Monster film hijinks - in with a chance !

Last night was the heats showing of my teams 48 Hour Film Competition entry "Monster Hunter IV : Beyond Repair".

Man - it ROCKED !

It was the first time I had seen it ( most of the other members of the team saw it on the Sunday night - I had gone home by this stage. I was tired, I had to iron clothes, I was hungry - and seeing as mushrooms make me sick, I decided not to partake of the mushroom pasta that was kindly whipped up for the team. I appreciate the gesture though ). It looked good! It sounded good! Debz was amazing as Diana Jones - the badass monster hunter! Luke was disarming as Robin Slade - the upbeat monster diffusing kinda guy! We had wicked looking stunts ! I looked good as a corpse !

The weekend was fun - though there was a lot of waiting ( a good amount of it in the rain ). I've learnt that there's a lot of this in films if you act in them. Viva was, on the other hand , gloriously busy in her role as assistant-director ( she did such a great job I thought - sure, I'm biased - but she was still great ! ).

My contribution to the film was being one of the mooks - or in more un-hip parlance, one of Diana Jones' elite monster hunting thugs. I had to stand and look mean in one shot with the rest of the mooks ( there were five of us ). I had to also stalk through mud in a combat style ( I also learned to hold a hand gun in a 'proper' way ). My big moment was my 'hero' death. I was actually kinda nervous about the shot - it was one of those "You get ONE crack at this - don't screw this up" moments. I had to stand back to back with another Mook - turn slowly ( scanning the surrounding bush ) to face her. THEN I had to see the monster ( who was a melty faced guy ) off screen behind her. I had to register shock/horror/revulsion - and then my Mook partner was supposed to get glooped off frame - and that's when two guys off frame were going to splatter me with fake blood ( make from golden syrup, chocolate sauce and food coloring ...man - I hope that doesn't violate some kind of secret. Don't want Peter Jackson kicking my arse - though I'm pretty sure I have the weight advantage on him now ...). Then I freak out - then the monster kills me. Fun !

The first time the guys were supposed to "gore" me, they missed completely - getting my co-Mooks shoulder instead - though they DID manage to get a bit of blood on me too - just enough so it was a pain to get off. Ah well.

I was really worried afterwards - cos it didn't feel like I had really nailed it. It didn't look too bad on screen - though I know I could have done it better...

The last thing I did was to be dead in a frame with my likewise dead co-Mook - the whole eyes staring lifelessly from my expired corpse. Now THAT was alright !

To be honest - even if I had had nothing to do with our film, I STILL would have ranked it at least second. The "road-movie" from out heat was pretty funny, and I gave the "Based-on-a-true" story a second place - even though it wasn't REALLY in genre ( but it WAS pretty freaking funny ). I hope we win that round - I think we deserve to.

I now want to learn some mad animation skillz - so I can create a logo piece as cool as the "Long Live Megatron!" teams one! Nothing says cool quite so much as a mental looking robot firing a automatic weapon wildly while screaming "Long Live Megatron!" ( So cool ! ). I'd love to know what application they used ...