Trains
We shot the train station sequence, a short but important scene, at Taipei Train Station’s underground platforms. There was the distinct possibility of being chased away, so we went in relatively small-scale: no boom, no tracks, just actors, crew, camera and tripod. Shirzi came along to scare people we didn’t want in shot away. At least it was cool and dry down there, unlike many of our shoots. Paul and Darrell took a lot of set pictures.
The main problem turned out to be the fact that each train stopped at a different portion of the platform. We’d line ourselves up for a shot with one train, but the next would stop way at the other end of the platform. At one point during a shot the voice of an insane child filled the station with some kind of psychotic poetry. Disturbing.
We finally realized that we’d just have to wing it, shooting all we could for each train and hoping to get the whole scene during one of the attempts. I think we did alright, considering.
In other news, I’ve been in communication with a government film promotion department concerning possible distribution or even investment for the film. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to realize that we are actually making a film, or if they do, they don’t seem to see what it has to do with them. Yet. They did give me some “free tickets” to the premiere of “The Heirloom”, a local ghost movie I believe done by the child prodigy behind Formula 17. The tickets, however, turned out to be contingent on there being actual seats, and by the time we got there the place was roped off. I can only hope we have such a premiere, so can rope off people just for the hell of it.
This coming weekend we’re going to be filming a few challenging scenes. One portion will be challenging because it involves horses, and the other will be difficult because it consists of little bits of action that will later be cut to other action, which we haven’t done yet and don’t yet really know how or where much of it will be done.
