A star is born

Lance and I went cruising for birds yesterday ...literally! ...driving around Auckland looking for seagulls, slowing down everyone once and a while and yelling "there's one!"

It turns out that working with animals is a dumb idea. For all the fish and bread we threw at our "blue screen" tarpaulin for 2 hours, the bloody birds refused to go near it. Eventually a star was born (below) when one of the birds finally plucked up enough courage to give us the performance we needed.

We also collected a difficult special effects shot: a POV with freezing aerosol blasting out of our body double's space suit leg down at Sentinel beach in Herne Bay. It looked fantastic however, and our new body double, Frances Wilkie, was a legend. Thanks also to Treve, for giving up a golf day to stand around and throw bread at the gulls.

We came, we saw, we got it in the bag!

WHEW! We did it! Saturday was a huge success! We ended up shooting at our B site, Port Waikato, instead of Bethells, but even this turned to our advantage, the dunes staying much drier, with fewer spectators and even better weather.

And the footage we got looks fantastic!

On the downside, the spray we used to simulate a leak in the suit managed to burn Kassie, and even temporarily blind our cameraman - but both of them soldiered on above and beyond the call of duty! Throughout the day everyone kept their sense of humour and resolve. It was a wonderful shoot and a fun day! A huge thanks to everyone involved! YAY!

Filming...

Folks, we've set our first (tentative) date for our last location shoot on Saturday 26.

Our backup day is Saturday Oct 3rd, and if we're really unlucky with the weather, (and we can get everyone!) Saturday 10.

After that we just need a short day at the Studio and we're done! Yay! Let's wrap this puppy up!

Bank on bad weather

So much for Bethells! Despite predictions of fine weather today, or perhaps because of the micro-climate out west, we were again pipped at the post by the weather.

Gloomy skies and wet sand made shooting today out of the question, despite flying Sarah up from Wellies, and Adam, Kassie, myself and David taking time off from work. We even dragged Lance away from his duties! But to no avail.

So after thinking through our options we all ended up driving back to Auckland and watching The Bank Job. Not quite the day we had planned - but surprisingly pleasant all the same! At least we don't have to worry about the weather on Sunday!

Introducing... our stunt astronaut!

Tomorrow morning, Claire Van Beek will be debuting as our stand-in astronaut for some of our slightly more exciting scenes! Kassie's bad back rules her out for the shots of our astronaut rolling down the dunes at Bethells, but luckily for us, Claire has come to our rescue. Fingers crossed for good weather tomorrow, and I'll post some more shots up soon.

Tongariro scout

This weekend, Sarah, Lance and I will be visiting Tongariro to choose the spots we will be filming the majority of Last Flight.

Immediately following that we will be able to finalize the shot list and get a proper schedule out to everyone. Sorry it's taken so long, but until we were certain about what shots we were doing where, it has been impossible to be sure about dates and times.

The other main dates that are fast approaching are: 

A full crew dress-rehearsal of equipment and procedures out at Bethells on the 24th (or 25th, weather dependent)

The start of shooting at Tongariro on Feb 6th, 7th and 8th.

The upshot is that preproduction is finally, nearly over - - and production is about to begin! Wahoo!

And by the way, a belated happy new year to everyone!

The valleys of Mars

My friend Kylie recently visited the Atacama desert during a swan around Chile, and took some amazing pictures in the Valley of Mars... WOW. It's a pity this place isn't down the road!