Declan vs. Himself

Back in Christchurch for the week, I spent Saturday afternoon making silly movies with my cousin on my cellphone. Turns out it's the funnest thing in the world. After being initially pretty suspicious, he got so excited about it.

This is the first one we made, with Declan playing both roles.



Then after we finished that one, while taking my puppy Fritz for a walk, we came up with another idea. This was was all Declan's vision. There's an elaborate sequel involved with a character named "Dr. Zarcophagus", who has a snake that comes out of his chest. But we only had time to make Part 1.


Declan declared himself "Okay with being famous," and allowed me to put the videos on YouTube. Can't wait for the sequel.

And just as an extra bonus movie for the weekend, I made my first viral-cute-puppy-video with our dog Fritz.

Hallowe'en

So, Hallowe'en is nearly amongst us. Again.

This year, we had planned on filming episode one of our Clark Spaggeerg TV thing which we've been writing ON Halloween, to save time/resources/having to throw two parties... but it seems people actually DO things on normal Halloween, that ISN'T being in our movie thing.

Anyway, we're filming in just under  month, so I'm in full organising guru mode. Part of which is this poster, which I bade share with you now...

Really looking forward to filming. It's a big party scene, so hopefully people are keen and actually come. Good times rolling ahead.

Liquorice Rope

Today Oli and I made it back to Christchurch to stay with our family for a week. Somehow, we managed to be on the same flight as our friend, and top bloke, Jono. So, naturally, we made a movie with him on my cell phone camera.

You're welcome.

The Egg King

My brother Oli has conquered eggs.

I have conquered mayonnaise, and recently (read: last Christmas) discovered I have by association conquered hollandiase sauce. Perhaps all of the naise's.

Together, we make breakfast the greatest meal of the day.

On a related note, Sunday has become "breakfast for dinner" day, and as a result, my new favourite day of the week.

Clark Spaggeerg's Truth Hunt

Back in 2009 or something, Oli and I, on a whim, promised our brother Sam that we would make a film about his life for his 21st. He forgot about this. So did we.

About a week before his 21st birthday we remembered this insane idea, and simultaneously brainstormed this preposterous idea to play it like an expose documentary mystery film. And his birthday party was that weekend.

We managed to cobble together enough footage to form this film, and I've finally uploaded it for the interwebs to see. I actually love this character so much, and we're in talks of making something more out of it. But I'll talk about that later.

In the meantime, here's Clark Spaggeerg.

(sorry Sam). 

Callum, Paige and the Trust Experiment

I finally convinced Paige to let me cut her hair. I was totally confident, spurred on by that Regina Spektor song, and also by Terry Devlin, my grandpa.

"Do you know what the difference between a good haircut and a bad haircut is?"

"No."

"Three weeks! (laughs)"

Paige prepares.

AND...

(she was actually way happier when she saw it)

(babe)

    

After trying to make the sides even and ending up cutting it WAY shorter then intended, I decided to go for asymmetry. WAY easier. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, but it was a bit touch and go for a minute there.

Anyway, anyone who wants me to cut their hair, step right up. I've got a lot of karma to make up on from the amount of times Steven's cut mine.

Murder In Mind

Finally uploaded this, our V48 Hours short from last year. Felt pretty bad I hadn't done it as this years competition was just this past weekend. Unfortunately, did not take part. Currently going for the "too much on" excuse, but I know as the excitement builds throughout heats and such I'm probably going to regret it sooner or later.

Many thanks to all who took part, and grand apologies for those I haven't even shown it to yet.

It's a bit of a mess but I'll let it speak for itself.

Policeamobiles present, Murder In Mind.

Fred's Dilemma

As promised (for once) here follows the illustrations I did for my grandpa Terry's book. IN SUPER LARGE!!

Chapter One (and front cover) - The mysterious island where it all takes place. Note: scary cliffs, huts on beach, cliche distant flying birds, super dramatic lighting.


The Scary Cliffs: A BODY?!! Oh heavens no! What a terrible accident. Definately an accident... Or was it?? We may never know. Unless a selfless hero becomes a detective to try and solve this dilemma.

Giorgio: What a bully... what a coward... What a fiend! (if you read the book you'd understand my hatred for him. Jerk). The island has it's own laws now, and you will face cage-related consequences if you disobey!


The End: Lot's more stuff happens on the island, but I won't ruin it (or let you know if they get to freedom or descend into savagery). This is a perfect circle-wipe ending, showing the now idylic island. Cue bright sky and a calm mist.


I'll happily illustrate your book if you wrote one. Not that I'm advertising or anything. I'm just super happy with these drawings. I hope you like them and they make you want to buy my grandpa's book. I'll let you know how when I figure it out myself.

Currantly*

(*man do I love currants!)

So, as things tend to do for me occasionally, I've found myself with some projects on the go. The latest completed is the one below, Grand Spectacular.

I'm also working on some illustrations for an adventure book my grandpa Terry is getting printed. It's called Fred's Dillema and is set on an island where a bunch of survivors from a sunken cruise ship try to survive each other and mysterious goings on. I'm doing sick Brett Helquist ish pencil sketches. Except way less dramatic and classy. I'll upload them onto here when I've scanned them, I'm pretty happy with them.

Also on the go is me painting. I have to get back into practice for art school, and I'm in the process of assembling my portfolio for my interview so it's as good a time as any.

The other exciting thing happening is band related. Hans Pucket played at a party the other week which was super fun. I bashed my knuckles on the edge of the drums and spattered blood over the snare and floor tom. It was super punk. Highlight was our Jungle Book medley. We're playing at thom's previously mentioned leaving thing, with all of the bands in the world, so that should be cool.

Also, Custard Bear returned from the depths of nothing-whatsoever to play a paid gig with THE FUCKING BATS! (aka The Bats). It was in the hagley park fanzone (yeah!). Jack had some wedding on an island, so we got our good pal Kurt in as a more than capable substitute, who proceeded to kick ass in every respect. So much fun. I missed playing bass more than I realised. We played a couple oldies, but a new rock song oli wrote that tuesday. My brother dishes them out like the best of them, really. It's insane.

So, all of this, AND full time working going down. In case you were wondering from my absence of posts, I do keep myself occupied, really.

(Photo from Hans flat party gig below)

Damien Letter (age 11)

Mostly inspired by Vincents awesome blog, I wrote this letter as a character exercise for my film. It's an old letter, one of the first that Damien writes to NZ Post, asking for a job.

I found it hugely beneficial.

Dear New Zealand Post,

My name is Damien and I am 11 years old. I would love to work for you as a postman right away.

Ever since I was 8 I have always dreamed of being a postman/mail carrier/postie and so I know lots about the subject. However, your industry is one of secrecy and magic, and I wish to join your ranks to uncover more about your inner workings.

I love going outside, and I send letters all the time. Mail, as I am sure you would agree, is a much purer form of communication than email. My mum says that computers are made by “profiteering scum” and are the reason she is out of work (she teaches calligraphy). My dad is allowed one though, but only because he is involved with data input at work and computers are kind of the point. But I’m sure if he could he would do it all by hand.

I have always admired the skill and dedication that postmen/women show, delivering mail every day and in all weather conditions. You are all heroes. I also like how friendly you all are, and how you endeavour to know peoples name and when their birthday is. That is an impressive feat.

I do have a couple questions though.

1. Do you still drive in vans or has the movement officially been made to bikes?

2. Do you really get up at six am or even EARLIER?

3. Are you all afraid of dogs or is this a white lie?

As well as being my dream job, I am also business focussed, and your competitive rates and benefits scheme has definitely caught my eye.

Thank you for considering my application. I am ready for an immediate start.

Yours sincerely,

Damien Wickes.

ps. I am incredibly happy just knowing that this letter was delivered by the power and magic of the postal industry. I look forward to joining it soon.

Reminder

Shit's been getting kind of real lately, which has been super lame. In the midst of all the stress and horror and depression and angst you kind of forget the simple things that can really help. Like listening to music.

I HAVEN'T BEEN LISTENING TO MUSIC.

How did I not spot this??

Anyway, Oli downloaded Smith Westerns' Dye It Blonde for me, and seriously, within the first three seconds of the first track I remembered...

MUSIC IS AWESOME.

Really.

I feel better now.

Bitch; Please

Both Steven AND my brother Oli made posters for Bitch; Please.

(being our new band. Pretty sweet. We played at Gorgeous George almost a year ago, but are doing our first grown up gig this Friday at WEHQ (yay for acronyms!))

I decided to join the wagon and make one too, and out do them (naturally).

AND I did it in two minutes.

AND I cheated. The wire lettering was made by Steven when we started the band. The picture of the tiger is from Oli's calendar. But their combination... GENIUS!

Like vanilla and coke.
Or cheese and anything.



For tunes: Bitch; Please bandcamp, and the gig page on facebook.

YAY! See you there.

Alex Varanese

God I hate designers sometimes. Why can't this be real??!

For more: CLICK!

Makes Me Glad

I've been listening to The Magic Kids' album Memphis on repeat (WHAT??) for the past week during extreme arting sessions. It just fills me with painless happy happy glad times and washes away the hours of chair-sitting and neck-bending. They're all for the good times, and are promoters of the gf/bf, hand-holding idealogy that is oh-so addictive this time of year.

I found this video of them playing in a backyard somewhere with dozens of children. It makes me feel less worried about being in a band that children like (although, many of these kids seem to be crying). Kids love happy music. I love happy music. I am mostly a child anyway. Why worry about being badass? Let Mike Dirnt worry about that.

Sleight Of Hand

This year for printmaking, I'm using lot's of old images of stage magicians and the like. Through my research I found this video of Hugh Jackman promoting his blasphemic powers of witchcraft.

Crafts For Today

Today I made a frog. Its fucking legit. His name is Kim Fowley and he's a rock and roll legend who knows the score. And he can jump like a demon.

Whatch him jump!! (nb. scroll very fast)



I forged him out of my classics assignment task sheet. Oooooo catharsis.
And I took my sweet time, not because it was difficult. Just because I'm a champ and I earned it.

"Well spent Wednesday evening Callum!"

Why, thank you blog!

"You're welcome. now...Shouldn't you be doing you're art research?"

Quiet blog. I'm taking my moment of pride.

Its been very quiet.

Yeah I know, it's been months. Although I dont think I want to apologise. This is MY blog, and my bevy of readers now have learned the power of that fact. I have had quite a wonderful winter though. And it's almost over.

The cherry trees have started to blossom. I had a cherry tree in my backyard in Opawa growing up. Every year we'd try to remember to take a family photo under it when it blossomed. I think the initial idea was that you'd stack them up and flip through them like some cool Home Improvement homage. Played so many awesome games in that tree, when we were still small enough to think it was a big deal to climb up it. At one stage, this grape vine growing on the fence started growing all over the tree. We thought it was a grape tree. Got mad confused. Teachers laughed.

Old story, anyway... so winters almost over. And it was an extremely enjoyable one. Il go into detail with various stories and photos. For now, here are some highlights...

- Paige and I reaching our 6th, 7th and 8th month anniversaries, all celebrated accordingly.
- The holidays.
-Busking. More than once.
-Making a sick Vincent Price tshirt and then spilling coke on it.
-Buying my Campus A Low Hum ticket.
-Seeing, like, 800 movies. Because that's what you do in winter. Movie highlights include; ALL the Twilights in one weekend, TOY STORY 3, Dumbo, Iron Man 2 (HUGE let down)Once Upon A Time in the West, The Runaways... oh man... so many more.
-Forcing Paige to watch Monty Python
-COOKING (and being cooked) soo much food
-EATING (and feeding) soo much food.
-Spending ALL of my money.
-Callums Night of Extreme Challenges.
-Custard Bear winning chartfest, rockquest regionals and generally playing SICK GIGS!!(w/ Tono, Gigglepop, Die! Die! Die!) and generally being uber productive.
-Going to Blenhiem to play Dixie Music.
-Meeting PROPS BOY!
-Being meagrely productive in terms of school work.
-My 7th Form Formal, and subsequent celebrations.
-possibly having a career opportunity
-Finding some of my personal limitations.
-Figuring out my five year plan to the vaguest of standards.

There were plenty of lowlights, some of which aren't fit for remembering. But I'll do my best.

Heres to Spring!

In other news, my ipods broken. Sad face...

Armless Fight

Because its Thursday and everything I thought I'd show you a game me and Jimmy made up whilst in Blenhiem for Southern Jam thing. And no, I did NOT break the curtain. And yes, shit does get real.

Bar Gig Bar - A Review

Dear The Press, heres a review for your reviews section in the paper on Fridays just before the movie photos and adverts and things. I think it will do just the tricket...

On Thursday (yes Thursday) the 13th of May 2010 I was really nervous sitting in my bedroom with Paige and Oli and Alex waiting for it to be late enough for us to go in the car to get to the bar in time for our gig. We waited for AGES. It was nine thirty by the time penisey texted me saying that they were on the way. So I ate a muffin and got in the car. Dad drove us there. In the car we listened to Yeah Yeah Yeahs songs to sike ourselves up. It worked. Alex and Paige walked us into Poplar Lane as I'd never been there before and would get lost if I tried to find it on my own or even with Oli. We just walked straight in! No bouncer or anything. I was relieved. Then we went into the band area room and met the sound guy named Mathew/Ben/Something I can't recall and he was real nice saying that I looked like freddy kruegar and started setting up mics. No one else was there but then Penisey was there and told me he got kicked out of home (SAD :(....) and Thom who was wearing SHOES!! which is a novelty for Thom. And others were there too but I dont know everyones names Im new. Then a surf band called Piha Rescue (geddit?) went up and set up on the stage and I got worried cause Jack said he was tired. He arrived and was all gc about it. His brother and my brother and their friends and my dad and jacks dad were all there to see us. We told them we were on next cause we were. Me and Thom danced to Piha and it was awesome. We did the Twist and had a "Play Fight" and bumped into this guy. They were all wearing sunglasses except for Ben Dodd. WHO is awesome as it happens and Penisey is started a band with him (GOSSIP!). Then they finished and we got to go up and play our songs (AWESOME!) We set up and got water and tuned our guitars and there were quite a few people at the bar including some friendly faces. We played pretty well. Olis guitar string broke two seconds into the first song! LOL! And the vocal mics were condensor mics which was pretty cool I guess. We played Fuck You Courtney, Safety Cheque, LPG Doesn't Grow On Trees Bro, Jessica, I Said To My Girl (She Looked Nice), Evergreen, and then we decided to finish, but Ben Dodd stuck his fluffy head in the window and said "play that Jazzy one" which we took to mean Cake, and so we did. It was well sick and everyone danced really well and clapped very loudly. It was very good fun and I was pretty tired as it was twenty to twelve. Paige seemed happy too which was awesome as Paige is wicked. Alex took photos (see below) for us which was nice of her. They came out topps. We didn't get to stay for Lonely Harris Club. But they were my favourites anyway. I was well gutted cause I heard they did a Strange Boys cover and I love them. I gave John a hug as we left though, and said thanks. He replied "Oh no worries. I really hope we go allright...Sorry for not dancing to your set. I'm not sure if I can play my guitar at the moment." But he did. I give the gig a wild 7 stars!! * * * * * * *

Holidays

So the first term went all right. But all in all it was school, wasn't it? Oh, I did have the production (being West Side Story) and that was pretty awesome. Wicked fun all the way through, and the after party was quite memorable. I brought Paige. Yeah, I bring her everywhere now. Awesome, I know. She even came to Easter with our family (didn't she do well?) with declans and photos and foood and chocolate. After that it was pretty much the holidays where all life is real and happy and good. So we decided to go to thoms birthday party and make him turn 18. It was good fun.

Holiday activities include; hanging out with Paige way too much; cooking (mashed potatoes (twice), salsa, indian, mexican breakfast (for dinner), pasta out of thin air etc etc....etc); eating said food; drinking responsibly; sexy parties; sleeping... oh so much sleep; gig wenting (sidewalk meese, rackets, and others....happy birthday georgia by the by...); singing; watching films (finally make paige watch Superbad and Dirty Dancing... a couple of my favourites); anniversaring (bookaramaing... as well as duck feeding, hand holding, park kissing, bagel eating, movies watching, food eating.. all the good things); fort building (ROMG!); homework avoiding; bike riding; walking; room cleaning; new queen size bed assembling; napping in said queen size bed too much; and more things which probably come up in these photos...