Michel Gondry's Big ideas continue

Stumbled across this fantastic, crazy Japanese commercial for a clothing store directed by the one and only Michel Gondry. It features his signature giant body parts which featured in many of his music videos including Foo Fighters' Everlong and in his film The Science of Sleep (see below).

It's slightly maniacal, but also great fun and true to Gondry's hugely imaginative style. Whatever medium he chooses to work with, from feature films to short minute-long commercials, he's still able to bring to us a piece of his insanely colourful world with amazing style. See below for this wacky new Japanese commercial.

Aristurtle - Jean-Michel Bernard

Inspiring.

Ignore the video. Listen to the music.

Less Time, More Films

It's amazing how quickly time is lost when you work full-time. As you can imagine, I have been very occupied with work. When I'm not at work, I'm resting, dealing with the trivial matters that encompass my life, or thinking of different ways to overcome my lactose intolerance. The Japanese Film Festival in Sydney began last Monday, which I've been attending almost everyday throughout the week. I've been losing sleep, eating badly (dinner has consisted of buttered toast for the past two nights now) and basically not giving myself the tender, love and care that I seem to need.

(photo from JFF Facebook page)

I have, however, been seeing a lot more films than the past two months put together! I took advantage of the perks that came with having a boyfriend who worked for a film festival by sitting with him while he watched the screeners. I saw almost half the films on at the currently running Japanese Film Festival, including A Lone Scalpel (closing night film), Flavor of Happiness, Confessions and Solanin (by far my favourite). We managed to see Josh Fox's documentary Gasland, Michael Rowe's Leap Year (also known as Año Bisiesto), a Christmas tale gone wrong in Rare Exports, Australian genre film The Loved Ones, and a couple of others. It has been quite a busy November.

Next week, Kieran and I head to the Gold Coast for the 4th annual Asia Pacific Screen Awards. I'm really looking forward to this event - it's the first major 'black tie' film-event I have been asked to attend - well, Kieran was invited, and I got to be his lucky 'plus one'. Nevertheless, it will be great to be amongst all sorts of important folk in the Asian film industry. I can't wait.

December will bring all kinds of crazy with Christmas and New Year's around the corner already. Time to empty my wallets, repent my sins and consider my 2011. Can't say I'm not excited!

I'll end this post with one of my favourite trailers - a sweded trailer of Be Kind Rewind. It's sweded with all the charm and greatness of Michel Gondry.

Cooking Dreams

"Tonight, I'll show you how dreams are prepared. People think it's a very simple and easy process but it's a bit more complicated than that. As you can see, a very delicate combination of complex ingredients is the key. First, we put in some random thoughts. And then, we add a little bit of reminiscences of the day, mixed with some memories from the past. That's for two people. Love, friendships, relationships and all those 'ships', together with songs you heard during the day, things you saw, and also, uh... personal... Okay, I think it's one"

Last "Night"

Since that last post about my thesis film, I have come up with a completely new idea and story which I am confident will make a great short film. It is along the same lines of my initial concept and thought, but down a different path.

The new concept or thesis statement is "May I remind you, this is not poetry". It will be a simple, under 10 minute short with a narration or voice-over of a piece of free verse poetry over images. That's about all I intend on giving away at this stage of time!

Yesterday I watched Michel Gondry/Charlie Kaufman's beautiful Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind for the fourth time, and it had made more sense than it did the last time I saw it. I found how much the film's themes and ideas related to my new thesis film idea, and found inspiration to adopt a similar Gondry style to my proposed film.

As I am supposed to have my film greenlit tomorrow, I decided to start writing a treatment for the new film, or some sort of a proposal. By the end of the day, I had not one word down on a document, but a two-minute short film titled "Night" inspired by Jon Brion (who composed the music on Eternal Sunshine) and Michel Gondry, starring my very helpful boyfriend, Kieran. The film is an extract of a young man's sleepless night. I'll eventually have to write that treatment tonight, but check out the two-minute short we shot and edited last night. Also, I shot this on my new Canon 7D with a 50mm f/1.8 prime lens. There seems to be a problem with the quality of the film as there are clear lines moving over some of the pictures. Nevertheless, it looks quite the success.

The song is "Theme" by Jon Brion, from the soundtrack of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

26 Ways To Die, School and Callbacks

Hello. Sorry for the lack of updates. I've been terribly busy with school and other things. Kieran and I recently finished our latest production, which is in collaboration with Kino Sydney titled 26 Ways To Die. The completed works will be up in about a month's time when it is put together and premiered at the next Kino event.

I've also just started my Thesis and Directing workshop classes, which have been going quite well. I've to keep a diary for all my concepts and potential ideas for my final thesis film, which may suggest where my time is being spent the most. The directing workshops were fun - I created a character and held my first casting session (which was apparently received well). Otherwise, I skip the odd Meet The Filmmaker sessions and fall sick on the right days to stay home and watch movies.

I have been up to see some of the films at the French Film Festival here in Sydney. I just saw Phillipe Lioret's Welcome, and two days ago I saw Emmanuel Mouret's Fais-moi Plaisir! (Please Please Me!) - both of which I rated 6/10 for reasons I may explain in a later entry.

And apart from that, I have been to two interviews this week, both of which were for internships. They both went very well, and I hope to get called back for a second interview if not immediately given the job!

In other news, I'm off to Singapore for the weekend to attend a family reunion of some sort. To be honest I don't know much about it, and will probably not know the majority of family members due to attend - therefore, my idea of a out of town sojourn is and always has been from the start, a complete failure.

I leave you with a music video directed by Michel Gondry. There are some really great techniques and effects here that I think are worth sharing. Also, it's Everlong by The Foo Fighters.

(Sorry, Youtube won't let me embed the video in this post, so click here. You won't be sorry)