Lazy, film-watching Wednesday

Had a chance to kick back and watch some films today, 2 really good ones actually. The 25th Hour, a Spike Lee Joint about a drug dealers last day before being incarcerated. And Stalag 17, a screwball Billy Wilder film set in a German POW camp. If you get the chance, check these ones out as they are easily the best things I've seen all week... Well, maybe appart from this:

Prune Problems

Steady stream of work today with a lot of customers. Occasionally I get asked to oversee deliveries and check the paperwork to see if we got everything we ordered. I was in a fair bit of a rush today so I didn't get to check everything as thoroughly as necessary, those big tins at the bottom of this box, yeah those are baked beans alright. After waving goodbye to the delivery guy and a closer inspection of the tins we discovered that I OK'ed a hell of a lotta prunes.

Another customer complaint that will go down in the hall of legends occurred today. She came back with a bottle of flavored water and tapped the sell-by date on it reading '8th of October 2013.' She said, 'I cannot possibly have this, it goes out in 3 months!' 

Immah go to bed

Still feeling a little rough in the tummy, not too sure why but hey-ho. Exhaustion is my biggest enemy right now though, bed sounded good at lunchtime for me so I will hit the hay rather early. Just found out that Louis lost in a gaming competition over who has to sleep in the same room as the guy who snores while they are on holiday. You would have thought he would have come out on top as a guy who spent most of his childhood playing Mario 64 - I have never been so ashamed.

Vomitus

Sorry about the lack of a blog last night, I had my head half-way down a toilet wretching my guts out with a tummy bug of some sort. My initial reaction was not 'Wow, I'd better blog all the gory details' but rather I should probably go straight to bed. Today I have been on a limited diet consisting of water and toast but I feel that I am otherwise on the mend.  

Newbury Photos

Bro day

Had a really nice day with Louis today. He hasn't had much time to himself due to school and all that, but now that he's all finished for the time being we have plenty of time to hang together. So we played osme games and had a few laughs, Guild Wars 2 is just the game that keeps on giving for us, resulting in so many banterful moments. Otherwise its business as usual for me, but I have been meaning to start watching some British Hammer Horror films, first thing tomorrow morning I'm watching Christopher Lee's Dracula.

Before Midnight

Haven't felt this way in a long time. That euphorically hollow feeling you get when you know that you have experienced something truly special but in your heart of hearts you know that it has come to an end. Like a great holiday, book or in this case, film series. Before Midnight was the final part in a long running trilogy and it was absolutely spectacular. We find the two main characters much more pessimistic with age but they also feels so much more real. The characters are so palpable and performed to perfection it is difficult to believe that each and every scene wasn't improvised. Every conversation is worth listening to and opens up your mind to a different style of thinking about the things that really matter (and don't matter) in life, and not in a pretentious, superficial way. Walking home from this film I was just stunned and delighted to have seen a final part in a significant film trilogy on the big screen, by myself no less. Just please, if you are reading this, go out and see Before Sunrise, Sunset and Midnight in that order. They are film of an exceptional caliber and very different to anything you have ever seen before and are easily the most effortlessly romantic I have ever seen.     

Hot hot hot

I seriously regret not buying that room fan last week. I have never been so uncomfortably warm in my entire life and I have just been kicking myself the entire day. I keep making continuous trips downstairs where it's cooler and just hang out by the kettle where there is shade and water. When I saw the first pitter-patter of rain after a very nice farewell meal with the teachers I thought it would all be over soon, but it feels like this heat is here to stay for a bit longer.

That's a wrap

Stood there, watching us do the final take for the film Hunger-ford and felt pangs of sadness, relief and comradery. We put literal sweat, blood and tears into the making of this film and we loved every second of it, even if it was back-breaking hard work. We spent the past two days filming at the Bottleyard, a small studio in Bristol. We got to use a set of a dressed supermarket in the night-time and a bunch of other ware-house rooms that were perfect for the grand alien reveal. Today was basically spent organizing our 20+ extras into a small room and dressing them up in fake cobwebs which was a ton of fun. There was also a lot of running around, getting extension cables, smoke machines and ladders in the right place, and these jobs were mostly done by me. Mark turned to me and said 'You know that guy Bruce Campbell mentions in his autobiography who shovels poo? You are basically him because you do all the unpleasant jobs but still keep the team spirit up.'

What a great week it's been though!  

Franticly Fun Filming

Sorry about the lack of blogging recently again. All day filming sessions have quickly crept into the late evenings on some days and I have just been knackered when I got home and all I wanted to to was go to bed. But we finished ahead of schedule today so I thought I could spend a bit of time to bring you all up to speed. We have been filming in Hugerford in a small flat which is hotter than the core of the sun for the past few days. In one room we have had a rambunctious party, a zombie postman crashing through a table and an emotional scene so powerful it brought a weeping Chris to his knees. Today we brought in a few friends to help us film a house party scene where an infected girl 'pukes blood.' Best part was, I got an almost speaking role as 'Boring Graham' where I got to appear on screen as talk about rocks and erosion processes - turns out my GCSE in geography wasn't a complete waste!   

Shower beer

My first day as a technical assistant's assistant/runner on a proper film set. Gotta start at the bottom in this job. Had an amazing time being around like-minded people who were simply passionate about making films happen. We got a fair handful of scenes finished in good time today, including one that made every crew member very emotional. I asked one person if they were alright after seeing it, and they silently looked at me as if they had just bitten into a lemon and reached for a tissue.

It was a lot of hard work though, and the heat didn't make it much better. I have never sweated so much in my entire life bluntly put. Got home and thought I would reward myself with something special and something that would cool me off. The thing was a 'shower beer.' Whatever you think that is, it's that. Unfortunately, I only had Belgium beers in my fridge so it was quite a strong one for me but still refreshing.

Phin

Was introduced to a Vietnamese coffee filter by somebody at work who got me a small little, espresso sized one. It works really well too! Perfect timing also considering how our one at home has decided to not pump water through our grounds. While the Vietnam coffee filter I was given (traditionally known as a 'Phin') was nice, it feels a tad cheep. SO I went online to see what kind of a range they had - turns out there are a few in varying styles and sizes. I just spent a very long time comparing all of them against each other in terms of price, size and build quality on Amazon, finally picked my dream Phin and hit checkout. Massive error, I was on Amazon.com rather than Amazon.co.uk. Went back through our regional supplying site only to find they don't sell them at all on there or indeed anywhere conveniently in England.

Cards for cash

All this heat. I came home from a really easy day of work with a feeling of absolute exhaustion. All I can think of doing is play some more games until my room finally cools off enough for me to go to bed. Steam have this new 'Trading Card' feature thing that lets you collect cards for points OR you can sell them for personal funds. I'm literally playing Steam for cash at the moment, I gotta strike before the economy becomes over-saturated with too many cards! I've already made 40p!

Pro Producer

Mark is quite an organised lad. I found this out especially well today after he drove to London to pick up some rubber weapons and essentially single-handedly sorted out an entire week's worth of filming with the other crew members in just under an hour. Absolute hero that guy. He was noticeably tired this evening though, so I treated him to some DIY salami and cheese rolls while I had a frozen curry which was a tad spicy.

Massive well done to Louis today as he won Animation '13 for the 4th time in a row. He netted himself a pukka little camera too!

Roadies

Big day on the road. Me and Mark headed all around the South West of the country picking up various props an camera/sound equipment for this local production we are involved in. Armed with a litre of coffee, a packet of Smints and a phone full of tunes we braced for the hot and heavy day. The camera rental guys in London were kinda interesting we found. They took about 10 minutes trying to figure out how a wireless monitor works for us, but it was Mark who came to the rescue by screwing in the correct antenna - Thank the lord he did to because I was starting to feel kinda bad for the guys trying to fix it.

Toe-stubbing Tigers

I consider Calvin and Hobbes to possibly be the best cartoon strip of all time. The way it could both ask questions as bold as what it means to be an adult, and to pondering things as simple as why the toaster only cooks one side of the bread. I see a little bit of me and my brother reflected between the two characters and how they react to one another (nowhere is this more evident than in his Edmund and Darrell series, which is loosely based on our lives.)

Any avid fan of Calvin and Hobbes know that there is a recurring joke where Hobbes (the imaginary stuffed tiger) lies in wait for Calvin to return home from school to pounce on him because he is ecstatic about spending time with his best friend:

While I was in the bathroom I saw that Louis had come home from school early and was having a cup of tea outside, he was in a good mood to which is somewhat of a rarity these days. In an attempt to quickly go down and greet him however I gave myself possibly the worst self-inflicted toe stubbing in the history of the world. Flinging the bathroom door open, I inexplicably managed to get my toe caught in the frontal force of the exaggerated door opening, which in turn forced the toe under the door, simultaneously crushing and pinching it. I was on the floor for a good minute in agony. But in that glorious minute of pain there was one image burned in my mind.

Sweat for cash

Lugged the aforementioned coins into town. Had to enlist the help of a sturdier bag since my standard work satchel was looking seriously strained under the weight of about 700 pennies and 450 two penny coins. And apparently the bank likes to kick people like me in the nuts when it comes to exchanging loose change as they can only accept 5 bags a day; not much help when I'm carrying 14. Not that a bigger bag really helped much as it left a massive sweat patch on my back when I finally got into work. I was forced to do some awkward sideways shuffle along the cafe all 'crab like' to minimize the amount of people who would see it. Hardly anyone in though so not that it mattered much.

Boredom never felt so good

Got to catch up on my procrastination today. Accomplished very little aside from survive from the mid-day sun like a lizard in the Sahara. I've brought up the thermos to keep my ice water at a very refreshing temperature. I've aslo mentally prepared myself for my trip into town tomorrow. 3kg worth of coppers to take to the bank? Check. Pocket watch that's in need of a new battery? Check. It's all systems go for a lazy person like myself today, at least in my mind.

Far too hot

They say Boris Karloff managed to sweat off 20 pounds while in full costume during the filming of Bride of Frankenstein. If that's the case, then I have certainly hit somewhere near that amount after a sweltering day at work while dressed up as the giant cat. I still cannot believe how hot it has been today, I am gonna have som much trouble getting to sleep tonight, might just have to sleep without a duvet or something!

As if it wasn't hot enough already, I managed to burn myself a total of 3 times today, once with a cup of tea, another in the dishwasher and a third on a very hot tray. The last of which has left a blister on my right wrist.

Back from a concert and a holiday

Sorry about not blogging over the past week. Been very, very busy seeing Bruce Springsteen and generally living it up in Bournemouth. Got a chance to hit the beach when it wasn't too crowded, eat at Wagamama, play games, watch films and drink beer. Maybe more beer than I care to admit, but we had a whale of a time, especially when we did a day out with 'Go Ape' which was a ton 'o fun. Hell, it was so good it even had it's own theme song!

'Theo's lost his wallet,
Where could it be?
Underneath the sofa?
Or next to the Wii?'

How many holidays can brag about having lyrics that incredible?