I’m off to Hawaii for 10 days, working for Parthenon Entertainment. This is for the same series of films that the 2hr Alaska film I’ve been busy filming is for. It’s a fairly packed schedule that includes Monk Seals, volcanic scenery and carnivorous caterpillars. The latter sound fantastic; one species that has evolved to ‘slingshot’ the front portion of their bodies at unsuspecting fruit flies and a second that eats snails by first lashing them to a leaf with silk and then chomping through the leaf and into the snail through its operculum. Weirdly I can’t remember either of these featuring in my copy of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, but perhaps there is a more gruesome Hawaiian version?
Hawaii is a place I never really imagined visiting. I’m really excited – we all know a bit about Hawaii: Hawaii Five O, death defying surfers, perfect sunsets, lilting guitar music and colossal tourists in tasteless shirts. It’ll be really interesting to see what the truth really is.
My Red Epic camera has arrived, I got to play with it for half a day before it headed off to Namibia for three months to film elephants (lucky camera). It’s a shame not to be using it on the Hawaii shoot (we’re taking anther Epic with us) but it’s great that my camera is out there earning its keep. It is such an exciting camera, a large sensor, RAW files and a fantastic latitude – it’s like working with film again … it’s the way of the future.
The Epic has landed
It’s been so miserable and wet here that we’ve had to resort to feeding our bees to keep them going. The plan was that they would work for us in exchange for their rent in honey, but so far it hasn’t quite worked out like that. I delivered them a couple of litres of sugar solution this morning during a break in the rain, they seemed happy enough – they have started drawing out cells in the ‘super’ which will be where they store honey, which I took to be a good sign, but I imagine they are getting rather fed up with one another stuck inside the hive all day.
Oh and Max passed his first violin exam yesterday – the result of much hard work – very well done, that’s one more music exam than I’ve ever achieved!
