Today, me and the producer had a meeting regarding somebody approaching us for making a Computer Game based on the movie.

We are having a heavy discussion about the fact that I am insisting that The Gene Generation's computer game be free. Personally, I have always set out to make The Gene Generation into a movie with an underground feel. I like the idea of a computer game, but I don't want to commercialize it too much. The movie is about DNA Hackers. Given the nature, I think computer games are a hacker's best friend. In fact, most hackers start by hacking computer games before advancing to the next level. Therefore, this lead me to thinking about creating a Video Game based on The Movie and giving it out for free.

This is of course, not the smartest or most profitable view from the producer stand point. In fact, I very much agree, we are making a business here. But then again, my audience are the most important so I'm really caught in between. It wasn't really a battle in the conference room as it is a discussion on how I can deliver and get the audience what I want without diving into tragic financial matters.

What we have come to a conclusion about, is that we will still be giving away free games to whoever is a subscriber before the game is released. We figured a way around it, but when the game is released, there's a good chance we will be hitting the markets after that.

We're thinking of taking the same game engine from Splinter Cell and retrofitting it for our blade runner / the crow kinda lighting. This can be very tricky because of the nature of our complicated lighting scheme in the game as it is. But if it's not hard, it's not rewarding. I won't take short cuts!

Hope I have you all support on my decision!!

Yesterday, I decided to head over to Malediction, a goth happening on Sunday. That brought back some memories in its own way.

Randy, the owner of the batpack, who supplied most of my extras for Club Metroid scene (yeah yeah, I named it after that Nintendo game) was organizing the event. I had a chance to meet up with the extras and get to know them as individuals. I always love hanging around with extras. You always get to know a little bit more about your ambience if you take the time to understand the dynamics of your extras. Who knows, you might find something you really like, like a special trait from someone that you could use in your film!

I have to admit that the extras from the batpack were amongst the best that I have worked with. They do not complain much and put up with a lot more blood, sweat and tears than most average humans would. I cannot express how much I appreciate working with them and will continue to work with them. Hopefully, with every film, the numbers will get bigger and bigger.

I think the batpack are a very underrated group. When looking at the dynamics of any film, directors use a lot of tricks like foreground, texture, depth of field to create a sense of realism in a universal tone. That's what I see the batpack as. Perfect fore and background. When taking a look at our world, it consist mainly of all different kinds of people. You'll be narrow to think that what I am saying is different races, nationalities .etc. No, I'm talking about culture! Our world is nothing without culture. Yes, we have chinese culture, korean, japanese, german, american culture. But take a look at the goth culture, the punk, everywhere in the world, they are the same. Seems to me we are very unifying ourselves by being a part of it. Nothing wrong with being a cheerleader or soccer mom, if it rocks your boat...hey...all the more power to you and the pope.

Talking to Randy, I learn that directors tend to use the batpack to emphasize the underground or extreme aspect of a current scene. It's funny, I hope I am going the right direction because I use them for the opposite reason. I use them to unify my movie and make it real in my world and the world we live in. Maybe I'm bias, but I like the goth culture because it seems so real to me. No pretention, no discrimination. Many people have asked me, 'But why Pearry, aren't they the disturbed, the mentally depressed kind of people, why do you want to use them?' Well, think about it. If someone is really distrubed? Could they feel depression (aka extreme sadness)? How do you feel extreme sadness without knowing extreme happiness? If you ask yourself these questions, maybe you would understand why they are underrated.

There is a lot of things in this world that I do now know or claim to know the answers to. Through film, I explore and try to emphatize, understand and feel them. Sometimes through films, I damage myself. But the beauty of it is, in films, I heal myself.

SOMETHING SPECIAL FOR ALL READERS

Next tuesday, we will be having a wrap party in Los Angeles with the cast and crew of The Gene Generation! Well, the producer has informed me also that he has just manufactured cast and crew T-shirts for The Gene Generation (that's the design on top). I told him I want 5 of them to give out to those who have wasted their precious time on this blog.

Added to that bonus, I'll be giving those T-shirts during the wrap party. Yup, you're invited to the wrap party with the gang! In case you might feel left out, you can bring a friend or whatever.

I've only got 5 to give out. I don't know how to select which 5 of you to give cause you're all so awesome! The most stupid thing I can think of at this given moment is to write on the comments why you think you deserve a hat / T-shirt and an invite to the wrap party. If you think that's lame, just demand for the shirts and invites. I'll choose the funniest, the most stupid, the most creative, the lamest, and the most pointless (I might add one more for 'most likely to be a stalker' post as well). Oh yeah, don't forget to put down the name of the person who referred you to this posting if there's any. If you win, your friend can join in on the event too.

I'll xanga on your guestbook who won on Tuesday morning. You may post as much as you want. Maybe your brain is like mine....wired wrong in more ways than one.

.p.s. No, if you cannot attend the wrap party, Parry Shen or Bai Ling will NOT turn up in your house dressed as sperm monkies.

*THIS POST HAS BEEN EDITED. USER COMMENTS HAVE BEEN DELETED AND ARCHIVED.*

Another scene that I'm in the process of editing. I only could use shots from the front because the shots from the back is a view of the entire city. We shot that on green screen and have yet to composite the city into it yet. Promise I'll give more tidbits of concept art in the future.

The rooftop scene was never in the script. Orginally, Jackie (played by Parry Shen) and Mouse (played by Ethan Cohn) had a hang out in this dingy chinese restaurant. However, another one of those days when sets were not ready in time. I was shown a list of props that were available and it looked like a bunch of stuff you collected from the trashcan. So junk is my film eh. Haha! I love it!

I took the junk and went next door and stole some fences. Putting 4 fences together with some corrugated metal and some drapery over it, I made a little club house on the rooftop. Thank god my Production Designer (Brian Ollman) was there to pull this miracle off otherwise we might be shooting in another Alley again.

This scene was particularly funny, because Jackie and Mouse were scheming on stealing money to pay off a gambling debt. All talk and no action is always boring, so I placed them at the edge of the rooftop and while they are having their conversation, they are also spitting on peoples' head below. I think the brilliance in this scene, which you really have to see for yourself is the chemistry with the Parry Shen and Ethan Cohn. The brilliance was performing this scene like they had done this a million times and very extremely non-chalant about it. I had my hands over my mouth to stop myself from laughing, and snort came out of my nose instead. (note to self: plug nose up too)

Parry is a great actor and seldom gets distracted. I knew one day I did the right thing when Parry got distracted when I told Ethan to use his spit as his Ramen Noodles lubricant. I figured since these guys did not have money to even have a kettle in their club house, Ethan would use his spit to lubricate his noodles. Here's an outtake of a shot when Parry actually got distracted. I thought it was funny, but that was short lived when Parry and Ethan got right back into the scene. Then I thought he was brilliant. Chemistry between Parry and Ethan, to me was one of the priceless points of TGG.

 

Well, here is one teaser that we finished. My producer wanted something online. Personally, because the movie has so many visual effects shots, we couldn't include a lot of kick ass stuff. Such a pity. But if you go to our website, there would be a much bigger version in there. Download it, steal it, abuse it...anything on the internet should be pirated. I love underground shit... It is such a pity that I couldn't use wumpscut or skinny puppy. Nono, producer won't allow it. Too underground he says. Oh well, making a commercial movie here. Focus and one day I can do the stuff that I want...like my animated epic 'The Celebration of The Giant Sperm God'.

Editing Scene 63 brought back some memories. The scene takes place in an alley where Jackie finds Mouse. Unfortunately, the industrial clubhouse by the roof was damaged and we had to improvise somewhere else. Kim Winther took a look down an alley and said 'Can we use that...it would save us a lot of time to move on to other things'. I said to give me one minute while I sat in that alley for about 5 (yeah yeah, I take more time than I say I would).

This was when an idea hit me. Well, what would one guy do in an alley? He's either spray painting, raping someone, robbing someone or taking a piss! Fantastic! So not only did I make Mouse pee, I decided 'Oh hell! this is a sci-fi film, I'm going to make my piss blue!' I hollered at Kim Collea and before long.... Voila! Blue piss. It kinda looks like gatorade. I admit I did think about red or pink piss. But then it would look like Mouse was just peeing out blood, which is pretty common.

Ahh, blue piss. In order to remain consistent, I had to make other characters pee out different colors as well. Two question were in my head the night after we finished the shot.

1. Should I have EVERY character pee out blue? or should it be different colors each time? I figured when we drink water our piss is clear, and when we drink junk like Diet Coke (my favorite by the way), our pee comes out yellow. Mine is abit brownish...but oh well...so blue means you're unhealthy and green should mean you're healthy....

2. Is there a difference between the way a circumcised male and a uncircumcised male pee? Well, I'm not quite sure and no one in the crew will let me observe, so...i ended up having to improvise on my own...stupid set medic didn't even know...

So here it is. If you look at the picture up there, it is done with just a regular tube pouring out from a pressured pump. If you look at the image on the left, it's a bottle with a hole on it. I put some paper around, to kind of simulate a penis skin. I see a difference, I don't know anyone who does. I just think it's funny that circumcised and non circumcised people might pee differently. If that's not true, then well, it's still fun to giggle in the editing room

Note: I am not obsessed with circumcision neither am I gay, so don't ask...

I finally settled into my post production suite. I'm working beside the editor, Carmello, where by Keith is working in his own office. I don't know how I can take working in an office. The editing room is 'corporate' enough as it is. The first night I was here, I was trying to catch up on going through some dailies and I ended up sleeping in the office.

Unfortunately, I couldn't sleep. So what did I do? I turned the computers back up, the sound of the machine hum was enough to put me to sleep. I would certainly marry my Mac G5, but I know it's only going to last for a couple of years, after that, you know I'm dating a G6....

I'm going to type down what I remember about production as I'm editing. I'm not good with paperwork, hell, I lose about 8 sides and call sheets a day. My assistant actually keeps spare copies around for me. Oh, and my diet coke too...