Poagao's Journal

Absolutely Not Your Monkey

Apr 27 2003

It’s been a busy weekend. On Saturday I asked some…

It’s been a busy weekend. On Saturday I asked some fellow students at Tai-chi practice at CKS Hall to be actors for the film. I got three guys. One of them, a reporter for the China Times, seemed rather reluctant, which is worrying. Another one is a policeman, which is definitely useful. My teacher also found an old man, but he called later and cancelled, claiming that his wife wouldn’t let him do it. I have no idea what these people are afraid of. People are irrationally afraid of appearing in the media, even if it’s just a small Internet deal. Shops and bars are afraid of being shown, people don’t want to be filmed, public places demand permits…what is up with that? Of course it’s much worse in places like New York and LA as far as the permits thing goes, but there’s plenty of other obstacles here. Luckily my friend Tony, the former Eva pilot who now works at Subway, is pretty eager. Not only that, but he has all sorts of interesting guns we can use.

After practice I rode Gendouyun (who has a starring role in the film by the way) out to the flood control region that runs between Sanchong and Xinzhuang. I found a couple of long, empty roads that are just about perfect for the car chase scenes, and met some interesting people who run restaurants out of old cargo containers next to construction sites. Something tells me a good dentist would have a lot of business in that area. When I returned to the city we held out first rehearsal, which went extremely well. We’ve tried to keep the dialogue down as much as possible, distilling everything when we could, and it sounds very good. I’ve got a group of good actors which I am very thankful for.

Today Dean and I sat down and worked out storyboards, me drawing rough sketches and him transferring them to more detailed depictions. Then we made blood, or tried to. The mixture we came up with looked more like that of a very sick Klingon. Better ingredients should get us something a bit more human-looking. We’re still looking for a martial arts consultant, and I need to spend tomorrow morning checking other locations. Da Shan called and said he’s available for lighting on Friday, but I’m going to have to shoot the night market sans lighting I’m afraid. All of these shoots are going to be extremely challenging; it will be a miracle if we can get through them all. I feel like I’m about to jump out of an airplane.

posted by Poagao at 3:01 pm  

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