10 days till shoot!

Hello friends,

Is that the coolest tractor you've ever seen? Oh yeah.  That's Alex Dimitriades' rig for the movie. Oh man, what I wouldn't give to cruise down Gertrude Street in that.

In other news: Big Willy's in town! Our main man gaffer Colin Williams trucked into Mildura yesterday. Really important that all locations are properly scouted for power supply and of course for us to discuss lighting. ...And our lack of generators. Good thing is, most properties here are on 3-phase power, so we're cherry ripe in MOST situations. Can't believe I just said "cherry ripe". Haven't even started shooting and I'm already talking like crew. I have a habit of becoming all Australian on set. You know, like the days of the week become: Sundee, Mondee, Tuesdee, Wednesdee... etc. Not sure if it's being out in the country, or my feeble attempt to "man up", but it's very funny none-the-less.

So where does one find the coin for a soundproof generator? It's sponsor time again! We'll fling on our capes and sell like superheroes for a sponsor today. We've been so incredibly fortunate to receive such generous support over the last 3 months. Greg (DOP) and I often joke about how many times our wages have been spent, for example: Greg says "We really need this lens", and I say, "We can't afford it", and he says "Don't worry, take it out of my pay"... to which I respond "Your pay has already been exhausted three times!". It has to hurt if it's to heal. And how else could we fantasise about affording helicopter aerials, if they weren't coming out of our fictional pay packets.

Spent a good few hours on the schedule with Mr Magee. Magee (1st AD),  other than his obvious duties, has wrangled some amazing crew members. Coming off a big TV production in Melbourne, he's brought on a lot of top dogs and it's quite harrowing to look down our crew list. We have the best of the best. Smartest move I ever made was telling Magee about my friendship with Stefano De Pieri. You can't keep an addicted foodie away from Mildura --  the produce here is just too good. I guess you can say Magee followed his nose and like the Pied Piper along came some crew. He certainly must be piping some hypnotic tunes, but I'm very glad he is. Champion.

But enough slaps on the back, it's song and dance time! Anyone got a spare generator floating around??

Ricky : )

PS. Big shout out to Anita. If she's reading, just wanted to let her know that she's AWESOME.