as we kicked each others ass for a couple minutes

Stance off :)

Kamy's first action short film, looking pro :)

Getting better with each fight I get to create onscreen, looks cool anyway :)

I just wanted to share with you guys my day today, the dream continues!. Only you can be in charge of the way you feel, and if you set yourself a goal you can achieve it, as long as you are flexible and smart enough to challenge obstacles and be the change you want to see:) Only dead fish go with the flow ;) Keep an eye out for my next blog :)

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! :)