Waterhose

I had a fight with my grandparents’ waterhose.

On Sunday night, I was to do a part of a music video project for film (along with classmates, Clement and Piolo). We went to my grandparents’ backyard to supposedly film, where Piolo is the singer/guitarist performing in the rain. The only way to execute the rain on a non-rainy weather is by using a waterhose set to sprinkler mode. So I turned on my grandparents’ waterhose for testing, which was good to use.

Now, the problem we had was the lighting for the film. The lighting equipment we borrowed was for indoors as the outdoor lighting equipment was taken. Unfortunately, an outdoor plug socket couldn’t be seen on my grandparents’ home so it looked like we needed to go to Piolo’s house instead as he had an outdoor plug socket.

So I turned off the water… or as I thought. Water was leaking out and shooting in different directions from its base, so I wasted several minutes getting wet trying to figure out how to stop the water from leaking. The other two weren’t much of a help, mostly because they didn’t want to get wet. Piolo even suggested leaving the water on, which I thought was a really bad idea, especially when my grandparents and uncle return from Calgary, Alberta.

So then, it was just me still getting wet trying to stop the leakage, Piolo standing around, and Clement trying to find an outdoor plug, in which he couldn’t.

Eventually I managed to stop the water from leaking. Turns out I didn’t turn the water off, but full-on instead.

Ohhh.

Either way, problem solved. Now, to put the waterhose back onto its rack perfectly… which I couldn’t do so I left the waterhose there in a mangled circular mess with the gun-part lying on the ground. Wonder how my grandparents and uncle reacted when they returned a few days ago and saw the mess…

So off to Piolo’s house.

We were filming Piolo lip-syncing and guitar-playing the chorus, with me shooting the waterhose upward to create the rain effect, which worked perfectly. Now, I don’t know if it was just the way he was performing or the fact that it looked like he was suffering/dying/drowning/struggling-to-perform (although it was more on the latter as the chorus was finishing) because of the water raining onto him. Either way, it was a pretty hilarious sight. Upon reviewing the footage in class made it even funnier: By the time the chorus ended (where the camera zoomed in closer to his face), one would be able to see visible streaming drops of water from his drowned face.

Here is the outtake (just ignore the extra footage of nothingness after 0:38):

We filmed Piolo in the “rain” three times:
1. First take of the chorus, in which featured a dying Piolo. The three of us felt that it needed a redo.
2. Second take of the chorus, where Piolo performed more professionally.
3. Filming the bridge of the song, again with Piolo performing professionally.

Even though I felt there should be a take of the chorus-after-the-bridge, we’re going to have to reuse the first chorus footage (something I really dislike in a film or a music video) as Piolo didn’t want to get soaked and Clement was feeling very sorry for him.

Overall, it was an interesting and amusing night.

For anyone who is curious, we used the song “Thunder” by Boys Like Girls.

Here is my lame performance the completed video:

Oh, and for the record, I don’t know that girl.

“The Strangers” Parody Trailer

I play the role of the “I’d like you to play a game” voiceover and the faceless guy in the grey shirt.

This is a film assignment some friends and I did for our class. We actually filmed a lot more (e.g. a zooming-in butt shot. Yes, butt shot.) and it could have been better but we had a deadline and it needed to be maximum 1 min long (excluding credits). I really wish we can make an extended/Director’s Cut/full-length trailer for online viewing to show all that’s suppose to be there, but seems like it won’t happen since we’re busy with school and we don’t have the full proper equipments to do so in our personal time.

Cuts/Deleted Scenes:
-An extreme close-up of Victim 2′s eyes opening, showing that he’s suddenly awake because of the door banging.
-Low angle shot of Victim 2′s legs walking slowly through a hallway.
-Victim 1 coming out and asking Victim 2, “Dude, what was that?”
-A zooming-in shot of Victim 1′s butt. (this would be considered inappropriate to the school)
-A shot of Stanger Stranger 2 Michael Jackson-moonwalking at the bathroom’s entrance then posing with a club in hand, about to attack Victim 1.
-An original shot of Stranger 2 dragging Victim 1 on the carpet, where the latter hits his head onto a chair leg and says, “Ow! You hurt me!” Stranger 2 then say, “I’m sorry!”…in the most stupidest voice ever (as a gay guy). This was trimmed and de-audiofied for the trailer’s time limit.
-An extended shot of the trailer’s end. The original shot was of Victim 2 hiding and then gets tapped on the shoulder by Stranger 1. Victim 2 goes “Shhh!!” like Stranger 1 was someone else until he realizes who it really was after the knife scrapping. This was trimmed for the trailer’s time limit.