quipping

Well, in terms of my foreign influences, I'd say that I bring an LA and Milan vibe rather than the stereotypical New York and Paris vibe that lots of Kiwi expats are into. From when I moved to Wellywood, Hollywood hasn't seemed that remote, and obviously I was a child in Milan from 2002 to 2004. - Ironic given my passion for show music, but yeah... The Britishness is pre-quake Christchurch. - What does that mean? Jazzier harmonies, way more fashion and a real belief in aesthetic as a precondition of social transformation. That's the Italian thing. Or, at least, that's what I think of the Italian character as being. This, of course, is why people thought of my fashion statements as fashion statements rather than presuming that I was 'trans' -- which is fine, but ultimately irritating. I do think that girls have trouble with the idea that the hot guy might be trans. This baffles me: they're all attracted to my effeminate qualities, so why is such a leap for people to presume that I might identify in the feminine? - Morricone is playing in my headphones right now. That's what I mean. Plus the pro-weed, pro-drugs vibe: that's quintessentially LA. If I remember correctly, in the Pollack biography of Gershwin, there's an implication that he died because everyone presumed that it was a psychological condition rather than the aneurysm that eventually killed him. - I fondly remember visiting the British Isles as a kid, but I never felt like living there. I thought Italy was spellbindingly beautiful, but Milan was grey and depressing as fuck. It was like Christchurch with that SAD during the long, grey winters. It was an epically cultured city: I mean, the Last Supper is in Milan, so obviously I picked up a lot from that. Plus we went to all the famous places like the Coliseum and Vesuvius. The Sistene Chapel blew my mind, which is why I have a print of one of the panels. - Re: the LA vibe. Well, aside from actually visiting LA as a kid, it's a mecca for classical guitar and film music, and that's two of my main things. John Psathas adapted the Berklee course, so I have that sound in my repertoire, and Jane and Owen studied in LA with the LA Guitar Quartet. Honestly, though, I'm fine with making cheap indie movies. That's my metier, and I'd rather write big-budget movies than shoot them. There's an ethical dimension to that question given the vast expenditures involved too, and that's something that I haven't managed to grapple with yet. I've never considered emissions in a film budget before, but it strikes me that there are a lot of climate-intensive expenditures (like render farms, driving to locations, data transfer) which probably aren't factored into emissions reductions policies because people tend to think that it's entertainment and therefore who cares? - Yet, at the same time, it's never been easier to make a film. I mean, when I started as a teenager, it was necessary to buy a DSLR to make anything half-decent, whereas several of the best episodes of the Dakumentary were all shot on phone cameras. And, as we've seen, phone cameras are amazing at capturing ambient sounds and that's something that my brother and I have always fantasised about: we thought that it would be cool to have audio tracks that resemble human hearing (like going past different clubs in a busy city and hearing the bleed between them). My approach to this new era was basically to throw shit at the wall and see what stuck, and was obviously inspired by that silent-to-sound transition that I feel has been happening as social media has become the public square and traditional media have become the commentators. So, yeah, I'm a film buff, and I threw every style trick that I knew how into that Dakumentary. The evolving film idea was all thanks to Joe Dante, so I figure that I'll tip the hat to him as a filmmaker that has inspired me for a long time. Lloyd Burr's film is my favourite from the media people: that was totally the vibe, and after watching that I swear I began to see the evil within those men. That's another example of a bitter pill swallowed with some catchy tunes. I'd seen some of Dakta's YouTube channel before embarking on the edit, but several of those were totally new to me, and it was cool that there were synchronous approaches from those films by Arik Reiss or Vinny Eastwood and my Weeded Out films a decade later. It's a truly epic experience to watch the entire 15 or so hours. 👋