diaryofafilmkid

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Out of the 5 films I am on this year, this is probably my favourite! Can't wait to get on set!

www.facebook.com/findingjake

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How Not To Succeed In The Film Industry

Professionalism is everything. It seriously is. While not replying to an email or returning a call may not seem like much to you, in a cut throat industry like film it is absolutely everything! In emergency situations like what I am going through now, every hour makes a huge difference as to the likelihood of whether or not I am going to want to hire and work with you. Film is an industry based on last-minute changes and scheduling problems and one needs to be flexible, so if you aren't able to return a call or email within 24 hours, I am immediately concerned as to whether or not I will be able to get a hold of you on set if something goes wrong. So my first piece of advice is this: Don't go prepaid. "Running out of credit," is a terrible excuse to not return someones call and immediately puts doubt in my mind. It's harsh I know, but as a producer my entire role on a film revolves around making phone calls, organising meetings and scheduling things that can only be done via the phone. So get one that works!

Secondly, Learn to speak proper English and be precise in your messages. We put out a casting call today to re-audition for a role as one of our lead actors had to pull out on us last minute. My Assistant Producer uploaded a detailed and concise casting call on several facebook pages and acting groups and awaited the flood of messages of interest; and flood in they did. Amongst the sea of messages was a reply that simply said, "I like to audition." ... For what? Not surprisingly enough this wasn't the only film we were casting for, so which role were you applying for? Why did you not reply to the simple questions we asked like, "When are you free for an audition," etc. Not to mention the fact that your grammar was terrible. Immediately Bekki and I looked at each other and went, NOPE!

Third and finally for today is, CHECK YOUR DATES! You have no idea how annoying it is to cast someone in a film and then find out two weeks later that, "Oh sorry, I forgot to mention that I have work, family events, a wedding, nother shoot, etc," on that weekend, can we change the schedule?

... umm no? Unless you are Johnny Depp a production should not have to change its' dates for an actor. Simple as that. There are a LOT more factors determining when, where and at what time we are shooting than you may realise (gear hire, location agreements, legalities, etc). So you must be flexible with your times. Either way, you should always check your dates PRIOR to going to an audition. It makes all the difference.

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The trailer for my upcoming short film, Finding Jake

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The Sabeto Project: Day 16 Today was our final day in the Sabeto village so we had quite a fair bit planned for the afternoon! However, we had a few things we needed to accomplish first, including round two of The Sleeping Giant hike, which was by far the most exciting part of my day! As previously stated, I absolutely love hiking so getting to go back up the mountain again was amazing and I was so keen to check our trap to see if we managed to catch a pig. I had talked to David before we left and he told me that in the two previous days they had two successful catches, so hopes were high for today. We had a smaller crew today as well so considering how much I hate walking slowly, I was happy that we were able to maintain a very awesome pace up the mountain. It seemed as though we managed to reach the pig trap in no time at all - and GUESS WHAT?! No pig. Bummer. As cruel as the method of killing the wild pigs is, I was still keen to see it happen, but I guess you don't get to find out hiw they do it after all ;) but regardless, my main goal and aim for the day was the climb, so I didn't really care too much. The views were just as breathtaking as last time, but this time David and I decided to go a little bit further into the mountain and went for a climb down one of the rock faces. The climb down was actually really cool and we had to jump from rock face to rock face and climb down little crevices, which was so much more exciting than the straight climb. So overall, another amazing day if climbing with some awesome photos and videos to go with! Top line: Epi being a native Second: The view and a small pig cave Third: David in the cave, off the beaten track climb Upon arrival back at Sabeto village; we were greeted with a ninja-quick lunch before heading into the community hall for our farewell afternoon tea and celebration. But first: kava - of course, how could we not! I'm starting to think fiji's entire economy is based on tourism and kava! The afternoon tea was absolutely beautiful and it was so good to see how many of the villagers came to see us off! Many dances were performed, songs were sung and most importantly; tears were shed! And a fair few of them too! Saying goodbye was ridiculously hard as we had some amazing memories from the trip and met some incredible people! Saying goodbye to Eta was extra difficult as her relationship with Courtney (hence our upcoming series "Eta and Courtney in the morning") was so sweet and she was in tears the whole afternoon. It seemed as though the goodbyes went on forever and once we got in the bus, we still weren't any closer to leaving! We were immediately swarmed by hordes of the children from the schools and the bus was surrounded! Their were fist bumps and hi 5's and handshakes going on out of every window and the air rang with cries of Bula!! Eventually we did get away though, and it was a solemn trip back to the hotel and for me personally it brought back some very tough memories! When I was on Contiki at the start of the year around Europe I made friends with the two most amazing girls I have ever met, who happen to live in South Africa. Even though we were only together form 19 days, it felt like I had known them for half my life and we got on absolutely famously! I don't think we went anywhere or did anything without one another and quite often bailed from the other 47 Contiki goers and did our own thing. Saying Goodbye to them was the hardest thing I have ever had to do and this was probably a close second. I hate farewells. But just like I know the girls will forever be a part of my heart and I know I will see them soon, same goes for the amazing people of the village of Sabeto. Kava count: 50! Boom - half century!

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The Sabeto Project: Day 15

Short report today as not much really happened which was excellent after last nights stuff around. As an added double bonus, today was probably one of the best planned and organised days of the entire trip, making it so much more enjoyable. The fact that we had a set plan and actually stuck to it allowed all of us to actually feel at ease and take in what was going on around us, instead of always worrying about what we were meant to be doing.

We started the day in Natalau village and went on a tour of the place before our arts and crafts session later in the day. Compared to Sabeto village, Natalou is absolutely gorgeous. The grass is greener, the houses tidier, the gardens well kept and the whole place seemed relatively spotless in comparison. I think this has a lot to do with the chief of the village and how much respect everyone has for him, whereas the Sabeto chief is relatively new and a lot of people have no faith in him so don’t clean up and look after the village.

Afterwards we had a quick demonstration of their arts and crafts before a Lovo lunch of many horrible things. I am really not a fan of the food here, it’s really quite gross. But you know, you have to be polite and at least try the things!! The weirdest of all is they always cook their fish with head and guts intact, which just looks completely disgusting and definitely doesn’t satisfy the appetite.

Thankfully, Michelle and I got our rest today before tonight’s recordings so went straight back to the hotel from Natalou for a nap. Amazingly enough, the recordings went so ridiculously well and we finished at 11pm without any major hiccups at all. The music was absolutely beautiful though and they have such incredible voices, so it was a great experience all round. The only annoying part of the whole night was the tea, coffee and kava gathering afterwards. We ended up sticking around for about an hour and a half and then Geoff had to do two runs to take the women back to Sabeto that took another half an hour. So by 2am and after a good 16 bowls of kava we were finally on our way home!

Kava count: 48

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The Sabeto Project: Day 14

Sometimes things go right and sometimes things just go completely off the rails in every way possible, leaving you to question life, the universe and everything. Ok, so maybe that is a little bit extreme, but you get my point. I'll start at the beginning and work my way up to the downright annoying parts of the day. Surprisingly enough we came to the village with a relatively good idea of the days program and had things roughly worked out so that everything went smoothly. But who was I kidding - I should have known better! Turns out in the morning we were going farming for Kasava and Kumala - nothing too exciting there, it's the same system as back home basically. The awkward part is that it was with the family I had lunch with the other day after church and I think they were all a little bit upset with me for not going to the 21st... Oh well. From there we went to the kindergarten to film some of their totem stories, but hey what do you know - kindergarten was finished for the day by the time we got there. (We were meant to start filming at 9... We got there at 11.30) so that was a bit of a waste of time, but by the end Myri and Tony dragged me away to go over some of the footage from previous interviews. They were checking to make sure the essential parts of Sabeto's history had been covered, so it was really nice to see how much they cared about what we were doing. They have both literally put in hours upon hours of work a day to help us out so it was great to see that they were so happy with what we had captured. The next 3 hours or so was spent doing minor interviews and bits and pieces around the village, but all of us were still excited and waiting to go fishing. We were meant to go this morning straight after the kindy so by 3pm we were starting to wonder if we were going to get to go. I was a bit concerned though because Michelle and I were both keen to go fishing still and yet both of us also wanted to go home so we could have a sleep before tonight. Alas we decided (well, were told) we had to go fishing, but considering we were 5 hours late we didn't physically get to fish. By that point all the hard work was done and the boys were already lighting the fire ready to cook the catch, which grossly consisted of nothing but eels. I don't know why, but I always thought eels were boneless, but they were actually surprisingly boney little fuckers. On fact, all I could actually taste was slightly fishy charcoal and bones. Gross. Now for the absolute shit bit. As I mentioned, Michelle and I both really wanted to have a nap before going to church tonight to record the choir, but we only ended up having 45 minutes to shower, order a meal and pack our gear. So you can imagine how tired we were and how agitated we were therefore when we got to the village to find no choir. We got told to be there at 7.30 for an 8pm start, but on arrival Tony told us that one of the AoG church groups had another function on and would not be arriving till 10!! Fucking great. I sat down and started doing my video dumps from the day while Michelle had a sleep on Anna's lap (and yes there are photos, but I am sworn to no share them). By 10 a slow drizzle of people had arrives but no significant choir was present yet. By 10.30 we thought, "stuff it," lets just roll with what we have. The choirs sang their first song, which to me sounded fine - but straight away they were all dismayed by the quality of their performance saying they have not practised as a whole group enough. 45 minutes later, the whole idea was abandoned and we left having recorded nothing. We literally just spend 5 hours sitting in a community hall doing nothing... The worst part for us was that everyone else was out drinking and having a right good time for Brendan's birthday while we were supposed to be working. We were so pissed off; I mean, we were here doing these people a favour and yet they couldn't even get themselves organised! They have known we were coming for months and the organisation of the three church choirs combing for this cd was organised weeks in advanced, so why no practises have been done I can't understand. It all comes back down to the old saying, "why should I help you, if you won't even help yourself." Because the honest fact is, Michelle and I get absolutely no credit for what we were trying to achieve with this cd and yet we are shown no form of gratitude for even trying. At the end of the day we aren't getting paid, we aren't getting recognition, we aren't getting marked and we would have to spend DAYS in the edit suites fixing up the tracks and still we didn't get a sorry or a thanks. Very, very frustrating. /end rant.

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The Sabeto Project: Day 13

Unlucky for some, but not us! How could anyone consider themselves unlucky when they are working in the most beautiful country and with the most amazing people. Like always, today's plan was hazy at first but as we progressed in the day things slowly became clearer. Well, for some anyway! We had a bit of a hiccup in the morning with a few of the crew losing faith in what we were doing and deciding to go into town. So that was a bit of rough patch and put a negative spin on things, but we got through it and everything worked out ok! Jarrod, Michelle and I got paired up soon after and were in charge of recording the oral histories from a couple of the locals. The stories we uncovered were quite incredible and detailed the history of the village itself and how it came to be located in the Sabeto Valley. The first gentleman we interviewed is the owner of an entertainment troupe who practises very traditional Fijian song and dance. He had quite a lot to say about the history of village and how the introduction of a dance troupe gave troubled youths an escape from their petty everyday lives. Some of the things he had to say were incredibly pertinent to what we were trying to accomplish in the village, which was great to hear and gave me a much needed confidence boost after the mornings squabbles. The second interview we did was with a man named Killioni Kubu and had just as much, if not more relevance than the last interview. Though he was very hard to understand at times, Kubu spoke about the arrival of the Brits and Christianity to Fiji and the reasons why their village moved from the mountains down into the valley of Sabeto. The sad thing is, they both separately (and mutually) agreed that the Fijian culture in their village is slowly dying out and westernisation is slowly taking over. Where most hotels used to have authentic Fijian music, dances and entertainment, most now have typical English influences. Take our hotel for example - they have nothing but American pop songs playing on loop for hours on end. Similarly, they have 'Fijian' dances, which are heavily influenced by Polynesian performances. At every level of the Fijian lifestyle Western culture seems to be seeping trough and it appears that the elders of the village are incredibly concerned about the future of their culture. The question is though - who is to blame?

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If my GoPro actually worked while scuba diving, I'd be able to show you the papa turtle we saw! But baby turtles are just as cute.

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The Sabeto Peoject: Day 12 Another day in paradise ad out first day working officially in the village if Sabeto. Today's game plan was nothing but - in the words of Robin Thicke - 'Blurred Lines,' and we had absolutely no real concept of what we were doing. We sort of knew we were meant to be filming a few oral histories, a Lovo and some fashion stuff but nothing definitive was in place. So we got to the village with very little concept of what we were doing and sat down in Tony's place for a good hour and a half trying to work out the game plan. In the end, it was decided the Jarrod, Epi and I would go to the hot springs to film - so that we did. After a ridiculously bumpy ride we got to the springs and set up immediately to interview Stella - one of the owners of the mud pools. Epi and Jarrod had already built up a previous relationship with Stella so I went into the interview pretty confident that we would get some good stuff. I was half right, but unfortunately Stella's English limited the amount of usable material quite significantly and on top of that the story has no arch; no conflict. So after having been told that there was a significant amount of conflict and rivalry going on between the mud pools and the hot springs, turns out its a bunch of hocus. There is a bit I disagreement about certain aspects of their businesses but when it comes down to it - they are family! They don't care about what the other is doing! So sadly, the story was a bit dry at this point. Next we had a chat to one of the office ladies and guides, Leisa, who filled us in on some of the other amazing qualities of the mud pools. We managed to find a little bit of conflict between the two sides, but again nothing major. The setting for all of our footage was incredibly beautiful and the springs themselves are just gorgeous. The majority of our personal conflict came next when we headed to the other side and tried to have a conversation with the land owner their. Admittedly he was in the middle of a kava ceremony with the paramount chief so I don't really blame him for being a bit distant, but still - a little bit of interest would have been nice. Jarrod had so much trouble eliciting any form of emotional story from the guy and the were several awkward moments. In the end, we cut the interview short and just filmed overlay for the rest of the afternoon. We really didn't see the point of continuing an interview with someone who had no interest in being there. So hopefully when we look through everything we will be able to find a good enough story from the footage we got! Who knows; only time shall tell!!

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The Sabeto Project: Day 11 Nothing to say really.. Just thought I would post photos of our AMAZING day trip out to South Sea Island to make you jealous.

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The Sabeto Project: Day 10 Today was probably one of the most rewarding days of the trip for me personally as I have long been looking forward to a bit of a mountain climb. Ever since I was young I have been climbing trees and on most overseas occasions I like to go for a bit of a hike. So late yesterday afternoon Geoff and I organised for David (his Fijian son) to take us for a trip up the Sleeping Giant to show us how to set a pig trap. We set off at about 11am and slowly began our cross country trek to the foot of the mountain. Looking up, I could only assume the peak we were aiming to reach was over 1km high - but my perception of height and distance is pretty terrible... So who knows how high it actually was. Any who; we started the climb and we had not gone any more than maybe 150m uphill before people were absolutely buggered and in need of a rest. Luckily we had reached Zac's house; another young boy who came to live with Geoff in Australia. Together David, Zac and his father were going to be our guides up the mountain and also demonstrate how to set up a wild pig trap - something that most of us were excited for. Well the guys anyway! Most of the girls only volunteered to come on the hike today purely because they didn't want to see us actually killing the pig (if we catch one), later in the week. Needless to say the hike was amazing and it has been such a long time since I have been able to go on a mountain climb such as this, so it was so much fun; and so beautiful too. Everywhere we went, Zac's father (I never caught his name) would tell us about the various crops, seeds and roots that grew in the forest and how they lived almost entirely off the mountain. Considering their house is so high up, they aren't able to use government water, so they had to lay their own pipes from the springs at the top of the mountain all the way down to their house. They also heard their own goats and cattle in the mountain ranges and plant their own crops. It's amazing. Zac was saying that he walks up and down the mountain at least once a day, which is incredible because its not exactly am easy hike. 2/3's of the way up the mountain we set our pig trap, which consisted of rope and twigs placed in a manner that will trap the leg of anything that steps into it... Including their own goats... We saw one goat back at Zac's house that was missing a leg as it got caught in a trap they set. I'm kind of hoping we do catch something as it would be really cool to see that the trap actually works.. But at the same time the manner in which they kill the pigs isn't exactly something I'm looking forward to. Details will come when we go back to check the trap on Wednesday. A few hundred meters more and we were at the top - and what an incredible view it was! It was such a clear day too and we could see all the way out to the smaller islands off the coast and all of the Sabeto valley. We sat on the cliff face for what was probably only 45minutes, but it felt like hours: time seemed to just stop up there. I honestly can't wait to get back up there in a few days time because it was such a worth while journey. However, the beautiful and amazing experience of the walk had a very negative and tragic foreshadowing for me. Upon reaching the summit I got an email from my dad saying that Kaye, one of my mentors and referee educators from basketball had had a heart attack and was in hospital. While very sad on its own, the circumstances were even more tragic for me considering the back story of which I will now enlighten you. When I was in grade 10 I went on my very first overseas trip to Europe alongside my family. By this point I had been refereeing for four years under the guidance of an amazing woman named Anne Berry. When we were in Olympia in Greece, we received the terrible news that Anne had suffered a heart attack and passed away... My first ever trip overseas and I lost one of the most influential people in my life. After Anne's passing, a string of people headed the referees program under the advise of Kaye, who I now consider one of my greatest influences. So for me to once again be overseas when a majorly influential person in my life was horrible and brought back some very bad memories from Olympia. Thankfully she is ok though! So all is well, but it was just a huge shock!! So yeah; overall such an amazing day!! Can't wait to go back.

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Risk assessments are never fun. Even if you are on a beach on a tropical island.

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The Sabeto Project: Day 9 The last four days of work in the schools has been so incredibly rewarding, so I was particularly looking forward to today's open day where the children got to show off their work to their parents. In classic Fiji Time style, the celebrations that were meant to kick off at 9 didn't start until around about 10.30 and even then hardly any parents had actually shown up. It was really disappointing to see that these kids had put so much effort into using the technology and putting together these projects and none of them were able to show their parents that. Once again I think this boils down to the Fijian culture being so laid back and the fact that for the most part, the kids just roam free around the village. It really is sad to see that the parents interest in their kids education doesn't really seem to be very prevalent as it really is an incredibly important part of a young child's life. But you know - what can you do? The whole week we spent working in these schools has been eye opening and has really made me feel bad about constantly paying out my own high school education. The school I was at was good, but I always make snide comments about how they seem to care more about the uniforms than they do education. So to come from that background into these schools were some kids can't even afford the materials to make clothes to be able to go school is incredible. And as I said to Vinesh, he has a life long partner in me now and I have offered to help out wherever I can in the future because these kids are so happy and so amazing that they deserve to be able to get a good education so that they can fulfil their dreams! Kava count: 32.

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Lunch is being prepared - Lovo style! - nothing wrong with having an open fire in a school! :p

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It's good to know that even in Fiji I can still find my favourite children's book being read in school.

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The Sabeto Project: Day 7/8

Our first week has slowly drawn to a close as we headed off to the Sabeto Indian School for the first time yesterday morning. Almost immediately you can tell the difference between the two schools. The Central School is visually more appealing with green grass, flowers. Properly painted buildings and a generally well structured design. The SC also had a college attached to the back of it for the higher grades and again; was very pretty in comparison.

The education here was very well reflected in the imagery of the school and from my very first meeting with the students I could see they were brighter. In comparison, the grade 3 class here were relatively good spellers and had some form of basic reading skills. Though there was a very large divide between the brightest students in the class and the slower learners. Similarly; this was evident in the grade 6 class as well, and they had a very good spelling capability compared to the District School.

It’s hard to say what this boils down to, but I can see why there seems to be such a large confrontation between the Indian and the Fijian populations in the country. The Fijian way of life seems to he very laid back and this was very evident in their school system as kids would just walk out of the classroom for no reason. They even had a sign at the front of the school saying, ‘no things allowed,’ and yet most students walked around barefoot. The Indian school however was ridiculously well structured and as a general principe, the students better behaved.

In talking to one of the teachers at the central school, I learnt that they were very much in favour of disciplined structure and that the way to get the best results out if your students was through structured learning. Which made perfect sense really. The dry traditional Fijian school was probably a little bit too lax on some of their rules and therefore lost a hit of the power to control their students.

Now don’t get me wrong - I am not in favour of one side or the other and mean no disrespect to anyone, I am merely pointing out my thoughts and findings for the week.

The biggest realisation for the week however was the gravity of educational differences between Fiji and Australia. We live in a country that pumps hundreds of millions of dollars a year into education whereas in Fiji, millions of dollars is pumped into the military and only $8 per year, per student is put towards education. At both schools the approximate school fee is FJ$10 a term, which is sadly still a major struggle for some people.

I could go on, but for now I will subside. We also went to the mud pools and hot springs in Sabeto village yesterday, but I will do an updated blog on this once I have photos on my phone to share.

Peace.

kava count: 30

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Look at the baby puppy! Just look at it. It's adorable!