As I write this, it is 2:30 PM on Wednesday, Feb. 3. Blogspot thinks I'm on Seattle time, so that is how the timestamps appear.
It's been a draining couple of days for Kristi, heading into shooting which starts at 5:30 AM on Thursday morning. Late Tuesday afternoon, she went out with her Director of Photography (DP) and Art Director (AD) and they discovered that one of the selected sites could not be made to work. That was heart-breaking since it means the waterfall probably gets cut entirely, and she'll need to use a different feature. That's the life of a director/story-teller, but the loss of the feature is a huge disappointment, and the lost time is a massive problem. She's back in the field today trying to nail down that final location while simultaneously trying to nail down the shot list, select voice talent for the voiceover (she'll work with them in Wellington this weekend), and find music.
The talent, Dan M., arrived in town today. Kristi had an initial costume and make-up consultation meeting with him this morning, and she'll meet him again late this evening to give him direction on how to represent the character. I've met him and he seems like a great guy. Actually, I ran into him in the lobby where he had that lost look on his face. The production office is right next to the hotel lobby, so I suspect the production team picked him up at the airport and delivered him straight to the production office. This hotel – the Rees – is really nice, but the layout is confusing until you understand the basic logic. They had given him a map, but even that makes no sense until you understand the basic logic. :-) I got him to his room, gave him his bearings here in Queenstown and he's all set. He's been to Queenstown a few times on film and commercial projects (in fact, he knows many of the production team from said projects), so he's all set.
It feels like New Zealand is struggling with high-speed Internet, but maybe that is just the places I've been (i.e. hotels). Checking email is fine, but forget trying to access YouTube and the pipeline positively choked trying to check the website for one of NZ's biggest outdoor clothing manufacturers (which made collecting costume ideas a pain for the entire production team). This is only really a problem because finding music without decent bandwidth is just an irritating joke.
If I sound a bit drained, that's because I am. I'm technically on holiday, but I'm also here to support Kristi as she finds her way through this project. She's learning a ton, and having some great experiences, but it would be nice if things had gone a bit more smoothly for her first experience with Hollywood. She's brilliant and resilient, though, and will pull through to produce an excellent film that she can feel proud of. And in the end, that's all we're really looking for. Winning the competition will be icing on the cake :-)
No comments:
Post a Comment