[Miscellany]

kids.
arrggghhhhh KIDS!
There are two sayings that I never thought would literally happen but has, due to kids
1) I saw red
2) my hair stood on end.

I saw red on a teaching round once. I was at a really rough school teaching grade 5/6. There was this kid in the class who was 14 and bigger than the rest. Everyone was scared shitless of him. He was definitely a "problem child" and he used his fists often enough to prove it. One day I asked him to come to the board to write something down and on the way to the board he punched a kid in the head. I was so mad I saw red. It flashed and blurred my vision for a second. I felt like running over and grabbing problem child by the jumper and throwing him out the window (second storey) then jumping out after him and kicking him. Of couse problem child was actually taller than me and would have kicked my arse for sure, and I never would have done it anyway, but I'm just sayin'... You can take it from me, seeing red can happen.

My hair standing on end however was a more recent phenomenon. I've been so overworked, rushed, stressed and manic this week that when I came home today I looked at my hair and just laughed my head off. I looked like a hybrid between Albert Einstein and pig pen from Peanuts. I have no idea how it got like that except maybe that the electricity from my brain did something to the roots in my hair.

We started filming our movie project this week and my god I just hope our editor can do something to make it look somewhat cohesive and you know..good. It's been a fair effort considering that the kids wrote the script, storyboarded the action, filmed it, prepared lighting, composed music, produced and directed it - they will also edit it and transfer it to DVfilm. Of course it's amaturish but well, they're kids!

Our actors have been a godsend. Truly they have been so professional and wonderful what with the constant cutting (2 hours to film one 30 second segment?!!) and 2nd, 3rd, 20 takes. Through all this they never lose momentum or focus and have for the most part added something special to their roles. It's been a lot of fun and laughs (with many bloopers).

BUT.

Dawson Leary (named for his obnoxious, self centeredness - editor) and Ed Wood (named for his utter crappness - camera man) have driven me insane. Dawson has an opinion about everything - usually the opinion is "that looks really bad, why can't you do a better job [insert name here]?". If I have to listen to his pedantic nit picking for one more second I will commit homicide. Meanwhile, Ed Wood almost got fired for being a hyperactive nutcase who lost the camera half way through filming. I knew where it was but wanted to see how long it took him to realise it was gone. It took him a while. Then he kept cutting off heads while shooting even though he insisted they were in shot. DUDE that's what the bloody LCD screen is for. Maybe it was his shortness, I don't know but I could have drunk a bottle of Bach Rescue Remedy right then and there and it would have done nothing to deliver me from the pain of controlling myself around him.

On top of this we have a lighting person who missed the one course on "lighting" that we did so she has no idea. A sound person with a little mouse voice, so that when she said "quiet on set" noone could actually hear her. A storyboarder who would rather be sketching in his notepad and a script writer who is at the moment in China (though, did a brilliant job while she was here). Producer and Director I can't fault.

Hair standing on end?
yep.

posted by M at 5:37 pm 16 comments