The Lighter -Nazims Student film where I play 'Adam'

Enjoy! He did an awesome job with the coloring, editing and music, check it out :)

Tetris, the pieces start to fall into place :) (Shortland St & The Lighter news)

Timefish has been handed in scars and all, done more extra work on Emperor this week and have started looking for jobs/houses. Finally the Shortland St work I did in January aired, remember the post about my back? Well here I am (snapshots at end of blog) maybe The one where I talk to the girl was cut or next episode? We'll see I guess.

Nazim also gave me a copy of 'The Lighter' DVD today. It's fantastic! As soon as I get a you tube link I will share it with you guys. I'm so nerdy in this short film, watching me on screen felt foreign lol. Great directing/ editing and score by Nazim...I can't wait for you guys to see it....

Anyway in between hunting and packing I took some pics below. And until I have Timefish ready for you guys, see you when I see you ;)

Taking a pic, oblivious that my wife is a ninja ;)

Packing to move out in a couple of weeks. This is only half of my DVDs.
wow. I can see why I'm broke lol.


Tonight's Shortland Street screenshots.
(trust me, it's me, My elbow was seen by thousands lol)




to be continued (I hope :D )

Finally, it's over....

Hi Guys,

It's March now, a full year since I started with this blog. Over the year I've finished my course (graduate hopefully next month), lived and immersed myself in Auckland, Studied Jeet Kune Do and nunchuku, helped the wife move up here and settle down, filmed numerous shortfilms meeting new up and coming actors/actresses, and did some professional work in the film industry as an extra meeting local NZ film celebrities as well as getting work on emperor and meeting Matthew Fox and Tommy Lee Jones lol! Anyway, the journey doesn't end here, life goes on! so it's time to move out of our student city apartment into the suburbs, get a real job to save for a budget and equipment and at night start working on a festival feature to try get my name/brand out there....but let's not get ahead of ourselves, let me share with you the lowdown this week.

Killer Elite!!
Finally saw it on the last day of the showing at cinemas, fantastic!!! Only a couple people in cinema so could enjoy and immerse myself in it :) Clive owen and Jason's chemistry was awesome! Dominic Purcell nailed his aussie character and the movies pacing of twists and turns was great, best action movie I seen all year, adrenaline racing at some points during the fight/chase scenes and surprise kills, also some great one liners, can't wait to watch 10/10 film again on DVD :) Hope to be like Statham one day, I've enjoyed all of his films so far :) Clive was good in this as usual, want to watch shoot em up again now :)

The Lighter.

Below are a couple screenshots from Nazim's short film 'The Lighter' which I star in, I look forward to seeing the finished project soon, he's handed it in and I hope to hand in my own project tomorrow, as you can see below night lighting is always so cool so hoping to film my next short flick at night :)

Timefish.

In regards to Timefish, what a wonderful (sic) week we have had! I cut, zoomed in and out, deleting, ctrl z'd, pasted special sound files and exported exported and exported again. No Final cut, vegas, avid, premier, after effects or anything with more than one audio channel, no budget, an desperate as I was, I couldn't find a crack that worked either. Time was running out so the whole project had to be edited in windows movie maker and layered in something called power director, but it's finished, it's finished! Thank god, Timefish was and is literally, the project that never ends.
I had to score it with proper music from Hanna, Legend of the fist etc when I had originally planned to compose it myself. But whatevs, Next project, I'll do it and enter into festivals. I'll share this with you and the world very soon, maybe next week sometime, ill take ages to upload with this snail interwebs we got here. Anyway, here's the Cover, cool and crude (rushed the masking cos due next day, however thanks to macs and PC hatecrimes I'm not handing in the finished DVD til tomorrow...)

Emperor

Filmed inside of a set aeroplane this week. and got to sit opposite Matthew fox and see Tommy Lee Jones do his thing, very intense professional man, great to see him work ;) During off time us extras sat in the studio next door and talked about global warming, politics, film industry, girls and relationships, etc, fun and this really is some of the highlights of working as an extra is meeting with people you normally wouldn't and chilling out for a couple hours.
Then when we got on set for shooting there were so many plane jokes by the crew when they went down the isle prepping for the next shot, eg, chiken or fish? chicken or fish? and, water? and don't forget your seatbelts etc, that and the hundred schwarzeneggar one liners everyone was doing during breaks between shooting. especially when the 2 merged and a guy would ask ,"chicken or fish?" for the hundreth time and somebody would chime in in an arnie voice, "I don't eat meat, where's the kosher meal?" "sorry, no kosher" "oh fuck. (turns to us) get to the chopper" lol. fun day.

Life..

well now (as of 10 minutes ago) The DVD is burned and I can hand it in tomorrow, I've got to get a nice 9-5 job so I can bring home the bacon while I chase my film aspirations. I talked to WINZ the other day as my course is finished so no more student allowance, they said you have to attend a seminar to go on the benefit while seeking work, one of the first thing she said when we sat down was 'congratulations, you are now employed by the New Zealand government.' my little boy dreams of being spy suddenly lit up, it was a funny moment. haha.
Anyways, aim to get a job before the end of the month anyway cos that's when emperor finishes and I don't have to commit to anything. I'm quietly confident I can get something, my history is pretty diverse. Videoshop retail work, Karate salesman, Storeman, whats next for Matt? we'll find out soon :)

P.S saw Safe house last night, very cool movie, ryan vs denzel fight was the best fight scene in that movie I think. Very cool :)

This week I can get some rest finally :)

School is politically correctly over!! (not in real life, just on paper)

What a crazy week! I feel like cape horn! ,to understand what I mean I've found a quote for you from victory-cruises.com, "There are four or five places all over the world in the presence of which man feels perturbed, surrounded as they are by a perennial mystical aura of spirituality. If, as it is the case of Cape Horn, they are the craved destination, the obliged passage, the insuperable difficulty, everything takes the aspect and the importance of the sanctuary and of the unconsciously supernatural place. After all, its positioning of 55°56' south and 67°19' west, the particular orthographic formation and the intensity of atmospheric phenomena which surround it, turn Cape Horn unique and matchless. Cape Horn, loved and hated by seamen over the last four hundred years."

Cape horn is at the bottom tip of the South America and where the oceans squeeze past the cape and Antarctica, a tremendous force of so much water at once. The waves are Hollywood-esque. Just like I felt with so many things having to be finished by the end of this week, my exam, my film, Nazim's film, juggling it with emperor duties, looking for a new place, bills etc...So many different things going on, so I just wanted to share them with you, day by day quickly :) (and remind myself in the future when I look back on this moment. :D )

But first, there's nothing like a good book right? I'm into spies, burn notice is my favorite TV series, and during my emperor shoots I've heard many things about world war 2 which re-ignited my curiosity in the matter. I stumbled across Agent 146 by Erich Gimpel in the biography section and couldn't put it down, if you come across it, do read it :) It's a great read, one of the things I learnt was take 3 different taxi's to a destination, then walk half a K to it yourself, and the other thing I learnt is when you feel you are being tailed but don't want them to know you know by looking at them, stop in front of a storefront window, they will have to pass you, and once they do check the reflection for your stalkers face. Lots of tips like that, very cool :) also the German saying, "Speech is silver, silence is golden". :) Erich drops inside knowledge of Alcatraz and the Atomic bomb, movie material some day maybe :) Anyway, read it if you come across it. Also a manga called Jiro tanaguchi, about a 45 yr old man who time travels and gets to live his teenage life again with the knowledge he has today...really good books, makes me think what I would do in those situations, life is a product of choice after all :)

Anyway, the week :) ....

MONDAY 27 Feb
This morning we shot the second half of the footchase scene for Timefish, which was my fight on the rooftop with Nazim, there's a couple screenshots below. Then in the afternoon went to school and reviewed for Thursday's exam. Lighting, scriptwriting, and assignment details. fun-ish.

See how I'm wearing Green and the box is yellow? Yeah? Apparently so do bee's cos a bee literally chased us through the parking lot during a set up and we hid behind the stairs door. It was so funny, but scary like a survival horror film lol. I let Nazim check if the coast was clear before I went out, he didn't notice he was out by himself until he looked back lol I had work tomorrow, I have to look good ;) Also He always has a nasty habit of hurting himself when we shoot action scenes, he banged his head on the concrete shortly after the first screenshot below, but he fell behind the car so no footage to replay. He's alright, I just hope he doesn't do it again...

TUESDAY 28 Feb

11am, Nazim and I met and shot first half of chase scene for Timefish, which was the footchase through the park across my street and running towards (theoretically) the parking building we shot at yesterday. Then after this tiring 3 hours of running across the city for different takes we went to school and reviewed Ant's first day review of his part of the course. Color, audio, 3d animation, camera etc...long day but fun, he acts like a student and even played hangman with us when we had no clue what the answer was....best teacher I've ever had I guess. After school we shot some more of Nazim's 'Lighter' film with Lee Ah Yen. Looks good so far ;) The film, not me in nerdy glasses. I bought contacts for a reason :P

WEDNESDAY 29 Feb

from 11.30 am to 11.30pm I was on set to shoot my 6th day of Emperor. This time it wasn't for a convoy shot, but an interior shot of an office in Japan. Yay, I'm in an office scene :) The lighting was great, the camera movements looked awesome and the set was fantastic, down to cigarette smoke, paperwork, hand sharpened pencils, the whole legit 1940's era office deal. Like any job, you just had to look busy and for little ol me in the background, that was exactly my job, I pretended to write notes working the late shift :)

We shot some more then lunch then the next 6 hours after we spent playing cards, a game called Presidents and assholes. I was asshole once but reigned as president or vice president for most of the later games, my first time playing and I rocked it like a veteran lol. Anyway, afterwards caught a taxi home, 35 bucks from Henderson to city centre, not bad but still tough on the ol student pocket. At least home safe and no scuffles :) Exam tomorrow, went to sleep.

(REAL general MacArthur and co at airbase during Japanese
occupation on what the film is based on. The uniforms we wear are similar.)

THURSDAY 1 March

Met up with Nazim in the morning and went over the notes I missed out yesterday while I was at Henderson working, then we went to the exam. It was easier than any of us thought. What's a hardlight? C? A light that doesn't break? the 'wrong' answers in the multi-choice rxam made it virtually impossible to stuff up, still, the NZ film history ones tripped me and I ended up with a 91% pass mark out of the 100 questions. I can say it was easy but I still got 9 wrong lol.

After the exam we finished shooting Nazim's film at the Auckland art galley, we literally had one more shot to do when security came over chests puffed out like flashy peacocks with badges and said we couldn't film there. Because a flower in the background was copyrighted. Yet every tourist behind him was taking photos of the very same thing. SMH, A little power goes to big heads quickly, then again, they might have just wanted to look busy, security work sucks (I can say it cos I been there...). Anyway, we finished up and a wrap's a wrap :) I'll link here as soon as it's on you tube, but he might hit up festivals first if it turns out good :)

FRIDAY 2 March

Handed in logo assignment. Even though when I got the student counter the supervisor said he'll be right back but then shows up 40 minutes later like nothing happened. But 1 more day of that ish so I'm over it, it's been a long year but it's all done!!!

SATURDAY 3 March
Today I shot the last shots of Timefish (screenshots below) Me, the 'surprise' ending and some pick up shots. (shots I missed earlier in the year). Camera returned. Shooting is a wrap!!!

I've completed a rough cut of the film in windows movie maker until I get hold of a legit copy of Vegas or premiere so I know the pacing, idea and spacing. I will cut a quick trailer for this tomorrow, the student film is roughly 17 min's and a half, showcases my action choreography and film style and is a definite step up from 'credibility' all those years ago lol :) Check out the screenshots below :)

My last night at SAE studios tonight, said my goodbyes. Just my film assignment is due (next week or) when I get time, but apart from that, no more school, yay :) Now, the fun begins with Chase and test films, new equipment, house, job and training routines..... ;) ;)

If I look tired that's because I am, this has been a tiring month man. 3-4hours sleep one night, 7 the next, and that pattern last 2 weeks, only from last night have I been getting a regular 7-8 again. Phew, ready to sleep in Sunday :) Thanks for reading, hope you had fun, see you next time with a teaser trailer :) Don't forget to do at least one thing today that makes you happy. I know I do :)

Kind regards, your pal, Matt ;)

Timefish -Climax fight BTS

OK, Timefish. Time is ticking but I managed to shoot a scene over the weekend. So now I have nailed my opening scenes and my final scene. Below is a screenshot of what I'm up to in editing the climax fight. We rushed the shoot a bit but I think it looks good. (Can't wait to shoot Chase now with all this nunchuk experience. :) haha) I'm thinking about sharing a quick teaser for Timefish next week so stay tuned for that :)

And below is a pic we took after the shoot to commemorate the day :)
(from left) Chris Zhang, me, Nazim Kahn :)

It was a hot day which made it difficult to choreograph a fight in a hot humid hoodie but me and Chris managed a somewhat comprehensive fight scene. Lots of continuity errors to do with paperwork lying around and a pen disappearing from my project but it's only a school assignment so when I do Chase at least I know to keep an eye on that sort of thing.

I'm hoping to shoot the Parkour Chase on Friday and the Knifegirl break in on Saturday, and fit all this in with acting in Nazim's film 'The lighter', My emperor shoots (this Thursday and Sunday), plugging holes in my script and trying to stay fit (i keep skipping training cos of school and work), it's not easy to follow your dream but as long as you do one thing at a time you can't go wrong :)