day 7: falling off the radar.

Going to be down near Syuejia for the next few days, will just leave this here...

day 6: The song and dance...

Working on script revisions (and will be for the next few weeks). Began on writing this character breakdown for casting. If you're in Taiwan and interested in auditioning, please get in touch.

PASSAGES (2009)
follows two brothers as they exchange paths in southern Taiwan and struggle with their inheritance from the recent passing of their mother.

Character Breakdowns
YONG (Age Range: early 20s) - Younger Brother. Took care of the family while Zhi was away. Feels almost too comfortable where he is in the world. Must be able to speak Taiwanese and Mandarin fluently.

ZHI (Age Range: mid 30s) - Older Brother. A career driven Architect. Left early from home and never looked back. Must be able to speak Taiwanese & Mandarin fluently as well as some English and Japanese.

Minor Roles
AUNT (Age Range: mid 50s/60s) - Brother's Aunt. From the City. The Executor of the mother's will.
MARY (Age Range: early to mid 20s) - Former classmate of Yong. Now works at the brother's hometown as a street vendor.
LAWYER (Age Range: 30s-40s) - Deals with the brother's will.

day 5: everything in moderation.

Slogans from Alexander Mackendrick.

Movies SHOW
...and then TELL!
A true movie is likely to be 60% to 80% comprehensible if the dialogue is in a foreign language.

~

PASSIVITY is a capital crime in drama.

~

Student films come in three sizes:
-TOO LONG
-MUCH TOO LONG
-VERY MUCH TOO LONG
(and in videotape it's worse)

Doh! I think I've broken all three.

day 4: what's on the list?

Brought some books for reading. These ones are mainly for inspiration.

"Notes on the Cinematographer" - Robert Bresson
"Sculpting in Time" - Andrei Tarkovsky
"On Filmmaking" - Alexander Mackendrick

These are for research and general referencing.

"Chinese Characters: A Genealogy and Dictionary."
"Lonely Planet: Taiwan."
"Orphan of Asia" - Zhuoliu Wu
"Becoming 'Japanese'" - Leo T. S. Ching
"Forbidden Nation" - Jonathan Manthorpe
"Chinese in a Flash"

day 3: looking back.

Monument from herrith sebon on Vimeo.

I realized I don't have much of my own work online (which I argue is always a good thing). However, I'm starting to look for actors/crew members here in Taiwan who have no idea what I've done. So I've uploaded an online version of "Monument," for them and your viewing pleasure. It's horribly compressed and isn't in pretty HD, but will suffice for now.

You can find the old production blog for the film here.

day 2: i turn my camera on.

found this on a t-shirt around the shilin night market.

the cinema is a very truthful medium
in the dust of the deed of time
where we sat to watch the stars"

true dat.

day 1: packing for a plane.

1PM PST:
Spent most of the wee hours of the morning playing tetris with my clothes and equipment to fit them into three pieces of luggage. Now for the award of a 14 hour plane ride...

4PM PST:
Had to check in the pelican case with my camera gear (7kg's max weight for carryons)!! Did a last minute scramble to throw everything valuable into my backpack and ziptied the case.

FLIGHT:
Tried to do some reading, wasn't really up to it. Ended up watching two films L-O-V-E and Taken, during the flight.

LOVE was an omnibus in the vain of "Paris, je t'aime" or "Tokyo," but this time in Taiwan. Featuring an orgy of teen idols doing teen idol things; looking cute, being cute, and saying really cute things about "love."

TAKEN was a surprise, think "The Searchers" meets "Borne Identity." Was like candy. Something about having a film with "professionals" (script co-written by Luc Bresson), doing what they do best never gets old.

POST-FLIGHT:
Everything (gear & luggage) made it alright. OMG... it's hot here!