A month and a half at imaginary sea

Well here I am again, in the same position I was in a month ago. Unemployed, cameraless and foreverwaiting for a big break to push me forward into my proposed career.

After 5 weeks selling energy door to door I walked out. There was plenty of sales training and work but no time for Matt. that's no time for JKD training, acting, or spending much time with the wife apart from the weekends or half of it, and to top it off the money I was earning was going back into it for petrol and food and any cancellations. I also lost quite a bit of the muscle I had gained before joining this job (no time to eat properly plus tons of walking/running) (pic below taken 1st Jul 2012)

so frantically trying to work out again and build it back. All in all, I felt as though I was swimming in a whirlpool, the momentum I was making was in fact sending me in circles. I had to ask myself did I really want to be doing this, So, even though I enjoyed the team work, targets and the job, I quit knowing I wasn't doing my life the way I set out to do when I first moved here. So now, in my search for employment while I prep and film my debut, I won't be taking commission jobs or jobs that leave me finishing at 10 pm at night. On the plus side, I will be able to watch the fencing and Taekwondo at the olympics now we have figured out all we needed was an antannae plug and not the whole Freeview TV setup box. Awesome :)

On the day of the wife and I seeing spiderman, the NZ cops were outside the cinema doing their thing as people protested national asset sales. I took this photo cos I like cop cars (just not following me lol)

Nothing else to really report, I checked out the Amazing Spiderman and Dark Knight Rises both on IMAX. Very awesome movies, The action in both was very top notch. And was extremely excited to see both on the giant screen, now for Expendables 2!! I also caught up on alot of the films I missed out on while doing my job. Here's some of my fav pics from the films...

The fight scene in the subway of Amazing Spidermans was my fav, It's like Jackie chan meets Spiderman. Andrew Garfield's acting was very cool in this. So much Parkour, the action in this film is shot very awesome, makes Peter parker very believable :)

And Bane was the only villain in the dark knight series where you really want Batman to fight and kick the shit out of the bad guy, it was very cool and their witty skirmishes were very cool too. I wasn't impressed with the ending between the two and I hope they can meet again, alot of Hollywood punches (big swings, not very technical) and not as physical as I have seem them both perform in previous movies, though in suits I can imagine the discomfort lol. Very cool movie. Batman's partnership fight with Catwoman on the roof/tunnels was pretty cool in my opinion too :)

Watching these classics onscreen was a nice inspiring reminder for myself for why I wanted to get into the film industry. Plus, I did a full 7 hour day on Shortland st in an italian restaurant in the CBD in my first week back, won't spoil the scene, but I'm happy to be doing filmwork again (even if just as an extra), so I'm back in the swing of things now. On the downside I got a 200 dollar ticket for my rego or the sticker being affixed improperly, beats me, I paid the parking meter, but Auckland council seems to be quite profit hungry IMO. As you can see below, it's a very nice restaurant.

Below is the Atheltes foot commercial. Don't bother looking for me, It's hard to even recognise some of the people I met there. We really were just background lol and only involved in like 15 secs, but still a very nice ad so well done to the team.

Got the blackbelt mag I saw on Blackbelt's FB page, so happy to see it instores here. Love Bruce Lee, He's the man!! :)

Anyway, will leave you here for now as I regroup. I have applied for everything from government jobs to more sales jobs. I'm quietly confident I will gain some income. But in the meantime I share this comic below which sums up my feeling over the last couple weeks. Do you ever look up at the stars at night? I found myself looking alot, I miss my family in Christchurch and I hope to visit them soon, it's almost been a year since I've seen them. Also I'm 26 this year, where has the last 8 years gone since I finished high school? I really need a fulltime job and to get this movie finished. I can't live a life full of promises, I have to live a life of full of life...

New Job, Safe, Opportunity?

Hi all,

Just got back from watching SAFE at the cinema tonight with the wife. I had been looking forward to this for a long time (since announced actually) so It was awesome to see the final product didn't disappoint. It had everything I wanted from an action film, an entertaining story with stakes, brutal action, one liners and a great pace. It was cut well and Jason Statham is a complete badass in this, imagine frank martin without the rules, He messes guys up left right and centre in this, watch it if you haven't....Just sharing cos these are the sort of films I intend to make and watching a movie as cool as this just inspires me to follow my dream even harder :)

So finished my first full week as an ICA for a sales and marketing company, It sucked it had to rain all week but I try and enjoy all the moments. They say you fool me once then shame on you, you fool me twice than shame on me.....try 5 times, 5 times I thought since the sun was out and it wouldn't rain, sure enough EACH day without fail it rained/pissed down, halfway through. It's nice to laugh it now but standing on someones door step looking like a horror film fisherman from a stephen king novel doesn't help with my first impressions. My team leader is pretty cool, I've learned to be alot more enthusiastic and know my shit after watching him work the streets. It's quite eye opening and it feels like being in a pressure cooker being apart of such a successful sales team, I was told by the guy who hired me that I beat out 130 other applicants for the role. I couldn't belive how naive I was when I walked in expecting they hire just anyone with good availibility and a desire to learn, so trying to meet and exceed their expectations. So yeah, in short, made a start to the sales career hitting my target for the first week, so hoping next week I double it so I can make it to the next level and start earning what I want to be earning....then camera, computer and editing equipment will be mine!!! (never forget the goal, this job is just a step up the ladder for me)

Had JKD training today, I can only train once a week right now since I finish work so late, But there is something calming about training for me, 3 hours a week that I can forget the world of bills, demands and plans and just focus on mastering a few certain moves of the body. I also talked to sifu about helping him grow the club, ultilising my skills, I'm excited about it and hope to show him the plan next week. More students equal more potential people to learn with/from in my eyes. Plus hammering a tyre 300 times is much more fun when you do it next to someone. The alternating thumps actually remind me of lemmings lol

Also got a call this week from someone I did a student film with who says that the director wants to put me in his feature film that he is working for, a drama he thinks, so I'm looking forward to a callback so I can check out the script. More experience leads to more opportunities. Anyway, That's really all I can share this week so with that note I'll leave you the following calvin and hobbes comic which though always funny, also makes you think! haha :)