Clouds That Look Like Things

About to go see Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them because I just got told that my surgery has been cancelled because of bureaucratic hospital stuff ups, and I have to wait around for how ever many days until they tell me when it now is. Obviously Harry Potter franchise is the only way to deal with this shit. But I am reminded of how much the movies kind of suck (except for maybe the first one, and that scene in the second last one when Harry and Hermione dance to Nick Cave). I realised when recently rewatching all of the movies, that the reason they suck is because: 

1. Second Dumbledore is just all wrong, and;

2. Nothing can top Stephen Fry’s voice combined with my imagination. 

film-freeway & lazy-belle

Mmm! Some of my favourite people in the whole wide world! These photos make me so happy. I love you to bits, and I wanna smooch you all! I love a good girl squad! Fuck yeah!

Talking about female loving - so excited for leighsadivissi‘s event for the flipping fantastic sex positive magazine (it’s so much more than just that, you can read more about it here) she co-edits - playthingmagazine. Woooo! I wanna hang out with you girls and fully recharge again! You too taliarcats, don’t think I’ve forgotten you, I’m totally into you as well, haha! 

xxxxx

Ellen (my director / housemate / friend / lover / spiritual viber who I have mentioned before) and I went costume shopping last weekend. I have so many photos of random clothes on my phone - so I’m going to put some here and give them some sort of purpose. 

These are all of the clothes from the second op-shop we went to that Ellen had to try on (plus there were more in the change room with her).

This Preston Salvos had a weird (amazing) jacket thing going on. Like - there were some seriously funky-cool jackets happening there! Don’t know why. Just embraced it.

When I tried this on I felt like I was channelling my inner Lorelai Gilmore.

So much puff - too hot to handle! (Also that colour is so good.) 

Okay, this was downright my fav one. I gave it the name Quilted Sky, and then that maybe turned into the film’s name for a second because Ellen is still so unsure about what to call her film. It was quickly discarded because it has no relevance to the film whatsoever.  None the less - incredible!

It’s a little bit Lorelai again... is she a legit person to have as fashion inspiration?? I feel like she is the opposite of what I want to dress like... 

Me so far into op-shop brain that I don’t even know what style is anymore. What is style? Does it exist? Do I have it? Further and further down the op-shop spiral of confusion between good / bad and obscurity. 

I didn’t buy the jacket - ‘cause I have no money, so that was easy! Haha! 

I like how in the last month of Winter flowers start to come out, as if to cheer us up and give us some sort of hope to keep on going. Part of me feels like this is a great and beautiful occurrence that is also psychologically mending, and the other part of me kind of feels like, “Fuck you winter! I can see through your tricks... YOU ARE STILL SHIT, DON’T TRY AND PRETEND LIKE IT’S OKAY, just fuck off already!!”

After the shoot that I wrote about a little while ago, my gorgeous babe of a friend sent me a photo that it turned out our boom operator, Drew Collins, had taken on Banality of Evil. He’d been slyly taking stills and put some of them up on his website. Which is HERE, and is also pretty cool. :)

They are so beautiful! Especially this one... oh my goodness. 

Production week season is upon us...? Is it? I don’t know. It seems to be for me at least. My friend just finished a week of shooting for her grad film that she is the production designer on, and I helped her out on set. It was a super cool shoot. Everyone was so easy going, and I honestly pretty much spent the whole time checking out everyone else working ‘cause everything was so well organised that I wasn’t really needed! They filmed in the Docklands Studios, so rocking up there was also pretty fun! Arriving in the mornings was so surreal feeling, with these huge empty feeling spaces. Who knows what is going on inside of them though! 

You get to check out my inspired shitty photos...

I’d love to be able to work at studios like this more often. It makes things a lot easier, you have everything right there and so much room to do almost anything in! It really takes away a lot of the stress that occurs on set. Their producers must be amazing because this was all done on a student budget people... student budget! They had two co-producers, and they were lovely. The first day on set I asked one of them what their role on the film was... haha, ahhhhh. Good job me! I have no idea how this film is going to turn out - but it looks super promising going by how well everyone worked together, and the images coming up on camera. It was shot in black and white, which can really go either way, but there was some interesting and beautiful looking camera work with movement and blocking of actors that I’m excited to see. I think working in a studio helped in this way, the director knew what he wanted for his set, and had obviously worked tirelessly with his actors to be able to hone performances and movement.

Two of the films I’m working on this year are also coming up quickly! Yay! These are some screen shots from the pozible video that we recently made for Sisiwa / Sissiwa (the name hasn’t been decided yet... which do you like best?). I’ll link it here when it goes up and will write a little more about the film then too. In short: it is awesome, and I am so excited for it! My friend / housemate / lover / spiritual viber Ellen Burbidge is writing and directing this film, so it’s kind of a big deal. Haha! In the photo are our kick-arse producers Annie Thiele and Brian Ho, then Ellen, and lastly the awesome Sam Loch who is the DOP.

We also filmed a pozible video for They Move By Night... and I had to be in this one, so I may never link it ever. Haha! Super babe Brian Ho (yep, the same one above) is writing and directing this one, and the two in the photo are our actors Luke Mulquiney and Nicholas Jaquinot taken by our DOP Rebecca Marian Irene. She is also great, woah, good people overload!

Haha - what an obnoxious title, but that’s what I feel like the issue for me is... not just now, but probably most of the time. I feel constantly behind, or like I’m not doing what I should do, what I could do. There are so many things that I want to do, be and experience. Yet I’m not someone that can easily keep up. I have an extremely difficult time just finding the strength to get out of bed in the morning. I think no matter how many times you tell yourself to give yourself a break and to ‘go easy’ on yourself, it is almost impossible to get the word ‘failure’ out of your head. There is so much more to be said about expectations and mental health... wow... so much. I’m not going to go into it much in this post, maybe another one. I like proving that I can be strong to myself, I hate when I fall short. What’s annoying is that I recall the times that it didn’t work out much more quickly than I do the times I succeeded. You know what? None of this is ground breaking! This is so common to so many people, but when it takes over your life, it seems epic, and insurmountable. I pledge to take small steps. Small steps to allow myself room to breathe. Posting here is one of those steps. Soooooooo... yep. First post in a while (and first one that wasn’t written for uni to tick off).

Here are some photos taken on the Burger with the Lot set by our wonderful stills photographer Ellen Burbidge.

Burger with the Lot is a short film written and directed by Talia Katz.

Talia's humour is tangible throughout the whole film, and working on a film that was so richly filled with Talia was such a positive thing. I think it helps when the story you are trying to tell is a significant part of a dear friend's own story. It's great to work on films that you really believe in, but I've definitely chosen to work on films that didn't appeal to me, so that I could support a friend. I think in that case, instead of the story, it becomes the people that you believe in. This level of selflessness, commitment to friendship and love of friendship can be really freeing. There is a big part of film that rests on ego (which is hard not to have when you're laying yourself bare, and I think that most creative endeavours involve a degree of exposing yourself... not that way!), but I feel like this is great way to open yourself up and let go of that ego to an extent. Instead, play a supportive role. 

Burger with the Lot was a difficult film, but some of the women on this set were fantastic (the majority of crew members were women, amazing!) and through the stress of everything, they made it worth coming back each morning (after the four hours, or less, of sleep). The story was never the issue for this film though, Talia has written a strong script and I can't wait to see it soon!

Some images of scenes and moments from films I can't stop thinking about.

20,000 Days on Earth - dir. Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard (2014)

Under the Skin - dir. Jonathan Glazer (2013)

Jodorowsky's Dune - dir. Frank Pavich (2013)