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• Dragon Garden recce

  Wednesday, Nov 11, 2009 5:30PM / Standard Entry

  Despite the best (or worst) intentions of developers, Hong Kong still manages to surprise me by revealing fabulous heritage and historical locations for filming.
  
  One such place is Dragon Garden, which is a stunning 1940s era summer holiday home made famous internationally in the James Bond film, Man With The Golden Gun.
  
  Dragon Garden is an 8-hectare private heritage garden located in the backdrop of Sham Tseng in the east of Tuen Mun district in the New Territories. It has survived the brutal forces of development and was at one stage offered to the HK government for the pleasure of the public, but the Government turned it down because it didn't want to foot the bill for maintenance. This astounds me in a city that almost by day is having its cultural heritage dismantled in the name of development profit.
  
  
  
  Dragon Garden was created by Dr Lee Lu Cheung and features amazing architecture and design from the Song, Ming and Ching dynasties.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  It was featured in the Bond movie in 1974. You can see about 20 minutes of Dragon Garden in the various scenes shot at Wing Fat’s mansion, where James Bond pretends to be Scalamanga (the bad guy) and is ready to take a plunge in the huge swimming pool with the naked maiden (a very risque scene for this era). You can even get a glimpse of the quiet environment of the Castle Peak Road back in the 70’s, unlike the widened highway it now is. http://dragongarden.hk/blog/?page_id=18 (movie clip).
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The garden has been the scene of a modern day David v Goliath battle between the grand daughter of Dr Lee Lu Cheung and developers who have tried every trick in the book to acquire the land, knock it down and replace it with tiles and concrete.
  
  
  
  
  
  We were given a private tour of the gardens recently and every aspect of it that is visible in the Bond film, including the fabulous pool, is still there today. The house itself is like walking into a time machine. A fantastic old LP record player remains in the living room with a Bing Crosby album still on the turn table. Old 60s couches, lamp shades and tattered rugs give evidence of a fabulous by-gone era.
  
  
  
  
  
  We were treated to a fabulous turkey lunch by Taryn, who brought the food from a film shoot she had finished for her company, Relish Kitchens, earlier in the day.
  
  
  
  The gardens feature very rare and very valuable Buddha trees. These trees are so valuable and so rare that each is individually numbered and protected by law.
  
  The architecture of the Dragon Garden symbolizes the unity of man and nature. Following Chinese feng shui tradition, the order of nature is maintained in the garden so that it does not look wild or chaotic. The landscape is a miniature of the natural landscape with hills and valleys, bridges and rivers, winding paths, rock gardens and plants. The roofs of the ancestral hall and the pavilion are curved with the four corners pointing upward, which imitates the contour of nature. The wide and flat architectural design contrasts with the tall and slender buildings of the West.
  
  
  
  In July 2006, Dr. Lee Iu Cheung's granddaughter, Cynthia Lee Hong Yee founded the Dragon Garden Charitable Trust after the garden was saved from being bought over by developers. Instigated by the preservation of the garden, the Trust aims to "preserve cultural and heritage property in Hong Kong, for public benefit."
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Cynthia is now in the process of commissioning a documentary on the Garden and its restoration to its former glory. It is my new favourite place in Hong Kong and it deserves as much support as everyone can muster to preserve it. The government here needs to be told in no uncertain terms that these sorts of projects must be placed on high priority. We can do without another pink tiled residential complex, but once places like Dragon Garden are bulldozed, they are gone forever.
  
  You can find out more information at http://dragongarden.hk/
  
  xx
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

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• What a week!

  Monday, Nov 2, 2009 11:39AM / Standard Entry

  I'm startled to be alive quite frankly! The week that was, was huge. ACtually. Ginormous would be a better description.
  
  Thursday night our band Uranus opened the entertainment at the Fight Night charity event to raise money for Operation Smile. This is a black tie dinner affair where white collar workers who have been training for six months entertain the crowd by boxing in a proper boxing ring in the middle of a large marquee. Myself and the bass player were in the ring, the drummer was at one end of the marquee and lead singer William Pfeiffer started on a podium but ended up in the ring bouncing off the ropes as he sang. We perfromed Queen's "We Will Rock You" to get the show on the road. A large night ensued.
  
  The next night, Friday, was the Afterglow show. A fabulous night's entertainment, once again to raise money for Operation Smile's China Mission. The event was put together by Mandy d'Abo and I was the Master of Ceremonies for the evening. The show consisted of rapper Detroit Diamond, from Chicago, exotic art performer Meow Meow, Melbourne band Funky Film Express and to top it all off, the former member of the Pussy Cat Dolls, Carmit Bashar. The party rocked all night with gorgeous podium dancers, hostesses, a live auction which included a guitar signed by every member of the Rolling Stones during their Shine A Light Tour, a silent auction including a helmet signed by Lewis Hamilton and a gold album signed by Michael Jackson. We RAISED OVER ONE MILLION U.S. DOLLARS for charity. Awesome! The afterparty at Adrenalin went until 5 a.m. and there were a few after after parties that went longer than that! Very rock star.
  
  Exhausted as I was, the fabulously creative Pirate Doris painted, dressed and dragged me along to the Alive Not Dead Halloween party, feeling truly like the Lord of The Undead, I descended into Zuma's well turned out restaurant into a pit of gouls and gals. A few vodka shots later and I was back in the picture and being completely entertained by the fabulous costumes being paraded around me. It was good to catch up with friends and rock the night out. William Pfeiffer, Cara G, Jasper, Liza, Rosemary, Pirate, Paul, Joyce, Andrew, Kate, and Roland all looked smoking hot and fabulous in their creative costumes and I think I actually dislocated a rib I was laughing so hard.
  
  Next up for me, a week of post production to finish off a documentary special, a gig at the CASBAA ball for Uranus on Friday, and then the I Shot Hong Kong Film Tent at Clockenflap.
  
  Peace.
  
  
  
  

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• Office Manager

  Monday, Oct 19, 2009 2:56PM / Standard Entry

  I'm currently looking for an office manager here at Ocean Vista Films. We need someone who isn't afraid of work and who doesn't mind learning the ropes of production. Ideally, with great organisational and book keeping skills. See the attachment for job description. Contact info@oceanvistafilms.com for an interview.
  
  
  
  

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• Recorded

  Monday, Sep 7, 2009 6:36PM / Standard Entry

  How much fun is making music! I mean, seriously! It's as much fun as you can possibly have with your clothes on (though that's always optional!).
  
  Whilst I've published cds of music compositions for commercial use (such as documentaries and tv commercials, etc), I've only recently discovered that there's nothing quite like the experience of recording with a band.
  
  Going through this incredibly creative experience for the first time in the past two weeks with the eclectic members that make up our very, very serious musical group, Uranus, has re-focused my thinking on music. 
  
  It all started last year with a chance meeting with William Pfeiffer, our "indelibly" energetic frontman. William stopped by the bar I then owned for a beer - or several hundred - and mentioned a jam session later that night with another mutual friend, Ed Bean. The three of us hooked up and fell into a regular jam session on a weekly basis. Realising the need for a weekly bass-ist, William invited another mutual friend, Jasper Donat, to join one of our sessions. Jasper had played with both William and Ed in a previous incarnation called Set Top Box. A month later, we were introduced to a new producer at FX Channel, Ryan Poppi. With guns the size of oak trees, the Popster turned out to be a tub thumper extraordinaire and low and behold, Uranus was born.
  
  Our first gig was at the Global Battle Of The Bands a month later (about this time last year, actually). We finished third in the finals (thanks to well-placed but expensive bribes) and after a few gigs in and around town we found we had a following of Uraniuns.
  
  The jokes about the band and the name keep us all constantly amused, although none of us really understands them. People keep suggesting we call our first album "Plugged", "Unplugged", "Backdoor Boogie", or other equally profound suggestions, but I think we'll probably go with something far more intellectual, like "But Whole", or "Titan Uranus", which kind of plays on the whole Greek mythology theme.
  
  So, armed with a stack of originals, it was time to take the next step and have our sound professionally recorded.
  
  Thanks to Q Studio, Thomas the Tank Engineer (and plenty of Heineken), we managed to lay down two tracks in one 8 hour session last week. We then spent two seven-hour sessions producing and mixing the results of that epic studio recording over this past weekend.
  
  Last night, we burned the results of that studio session to cd and today we are holding the first baby of Uranus's musical love fest.
  
  We plan to make a bit of a song-and-dance about the release of the two singles  so stay tuned.
  
  In the meantime, we have another recording session with the Underground label planned in October with new original songs and we aim to have a cd compiled and released by the end of the year.
  
  My mother thinks I'm having a mid-life crisis. I think she's being rude - She was listening to Santana before I was even a glint in my father's eye.
  
  And don't forget to tell your girlfriends: "Uranus Rocks, babe".
  
  C.
  
  
  
  

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• CrazyCurlyTot

  Wednesday, Sep 2, 2009 3:00PM / Standard Entry

  The Pirate Doris, aka, Crazy Curl Tot, aka Tanya Bennett,  will be showcasing her fabulous artistic talent at tonight's Speak Up event at M1NT. The woman is not only a great sort, but incredibly talented when it comes to paint, brushes, pencils, paper, photoshop, canvas and other related arts shizzle.
  
  She is also the genius behind the comic book series The Fabulous Adventures of Pirate Doris and The Mighty Surf N Turf and sketched the picture which I now use as my profile.
  
  Uranus - that enigma of rock bands - now has a new rock doris mascot thanks to Tanya (check it out in the profile pic on AnD).
  
  Her pictures of Asian women capture the feeling of the subject at that moment in time when the artist first spotted the subject. It's uncanny. She has also delved into some iconic pop art, pumping it full of the things that have been of particular influence to her.
  
  All shall be revealed in her first ever presentation tonight.
  
  If you want to see something different, come along and have a look and meet the artist.
  
  I'm a big fan.
  
  See you there.
  
  C.
  
  
  

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