It’s late so I’ll be brief.

Oh, who am I kidding?

Last weekend was the Migration Music Festival, and I went to see the first two nights of performances, along with several friends including the rest of the Muddy Basin Ramblers, who played there last year. We sat out on the grass along with what seemed like several hundred other people. The first night I saw a gypsy band called Taraf de Haidouks. They were incredible, their music so fast and their enthusiasm so infectious that they soon had the crowd dancing in the aisles and, towards the end, even on stage.

The next night, Saturday, I trudged up the hill in Da-an Park once again, but found a very much more subdued crowd. On the stage a heavyset blonde fellow made strange jerking motions to the sound of an electronic beat and a violin. They were Norwegian and rather ineffective. But the crowd suffered through it because we knew what was coming afterwards: Soul Flower Mononoke Summit!

SLMS used to be a punk band, but after the 95 quake in Kobe they found themselves performing to entertain quake victims without electricity, so they traded in their electric instruments for traditional Japanese ones. They rocked just as hard, and each song was enthusiastically welcomed by the Taiwanese crowd in spite of the pouring rain. “Kawaii!” the lead singer said as the crowd reacted to his every gesture. We walked down front to get a better look before it was over. Sandy and Jojo had to tear me away from gawking at a certain cameraman so they could go get some food at a SE Asian restaurant near Yongkang Street.

On Sunday, which is Halloween, we’re putting on the radio play at Peshawar. It should start around 4 in the afternoon. That morning we’re going to shoot a scene for the movie there, so it’s going to be a busy day. Saturday won’t be a breeze either, as we have rehearsal, and I will need to bring half the equipment for the shoot, since I can’t carry it all by myself. Funny how these things always seem to coincide. That’s what working on weekends’ll do to you, I guess.

Several people have come to look at my apartment, and one couple even wanted a second look. So far no buyers, but I’m not optimistic that I’ll get to stay here much longer. It’s really annoying having complete strangers waltzing through your house every so often. They could at least trapse through like normal people.

Elections are coming up, first the presidential poll in the US and then Legislative elections here in December. I’ll be glad when they’re over, though I doubt I’ll be happy with either result. I’m just sick of everything being forced into a partisan black-and-white context. There’s so much intense debate over everything that there is no real debate. It’s all posturing; reason and logic have long since departed. Hopefully after the dust settles I can look forward to actual discourse resuming on meaningful subjects.

So much for brief, or getting up at a decent morning hour tomorrow. Oh well.

Halloween’s going to be a busy day. We’re scheduled to film the Eatherly scene with Dean, Gary, Fuad and Eval in Peshawar that morning at 10, and then I am participating in a radio play in the afternoon. In the meantime, I am planning to go location hunting deep in the bowels of NTU campus. My goal: a dank cell, dismal corridor, decrepit stairway and, uh, *checks dictionary*, depressing rooftop of suitable character that they could concievably be part of a Burmese prison. Something with electric outlets for the lights James Thomas of WDEVN generously loaned us. He might have some commando friends we can use later in the film as well.

Darrell came over just before the last typhoon and helped me reinstall Windows as well as Premiere Pro 1.5 and other things. We captured the footage I’ve shot so far, and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by it, especially the DV8 scene, which I thought might have been a bit off considering the chaos that night. Instead, I think it should work pretty well. Here are some screen shots from what I have so far:

Dean

Paul Jackson

Dean and Paul

Dean and Maurice

Gaby

and, of course, Dolly at the beach.

Next up after the Peshawar scene is the Washington, DC scene, tentatively scheduled for next weekend, to be shot near an old church I found near the Legislature. I’ll need to do some more tests there before I can be sure it will work, though.

I have also been advised that I need an “About” page for this site, but I haven’t been able to come up with a good layout for such a page yet. Let me know if you have any suggestions, ’cause I’m fresh out of ideas when it comes to that sort of thing.

In other news, I stumbled across the website of another independence production, Girl with a Movie Camera, about a women shooting a film in Italy, apparently using the same or similar camera as I am. Hers is a very different film, of course, but it’s an interesting read.

I’ve got a few things I’m getting rid of:

Nikon FM2, black: NT$10,500

f3.5-4.2 35-210mm Tamrom SP Macro: NT$8,000

All well cared for and in excellent condition, for sale cheaper as a kit (all together with bag and flash, filters), or individually at or around the prices listed above. These are the camera and lenses I used to take many of the pictures lower down on my photography page.

Also, I’ve got a few gmail invitations if anyone is interested.

Last night I finally got my new DVD burner to work, after downloading a new version of Nero. Unfortunately (and, considering this is Windows, not unexpectedly), this had the effect of removing all the programs in my bottom toolbox, emasculating my Norton firewall, and making gmail inaccessible from my home computer. Right clicks still take 30 seconds to respond, as always.

Damn I hate Windows. I hate the fact that hundreds of people were paid fabulous salaries to come up with systems that collapse like a house of cards whenever anything new is introduced, and I hate the fact that most of these problems can be fixed only by taking measures any normal person would never, ever think of.

In other news, a nearby typhoon is making it a very damp, somber day, though the weather bureau expects it will, as almost every single other storm has, turn northward and hit Japan instead of us. Before that, we had wonderful weather, temperatures just right, sunny and incredibly pleasant.

In still more, fucked up news you won’t believe, my new landlady is selling my apartment, a mere two months after she bought it. What does this mean for me? More of the same shit I’d been dealing with before, including the realtor asking me to stay home all the time in case someone wants to see the place, watching strangers trapse through my home, being warned not to let any potential buyers know that the seller just bought the place, generally not knowing if I’ll be staying here much longer and not being able to really look for a new place due to the possibility of the new owners being willing to keep renting the place out to me.

房東今天寫來的信:

“林先生

UPDATE: Paul put up a page with his description of the day as well as some screen grabs from his camera.

Getting up at 5:30 a.m. on Saturday was not easy, especially after staying up late the night before getting ready for the shoot. Maurice had called earlier saying the weather reports were not sounding good, that a cold front was coming in and the weather would be cold and wet on the only day Dolly was available, i.e. Saturday.

When I looked out the window, however, I was happy to see blue skies with only partial cloud cover. The shoot was on. I gathered up my camera, tripod and glidecam and set out for Dean’s house, where we were meeting.

As it turned out, I was the only one meeting Dean at his house, as Maurice and Dolly were going to Keelung directly, and Tommy, who was up in Taipei visiting and who had said he wanted to come along on the shoot, wasn’t able to make it. Dean made eggs and toast for breakfast, something I hadn’t eaten in a long time.

At Sungshan Station we bought tickets for the slow train to Keelung and proceeded to the walkway entrance, where a young female caretaker was trying to get an elderly man onto the escalator. She finally managed, but the poor fellow was whimpering in fear and grabbing at the wall. I thought for sure he’d get his hand caught and we’d all come tumbling down in a heap, but he made. Why she didn’t just use the elevator I have no idea.

Maurice and Dolly, the former wearing a typically Maurice-like shirt with a red and black pattern resembling a Mandelbrot fractal, arrived in Keelung just after we did, and Paul was waiting in front of the station in his Toyota, which is more rust than car these days but still does the job. We squeezed in and were off, out of the ugly city, through green mountains and along the coast. Everyone seemed happy that the weather was so nice; I know I was.

We reached Fugui Point at about 10 I guess. I was worried when I saw a tour bus parked at the entrance to the beach, but luckily the tourists were just ending their visit. As we approached the beach, construction equipment came into view. Apparently they were building some kind of structure down on the sand, but fortunately not where we were planning to film.

I set up on the cliff overlooking the little cove as Dean, Paul and Maurice lugged a tree trunk to a better location on the beach. I watched as a Taiwanese couple came over, the man helping with the log as the woman looked on. Perhaps she was revaluating her opinion of him.

I got the cliff shot, and we started filming the closer shots with Dolly, who had purchased a new, even more revealing bikini. Although the weather was good, we’d get an occasional cloud making shooting a bit tricky as far as timing was concerned. I worked though most of the storyboards I’d drawn, making only a few changes based on the conditions. Everything looked very nice. I used a high shutter speed, 1/1000, so that we could use software to simulate slow motion if needed. Other shots I did at 1/500, which looked the best.

Shooting at the beach can be a pain. Sand got everywhere, the feet of my tripod were most often buried in it, and I’m sure my polarizer got a bit on it as well. I’d bought suntan lotion but forgot to bring it, so after a day of shooting with my usual aborigine doo-rag, my face is now dark only from my forehead down.

Another problem was props. Dolly’s fake red nails kept unsticking, invariably falling into the water or getting covered with sand. I ended up having to tell Dolly to move her hands so that the loose nails didn’t show. Also, Lady X’s hat kept blowing off in the wind. I was about ready to staple the damn thing to Dolly’s head, but we finally got the shot without having to resort to such measures.

Maurice was handling Dolly’s sun protection with an umbrella, while Dean was handling the boom and chain smoking when needed. Paul was taking pictures of the shoot, both with his Sony PD150 and my little Canon, and he got some good photos. It’s interesting to see how short we all look from Paul’s point of view.

Our last shot involved Dolly coming out of the water. The waves were really high, but there was a bit of area near the rocks where she could do it. Both Paul and I were wading out into the surf at one point, and the waves soaked me to the waist in the process. Thankfully I’d handed my cellphone to Dean just beforehand. My wallet wasn’t so lucky, however. At least the water wasn’t cold. If I’d brought a swimsuit I would have gone swimming.

After finishing the shoot, I had some fruit Maurice had bought on the way, and sat on a piece of driftwood waiting for my pants to dry. “What are you smiling at?” Dean asked me, but I wasn’t smiling at anything in particular. I was just happy to be doing what I was doing, that everyone was having fun, and that things were working out.

As we trudged back up the sandy cliff, a couple of guys working on the construction shouted out “Hello! Hello!” to us. “Have some Whisbih!” they called as they held up the bottle of sweet purple liquid. Up on the cliff, soldiers standing on ladders behind the barbed wire surrounding their military base called out as well.

I’m happy to have the only weather-dependent scene out of the way; if we hadn’t got it this time we would have had to either go down to Kending or wait til spring. For our next shoot, I think we’ll try to do the scene with Dean and Gary at (hopefully) Peshawar (I still need to talk with them about it). The jail scene would also be nice, if we can find a place that looks enough like a jail cell, the door being the key factor here. I also need to get my new DVD burner to work so I can start capturing and editing.

Anyway, two scenes down; many, many others to go.

Yesterday was a very long yet satisfying day. It started when I dragged myself out of bed at 5:30 a.m., not an easy thing after getting very little sleep recently, as well as staying up late the night before getting ready for the beach shoot. Yes, once again we were hoping against hope that the weatherman would be wrong and that we’d get the sunny day we needed. We got it, in spades; I’ll be writing about that in the production journal, so I won’t go into it here.

Needless to say, I was bushed by the time we finished in the late afternoon, but my day wasn’t over yet; the Ramblers were scheduled to play at the Daniel Pearl Day of Music at the Taipei Artist Village. The event started at 6, but after taking the train from Keelung and the subway home, catching a quick shower, grabbing my horn and fedora and getting back on the subway, it was after 7 before I arrived to find a small crowd of people sitting around eating and chatting while a small group of guitarists played quietly on the wooden deck stage under the trees.

The good news was that the Ramblers were scheduled to play last, at around 9. The bad news, it seemed, was the someone had accidentally plugged the amp system into a 220-volt plug and shorted out the whole system. This explained the quiet guitars, which I could barely hear, as well as the chatting.

I grabbed a couple of spiced burgers supposedly donated by Jason’s Market. They were far too big for the tiny buns, and I didn’t really appreciate the taste, but they were the first thing I’d had to eat since some fruit on the beach, so they were welcome at that point.

Several groups performed, but not many people really paid any attention, to our growing dismay. Dave, Sandy, Will, Tim and I discussed how we could adapt to the situation, and Dave came up with a plan he felt would work.

Just after nine, following some pseudo-Shakespeare and some speeches by Sean Scanlan et al, we marched out into the crowd playing variations in D minor (in other words, whatever came to mind), over to the area where the beer was being served, or had been before they ran out of beer. This was the epicenter of the chatting, and Dave had decided to take the band to the audience rather than expecting them to come to us. We stood in a circle and played with much more enthusiasm than we probably would have in an amplified state. I loved it because not only could I hear myself, I could hear everyone else quite clearly as everything was wonderfully balanced. Dave’s enthusiasm was infectious; that man sure can work a crowd.

Over the course of the performance we shifted position a couple of times, each time going to where people were gathered. Will got up on the wooden deck and tapped up a storm, and a few people came and joined in on their own instruments. At one point a small child was taking pictures of us, and I noticed that he or she was using a new Canon 20D, the very camera I’ve had my eye on recently. Lucky little bastard.

We had to stop playing at some time after ten, but I think we made a fairly good impression. I also think that we’re going to try to recreate that setup with a single microphone to play around at future performances.

After the shooting and the playing, I was really tired, but I stayed and chatted with a few people afterwards. A pleasant-looking fellow introduced himself as the infamous “Wolf Reinhold” of Forumosa fame. Then Sandy, Jojo, a couple of their friends and I took the subway back to Xindian where, in spite of the fact that I was getting really tired, we partook of some delicious rhotis while sitting out on the street next to Athula’s rhoti stand, where I listened to Sandy and Jojo talk about their upcoming trip to Penghu, where they plan to search for a mythical vacation resort designed by Mike Brady.

It was after 2 a.m. before I collapsed into bed. And, of course, was awakened early this beautiful Sunday morning by the sound of jackhammers next door.

Mister Donut opened on Friday. I suspected it would be a madhouse for at least the first couple of days, but when I saw how fine the weather was on Sunday, I figured I might as well go take a look while I was in Tianmu to get some western goodies.

It was a madhouse, of course. The front was roped up like the front of Pirates of the Caribbean, and the line stretched a block away. It didn’t seem to be moving very fast, either; a sign just a few feet from the store read “180 minute wait from this point”. One staff member estimated a four-hour wait from the back of the line. I asked another staff guy when the next Mister Donut was opening, but he didn’t understand me. It turned out he was Japanese, here to supervise I guess. After we switched to English, he said the next store was opening in November, but he couldn’t say where. I’ve heard rumors that it might be inside the Estrogen Mall. I mentioned that I remembered the previous Mister Donuts here, and the guy said I must have been here a very long time to be able to recall that.

The reason the line was moving so slowly was customers being apparently overwhelmed with the vast array of unfamiliar products. I wasn’t about to wait four hours for a donut, so I went to the window and took some pictures of the interior as well as a part of the selection. Looks pretty good. I’ll go back in a week or two after the hubbub’s died down a bit.

By the way, the selection of foreign yummy things is still better at the tiny Wellman’s Market on Zhongshan North Road than the huge Jason’s Market chain. I went to the Jason’s at the Takashimaya Department Store and found nothing but outrageously expensive “lean cuisine” frozen dinners and confused Taiwanese shoppers buying, of all things, instant noodles. They did have plenty of chaos on hand, however, thanks to mini shopping carts for the kids…not the best idea for a store crowded to over capacity.

Earlier this evening I met up with a group of friends at the newly hip ‘n trendy Q Bar and Restaurant. They’re planning to put on an old fashioned radio horror story for Halloween, complete with period dress and props for sound effects. Could be interesting.

The weather’s been great recently, pleasantly cool and relatively dry. There’s still typhoons out there waiting for a shot at us, though.

It’s almost 3 a.m. and I can’t sleep, probably due to something I drank at a party earlier tonight at Brett and Alan’s apartment in Nangang. The weather’s been pissy for the last couple of days, so it felt extra comfortable indoors, eating Brett’s chicken and dumplings, and chatting with friends. I met one guy who works for the high-speed rail project. He claimed it would be up and running by this time next year, but he was as mystified as the rest of us as to why Banqiao, just across the river from Taipei, needs its own stop. Is 300 kph service really neccessary for a trip that takes maybe 10 minutes on the MRT?

Anyway, the weather on Tuesday, i.e. mid-autumn moon festival, was perfect. I had the day off and took the MRT to Gongguan and walked out to the riverbank park to meet up with some friends for food, sport, photography and music.

The food included various kinds of barbequed meats, potato salad and tim-tams. Later we got some spirited badminton games going on. I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed playing and promised myself that I’d try to play more from now on, though that’s a bit iffy considering the season we’re entering at the moment. I talked with Hyatt about digital and film cameras, and I helped Robyn, Dave, Paige and Olwen with their jumping pictures. Apparently they are finalists in a garbage truck photography contest and needed their pictures taken for the ceremony.

I even got in a couple of mirror project pictures, something I haven’t done in a while, one as Dave, Will and I were preparing to play some tunes, and the other of the silver balls some of the others were using to play some kind of strange game that involved throwing them on the grass and not, as I would have guessed, at each other. The full version of that one made it onto my photo page, I liked it so much, along with a picture of the swollen Xindian River taken after the last typhoon.

Just after the sun set across the river, the full yellowish moon rose brilliantly from behind the freeway bridge, promising us all good luck for the next year. By around 8, however, it was becoming clear that the other groups of barbequers were planning to rush our prime spot, so we retired. What a great day.