24 days till shoot

Hello friends,

It turns out Melbourne Airport has a spectacular place to watch planes land... Well, maybe it's not official... but let's just say there's a paddock with cows in it and every ten minutes or so the cows start acting crazy and jumbo jets fly over VERY CLOSE. Perfect for me. Not the crazy cows, but the proximity between us and the the plane. Wow.

Onto Top 10's. Thanks for the massive response. One lousy top ten. Not a bad one actually, but come on. I know for a fact you followers aren't all pseudonyms now. So get on it.

In the meantime, due to popular demand, here's an EPIC MOVIE Top 10 list -- no particular order. (Allows me to be sneaky and mention films I couldn't squeeze into Top 10)

1. Lawrence of Arabia

2. Ben-Hur

3. Braveheart

4. Spartacus

5. Gone With The Wind

6. Schindler's List

7. The Ten Commandments

8. Doctor Zhivago

9. Gladiator

10. Titanic

Back to making a movie: The DOP and I head off to Mildura next week. We have the last two weeks before shoot to test locations. Direction of the sun VS our shooting schedule is of major importance on this film, as we have loads of exterior scenes, and many dawn and dusks shots (writer needs to be sacked). We obviously can't shoot all the scenes planned for dawn and dusk at those times, so we have to be clever with the morning and afternoon light, and complete our camera tests accordingly. Boring to read maybe, but of major importance when it comes to the overall look & feel of the film. We'll basically be choosing orange groves that run North to South (and not East to West) to give ourselves the best opportunity to "cheat" the time of day. The orange trees are VERY TALL in Mildura (see the ladders in the above pic), which gives us a good chance. Lots of shade early and late in the day.

Speaking of oranges, did you know:

A big blue bin holds 400 kilos.

A picker's bag holds 20 kilos.

A picker gets paid just $26 per BIG BLUE BIN.

A pro picker can fill 6-8 bins a day.

Ricky filled 1.5 bins in one full day.

Earning $39.

Ricky shall never pick again.

Ricky

PS. Illegal paddock with crazy cows does not exist. Do not go there if you find it.