Nandan here.

Hawaii is past, for me, as well as for Nick and Tor. It was weird to be there on their last day, and then after they were gone. I’m not sure why they let me take over their lives for the past 4 weeks, although I’m sure by the time they realized what was happening I had already comfortably installed my bedding on their couch, and my movie into their daily schedule. Before I came I wanted to be sure that everything we did was based on group decision-making, and that we wouldn’t film more than was fun for everyone. But filming inherently becomes a chore, no matter how free-for-all or relaxed you try and make it – it reaches a point where you have to film to finish what you started, and at that point it’s hard to make it anything besides a responsibility. At least I haven’t figured out how to do that. Regardless, it was sweeeeeeeet that these guys let me make a movie with them, and I really really really just have to pretend I believe it will be something of value for them. At least they know what they shouldn’t get themselves into again.

In any case, I sat down today to start organizing footage, but ended up making this:

Zach here. I’m at home now, and I’m not sure what’s happening back on old Oahu, but as of my departure production was all wrapped up but for a few minor loose ends. I’m sure that Nandan will be around soon with a final batch of stills, but I’m here for a different reason…

While it may have become unclear throughout the years, one of the founding purposes of this blog was to share our process for the benefit of all those interested in masterpiece creation. And you know, hundreds of people have asked me (even thousands perhaps), “Zach, how do you guys make movies for so cheap?!” And one of the things that I always tell them is that food is key. Keeping a cast/crew well fed can really bloat your budget, but here at Newhard we’ve mastered the art of satisfying everyone’s hunger at little to no cost! So while on set in Hawaii this past month, we made sure to photograph all of our culinary highlights, which I am now so pleased to present in blog form:

Spam Benedict - English muffin, fried spam, poached egg, weird pre-made “bistro sauce” from the food bank.

Bacon Macadamia Nut Milkshake

Pasta Newhard - Spaghetti, mushrooms, onions, garlic, tomato sauce, diced spam.

Bacon Tortellini Wrap

Nandan’s Street Plate - Rice, chickpeas, and a bunch of Indian vegetable stuff served in an old pie tin for an authentic street cart presentation.

??? – Instant mashed potatoes and Spaghetti-O’s.

Of course, people get tired of sitting on the couch eating weird/exotic dishes every day. It’s okay to splurge occasionally if it means keeping morale high. That’s why we took everyone to McDonald’s for a very special night out to see who could successfully eat the most expensive meal. Everyone surpassed $30, but Nick took home the title by housing $37 worth of food. Here he is celebrating his victory.
Congrats Nick! And congrats to you too, reader, for having gained a valuable filmmaking tool!

Zach here. I’m headed back to the mainland in a few hours, and to be honest I’m not sad about it. Tempers have been flaring up between the cast and crew lately and I’m not sure I could have taken much more of this.

Nandan here. Things are weird here. Since last update, Tor’s Norweigen brother and cousin have arrived, Nick’s Canadian mom and sister have arrived, and Christmas has come and gone with at least some tradition:

Zach and I are still here, still hogging moments of time to make movie. But I can honestly say that we are making something, and that we will indeed have a whole movie, scattered throughout many files on a hard drive, in hand when I leave this place in a week and a half. This is news for me.

Zach leaves in two days, so things are a little stressful – need to get done what needs doing before he airplanes out of here. Today we’re going to try and film a scene where Tor talks to Zach, acting as sound man recording their conversation, about how they are being portrayed talking about marriage in the scene we are shooting. I doubt that was coherent, which is a little like my thoughts right now.

I need to remember to call Nick and Tor’s Bishop, who vaguely agreed to let me interview him for the movie, but insists he hardly has any time, and explained that he doesn’t understand what we’re doing. I was supposed to call him yesterday between 5:30 and 6:00 to explain to him what we’re doing. I’ve never had a harder time trying to explain what we’re doing. I think that’s a bad sign, and it worries me a little, but somehow I can’t be bothered to think more about it. But I need to remember to call him tonight to tell him what we’re doing.

Tor here. Finals are over. Everyone but me and Nick has returned to the mainland for the holidays, which means we now only have me, Nick and the backdrop left at our disposal. We got a car and the scooter is working again, which helps a ton with the work. My brother and cousin from Norway are arriving in a few days, as is Nick’s family from Canada, which means we should shoot as many scenes as we possibly can this weekend before they come. I’m sure they will want to see places and try surfing, so the more we can do now the better.
We’re doing pretty well I think. I feel like we got a lot of things accomplished today despite the loss of our dear leader Kim Jong Il. At least Nandan and Zach seem to find gold in almost all of the seemingly mundane everyday scenes that is my life.
When I answer “about me and Nick,” people seem to agree that it could have something to it, even though it sounds so simple. I think it’s because everyone deep down knows their journals are great movie material, at least portions of them, and I think the chapters of our imaginary journals we’re filming right now are as intriguing as our journal can get and in many ways similar to what other kids at the threshold of domestic life and adult life are experiencing. That may be because I fear nothing beyond that threshold will ever be worth documenting, but I really really hope I’m wrong.

Nandan here. I’m feeling pretty good right now. Not so good about the $130 the four of us spent at McDonalds last night in an eating contest, but good about the movie that’s being made. About this good:

I came here with a lot of wants. I wanted to feel free with this project, in the process I wanted to feel like I could do whatever I fancied, and I wanted that to come across in the final product. I was interested in the process above all – how is it to come into someone else’s life and make a film about them, with them conversing about and acting in their own depiction of a fictional version of themselves? I was interested in the individuals I was coming to see – buddies of mine I hadn’t seen in years. I was interested in the themes – youth, growing up, mormonism.

I dunno. I’m still afraid of every scene we have to shoot, afraid of the volatility of our schedule, afraid of the lack of control I will probably have over the exact time of day we shoot things outside. But overall I just have some crazy idea that I think I will like what comes out in the end. Not sure what makes me actually believe that.

Nick and Tor are finishing finals this week. All the other students are leaving this week and weekend. We have to shoot all our scenes with those kids between the time they finish finals, and the time they leave, which basically means Thursday night and Friday day. Do any of these individuals wish to spend their last moments before leaving making my movie? Probably not. But they’ve agreed to do it anyway.

We had a moment the other day where we found ourselves in a house, ready to shoot the group scene zach mentioned below, when the people that actually lived in the house asked me what I was doing. I suddenly realized I hadn’t even asked them permission to shoot in their living room. Just barged in, started setting up equipment, and assumed it wouldn’t be a problem. They were friends of friends…

That’s kind of how this whole shoot is going, I’m just barging into people’s lives, telling them what we’re doing, and barely asking them if they want to participate before committing them to being involved. It’s definitely presumptuous. But somehow people are kind enough to amuse me. Thank you?

Zach here. And by here I mean Hawaii, as previously established. It’s now been nearly three years since Nandan and I began chronicling the production of our first endeavor, and while we both know that we may never return to those previous heights of blog glory…we’re going to try.

These are Tor and Nick (in that order). They are two of Nandan’s many Mormon friends, and they’re in the final weeks of a one-semester stint at BYU Hawaii. With their imminent return to the mainland looming, questions of faith, family, and relationships are demanding to be addressed. Probably not answered, but definitely addressed. And it isn’t completely clear just yet, but it seems like this is what we’re here to capture.

Things are a little bit different this time in that Nandan dragged me out here with way less of a clue about what we’d be shooting than either of us has ever had. No script, no problem…that much we know. But no preconceived plot whatsoever? It was a scary thought. However, in spite of our now being on island time, and all of the painstaking research into what that lifestyle entails, progress has been made.

Our first few days here were chiefly observational. We’ve been spending a lot of time familiarizing ourselves with the two leads and what it is that they do here, whom they hang out with, and what rocks they like to jump off of. Their friends and routines are slowly becoming our own, because we’re sneaky like that. Add to all of this hours of daily discussion regarding themes, expectations, and boundaries (in addition to an extremely healthy dose of Nandan’s classic pacing sessions) and an outline has begun to form. We even produced and shot a beach bonfire/camp-out on our third night here.

Not bad, right? And today we shot our first “real” scene, a highly ambitious start considering the six speaking performers acting for the first time and all at once. But regardless of difficult circumstances, the results were great. It was such a relief to have everyone finally get an idea of what we’d be doing here…and not only that, but to get excited about it. If the energy continues, the cast might just wind up making this movie themselves. Again, we’re sneaky.

We are in Hawaii.

Zach here. Just wanted to give everyone a quick heads up. Within ten days, the blog is about to launch back into full blown, awesome-still-posting production mode FOR THE FIFTH TIME. Newhard is an unstoppable force of creative uncertainty and nervous artistic experimentation. Lest y’all forget.

Just because it’s more fun this way I’m going to withhold details until everything is really underway. But I will drop three clues. First of all, and this goes almost without saying…

Secondly, the instigator/man behind the wheel:

And finally, a little information about the setting:

Please check back soon. Updates are inevitable. And remember…

…between love and madness lies obsession.

Zach here. Before I get into any of what I’m about to say just click play on the video below to set the mood for the rest of the post.

Alright, so I just got back from the Viennale last night and am happy to say that I think I am finally comfortable spelling viennale.

I knew that this festival would be special from the moment I arrived. The hangover was only just beginning to set in (I’d spent the earlier hours of that same morning researching the role of Parisian wino) as I checked into the Vienna Hilton and, en route to the elevator, was suddenly surrounded by the cast of a fever dream: a group of about four or five weathered old Austrian faces extending glossy prints of my own photograph and calmly repeating “öttograph. öttograph.” The only explanation that occurs to me is that these characters were hired by the festival as an ego-boosting measure for incoming guests.

That same night was my first screening. Fresh from my first taste of typical smoke-and-piano-music-filled Viennese cafe, I rolled up to the Urania – a beautiful riverfront theater and former site of the emperor’s private observatory. Not joking.

Inside the Urania I was greeted not only by the throng of lobby loiterers responsible for the sold-out house and formidable standby list, but also by the delightfully British critic and moderator Neil Young. Everyone took their seats and I stumbled nervously through an introduction, noting that I hadn’t faced such a large audience since about eighteen months ago. Ducking out of the theater as the lights went down, a local drunk appeared out of nowhere and shouted at me in German with several dashes of “fuck you” thrown in for flavor. He was escorted outside by an employee and I was given a conciliatory bottle of sparkling water. Eighty minutes later I re-entered the theater as the credits rolled and was surprised to find that almost the entire audience was staying seated for the Q&A. This of course turned out to be standard for every movie that screened at the festival, but that first night it gave me the confidence that, alongside Mr. Young’s insightful moderation, was ultimately responsible for what was, in my opinion, the best Q&A I’ve ever done.

And that was all just the first night. The next few days were a lovely autumnal tapestry of awesome movies, intelligent company, and lavish meals…including one that was maybe a bit too lavish in that it left me dangerously close to too-drunk-to-Q&A territory. I did my best regardless and am sure that only a small handful of Viennese locals now consider me a clown.

Anyway, it was a great time. I got rid of a bunch of screeners for both new Newhard joints and, most importantly, I made a shitload of facebook friends.

And now this is gonna be me tomorrow.

Kill me!