Just got back home from seeing one of my favorite bands MASTODON live! The played their 2009 album Crack The Skye (my album of the year) in it’s entirety, from beginning to end. All killer, no filler! They then had a small break and then walked back on and ripped into a dark and brutal set covering highlights from their back catalogue. One of those all to rare, intensely beautiful live music experiences.
I perhaps over looked the Fever Ray album above as one of my favourite things of 09… I think it will be on high rotation for a long while yet. I totally love this Fever Ray clip for all it’s wonder and weirdness, but this or this would be my choice cuts from the album. So good on Vinyl!
How cool is the little girls outfit below. Fashionistas and hipsters all over the world are falling over themselves trying to get the right look and here it is, put together by some awesome 6 year old in a small rural village in South West China.
The group of kids in the 3rd shot, told us, according to our translator, “…had never had their photo taken”. We were set up to shoot on the side of this crazily steep mountain range and from out of nowhere I could hear kids giggling. I looked through some bushes and saw this cheeky bunch of kids ‘spying’ on us. My wife Nat (who is a dancer) managed to coax them out of hiding by playing a little dance game with them. The kids told us they were walking home from the local school which took them 2 hours(!).
It’s hard to believe they had never had their photo taken, but their nervousness around the procedure and their shrills of laughter of seeing themselves on the digital screen on the back of the camera afterwards made it evident that it was definitely a rare occurrence.
I’m thinking more and more about that film in China…
Back in Melbourne after two very cool weeks of shooting and travelling across China. The local Chinese production company were amazing to work with and delivered above and beyond what I expected. They worked very hard and have left me with not only great footage for the TVC’s, but also provided us with many great experiences and memories.
As I said in a post below Shanghai is an incredible city. It’s more Bladerunner than Tokyo, in fact I think it’s way more Bladerunner than Bladerunner (except there are no flying cars, yet…). I really fell for it in many ways. So many contradictions, it’s a very raw and at times confronting place but also a very cosmopolitan city (It is known as the Paris of the east), with great restaurants and galleries. Ultimately from where I was standing and looking only through travellers eyes, I feel it could be a very liveable city. I would love to spend more time there. Although seeing how quickly it is changing, by the time I get back there, it could be a very different city again.
The shoot also took us high up into the mountains of South-West China into the provence of Yunnan where after two flights and a seven hour mini-bus journey across and through some of the most steep and rocky mountainous passes we found ourselves at our destination, the incredibly lush Lugu Lake.
It would be so great to go back and shoot a film. Perhaps just a short. While I was there, my mind was constantly filled with random images, sequences and scenes from possible stories that could be easily and simply shot there. There is so much life and energy on the streets, it’s all there, waiting.
Currently in Shanghai continuing the commercial shoot I began before Xmas. Man, what a city. The local production crew call it the Wild Wild East. It’s pretty crazy and intense. I love it! An amazing and very visceral mega-city where thousands of years of chinese culture and heritage is ramming face first into a fast, ever changing and modernist future.
Despite the giant leaps though, Chinese officials do block Facebook and Youtube (Gasp! Horror!), and much to my surprise they also block all eBlogger and WordPress sites, thats about every blog on the internet! So I’ve used my limited hacking skills to get around the firewall for now, but I doubt I’ll be updating in the next week or so…
Just got back home from seeing one of my favorite bands MASTODON live! The played their 2009 album Crack The Skye (my album of the year) in it’s entirety, from beginning to end. All killer, no filler! They then had a small break and then walked back on and ripped into a dark and brutal set covering highlights from their back catalogue. One of those all to rare, intensely beautiful live music experiences.
