This Saturday was a big day for me: My first Visual Effects supervision job apart from anything related to my education. Magic Movie hired me for the visual effects to their documentary for national TV which will be aired some time in fall. I can’t tell you about the story (because I’ve signed a non-disclosure contract) but I can tell you about my day.

The day started by missing the first train thanks to a couple of old ladies who were totally inapt when trying to purchase a train ticket from one of the ÖBB vending machines on the ramp. After they somehow managed to get a ticket they got onto the next train to Salzburg city, but I missed my connection and had another hour in the morning to get ready for the day.

Usually I avoid riding in trains but when money is tight there’s not much you can take. On the plus side you have six hours of time for disposal when you’re not the one driving. Luckily there weren’t many passengers traveling to Vienna that day except that one guy who sat across me and nearly finished “Hector’s Journey” by some French author by the time we reached Vienna. I was plugged into my iriver the whole train ride and enjoyed the three hours I had by napping for two of them, the other hour was filled with listening to Calexico ¹, reading the IHT, preparing for my upcoming tutorial-class and, most important, reading and pondering the storyboards for today’s shoot.

I arrived at the studio at around 1pm as the crew just had finished painting the white background to blue. It still smelled of wet paint while I was offered a strong espresso. I didn’t even notice that there was no sugar in it for I was so eager for some java. It was the first time I went to Vienna without paying good old Starbucks a visit.

When the actor arrived too and got his special-effects makeup applied by no less than director Michael Satzinger himself I set up the blue screen for VFX with Christoph Skofic, now a very talented and passionate cameraman and cinematograher I know from school. Luckily he already knows much about working with visual effects so I could spare everybody the explanation what exactly tracking marks are and why I need them so badly. On some DVD commentary track I’ve once heard somebody say “Why did we need a visual effects supervisor anyway? Last time the VFX came out well without one”! I say: That might me true, but it would’ve been much cheaper and faster with having a VFX supervisor. Not to mention the thousands of curses from the guys in VFX…

My last train back to Salzburg was leaving at 8:40pm so we had to carry out the most important and most difficult dolly shots in the beginning – the dolly shots. Usually everybody on set hates a Visual Effects Supervisor but I felt fine with that team: They gave me the time needed to mount the tracking marks on the background, on stand-ins and to perform the tedious measurements of everything and the camera’s gamma-mode. You can’t be too thorough when recording what’s happening on set, especially when you do the post-production of the shots yourself. But this crew was very relaxed and gave me the time I needed which I appreciate much.

Difficult VFX shots are always a compromise between what you can force on set to decrease the workload in the post-production, and what you can’t do on the set which results in hours of clean-up in the post. Working as a VFX supervisor means balancing these two positions. It also means being imaginative enough to tell whether a shot works or not by just seeing two people walking around a blue studio. And it also means that it looks like you’re the only one without a “real” task like grip.

Bewteen two shots our director was asked by Lukas, another old classmate of me and grip/lighter/sound in this team
  “Hey Michi, why aren’t you into commercials at all?”
Michael replied boldly that
  “I am not making films to make money!”, directly followed by a comment from technical director and co-founder of Magic Movie, Jörg Steger,
  “Well that’s exactly the problem!”
Jörg spent about 100 € that afternoon for purchasing 30 liters of buttermilk among other edible props for upcoming scenes the next day. “Nobody drink the wine or eat the prosciutto!” – pause – “It’s poisoned!”.

New Horizons

Time flew by and I could assist on three shots before I had to leave for one interesting train ride home. First, I nearly ended up in a train car to Venice (Italy) but finally found a seat in a cabin with only three older ladies and an older man reading a thick book. I thought that they wouldn’t be trouble when I was trying to sleep. Big mistake. Except for the man with the book (who got off after 15 minutes) they were all drunk. Majorly. Plus their husbands where only one cabin apart — just as drunk and also with an open door towards the aisle. One of them paid cheesy visits and babbled something about “how I love you, Hildegard” and “how I hate you, Hildegard”. Somehow I still managed to sleep a one and a half hour in total, waken up every ten minutes by a high-pitched sharp laugh. When the old men started singing again on the aisle I woke up and harshly shut the door which irritated the old drunks but I couldn’t care less.

In Linz they finally got off and I was alone — at last! I switched seats and just when I had fallen asleep again three young black hip-hoppers with two local R’n'B-styled lower-Austrian girls hopped in and started babbling, partly in French, and insulting each other so bad that I wasn’t sure if they really belonged to the same clique. Half asleep I learned that one of the girls, Kathi, was pregnant and always concerned that her folks would stare at her belly while she was insulting Foma all the time that
  “Africa stinks of all the cows and I’m gonna sue you because you ain’t Austrian.”
Foma kept laughing
  “It’s the corruption that’s so terrible don’t you go to school?”
Kathi growled angrily. Foma looked at me
  “Sorry, man, she just keeps talking and talking and talking.”
He laughed tipsily and one of his “brothers” leaped in and gave him a 2-liter plastic bottle of whine of which he took a big gulp.

Half an hour later their peers found a cabin they had for their own, one without a creepy sleepy blond guy, and went off. Before he left Foma looked at me.
  “Everything alright? You want me to turn off the lights so you can sleep?”
  “Thanks, man. I’m fine. But keep them on, I don’t wanna fall asleep again and miss my station!”
He nodded, smiled and left, keeping the door open, but I didn’t mind. Still after another thirty minutes I got a terrible headache, dimmed the lights and decided to order my thoughts while blankly staring into the dark, ever changing landscape outside as Foma and his folks were merrily goofing around in the aisles. Suddenly one of them looked into my dark cabin, assumed that I was sleeping and silently closed the door before he went back to his friends.

In Salzburg I got off, paid the exorbitant amount of 5.20 € for a pair of hot wieners and went to my train due campus Urstein that wasn’t leaving for half an hour and so I waited more or less alone and more or less awake for it to start moving. I was tired and exhausted and felt as if I was the only one awake around. But I was mistaken. Two stops before I had to get off a goth girly all in black, of course, tumbled in, nearly tipped over her enormous boots and cranked up the volume of her white iPod Nano to the max listening to an old Evanescence track. She opened her bag and dug into it for something. As she finally found a tiny lip-gloss she let out a sigh of relief while applying it. I could tell from the intense smell that it had some very fruity flavor. And I am not sure but I think she even ate some of it.

When I got off at my station there was cold silent fog everywhere. It carried away some of my dizziness as I made my way towards the campus building. As I was making my way to the backside I noticed that it was full moon and with the floating fog around and with the already turned-off garden lamps the place looked nearly magical. Behind many blinds the rooms were lit, probably with awake people inside them, working, talking, still I was certain there was nobody else awake. I was so sleepy that it was enough for the whole campus that night.

Although we had to queue up to get our tickets I bought over the internets we were lucky with the seat. Somewhat. You probably noticed that there’s no plural. But I didn’t mind standing because I had a better view and taking photos felt more natural. Additionally I was able to use one of the columns as cheap tripod. It turned 8pm and no Chuck there yet. So we kept on waiting among the people who took turns to order “two beers” at the bar. Book-groupies and The Cult members everywhere were eager to meet their idol.

But how do you pronounce Chuck Palahniuk? [Pah-lae-nik] the evening’s moderator said and a bald Chuck in a grey suit with flip-flops sat down between the moderator Bernhard Robben and the German (also voice) actor Johann Nikolussi who read out passages from Chuck’s latest book Rant.

Chuck is a very nice and very fun guy, we learned quickly, and he has a very distinct way of telling stories, especially when they involve himself. Usually he smirks, leans forward to the microphone and beams at the audience. Then he looks around beginning very slowly and emphasizing important passages and continues not much faster.

During the course of the first set of questions Chuck Palahniuk explained how he got into writing. “I wanted to become immortal, I wanted to become famous and I wanted to become rich. And with that in mind I began writing my first book that flopped.”. The more we learned about Chuck the more we realized that many of his books are composed of autobiographic details.

I was a driver for a hospice and drove dying people to their self-help groups and back to the hospice. And during those meetings I was sitting a little aside waiting to bring some of them back home. And because all the people were dying of some disease they thought that I was too, because I just sat there along with them. But, you know, you can’t tell them that you don’t. ‘No, I’m just a tourist’ – you can’t say that, that’s rude! And that was the starting point for my next book called Fight Club.

About the writing style of his latest book, which is an assembly of more than 50 different people’s points of view, Chuck said that it is much easier to create a fake “reality” by using bits and pieces rather than by a coherent narrative flow.

People nowadays grew up with movies and can read film language. You see a picture. And then another one. And another one. And you construct the narrative in your mind by yourself, you don’t want to get taken by your nose and guided through it. But today many people still write in this 19th century fashion: ‘She heard nothing of him. Two weeks later…’ etc. You don’t need this kind of connections.

[...]

Making people believe they are witnessing a documentary of any kind makes it much easier to give it a real touch. It’s the way Welles’ War of the Worlds works or The Blair Witch Project.

Another thing is that you can easily watch or read small pieces of a huge thing like some people’s personal view on a certain event instead of trying to recreate it as a solid whole. It’s just a small bit. And you don’t mind having another one. It’s like popcorn.

Palahniuk was asked what he thought about the local fight clubs that had emerged after his book and that, especially after the adaptation with Pitt and Norton, had popped up increasingly all around the world, and if he is afraid what will happen when people try out the things he invents in his books.

I don’t make things up. All the things I write about have happened somewhere to somebody. They are all around us, but we don’t want to know. But I think it is important to write about those things.

[...]

When I was in London a well-groomed guy in a suit came up to me and wanted to talk about Fight Club.
“The thing you wrote about in your book about urinating in people’s food in restaurants… I am a waiter in one of London’s finest restaurants… and we do it all the time!”.
I was like What? and he just smiled shyly. “What restaurant?” I asked him and he replied
“I can’t tell you or I will loose my job”. And I said:
“Then I am not going to sign your book!”. He stood there, looked at me, having a hard time and finally said: “There are two five star restaurants in London…” — pause —
“Margaret Thatcher ate my sperm.” – “WHAT?” – “At least five times”.

[...]

So you see those things are out there no matter I write about them or not.

After about ninety minutes and after hearing the complete chapter 16, a detailed description of “Party Crashing”, we were honored by hearing a new and unpublished short story from Chuck called Cold Calling only to be read out at this very place and not to be published anywhere. Could this be true? Of course it wasn’t according to an article in the Austrian newspaper Kurier that said he also read it out there the day before. What a charming son of a bitch!

But today’s session was no traditional reading. After hearing chapter 16 read out flawlessly by Nikolussi it was the audience’s turn to ask Chuck some questions while he smiled and took out a couple of envelopes with something written on them. It took people nearly a minute to become bold enough to ask.

“Thank you for asking me a question” Chuck said “I just handed you an envelope with a card on which my address is written. If you send it to me I’ll send you back a little surprise present as a way to thank you.”
“Any more questions?” Bernhard Robben asked and now more hands were raised, eager for that surprise from Chuck.

“I just hope it’s not a cut-off ear or something” I said to Lisa afterwards. “That wouldn’t surprise me from this guy”

The question asker stated that he writes on parties too, like Chuck wrote portions of Fight Club. He wanted to know if it had ever happened to Chuck that he couldn’t remember the next day what he had written the day before. Chuck took a deep breath and started another story:

I take these pills called Ambien when on a long flight. They make you forget, it’s like you have a hole in your memory. And before checking into the hotel there was a long line on the airport waiting at the security check. So I took a pill that I would forget about it. And after a couple of minutes I didn’t feel anything so I took another one.

The next day I woke up in my bed. And somebody had scattered sandwiches across my bed, mayonnaise, salad, bread, the whole stuff, and had only eaten out the ham and the cheese… And I suspected that it was me. And I couldn’t remember a thing. I called the reception if I had ordered room service the night before. ‘Not after 10pm’ the receptionist said ‘but the bar sells sandwiches. Well, I went to talk to the barkeeper whether I had bought any sandwiches last night. ‘You bought all of them’ he said.
I have to add at this point that I like to sleep naked.
‘Was I wearing any… shoes?’ I asked him. ‘No.’
‘Was I wearing any… clothes?’ – ‘No.’
And I learned that I didn’t use the elevator and walked fourteen floors naked with eight sandwiches to my room where I ate only the good parts.

“So do you still take these pills?” the guy with the question asked.
“Yes!” Chuck said with glowing eyes.
“But now I sleep in my underwear”

Wie geht es mit Sie?

After the session many people brought their books to Chuck’s table and wanted him to sign them as the highlight of the (rather short) evening. Lisa and I carried two Fugitives and Refugees and one Survivor with us. But shame on us: We purchased the books the day before in Graz and only knew their beginnings. And Fight Club was out of stock everywhere.

So we cued up, were asked for our names by an assistant to Mr. Palahniuk who wrote them on slips of paper in big letters and placed them on the page where Chuck would sign. He seemed rather familiar with signing books and got ready by unpacking a bouquet of fake flowers, a veil and a big box with a lot of ball-pens out of his bag and placed them in reach. Lisa and I giggled and wondered about the mysterious flowers and veil.

I was first and because Chuck is a nice guy he wrote something different in their books for everybody along with his signature. He even knew a few German phrases and signed Survivor with “Für Phil – 1-2-3 Testen Sie sich. Chuck Palahniuk” (“For Phil – 1-2-3 test yourself”). because the book starts with “Testing… 1-2-3… testing 1-2-3″.

On the cover of Fugitives and Refugees a bunch of Santa Clauses are pictured — I don’t know why yet. Chuck wrote “Ho, ho, ho Santa Phil – You. Chuck Palahniuk”. I thanked him and smiled and then it was Lisa’s turn. He signed “Für Lisa – Wie Geht es mit Sie? Chuck Palahniuk.”, (“For Lisa – How is it going with you?”) grammatically completely wrong and hence just adorable. Lisa bravely asked for a photo.
“Sure!” he said and pulled her behind his table where he handed her the fake bouquet, equipped her with the veil and smiled like James Bond next to her. Lisa just married Chuck Palahniuk ¹! I took two photos, shook his hand and we thanked each other.
“One second longer and I would’ve gotten majorly jealous!” I said to Lisa while walking out.

What a great day!

[singlepic=212,500,500]

Daisy is about 40 to 45 years old, has long black hair, turning a little grey. She is slim and tall, usually wears a mini-skirt, matching scarf, also matching sweater – usually without a bra *sigh* – and the general knowledge about how often you should clean yourself passed her by with only little effect. And she likes to talk to herself. A lot! She’s harmless, of course, but sometimes it creeps a bit having her around. Like today when I really needed a little time to concentrate on my work.

I entered the Promenade about two hours ago, Julia, the head-waitress waved, also Marie another waitress who knows exactly about my favorite beverages replied a friendly “Hi!” when she saw me. The only unoccupied table was table #1, just next to Daisy’s table – great. I ordered a latte and continued reading my book and taking notes – manually on a big notepad. And there she went: “Yadda, yadda, yadda, ain’t it nice? What do you think? Gobble, gobble, gobble…” I kept ignoring her, talked a little to Lisa on the phone. Suddenly she burst out laughing – another time – and half of the café turns their heads into my direction. Lisa suggested that I should wear a sign around my neck reading “I am normal!” – interesting idea for a shirt, by the way.

Just as I finally could concentrate on what I was doing she came close and looked at the lines I had written. I don’t think she could read a single word, I wrote in English and in my crafty Sleepy Hollow inspired handwriting. “Hello?” I said shyly. She ignored me, sat on her seat and mumbled something about her vacation. And again, just as I could concentrate on my book again she stood up and walked over to me. I hoped that when I kept ignoring her she would loose interest and scram. But with some nonsense on her lips she stroked my hair, “Hello!” I replied again, this time a little more irritated. But she was listening to the voices in her head and left for another piece of cake.

Every time she stood up to fetch another newspaper or another piece of cake I counted it. Until now she stood up 43 times. But now I was sitting close to her I could understand what she was talking a little better. Interestingly she uses the polite form to talk back to her invisible other. It’s like listening to someone who is talking on the phone: She pauses from time to time as if she was listening, laughs out loud when she heard a joke, gets angry sometimes, “Leave me alone, dammit!” she shouts then, and stomps her foot. When she gets over a certain volume level everyone in the café looks at her, but Daisy doesn’t notice. She seldom does, anyway.

But the real annoyance is her restlessness. She hops up, walks around, mumbles, grabs a newspaper, sits down again. After half a minute she jumps up, walks mumbling around, orders something directly at the bar and sits down again. All the time – it makes you nuts! And then she likes to stay far beyond the closing hours, like Lisa and I do, too. Sometimes I wonder if she stays until the next morning when the Promenade opens its friendly doors at 9am.

48 times… it will never end! Let’s hope her voices won’t tell her to eliminate all people in the café.

Shorty before Marie wanted me to pay, Daisy Duck payed, wanted another single cigarette and mumbled something to Marie. When Marie then came over to me she looked suspicious into Daisy’s direction and whispered “Obviously, it is said that the prime minister of Spain shit his pants!” and winked. “Veeery interesting” I smiled back while Daisy stood up another time to stroll around.

Yesterday I managed to get a seat around the table because tomorrow’s team is going to be a little smaller than Wednesday’s – also Schimpi isn’t going to operate the second HDV today. The shoot will take place outside of Voitsberg (haha – again!) on a small ruin of a little castle in the woods with a team of sword fighters and should resemble a common battle in Everquest: The avatar (we agreed on calling him Rübezahl) starts in the snowy woods, applies his armor and runs around to a basin where he’s meeting other avatars. Together they run up to the castle, defeat the guards on the bridge and have a big sword fight in the courtyard. Only Rübezahl survives, picks up the items and enters a small crypt-like room where he meets the typical RPG merchant and he sells and buys stuff – the end. Paul assured us that he only needs the sequence for intercuts between interviews and as fillers but not as the opener like the Counterstrike sequence.

After everything was said I watched with director of photography, Oliver, my HDV’s reel just to make sure he likes my style – Paul also dropped in now and then and assured me that it was alright. Strange: While shooting I hadn’t noticed it but on the Avid HD screen it was apparent: Many of my shots were tilted – from slightly to terribly. I will pay more attention today, when I’m also connected to the sound equipment including sound engineer/boom operator Chris. Well and I have to show Bernie (which is short for Bernadette) a little camera handling when she’s not on duty as setrunner. Bernie attends in the HTL Ortwein’s third grade and is student of Jörg Steger, which also was Lisa’s, Paul’s, Schimpis’s and my teacher when we were at that school.

Well I better go to bed now, because I have to get up in four hours. Damn!