02/05/10

Check out this site. You see the striped beige chair on the left hand side of the lobby?  That’s where I’m sitting right now.

And the view from those windows isn’t photoshopped, people … it’s 100% real. Queenstown, New Zealand, is everything it’s cracked up to be and a whole lot more … and I’ve not even left the hotel yet! These blogs are tricky to do at times, not because of content but because of accessibility. Being a penniless filmmaker, I don’t have a net-worthy laptop to work off and so I’m trying to get these written wherever I can, even if I have to do it in the hotel lobby … and all this in between all the regular work that has to go into making any film – whether it’s three minutes or 333 minutes long.

I started out my adventure in Auckland – first driving up to Tourism New Zealand’s cleverly obfuscated offices, where I met with Ben and Brad who were my guides in Auckland. Even though I’ve called the city home for almost twenty years, they had a few special experiences in store for me that were going to kick off my trip in style. Brad, who’s led a pretty adventurous life as a tourism guide all over the world, took me out sailing on an America’s Cup yacht on Auckland’s beautiful Waitemata Harbour. The sun was shining, the water was blue and glistening and the wind was hitting 20+ knots and all of this added up to an exhilarating experience as our boat took a trip out to Devonport, then Rangitoto Island and back again at almost maximum speed. Having never sailed before, the experience was intense and thrilling to say the least. After two hours of gliding across the ocean, Brad and I were famished and took in lunch at one of the awesome restaurants on the Viaduct before I finally headed off to the Heritage Hotel in the CBD and checked in.

But my day of adventure was not entirely free of work. Being so close to my office, I headed in and spent a couple of hours putting in the finishing touches to my animatic as well as fielding a very important conference call between myself, the production office in Queenstown and the producer in Wellington. After all this, it was past midnight when I finally crawled into bed and crashed and you only have to look at how red my eyes are in my video blog to see how exhausted I was.

The following day (yesterday), I woke early and met up with Ben, who took me on a guided walking tour of Mount Eden: one of Auckland’s larger urban volcanoes and the site of an important Maori settlement and spiritual epicenter for the local iwi. Our guide was a cultured and educated fellow named Prince, the direct descendant of the chiefs who ruled over the great expanse of Central Auckland in the 18th and 19th Centuries and he imparted a wealth of knowledge of the local area with vigor and charisma that was infectious! I totally recommend anybody coming to Auckland to do one of these, it’s like taking a tour of a living museum. I only wish we could’ve done the full three-hour walk, but I would have missed my flight had we done that!

With all that out of the way, I was packed up and carted off to the airport.

Since finding out I was a finalist, I’ve been in a state of disbelief about the whole thing and I think that this feeling had carried over to my two days sightseeing in Auckland. And I know this because it wasn’t until I first caught sight of those massive, snow-capped mountains looming up over the horizon as I flew down to Queenstown that the magnitude of what I was about to do really hit me. Tolkien and Lovecraft were both right –mountains are truly terrible and cruel things. The sight of them ties your stomach in a knot and seeing them at almost the same height as your 737, cruising at altitude, hits you like a hammer.  The scale of the mountains was surprisingly symbolic of my feelings at that exact moment – feeling dwarfed and tiny by a mammoth task ahead of me and all the possibilities that lay beyond. For the first time, I realised where I was going and what I was about to do – and this feeling of awe and appreciation has not left me yet.

Mountain view shot from the window of Rajneel's plane

Landing in Queenstown again nailed this feeling home: the dry heat coming off the valleys mixing with the cold air off Lake Wakatipu, the crisp blue sunlight glaring in your eyes, the tall Remarkable Ranges looming over you like the walls of a vast cathedral … you just know you’re not in Kansas anymore.

And then that final bit of realisation: I’m here to make a film, not on vacation, not to visit a friend, not to sightsee or explore the world like everyone else on my flight. For once, I was a little bit different from my fellow passengers. I’m here to make a film. I was living the dream I’ve had since I was too young to know how films were even made … and at that exact moment, as I was crossing the tarmac towards the domestic terminal, I realised how much effort it took to suppress the urge to scream. Especially in an airport!

The whiteboard in the YBB Production office, with Lake Wakatipu beyond

The rest of the day whizzed by at warp speed. The production offices are located in the same hotel I’m staying at which is both convenient and inspiring since I only have to look away from my work desk and see a view that makes your eyes water with disbelief. The rooms have views that are just as spectacular, though one must navigate a positively Escher-like maze of stairs and platforms to get to them (every now and then I keep feeling like I should have David Bowie chasing me and tempting me with his tiny crystal balls!).

The production staff here are supportive, fun, lively and very hard working and trying to put me at ease and after a quick meet and greet, where I also met up with the lovely Aya Tanimura (thanks Mrs Tanimura for your home remedy!), I fled to my lakeside apartment to unwind with a bottle of New Zealand red wine, some cheese and crackers and then eventually passed out watching Cartoon Network (my #1 pastime when staying in a hotel anywhere in the world).

Day 2 – today – has been a serious effort to get the show on the road. It turns out that all my early prep had not gone to waste: after a quick meeting in the morning, I instantly sat down and began writing out a shot list and sorting out some of the finer points and problems of the production. Lots of good and bad news was delivered to me: I am unable to film on Lake Unknown itself due to the fact that it’s off-limits to everything except things that travel by foot, and its distance makes it impractical. Meanwhile the production office in Wellington is currently trying to source stock footage for me as a backup should another location not present itself – which means that we’ll have to make more of a meal of our stand-in location if we’re to get a cohesive and effective film. Doing the animatic has been a huge help in this regard because if we have to go down this path, we can break down our shots into separate locations all over Queenstown to create the illusion of Lake Unknown out of piecemeal settings.

Blank Spaces star David Van Horn

On the good news side, I’ve secured my lead actor – a talented guy I know both as a colleague and as a friend: David Van Horn. New Zealand cinema fans may remember him from his awesome street-fight-to-end-all-street-fights encounter with Oscar Kightley in Sione’s Wedding, or some of you sharper eyed international viewers may have spotted him blowing up the Na’vi’s Hometree as the Dragon Gunner in James Cameron’s Avatar.  He’ll be flying down on Tuesday to join the production, and it’s gonna be fantastic to have a friendly face to talk to on the last day of prep.

I’ve also been allocated my cinematographer – a very talented and experienced professional by the name of Rewa Harre, photographer of such New Zealand films as Apron Strings and Spooked as well as camera operator on the Lord of the Rings films, River Queen and The Piano.  He’ll be flying down on Sunday and hopefully we’ll be able to put our heads together to create a visually beautiful short film.

Okay that’s about enough from me – my rented Internet time is almost up and I need to get back and start writing a wardrobe brief and also meet up with the supervising art director to discuss how the heck we’re gonna do these giant floating letters!

Till next time!

– Rajneel