Things to Do

A list for Matt: - teach 4 lessons - run 1 detention - finish cleaning / emptying the old flat (not much left to do) - get garage door openers installed - change 2 light switches - new light fittings for lounges - bank some cheques - get bill from lawyer to bank - redirect mail, pick up big stack of change-of-address postcards - book a video camera for the holidays - have a beer (at the end of today) - pick up last curtain from Lower Hutt - go home promptly for phone connection - enjoy holidays - duck home to pick up apples for shared morning tea period 2 Better dash!

We are in

We now live in our new house - complete with nice carpet. There's a bunch of stuff still at the old house - probably in the neighbourhood of a carload of stuff in the kitchen area, plus lots of old boxes in the garage that we didn't use for packing. Hopefully we can get clear of the old place tonight - we have until Sunday, so there's no panic, but it would be nice... Lots of unpacking to do at home. The good news is that there are only 2 days between us and the holidays! We should have the phone on at our new place tonight - same number as before. So once we set the computer up, we'll be all internetty again. There are a number of audiobooks that are in the public domain (creative commons recordings of texts that are in the public domain, like Sherlock Holmes) that I am interested in downloading, so that's likely to be on the menu for the near future. Icy window on the car today - had to scrape it off with a kiwifruit spoon.

Burns, Curtains, Aches...

Our house has curtains now, thanks to the combined efforts of Debbie, Barbara, Luke, Sam and myself! And a little over $1000. The curtains look good. Hanging curtains is tiring work, especially with nothing to stand on (there is no furniture in our house yet). Holding your arms over your head for extended periods of time is less than fun, and for some odd reason has made my jaw ache. I also changed a light fitting (yay me!) which again involved much arms-over-head action - though this time I was standing on a chair (brought over by the wonderful Luke and Sam). So our house has one piece of furniture in it. Disregard my earlier lies. Our house also has about 80 - 90% of our kitchen stuff in it, plus sundry other bits and bobs. We are waiting for the $5000 worth of new carpet to go in before taking anything over that has to sit on the floor, like furniture or guitars or bean-bags (which are furniture) or... stuff. A less-than-fun fact about the curtain hanging is that it hurt my poor finger. I kept banging the back of my finger very gently against the railings or the wall, which would have been fine except that I burned myself on the iron on... Thursday? Friday? One of the days near the end of last week. I merely brushed my finger against the iron, and it hardly hurt, but I noticed a small red patch on the back of my finger an hour later, and today have had falling-off-skin and banging against tracks and walls, and it has been minus-fun. The amount of skin that fell off was smaller than my pinky-fingernail, and my finger doesn't hurt as much as my jaw (except when I wash dishes in hot water and my finger says ouchee), so really I can't complain. Any more than I already have. Until tomorrow. When I may post further complaints. Other people post interesting things on their blogs. Honest. Maybe you should... go... read... one of them?

28 so far (Grumpy, old Debbies)

 Well, I have been 28 for one week now. There is not a great deal of change between 27 and 28 but I have noticed a couple of subtler changes. 1. I feel grumpier. I guess it could be the stress of moving house and end-of-term* pent-up rage but I feel really grouchy. Seriously, I'm considering moving into a trash can on Sesame Street and being surly and sarcastic at children and muppets. 2. I feel more vulnerable to the cold and whinge about the weather more. I caught myself joining in one of those conversations that more mature ladies at work have about the cold. This isn't just one of those polite quick chats about the weather. This was in depth analysis and complaining about which joints and bones hurt more in the cold, the lack of proper heating, cost of electricity and thermal underwear, a pessimistic view that the 'worst was yet to come' and a general agreement that winter nowadays was not as good as the winters used to be in the old days. The thing is that I couldn't stop. I have continued to blather and bitter lament the cold weather for the duration of most days. I don't even know if I can have a conversation about topics other than the cold weather anymore. 3. I have become more forgetful. I am added to my reputation with my form class as 'senile' with my continually calling students by the wrong name. I also say the wrong words in sentences all the time. 4. I crave tea and gingernuts. Ok, it's not really a symptom of being old so much as a sign of being cold. * Students lighting fires in bathrooms on cold, rainy days really doesn't help. Evacuating in bad weather really sucks.** ** It also sucks when the fire alarms manage to short a fuse in the scool's wiring and we have a power cut for most of the afternoon!

Best Associate Principal Evah!

I have only taken 3 days off work this year, if I recall rightly. One was a course I was sent on (about Media Studies - interesting stuff which will prove valuable later this year). One was the Monday after the 48. I now have permission to take another day off - moving house day. It will be awesome to have a bit of time to get unpacked and sorted on the day we move. One thing I really appreciate this year is that we have a wonderful gentleman as AP who is retiring at the end of the year. He's a very quietly spoken chap, very polite and friendly and all-round great. In fact, he's the kind of teacher I should quite like to be in a few years. One of the things that I enjoy about having him as AP is that he's very approachable, he remembers when you've done him a favour (like covering a class when there aren't enough relievers), and I don't feel like I have to be disingenuous when dealing with him. I wanted a day off to move, so I asked him a week in advance and told him the reason. He took a day or two to check how feasible it was, then approved. One of the reasons I like to get this sort of thing sorted up front is that I then have zero guilt about 'throwing a sicky', the school knows in advance and can get a releiver sorted, and it helps build my personal loyalty to the management of the school. The flip side of this I guess is that if he'd said no, and I threw a sicky anyway, it would have been pretty obvious and detrimental to my reputation and the working relationship. I'm not sure I would have asked if someone else was in his position - someone I didn't both hold in high regard and trust. On balance, it's clearly to my advantage to have such a person in the position. I'm not sure whether it's to the school's advantage: maybe more people take days off if they know the person they have to talk to is going to be a gentleman about it? On the other hand, I haven't heard many people grumble about being asked to help cover a lesson, and if the Ministry funds relievers anyway, it may not cost the school anything. I'm glad he's there, and am happy to have been given the day off. So I say hooray and huzzah! Note to self: check sick day allowance in PPTA contract. I've only taken about 6 sick days in the last 2 and a half years, moving included, so I'm sure I have a bunch left over, but it's nice to know exactly.

Masses of debt!

We bought a house today. We owe the bank $250,000. It is imaginary money, and a real house, so I'm fairly happy :) It's a little sad to see our wee savings account looking so low - and it will continue to get sadder as we pay for necessities like moving and carpet and garage-door-openers and such. Still, our mortgage is small enough that we can afford to both spend and save while we're on 2 incomes, so that's all good. We can pay for what we have to, and still be putting $ aside for future stuff like further renovations and funding Matt and Debbie junior and such. We are both very tired, and are looking forward to the holidays like crazy.

Nearly there

It's a nice feeling to be getting close to moving in to our house. There are still a few hurdles to get over - the actual packing and moving being fairly significant ones - but it's all getting close and getting exciting too. I am also getting close to a couple of very positive things at school: *Holidays! They are always great (and very necessary - nobody would be a high school teacher if you didn't get sufficient down-time to unwind). *Reduced workload. I am actually working more hours than is contractually permissable at the moment, as well as having a TIC responsibility. It's only one extra hour, but it does mean that I have a 5 lesson day that is sometimes also the day I have to do detention duty at lunch-time. I will be reducing my workload by at least 4 hours a week next term - 4 hours less that I have to teach, 4 hours more preparation time. Bliss! I should also be dropping the study class that I have once a week, but I suspect that I'll end up stuck with it as the teacher I'm class-sharing with is teaching a Year 9 class that period. I've been good this year, and I've taught all my extra lessons in the first half of the year. If I do manage to get that 5th hour of reduction, I'll be extra happy! So, I'm generally feeling very positive and hopeful and busy and cold. In exciting consumer news I bought myself some big chunky padded headphones, and they sound awesome. Only $20, but very nice sound quality. They're especially good when I'm working in my office, which is attached to my classroom, and there are Year 9's in there making the kinds of noise that Year 9's make. So much easier to concentrate on the not-work (or, on rare occasions, work) when there is music and reduced sound from outside. They will also come in handy if I'm junior editing again for the 48! Lastly, big Happy Birthday to my Papa, for today, to Debbie, for tomorrow, and to my nephew, for Monday (must get card in post). June is a busy birthday month for my family!

Last night of 27

 Well, tomorrow is my birthday and I still don't feel grown up.

I remember as a kid getting all excited the day before my birthday. I often became so hyper about the impending birthday that I couldn't sleep and started feeling sick and squirmy. A lot of the excitement was admittedly about the prospect of cake, presents and parties. I generally started planning my birthday party theme and birthday cake* a good 6 months in advance (as soon as Xmas was over, it was time to start thinking about the birthday). Dad used to make these incredibly cool customised games for whatever theme the birthday party was. There was usually an adventure game which was kind of like a LARP meets a pick-a-path now that I think about it. There would be illustrated booklets stuck on the walls over the house with numbers. All the kids had characters and you can to read the story and then there would be a choice about where you had to go next. Quite often there was a puzzle you had to solve or a challenge. Victory results in candy prizes. It was so good.

The theme was generally extended through other more traditional party games like pass-the-parcel, the mask or outfit you had to wear for the chocolate eating game and the musical chairs variant we had 'Here comes the keeper'.

However, I like to think that my love of birthdays was not purely mercenary. I loved the idea of growing up - getting physically bigger, becoming smarter and wiser, learning more about life and the world. I felt impatient to get older and become better. I think I associated aging with 'levelling up' (I guess I did start playing D&D at the tender age of 5). It was as though having a birthday meant that I should get to roll a +1D6 more hit points and become more powerful.

I would always run to the mirror on the morning of my birthday to see if I had noticeably changed. This continued through my teenage years, the thoughts were maybe a little more sophisticated but it was the same idea. That somehow turning a year older would make me a better person.

Somewhere in your twenties that notion starts to fade. I don't feel appreciably smarter, wiser, tougher or more powerful in teaching-fu than I did a year ago. If I try to look back objectively to say 2 1/2 years ago when I started teaching, I can see that I have improved in that I feel more confident and relaxed about it. Maybe the whole process slows down as you age - it takes longer to progress to the next step in your development.

Hmm, distracted by husband comments from the other side of the room. Random. Sometimes statements made by your spouse as he works at a neighbouring computer can be unexpected.

Example: "Awesome. You can download Tony Blair speeches."

Ok, it turns out he was only wanting them for sample speeches for school but it was unexpected nonetheless. At least it wasn't Tony Blair images he was excited about downloading. That would be freaky and gross**.

* Our family had this excellent Children's Birthday Cake Recipe Book and I would spend countless hours pouring over the pictures and selecting which cake I wanted. There were animal cakes (I had the rubber ducky and the pig), candy store shaped cakes, fairytale castles cakes and gingerbread houses, and lots of other amazingly pretty yet delicious cakes.

**More disturbing than having a pin-up of Margaret Thatcher even. At least she had balls. He is like a neutered Thatcher.

Believe it or not

 Hmm, Matt just received notice from the Game Chef folks that they were short-listed for the Diana Jones Award. For a second I thought that the Monster Hunter phenomena had spread further than I had even imagined.

However, reality kicked back in and I discovered that Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming is in fact so named after a rubbed off engraving.

"Who is Diana Jones?

Nobody. The only visible part of the Indiana Jones logo within the trophy has been burnt away so that it reads Diana Jones, and the award takes its name from that." Source: http://www.dianajonesaw
ard.org/

So did the writers in fact name the Monster Hunting Action Heroine after this? Am I the only one who didn't get this as Gamer in-joke? Is it just a coincidence?

Boys Up the Rear

Regan's party was a lot of fun, and there were many random moments:

Nick and I performing the world's lamest shady underworld exchange - transferring 'the package' (Mighty Boosh audio files) from my ipod to his. We did have the technological challenge of getting the computer turned on, which was harder than we anticipated. We discussed whether we ought to hit it with sticks and bones (male model styles) but triumphed in the end using our massive, massive brains.

The boy band! Morgue, Svend, Erik, Jarratt and myself were dubbed 'Boys Up The Rear'. Our first single was going to be called 'Rear Up'. I think I was the one who could actually play an instrument (though wouldn't on any songs on our first album. I was allowed to strum a guitar on a ballad on the second album). I was the most likely to leave and do a solo project.

Nick had left the band just before we went big to pursue a screen career, and I was his replacement. Morgue was the bad boy. Jarratt was the soulful one. Erik and Svend were the brothers. I think Erik died in a tragic gasoline-fight incident, and his ashes were placed in an urn. He lived on the edge, and continued to be on the edge after death on a specially made mantel that would allow him to be simultaneously at the rear and on the edge.

It was all a little silly. Debbie was our manager, and Jenni signed on as our stylist. We had Sock Dreams sponsorship, and were going to pose for a RHCP tribute photo - with extra long socks.

Then there was the Morgue and Svend show, which viewers enjoyed but found hard to hear at times. The fan base grew pretty quickly, and there was lively discussion on the boards about the tension between the characters, the possibility that all of season one was going to turn out to be a dream sequence, and the odd fact that Nick seemed to be in the background of every shot.

Lastly for today: Swooning. For the safety of ladies, a couch should be handily placed to swoon onto. Morgue dubbed this a swouch. For those situations where no such furniture is available, indentured servants may be employed to catch you: swervants. It is an expensive affair swooning, and may indeed require its very own swudget.

That is my account of Saturday night, loosed like an arrow from a bow, whose target is random.

Delicious Breakfast

The Year 9 form teachers at my school had a pre-school breakfast at a local cafe today. The cafe was kind enough to open early for us - we rocked up at 7:30am. There were all the usual cafe breakfast things on the menu, and they looked pretty good, but I decided to go with a Cajun Chicken Salad as my breakfast food of choice. Several people seemed weirded out that I was eating salad for breakfast, but, y'know, cajun. The other options that appealed were a kumara and chicken curry, and oddly nachos. I know that my breakfast tastes are not necessarily average, but I suspect that if more people tried eating full-on hot food for breakfast they'd be less scornful of freaks like me. The cajun chicken salad was awesome, by the way. Very delicious, and a great pre-school meal. We even made it to school more or less on time for the 8:30am staff briefing (I was one of the less, getting stuck at the school entrance waiting for 2 buses to get out).

Too grown up?

I have just acquired a copy of Watchmen, which I felt compelled to purchase from my school library. I recommended a bunch of graphic novels (they put out a form asking for recommendations), and they diligently bought several of them. All was going smoothly until this morning, when the concerns of one of the school librarians were brought to my attention: *KKK references *Sexual content - specifically rape *Violence They haven't read the book, but it's easy to flick through a comic and look at the images and get concerned. It's a little while since I read Watchmen, and I hadn't looked at any parts of it in isolation when I made the recommendation. I merely looked at the fact that it's a classic of the genre, and is actually meaty enough to be usable for a Y13 theme study text. I wasn't about to recommend it to juniors, but if you put a book in a school library, you can be sure that a junior student is going to pick it up some time - especially if it's a graphic novel. So, much concern and alternate plans hatched to house it in the staff section, and I decided that, since I don't already have it, I'd offer to buy the book for myself. Unfortunately they'd already stamped the inside cover before flicking through it, so couldn't return it to the bookstore. I don't mind picking up a copy of it at all - it's been on my wish-list for some time. It's just a little sad that it can't live in a school library. There are solid reasons, and having fielded complaints from parents about very 'clean' fantasy books (Wizard of Earthsea) I know exactly how it feels to have a book challenged, or a parent offended, and no librarian needs that. Now I just need to bring some $ to school so I can pick up my near-pristine copy of Watchmen!

Grammar Geek Goodness

 Warning: Content may be boring to people not interested in Grammar (please comment with your cries for mercy and pleas for me to NEVER write about grammar again or more may come...)

I am so in love with AsTTle at the moment - a sentiment not shared with many teachers at my school. For the non-teachers among you, AsTTle is a standardised test gives really detailed and specific feedback about your writing and reading levels (at least in English this is what it focuses on). It breaks your writing into 7 separate categories. Firstly the deeper features: Audience Awareness (how much do you write for the needs of your audience and purpose), Content (is what you are writing relevant and useful), Structure (paragraphing, sectioning and also how logically you link and order your writing), Language resources (the sophistication of the vocab, diction and relevant technical words you use). It also examines the surface features of Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling. For each of these categories the writing is put not only into the correct level of the curriculum but also into an appropriate sub-level: Basic, Proficient or Advanced.

It is pretty cool. It means that you can get extremely exact data on a student's strengths and areas needing development. Often in marking the mechanical accuracy (spelling etc) will bring down the overall grade or you might assume that accurate writing is more sophisticated. I love the breaking down of the different aspects of writing and separating out the 'what you write' from the 'how you write'.

It also has the cool nostalgic element of reminding me of level checking English students in Japan. Part of the signing up process involved you assessing the student's ability in both written and spoken English. The process was pretty speedy but you became quite really fast at picking up certain features of different levels in English. For example, if someone could answer basic questions in simple sentences but struggled with verb agreement in present perfect tense, they were a 7b.

As instructors we became pretty gun-ho about throwing around grammar terms and making up silly comments and/or games with them. One day a week I had to work in Shin-yabashira (the suburbs of Chiba) with 2 Canadian guys. In between crass comments about their sex lives or, more frequently, the lack thereof*, we had some random grammar slang and smack talk.

"Your type 2 conditionals are strong but you're weak in the ways of the type 3."

"Dude, I _own_ non-defining relative clauses."

"This is the non-defining relative clause that won't be owned by a *!@#$."

There was also the future perfect progressive tense game. Future perfect progressive tense is the most unnatural tense to try to cram into a conversation, therefore it was fun to see who would run out of FPPT things to say first.

"By the time I finish writing out this lesson feedback, I will have been working for 3 and 1/2 hours."

"By the time you finish writing that, I will have been sitting here for 5 minutes."

"By the time you stop talking, I will have been not listening to you for 6 months."

"By the time you finish that coffee, I will have been spitting in your drink for 6 months."

And so it went. What I have noticed at my school is that the terms for grammar are not consistent - the names change over the years and most of the ones I know are actually the American terms. I also do not think I have ever heard an English teacher make a joke about grammar. I kind of miss it. I like it when people have an awareness of language and enjoy playing with it. I like breaking language down into its different elements and looking at the different ways different people use it. It seems like even most English teachers think grammar is boring or take it seriously. They can't understand why I volunteer to check mark other classes. It just really interests me.

I'm fascinated that you can get thirty kids to write a description about their bedroom and what their dream bedroom would be, and each one will unique, not just in terms of content but also in the way they way they write their descriptions. The way we express ourselves and our ability to communicate through language is truly individual like a fingerprint.

* For some reason if you are a married female friend with a liberal attitude to binge drinking, guys assume you are fine with hearing their locker room drivel that can be pretty damn misogynistic. I guess they don't consider you an available female, so they don't care about being unattractively graphic or disrespectful in their discussion of females. That aside, they were lovely guys and a lot of fun to work with.

Well, we would have got the teen vote

 Oh dear. Some people have posted their vote for the Wellington finalists (not judges but people who have seen all the heats) and we're not on the list. I'm trying to prepare myself for the disappointment of not making the finals when they are announced tomorrow. I still hold out hope that our movie will make the cut but I also know that it might not.

This shouldn't really matter because the experience of making it was awesome, we worked so much more efficiently than last year and I think we learned heaps. Also we have made a movie that I'm pretty darn proud of.

I have shown it to all my classes at school, even my alternate Year 12 English class which I had planned not to as I'm not very good at taking criticism of the non-constructive variety.

I've got to say the reactions were overwhelmingly positive, especially with the juniors. We have made a film that would very popular with the 13-15 year old boy demographic. My year 10 class spontaneously starting applauding wildly during the closing credits. It was actually pretty moving because enthusiasm does not come easily to teenagers and they are not going to clap out of politeness or to spare their teacher's feelings. These kids are downright honest when it comes to telling you that a book or movie that you chose for them is "boring" or "stupid" so when they are positive about something, it is pretty nice.

In fact the lads in my form class started calling me Diana Jones for the next couple of days and excitedly told their science teacher that I was in a movie and could shoot guns*. I guess if you ever want some teens to think you are cool you should stroll about looking angry and wielding weapons.

It is nice that our film appeals to those who aren't part of the 48 hour film competition - it stands up well outside of that context. I explained after the class had seen it that it was made in a weekend for the competition and that it had required elements but they didn't need to know them to get the film. I had to explain to several what an optimist was and then one young lad nodded thoughtfully and said "ah, that's what the hippy guy was." Hee hee. They thought that Robin Slade was a hippy apparently because he was happy, didn't want to shoot anyone and wore a Hawaiian shirt.

* The only criticism I received was that I didn't shoot the monster. They couldn't understand why I didn't shoot melty man when the gun was right there. Some of them were yelling angrily at the TV "just shoot him!" towards the end. The bloodthirsty wrath was abated slightly with the 'cool' neck-snapping. One even asked, "did that guy really break his own neck?"

48 Hours - Then and Now

I thought I'd just write up a quick comparison of last year's 48 experience and this year's - very quick: Last Year We had a sizable team (around 20 or 22) with varying levels of experience. Most of us had very little experience, and none of us had done the 48 before. The writing team consisted of 6 people, the editing team consisted of Norman (who was also the on set technical adviser), and we had an at best nebulous idea of who actually wanted to act in the film. We stayed up writing until 4am Friday, at which time Hix took the 14 page script (already hacked down from 22 pages) home to cut it down to 7 pages by 8am. Meeting at Jenni and Lee's, 8am Saturday. Big huslte to get costumes and props sorted, then meet at first location at 10.30am? Filming at first location until about 12.30pm. Shift to second location, lunch provided by Luke and Sam, filming at second location until 5pm. Break for dinner and LARP. Post-LARP, one hour to shoot a scene at Turnbull house. Many extras to wrangle. Chased out by security guard ata bout 12.05am. Sunday meet up at Botanical Gardens for more shooting. Norm editing on set. Wrap shooting at noon Sunday, back to Norm's. Norm, Jenni and Steve disappear downstairs with very strict instructions not to be interrupted. Time passes. Promised rough cut does not appear. Deadline looms. Output to tape begins around 6.40pm? Deadline missed by 2.41. This Year Slightly larger team (mostly the same). Most of the team now have one 48 under their belt. Writing team = 3 people. Editing team = 2. Post-production team = 4 people, which is very cool. Script finished at a similar time, but looks like it was meant to be 7 pages, not a cut down 22 page idea. Slight chaos at Indigo City in the morning, but enough people knew what to do from last year for it to work out. It would have been easy for some things to slip through the cracks - I think a more organised meeting with public read-through of the script would really help here. At location by 10.30. One location for whole shoot = GOOD. Rain + outdoor shoot = suxxors. Filming commences, hampered by rain. Progress before lunch is slow. Junior editor on set ready to run tape back to Indigo city, but this doesn't happen until 5pm. Filming after lunch is good, though I wonder whether we could have worked faster. We certainly picked up the pace on Sunday morning. Tape run back to Indigo city at 5pm. Shooting stops when light fails, around 5.30pm. No LARP. Matt and Norman capture footage and assemble the beginning and end of the film. Some work is done on the credits. Credits should be finished and viewable by the end of Saturday, so errors can be picked up and fixed on Sunday. Sunday morning features shooting on location in three stages: 1 - First shots, taken back by Matt at 9am (regardless of progress). 2 - remaining dialogue shots, brought back by Jenni as soon as they're done (before noon). 3 - stunt sequence, brought back by Hix as soon as it's done (before 2pm). Simultaneous editing taking place at Indigo city - Svend and Norman working on music (very successfully) and sound effects. This continues while Matt captures footage and assembles scenes, then hands them on to Norm. Rough cut complete by 3.30pm. Jenni and Hix view and make suggestions. I think a safety tape or .avi back-up at this point would be awesome - or even plugging the camera output into a vcr so that it can be recorded to vhs while Jenni and Hix are watching it, then taken upstairs and watched. This could take zero minutes (the vhs option) or about 5 minutes (save to avi) or longer (up to 30 minutes - backup to tape). Probably the avi option would be best? If someone has a dvd recorder they could plug the camera into that and make a dvd in real time. The other possibility is to backup to usb hard drive, which could then be taken to another (non-network) editing station and viewed/rendered/output. Fine tuning continues until 4.30pm. Pressure applied to Norman to get him to output safety tape - 5pm is the deadline. Norman still making changes at 5.10pm. Threatened with stick. Bribed with food. Eventually relents, safety tape complete around 5.40pm. View safety tape, make notes as to fixes needed. Final adjustments, export to tape at 6.15pm. Computer crashes. Back on line by 6.30, output to tape complete by about 6.37. Tape checked and dispatched. Relax, celebrate. Mammoth Improvements Made (Pimp my Pachyderm) The tape was on time. We had a safety cut. We had an assisstant editor. The music was awesome. We knew what needed to be done most of the time. The script was tighter. We had t-shirts (neat but not essential). NZRaG was great as a communication tool, and Svend's fly-on-the-wall updates were brilliant. For Next Time I'd like to see a cut of the film released to the cast and crew as early as possible. They know the script, were on set, and have worked damn hard. They might give valuable feedback (via suggestions box), and deserve to see the fim ASAP regardless. Finding a quick way to achieve this would be boss. Organised Saturday meeting, whiteboard of shooting schedule, public read-through of script, scene summaries on the wall. A practice shoot, any time during the year. I'd love to see our team tackle one or two of the really tough genres - musical, war etc. I know I learned a huge amount from each of the 48 experiences, and would love to learn more.

Still Obsessing

Watched the tapes through last night (with Luke and Sam). There are a couple of cute moments, but the blooper reel is going to be very short - it was quite a focussed shoot, and Michaela didn't record anything uneccessary (which was awesome when we were editing - wading through extraneous footage would have been painful). Mortgage meeting with bank straight after school today, then a long weekend! Bliss! Actually, both Debbie and I had a 3 day weekend last week, what with the sick-day, but this weekend we will be just a little bit less busy :) Now I must do photocopying, and see if the library is free period 3...

Screening was Awesome!

Last night's premiere screening of Monster Hunter 4: Beyond Repair was excellent. We were without technical hitches, we got a good audience response, and the MC commented that as Angelina Jolie was out of action for a while, we had a replacement ready to go :) It was fantastic to see the team again (with a few sadly missed), and it was neat to be able to deliver a DVD to Jenni, and a CD of photos to Wayne (in exchange for a DVD of his photos). People seemed to like the DVD cover that Debbie and I put together. Tonight I think the plan is to take a look at the footage and start assembling some blooper reel / out-takes stuff. Should be lots of fun. Man, I'm loving this obsession.