Scene 1, shot 1, take 1 I met up with Dean, Min…
Scene 1, shot 1, take 1
I met up with Dean, Mindcrime and Maoman at the so-called Tranny Starbucks on Zhongxiao E. Road at noon today. Our aim was to shoot principal photography on Mindcrime’s script, which details what happens when two foreigners meet in Taipei. As we were still sitting out on the back porch there, a guy rode by on a horse. Since this isn’t something you see every day in Taipei, we all gawked as it was revealed that the rider was 1) a singer who was famous in a big-fish/little-pond sort of way, and 2) obviously not used to riding a horse, which pretty much went where it wanted to, often trotting sideways over to nearby bushes and eating them. Another, obviously less-famous guy with a video camera similar to mine was running around behind the rider and his mount. The animal was skittish due to the one or two screaming groupies near the small stage.
We got about half of the shooting done before it began to rain, so we retired to the coffee shop porch to wait it out. A young woman who was sitting at the next table asked Mindcrime to watch her stuff, and he agreed. When she got back, she was so impressed that her things were still intact that she gave him a little wrapped box that turned out to hold a single Viagra pill. Overcome by such an obviously romantic gesture, Mindcrime invited her to sit with us. Much to our disappointment, however, no more Viagra was forthcoming.
The rain began to let up, so we went out and filmed until the light began to fail, and then Dean and I went to see the latest Harry Potter movie. It was a bit of a disappointment. I liked the first one because I wasn’t expecting to like it, and I disliked the second one because I had liked the first one. Being in the second row on the left side didn’t help things. It skewed the perspective enough that I had to point out things happening on the other side of the screen to Dean from time to time. In retrospect, they were probably pretty similar. The third-through-seventh films might be relegated to video-rental status, I think.
Tomorrow I plan to go out to get some background and lead shots in. Then it’s to the cutting board to see if I can make sense of all this footage. It’s been far too long since I’ve either been a cameraman or directed anything, so I’m a bit rusty at it (read: I’m far too nice to everyone on the set). Don’t worry, though, I’ll get over that soon enough.
I’ve taken down the Shilin Night Market video and replaced it with a clip of a vendor near where I live berating a crowd of shopping disciples for not immediately snapping up his fine array of clothing. It’s a bit dark, and also rather large, about the same size as the last one. Have fun.
