Ealing Studios, Kent and Manila!

Posted by Karl von Moller Published in England, France, Singapore, The Philippines

On the 15th of February, the Machete Maiden’s Team flew from London’s Heathrow Airport to Manila via Singapore. The massively long and boring flight was also apparently our day off according to the schedule! That’s a whole other issue, our days off have been far too few considering the time zone changes etc but I wont linger on this. Otherwise, the production has been going very well.

Back in London, after our whirlwind tour of Paris, the Team moved from our hotel in Acton North, to Ealing Studios. Talk about amazing. The historically important film studios of Ealing are legendary. Unfortunately, the place is falling apart by the seems and rotting to pieces! We were based at the back of the Studios in a former ADR studio. This had been guttered and while usable for what we were doing, the studio was in bad repair. On the walls were photographs of past productions which certainly reminded us of the importance of this place in film history! Rushing to setup, we interviewed three filmmakers before rushing to pack our gear up for a massive travel!

At the last minute, an interview with John Landis was made possible! Unfortunately for us, he was shooting his new movie in Kent that day, so we drove for an hour and a half through traffic. John is shooting a period film at a historic manner which was dressed with hundreds of extras, horses and a courtyard filled with period furnishings that just looked amazing! We were rushed past the enormous unit base, through the grounds of the historic building to an upstairs room the size of shoe box! In fact, considering where we were filming, our interview took place in a bland and boring environment which was a shame! The interview it self was amazing! John is a very knowledgeable and incredibly articulate man.

Arriving back at our hotel very late, we just made it to dinner at the pub across the road (The Castle) before returning to our rooms to pack up! At around midnight, I finished packing down all my gear ready for the flight to Manila. The flight required us to leave the hotel at 6AM which was hard. Finally we took off from 0ºC that morning in London to +30ºC in Manila! Only 2 days ago we had been in -3ºC in Paris so not only are we dealing with the time zone differences but the massive shift in climatic conditions. Arriving at the hotel in Manila at around 5PM local time, we checked in and had only a 20 minute walk around before collapsing at a Chinese restaurant for a feed. Then back to our rooms where I barely remember hitting the pillow!

Tags: Acton North, Ealing Studios, Heathrow Airport, John Landis, Kent, Machete Maidens Unleashed, Manila, Singapore

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Feb

New York, New Jersey, London & Paris!

Posted by Karl von Moller Published in England, France, USA

Again it’s been difficult keeping up with the blog. Our schedule on Machete Maidens is very tight with filming activities and travel. I’m writing this article from my hotel in London. We left New York late on Thursday the 11th of February after filming and traveling all day to Freehold New Jersey. There, we interviewed Producer Sam Sherman. Before that interview could take place though, due to the recent snow falls we had to organise to dig out Sam’s driveway of snow, just to be able to get our equipment into his house! Our local contact, Rob Most, rallied some local kids and a man with a snow clearing machine to do the dirty work which took a better part of an hour! The interview went really well and we then drove through the crazy traffic of Manhattan to JFK. The team then flew overnight to London England, arriving very early on the 12th of Feb.

On the 13th of Feb, the Machete Maidens production team headed for Paris for the day to interview Production Designer Dean Tavoularis. Dean was Production Designer on many films including the Godfather Trilogy, Tucker & Apocalypse Now! Waking in our hotel in London, we had a quick breakfast before piling our production equipment into a van and driving to Heathrow. An hour of flying across the channel & then piling all the gear into yet another van, we braved the -3C Degree temperature! Driving into the centre of Paris we glimpsed the Eiffel Tower & the Arc de Triomphe, but as we would find out later, this was the extent of our sight seeing for the day! Arriving at Dean’s beautiful apartment building, we gathered the equipment & either walked it up a circular staircase or piled it into a coffin of an elevator built in the last century! We setup our set in his elegantly art directed lounge room and for an hour and a half, we listened to some incredible stories of the making Apocalypse Now & filmmaking in general.

Packing down the gear, we only had enough time for a group shot in the courtyard of Dean’s apartment building before calling the driver & heading straight back to the airport! So much for the glamour of Paris! We didn’t even have time for lunch! We arrived back at Charles de Gaulle expecting to be able to buy a descent meal. Instead Mark had to pay some incredible bill of around €50 for bay marie food that was awful & a beer! Dinner was again on our flight back to London!