Co-operate with the Ineveitable

Challenges may seem big and tough to overcome, but never forget your

size of thinking and how and when you apply your knowledge is your greatest weapon. So much Drama in the weekend and in life in general its great to be back to my old new routine :)

Today was fantastic :) I finished watching season one of burn notice, nailed my signal flow test (even though i was worried as, said every thing i was doing aloud and made a dry joke saying i had a cough and cold but not to worry as i wont die in the control room) and made it to JKD class (since i missed it on monday)

We focused on kicking today and sifu told me we will be sparring again next week, he also mentioned that when i see him on sunday to bring a flashdrive for the vid of my first spar which i will post here in the right context sunday night.

Im reading a book (always reading, watching movies/tv series on DVD/ martial arts work/ or chess/games) by Dale Carnegie, an old one called "How to stop worrying and how to start living", Its mainly for my wifes benefits as i dont worry so much since i have started this course, i learnt alot about who i am and what i can do through my GKR job but there were some points i wanted to share with you guys that might help you;

1) Sieze the Day! alot of people dont, either live today as if it were your last day on earth or if its the first of the rest of your life. Theres an amzing amount we take for granted as we let our worris trouble us, live in the moment and you will be surprised how you change and your fortunes will follow :)

2)

"I keep 6 Serving men

(they taught me all i knew)

Their names are What and Why and When

and how and where and who"

-rudyard kipling

Mr Carnegie mentions this poem in his book which was quite cool i thought, when it comes to worrying about things

A) get the facts. most of the time you are worrying thanks to your imagination.

B) Analyze them. (So this is the problem, what are the different ways of fixing this?)

C) Arrive at a Decision then Act on it (even inaction (doing nothing) is an action so do something about it)

and

3) Co-operate with the inevitable. There is nothing to fear but fear itself, i wasnt prepared very well for my signal flow test, i had practised a couple times by myself when i should have done it with other classmates but though i present myself as an extrovert i'm really an introvert and when being the cover it always takes effort so by habit i always go natural, bottomline is i went into that test knowing i could fail, so i accepted it and tried to use it as an excuse to learn from whatever mistakes i made and i did, and i also passed :)

Accept the worst that can happen and improve on it.

Do what makes you happy, do what counts and by all acounts smile, I am going to work on my Dark Records Website now which you can see here ,what are you going to do?

"Black belt. A white belt that never quit!" - anon.

I'm not rich yet, famous or have a black belt, but i'm still in fighting spirit. I Finally have the internet connected. I'm writing at 1.20am on a wednesday morning, i will watch another episode of burn notice (after psych and chuck i needed a new series to watch episode after episode :) its great) will sleep after that so i can be awake when i do my signal test later this afternoon. I'm just writing now so i can write everyday from now one like i had intended when i set this blog up.


The Weekend was one of the most testing experiences of my life in having to do so many jobs at once in such a short amount of time, but i pretty much got it all done so i am happy with my achievements. Every time i do 48 hour film competitions the weekend tests me professionally and personally, film and lifedrama wise, anyway heres some points and items of interest i wanted to share with you guys from my whirlwind return to Christchurch.


1) I spent the weekend overcoming obstacles, just like the characters i write about....I had no car or anyone to borrow one off (they were all being borrowed by other people or weren't working). So i bused to meetings and walked to others, mini missions all around. Caught up with my family and the dramas, sorted them, went to the mall met the actresses and my music guy (surface or also plays a part in this movie as bobby) and went to the 48 hour briefing with my middle bro and sis, afterwards i spent looking for an invisible tripod which shock horror, couldnt be found (if you reading this ash, bro, i will replace it in june k?)




2) So I didnt get to start scripting my master piece til midnight, while very other organised person had started at midnight, i had to tell my friend who was gonna be cameraman to miss out on the project cos so much going on i couldnt take care of everybody, anyways i managed to hammer out a storyline with characters and finish with a solid script by 2 am, sent it by email to my cast then hit the pillow with more energy then i had all day.


3) The actresses i worked with, Lydia and Rosina were great, they turned up on time and even though it was both their first proper time they approached my script both professionally and with zest, so it was a fun experience all around.



4) My budget for the shoot was 150 bucks, the majority for food to sweeten the deal for the cast since they were working for free, a tripod, dv tapes and a usb stick to hand it in. Fun afternoon with lots of laughs and out takes







5) We ran out of daylight when it came to shooting the finale so i told Sam (our chief antagonist) we would have to reshoot in the am, yeah, i got muddy doing sweep kicks for nothing, but i will post the deleted scenes on this blog at some point so its not wasted :)


6) Spent the night slowly exploding as one thing went wrong after another, i didnt have the editing software i thought i had and my computer i went to all the trouble of bringing back in a suitcase (theres a reason people invented laptops) didnt have firewire! (should have checked that in retrospect - i just assumed, and as they say, to assume is to make an ass out of you and me) so problems solution? call little bro for my old comp, sure enough he drove it round, but then we could only capture it in windows movie maker as vegas was on strike. I edited about 3 scenes then went to bed with a churning gut, a headache and slept a broken man.


7) Knowing time is against you isnt a good feeling and the seeds of distrust are planted long in your subconsious before you wake up, i knew we couldnt finish on time but nevertheless tried. We shot the finale again, no time to choreograph so we just went with what felt right (which turned out good i thought, would have prefered flashy moves and dust and sfx etc tho but next project) our chemistry was great so this finale made the movie in my opinion.

Afterwards me and wifey had lunch, reshot the location then went home to edit for the next 5 hours (not enough time by far) rough cut of the good takes, no room for a soundtrack, sfx, and the ineveitable double clips and missing scenes that slipped through the cracks of pressure the deadline under your skin, but for what it is the idea behind it shows so i hope people can see that.


Handed it in half an hour late as competion only takes .mov or .mp4s, wmm only puts out avis and wmvs so had top rerender it in vegas for mov. took 40 minutes, 35 mins to long and we missed out. Handed it in anyway so it could at least show on the big screen for my cast and friends.




Anyway for the cast and for you guys i will have the official edited version of "King style, silent shadow" (will make sense after you see it) here on my channel and this blog in July.




8) spent the rest of sunday catching up with little bro and wifey over KFC and watching the Dilemna, well i did, both of them fell asleep after a long weekend lol, before hand little bro had helped me move out me and wifeys stuff from upstairs of our house as middle bro was moving into it. Will move wifey to Aux soon to live with me so i am hoping for some extra work soon so will sign up with an gency when the time is right. I packed everything then went to bed, then back to auckalnd. Its amazing how much an airpiort can change in 2 months. Christchurch Airport is amazing now, truly to a international standard, proud of my people lol.




Anyway i have a good feeling now, i'm not talking about the cold and cough i got from my quick kiss and run from christchurch, no, its the feeling that this is the start of my fortunes changing and that the hundreds of seeds of planting in my fruitful past can now blossom, im not worried what they grow into, im just looking forward to seeing how high :) the skys the limit! ;)