Carnage Alley Part 1

February 20th already, time flies huh? Up to page 51 of 10th rewrite of Chase. I'm getting really restless at the moment. I really thought that I would have got my movie started by now, but each day melts into the next, and I stand no closer to my goals. Just work on my sales and keeping my job, balancing that with my home life and trying to fit in training when I can....But good things take time I know so I knwo that by the end of this year I will have concrete proof I am making some headway into this mess of a dream I have.

Here is the choreography practice footage I shot with Steve that I tried to upload to facebook last week but wouldn't let me since I chucked on the police story 4 ost in the background. Check it out below,

I Finally got myself a camera last week specifically to shoot something. YESSS! It had been ages since I had shot something myself. And I couldn't find anyone to borrow a camera off, so I spent a week looking around all sorts of models trying to find the cheapest most efficient camera for my dollar that I could find. Found this JVC HD Everio at Noel Lemming for 350. The quality is great for what it is and came with bonus memory. So excited to shoot with it. As you can tell :)

I plan to shoot a short film before I shoot my mock trailer for Chase for investors. This way I have festival credentials and an IMDB listing. I've written the first quarter of the script, the other depends on securing an empty warehouse or something to shoot the fight scenes in. I want broken tables. I want blood spray. I want intense fast paced action, something I've never really done in my standard short films so count me excited.

The short film will be called Carnage Alley. It's about Hunt (Safaa), a workaholic officer who is a step away from proving that something is going down at the docks involving nuclear arms and she takes her rookie partner Thompson (Matt) along for the ride. However, things go awry when the dealer who shows up happens to be a cop himself.

I shot the first couple scenes of Carnage Alley with Safaa last week, it was fun as I tried more creative angles and feel I've grown as a filmmaker, plus its great practice for Chase. Here are some of the screenshots while I save some cash for Adobe Premire so I can start editing.

 

Anyway, I'm off to go to a car sales yard, either to look for my dream car (BMW 328i) or my child dream car (FTO) as my car is threatening to cause me trouble again. I really should have done research on Rover's before I bought it but at the time it was the right choice and even when I sell it, I will still have good memories of it :) No doubt the car will end up in one of my videos, the joys of budget filmmaking :) Until next update, take care and thanks for your support :)

Shooting of ActionStar webseries started today

Below are some screenshots of the footage we shot today for the first episode of my new web-series Actionstar. This episode is about me trying Parkour for the first time, (can't join the club until February 11th) So using the internet and other material for advice, I gave it a shot with the basics, cat leaps, rolls, dash vaults etc, I failed a couple of times but overall a very fun day :)

Hoping to shoot more attempts tomorrow (had to stop due to the rain). I just wanted to share what you can look forward to seeing on my channel in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, enjoy the screenshots :)

The Christchurch Trip and shooting my first drama :)

The whole purpose of my late July trip was to visit family, catch up with my nieces who are growing up fast, get my King style footage (which now thankfully is uploaded) and spend time with wifey. The Snow was a bonus :) All in all A fun, eventful trip :)

Having stayed an extra week in Christchurch I missed a lot of school work, which thankfully, didn't affect me too much. However, I made it back to Auckland in time to help Nazim shooting the rest of his SAE short film 'Pass it Down the line' of which he has finally relented and uploaded onto you tube for your viewing. How did I do? Not my script so i worked with what i had but for something non action i thought It was a pretty good effort. I guess you could say that I'm looking forward to my next acting experience now :)

Pass it down the line - video.

King Style, Silent Shadow is here! :)

Long time no see :) Been to Christchurch 2 weeks ago, came back last week and spent the last week catching up with finishing assignments, finishing editing TigerXCobra and Finishing King Style, Silent Shadow now that i had the footage, So finally after much more taxing work It's here for your viewing pleasure. Special Thanks to Sam Vine, Matt Palmer, Lydia Zhong, Rosina West, and Melody Kinsman, without you guys it wouldnt have been as fun as a shoot as it was, good works! :)

Click the image below to watch the intended cut of King Style, Silent Shadow. Our Superhero genre entry for 48 hr film festival 2011.

Watch the Making Of King Style, Silent Shadow

Watch the King Style,Silent Shadow Out Takes

So The process in a nutshell, 48hr weekend shot it-->tried to edit in windows movie maker, then had to convert it to .mov (competition rule which sucked cos thats macs default, not pc, especially moviemaker) which took us overtime by half an hour so project handed in at 7.30pm, footage to large to take back to Auckland so could only retrieve it next visit which was at the end of July. Once in Aux tried opening movie maker file, failed, as was XP version and not 7 which is what i have, so redited it using a free program called Pinnacle Videospin (which doesn't allow zooms, any more than 1 track for audio, video, or remapping and loading time was slow) Finished editing it, took it to school and put on the macs and used final cut to add the soundtrack and fix the zoom on one shot (where a script is in shot etc) and remapping [which sucks compared to Vegas, i miss Vegas (I used to have a cracked version which was by now obsolete and usable and i'm trying to be legit about every project now anyway) lol will buy premiere when i can...]

All this while Juggling the last stages of EWALWICTL (which was due today and duly handed in) and TigerXCobra (finished today but will post next week) and my training for and taking my JKD Level test, which are all things I will talk about next post when i buy batteries to show you guys the pics i had taken of my trip :) In the mean time, I hope you enjoy King Style, Silent Shadow! :)

Streetfighter: Ryu vs Fei long - Week 1 and 2 Recap

VS

Streetfighter: Ryu vs Fei-long is my new short film project in the works. We are aiming for a late August Shoot. Lee Ah yen will be playing Ryu and I will be playing Fei Long.

I had written maybe 4 different scripts, some involving a cross with Jin in tekken, Chun Li and Jann Lee (Which is from a dead or alive pitch i had been planning to do later this year once i find the right actresses to play Hitomi and Lei Fang), One script with Ryu vs Sagat and One script with Ryu taking on Guile in a warehouse. It was quite hard to find actors to match the physiques of some of these characters so i decided we would shoot a film first to show prospective actors/actresses what the finished idea looks like and hopefully we can do maybe a web series of Streetfighter like Mortal Combat (and i don't mean the SF series College humor did either, i mean serious action not comedy).

I know of 2 very well made and received Fan Films of Streetfighter (Legacy and beginnings end respectively) And though i will be nowhere near their equivalent regarding equipment, cast or budget (read; no budget :P) Our enthusiasm for Streetfighter as well as the choreography and script i have written should win us some fans and maybe some name recogniton for future works, original or made for fans.

So Its been a week since Lee has agreed to the script and since Lee and I have decided a rough shooting date I spent yesterday shooting myself as both characters (not in costume though) doing some test choreography for the SF project in order to test after effects effects regarding Hadokens and hits and Powered moves. However all the footage is uploaded on the school computer so i wont be able to share with you guys the results for a couple weeks as i cut it up and add the effects, in the blog that follows i will go over the project.

Anyways thats the news. This past week i have been editing Everyones a Loser When It Comes to Love and TigerXCobra as well as our school project with flying cars aka Michael Bay haha. Always editing, now if i had final cut at home these would be long finished by now but i don't, so don't expect Ivy Investigation for a wee while yet.

In other news got to spar again on Wednesday, however the safety equipment is quite restricitve in terms of ducking and eyesight, i got hit by so many punches simply because i couldn't use my peripheral version, but in good news we were allowed to do front or sidekicks which is my middlename! so as you can see in the video of the spar that Chris uploaded i exploit that, hope to do more combos and punching overall next time out, i was far too passive in this one and quite disappointed in myself. Anyway, Christchurch next weekend, I'll blog again then :) Have a good week.

Coming Soon :)

Now I Have shot my first Short Film in Auckland :)

I directed my student film project this weekend, 'Everyone's a Loser When It Comes to Love'.

DAY 1- Drama Scenes at the Auckland Domain. Where the Detective begs for Julia's forgiveness.

My Actor (Lee Ah Yen, an actor who is definately going places) and Actress (Safaa Humadi, an actress who though it was her first time really impressed me with her skills and manner) were both really talented and it didn't help that i had been nervous all week but we managed to get all the scenes done on the day which was great. From the moment we all met and went through the script there was some real chemistry and its to their credit that the footage i walked away with looked fantastic. Saf was very emotional ( i dont know how she pulled that off i felt guilty even though she wasnt really crying, it was just acting lol) and Lee responded with the same intensity which really made the scenes dramatic and work, then after i said cut! they would both crack up laughing and joke around, man, professionals, i find it hard keeping a straight face and i'm BEHIND the camera!


Was a very fun afternoon. I could have done without the helicopters chilling overhead and the slow drivers going through the shot but it is a public place so thats the risk. After this shoot i said to myself i will secure closed locations as i believe it would be easier, however look at all those free extras in the scene lol. Set Photo is below and was taken by a kind mother who sat with her 2 kids in the park having a picnic while i had my actors have a domestic fight in public haha awkward but this is the career i want right?

DAY 2- Action Scene at an Abandoned area with awesome look for our drug dealer and detective fight.

I had 2 Locations in mind, 1) A rooftop which i knew was empty on sundays though i couldn't ask for permission and 2) an abandoned area close to my house, i knew it looked cool but i was worried if it was safe to shoot there as i knew homeless people might be around due to alcohol dirty beds and grafitti everywhere. I thought hell, its the day time and it looks good plus theres 3 martial artists on set so i didnt think there would be any trouble if any one wanted to make trouble, here are a couple pics i had Lee take of me and Sam below in the location.

So Today was Fight Day, My cameraman bailed on me last night and my back up camera man couldnt say yes or no. I originally planned to fight Lee as the character Kevin however i changed to plan C and went to a friend of mine, Sam Jing and asked if he could play my character and i would shoot the scene as well as choreographing it, thank fully he said yes and after you see the footage in a month's time you will agree.

For his first time he was awesome and Lee helped alot with bringing that out, This was definately Lee's time to shine since I had choreographed some cool scenes and they pulled them off which was great (punch combos etc). Lee helped with bringing my drawings and ideas to life and showed me some cool ideas of his own which we chucked in there, The emotion and Intensity of this scene was incredible and probably the best fight scene I've directed yet! (i say that which each action film i do though lol, wait til you see King Style ;) haha) Below are photos we took after the scene was finished.

This scene also had the most pressure when it came to shooting, turns out there were homeless people living upstairs and our noise sort of rattled them out, but like i said we were friendly anyway so they just did their thing, A couple stood around and watched which was nervewracking. I was hoping they wouldnt get it confused for a real fight and start something but most got bored and left. The first one showed up out of nowwhere like 'he wasn't there before!' (turns out there was a side door we didnt see that everyone came down from upstairs from). Lee even gave the first one his lunch- what a nice guy man.

The other incident was that not only did we wake whoever was hiding upstairs but somebody called the Police on us! The cops showed up in the middle of one of the fight scenes when i had my back turned to them, i turned around and saw them and the one in charge smiled to his partner then to us and said "You're lucky, I almost tasered you". I said "Sorry I tried to get permission to shoot here but couldnt figure out who to ask" and then the cop said "You know there is some rough people around here right?" and I'm like "Yeah but we talked to a couple and they didnt mind, (Lee chipped in saying he gave someone his lunch lol) did someone complain?" then he's like "Yeah somebody called up and heard lots of shouting and fighting sounds so called us in" "They can hear us?" "We can hear you from the street" so i finished off with "Ok, whoops sorry, we'll keep it down, we'll just finish up" then they left. And we finished so a special thanks to Lee and Sam, sorry to put you through all that haha but the footage we walked away with was worth it. Promise :) All in all when it comes to my series or next short film I'll be sure to cast them, and this time hope to act with them too :)

In other news currently bumping on my sound radar is Eminem and Royce's Bad meets evil project, years after they started with classic tracks like scary movies, Nuttin to do etc the time is right again for them to collab after Royce and his group of super emcees Slaughterhouse were signed to shady records. This Album is Awesome, loving all the tracks! The weakest of them is lighters, hardout hiphop with the top lyricists in the game and then to hear his Bruno Mars pop voice show up? kinda takes you out the zone for a minute but yeah, 9.5 out of 10, this album is a definate must have :) anyway til the next entry, have a good week :)

The secret of comedy is believability

<---Wednesday's Shoot for school was fun :)

The Secret of good comedy is believability, jokes coming out of the characters situations and reactions, good pacing as well as writing gags with detail, anyway thats what my research is telling me. I'm still rewriting my episodes for Ivy Investigation. I'm gonna research props (for my character at least) tommorrow and i will take some photos and post them here, i wanted to make my character socially awkward but he knows martial arts. Thing is martial arts over time makes someone confident (speaking from experience) so now i have changed the character (which is why i'm rewriting the episodes) so Ken is instead a loudmouth (confident to the extreme) and doesnt show much tact hence his lack of friends apart from Anna (the other lead) who is quite the alpha female so shes always the leader when it comes to the team. I dont know. I'm working on the believability behind their friendship, its not as easy as creating the characters themselves :) Who knew writing comedy isn't all that funny ;)

In other news we have finished filming the majority of our scenes for our class project at school around Auckland and i have posted some of the pictures that my classmates took during the shooting (which was great!), next week we will start adding the 3D elements and special effects but so far it looks worth it, plus its great to be directed by other people and felt pretty encouraging. Was a very fun week :) See you next week when i report on how shooting 'Everyones a Loser...' went after it wraps on Sunday night :) (PS. I am the hooded one in the pix below, the other actor was awesome too, the trenchcoat suited his old school magician character against my street magician version :D)

I'm looking down the barrel but things are looking up

(the pic above is from aBe Yoshitoshi, my hero when it comes to art- from Despera)

I'm waiting for my fortunes to turn round but i keep up with the Bad Decisions. It's the Second time this year i've disobeyed my instinct and paid for it. (the first was 48hrs 2011-so much i felt like doing but didnt) Its only hit home now how broke i am, i was supposed to fly to christchurch last week and the ticket price was $116 all up (jet star incl 99 flight plus insurance and seat and credit card charge) This was my entire budget for the week but thought thats ok, when i get to christchurch i can get my footage, catch up with family and finally sell my assets (couch, fridge etc since cheaper to sell then move here to Auckland) Then the Ashcloud turned up, again. Jetstar said when i bought the ticket if the flight is cancelled they will txt and email me and offer a ticket exchange or refund. I turn up at 5 am at the airport and its no go.

What happened to the Air NZ transfer i read about? Its been 4 days since my friday am flight was cancelled and i have neither the txt,email nor the refund. So i've had to live on like 12 bucks from which i bought crumbed fish pieces and lambchops. I sooo can't wait til Thursday so i have some money again lol. I hate missing any JKD class and being stuck inside all weekend really brings out the vampire in me.

On Marriage. Don't marry young, thats my advice, the last 3 months have been drama drama and more drama. Its my fault, me and my dream but i dont need drama, I need action, things happening, solutions to problems not troublemakers....I really want to finish this course but i might have to drop out and get a full time job so the wife can move here cos Christchurch is turning her to the dark side lol, and then i'll just hope to start it again in a different semester. (In all likelihood i would probably quit and move on so i am doing everything i can not to)

On Film Projects. Had to rewrite my Everyones a Loser SAE short film since i can't find a door. Funny considering how This city is home to a million of them. So now shooting in front of the mueseum, Looks nicer anyway. Nervous about the fight scene as first time I'll be fighting with anyone outside of who I've worked with before, but the guy is cool so it should be fun.

After Location scouting yesterday for our class project we shot some scenes today, One where i chas the protagonist into a railyard and another where we meet in an alley. It's fun but pretty nervewracking...I'm not good with imaginary trains lol You'll see when the film is finished, hopefully we use one of the good takes :)

Anyway to finish up with, I'll write again next weekend. I'm Finishing alot of scripts at the moment so expect some cool videos in the coming months and that no matter how bad you feel sometimes, you know someone else in the world has it worse lol as in the cartoon below.