Chase Script Finished, Ivy Investigation renamed, new dummy and new outlook on life :)

I have finished the Chase script? Or have I?  The problem with being a writer is that you seem to never finish, like a conqueror...I finished this script a couple of months ago and after getting some  feedback from some of my friends which ranged from very cliche, I'm an actor so give me more meat! to the actual actor who is playing co lead loving it and saying he loves my passion for the project, I actually want to go back and do it again....which is good, because in the meantime I am working on my webseries formerly known as Ivy investigation which was ridiculously named as I couldn't justify it so it has been renamed Parnell Rise, the blog chronicling the journey from now to its completion can be found here now! The blog will include shooting fighting scenes, shooting actors, script revisions, behind the scenes trivia and overall musings on making a series with no budget and just love.

I have did a little traveling over the last couple of months, local aquarium and road trip to Rotorua which I will share a couple pics here as well as Sydney but I will blog about that in the next blog, I just wanted to share first that I have finally gotten myself a wooden dummy now so I can practice at home, like jackie chan in wheels on meals :) Check me out :)

Having never been outside of Auckland since moving to the north Island we finally took the opportunity one fine weekend to see what the fuss about Roturua was. It was a great 3 hour trip by car, we stayed at the millennium hotel and visited buried village, hot pools, lady knox geyser and more, below are some of my fav photos from the trip there, hope you enjoy them, and you should definitely visit and experience it for yourself whenever you get the chance, It's a great small city with a ton of touristy attractions balanced with beautiful nature. Plus I bought a gps which made traveling fun, I kept thinking of Sleeping dogs (gps when driving in game too haha)

 ninja matt :)

 Rotorua behind me, gondola trip was fun :)

  Doggone fun!

 We herby declare, yellow is cool ;)

 You know what it is :)

 Obama, eat your heart out :)

 Thermal power up!

 Which way?

 Wifey kept mentioning blue lake in her sleep, must be this one :)

 So much steam, must be hot pools alright :)

Everybody deserves icecream after visiting the spa :)

Hoped you enjoyed the pics, be sure to check out my next post - Sydney and Schwazeneggar, thinking big!

What's the time? Now.

Another week gone, another chapter closed. It's been a funny week, trying to find a balance between my work goals and my own personal goals. As Chris rock would say, this is my Career not my job lol But this is what has been taxing my mind this week, like the quote I have probably mentioned heaps on this blog already says, the hunter who chases 2 rabbits catches neither one, I worry that by trying to meet and exceed my targets for my job I am losing steam in my train for my filmmaker dream. But hey, I have a job and I plan on keeping it for the time being, however I get lost in my imagination a bit...

Like for real, I always think about that and other times about how awesome it would be to actually be filming instead of behind the counter asking people what they have planned for a weekend I'll never see lol

 Melody comes back tomorrow from her overseas trip which is great, I look forward to seeing her smiling face again and already this week I have finally finished version 10.1 of Chase so feeling pretty good! 97 pages, no doubt I still have rewrites ahead but at least now I have something solid to show people, I have sent it away to a couple of parties to vex their minds and get some feedback on fleshing out their characters, In the meantime I'm hoping to start some promotional photos and early filming next week for my webseries. I've put the casting net out so let's see what curious fish we can catch :)

 Trying to eat healthy is a challenge for me, but they say the best things to do are usually the hardest, and laziness is one of my vices when it comes to preparing meals, I'd much rather order takeaway for the same cost of preparing a meal/the time it takes and have a meal straight away. But still, I made a couple efforts this week, as below, the main is served :)

Was supposed to be saving money this week, some of it 'accidentally'  slipped out of my pocket and bought the second season of nikita with it :) Guilty pleasure, reward for the hard week :) Such an awesome series! I get the same feeling watching this as I did from Alias, Prison break, burn notice, sopranos, chuck etc, Thats down to great casting, awesome writing and genuine empathy for the characters, plus the fighting scenes are good, even if they are cut way more than they needed to be but thats a hollywood thing these days :)

I finished reading one of my books I borrowd, Way of the peaceful warrior by Dan millman, really enjoyed it and definitely recommend it to you, it gave me the same feeling as 'the alchemist' and 'the last lecture' and spirtually uplifting books like that, a couple passages in the book I had heard before on my travels so I could relate alot. One of the key concepts I had been trying to grasp prior to reading this was being aware. The key to really living is to be engaged with everything, color, sight, smell, feeling, listening, everything. 

 He summed this perfectly when the protagonist of the story poses him the question, 

,"what time is it? He answers ""Um its 2.35."

"Wrong! The time always was, is, and always will be now! Now is the time; the time is now. Is it clear?" There are no ordinary moments. When I read this passage it reminded me of something I read a long time ago when I was into figuring out zen, lol thats a riddle for another day, anyways I learnt that having enlightenment meant that for studied monks when the bell tolls they hear it for the first time, for example, when you live near a church like I used to, at 12 each day they would ring the bell, after the first intial toll, its loudness ringing in all directions, its tone rumbling through your ears, you would fully realize the sensation but eventually by the 3rd of 4th shake it becomes nothing more than a casual sound, whereas a monk heres each and every single toll as if it were the first time. And its that awareness that I'm seeking myself, I tend to glaze over things abit. I'm quite happy I wear glasses, cos wearing contacts means I have no choice but to experience the clearness and color of life around me everytime I put them on. The trick is carrying on that awareness :)  anyways, Another passage I quite liked is quoted below 

,"Happiness = Satisfaction divided by Desires."

"You are rich if you have enough money to satisfy all your desires. So there are two ways to be rich: you earn, inherit, borrow, beg, or steal enough money to meet all your desires; or, you cultivate a simple lifestyle of few desires; that way you always have enough money."

So back from the spirit to my material goal of being an actor/filmaker :) Remember how I said I was working on that action themed ad made by a japanese company? After a quick turnaround I finally have some footage to share with you :) Check it out below, You wont see any of us in it, we were there to make it look impressive and vast in size, but its pretty cool to see how it all turned out, arrows, horses, smoke, cannons, swords, rifles and all :)

 Please click here to watch Cup Noodle - Survive Ad

Anyway, Until my next update which will probably be an Ivy Investigation casting update, take care and live life, don't just sit there for the ride, take the wheel! Til then see you....

Training Footage finished, Little jobs done

With the wife on holiday I have a few more minutes in the day to do stuff I have been meaning to do but haven't, I've finally cleaned out the house and my new car and put some seat covers in and it looks aLOT nicer now, check it out :)

Sporty huh? :) Been watching My Kitchen rules on TV which is simply the best cooking show out there! It's the second season I've watched and its amazing how human social interaction works, theres always backstabbers and jealously, all around nice guys and friends who seem like more than friends. Below is what I had for tea last night, hardly ala carte but I had half an hour, not 5 hours like the pros haha ;)

In order to get ahead in lfe you have be enegaged and involved otherwise you do what you always do and plateau. I Haven't been to the library in a while so I decided to make the drive down to central yesterday and these are the three books I will be reading over the next couple weeks. One for fun, one for inspiration, one for work ethic, I might make a blog about the sales stuff next time if any of you out there are into sales, it's a lot like martial arts for me, all knowledge is useless knowledge if you don't apply it. Yesterday this chinese guy was flashing buying signals all over the place and by the time I realized I had a different customer who was taking ages and he was walking out the door. Boom, no sale for you.

Another thing with goals and the law of attraction is if it isn't constantly in your mind the opportunities to fulfill it will be a lot harder to come by, this is budget but this is my vision board I have in my living room, as you can see it has my dream house, my dream car, pics relating to my goals as well as my goal list for this year.

Enjoying Football at the moment, will be playing 3 times a week, attempting or working on most of the goals on the list. Be interesting if I get them all by the end of the year, especially number One!!!

Also, having nothing to edit I finally put together the test angles I shot with Sana in December at the JKD gym, the finished video is below and cut to Yelawolf's Firestarter track off his new mixtape which is awesome, it makes a big difference to me having good music to listen to, bought Ellies album, frank ocean, didos album and the killers new album all recently and enjoying the trip to and from work haha Anyways, enjoy the video below,

Last of all, finished the outline of the Ivy Investigation series and seriously considering shooting that before Chase, that way I can do a bit of acting and have something to sell or on-sell after Chase comes out. Plus I think its good though different, I'll shoot the pilot over the coming weeks and see if people like it :)

Till then, enjoy April and may every day be full and prosperous! Always look for opportunities ;)

Ambush - New test film, more action!

Hi there, 21st of March, almost Easter, Almost lived in this house a whole year now, plus thats over a year without drinking coca cola or pepsi cola, now I can drink it again, I just dont feel like it haha, man time flies when you are trying to make things happen.....

 Bunny King demands sacrifice! kawaii lol

Got a cheap soundsystem for my car, now I can finally have a little boom in my speakers :)

Still, keeping busy and sustaining my self progress, on the Last set of my days off -sprained ankle or not- I needed to keep shooting so I recruited a couple of friends and made a day of shooting a short film. We made all our busy windows fit which meant we only 2 hours to come up with the choreography (Lee likes to offer ideas so I basically kept my big moves in and put the others down for another day I will shoot myself) and his style of fighting contrast with Steves great kicking which made a pretty awesome mix after we figured something out.

AMBUSH is the result. Starring Lee Ah Yen and Steve Heke as 2 badasses on different sides of the law, so basically, an excuse to shoot a fight scene on a beautiful day at one of my favorite locations and edit the shit out of it. Below are 4 screenshots I took during Editing. Slowly getting the hang oof Adobe Premiere but only the basics plus time stretching/colors/tracks etc, I need to learn all the other cool stuff it surely offers with technical words I will never remember ;)

 

Here is the finished edited video for your viewing pleasure on youtube :)

Turned out pretty good for on the fly shooting. Looking forward to finishing the carnage script today so I can start location scouting for that and casting it up, heaps of action in this one I promise!!!

I'm going to sleep now, Got up early to take the wife to the airport as she went overseas this morning, So jealous, I want a holiday too haha, will have to wait til my sydney trip in June I think. Can't wait til Im rich and can travel anywhere, that would be awesome, anyway thats my bit for this week, leave you with a couple of feel good pics, one is why I wanted to be an actor, Johnny is living it!!! and the other is about keeping positive, It can make all things that seem impossible possible :)

 

 

 

I'm gonna be 27 this year so I want a feature film by the end of the year, no more 3 minute test films, so lets see if we can make it happen :)

Pay up, my latest short film- plus general Life stuff :)

Just came back from the physio today, wasn't as expensive as I thought (thinking dentist figures) sprained my ankle in the same place like 3 times last night while playing indoor football, its been a month now of playing football and I'm so happy to have achieved one of my goals for 2013.

Still, took the day off work today because so hard to move around at the moment. I woke up, got out of bed and almost fell over, my foot felt like it was on fire, so hard to sleep without it hurting. So with this unexpected though welcomed time off I Thought this would be a great opportunity to catch up on some blogging.  Check out my new football shoes and my injuries from just a couple of weeks of futsal.

Bruises everywhere sigh.

Work is going great, just got offered a full time job, which is pretty awesome, just like civic, I started PT and got promoted to fulltime :) I'm stoked I'm still here, I was surprised I got the job from the interview stage, and surprised I still have it now, I must be doing something right :) Hoping when wifey gets back from overseas, we can start planning to buy a house so I can finally set up my gym, its been 2-3 years of not training at home because I live in apartments where walls are thin and floorboards creak, anyway, this is a pic of where I work, pretty different from my hornby days huh?

 

At the chinese new year lantern festival ;)

So whats new? Well, my car finally died a grisly death on the 26th of February. Green blood sprayed everywhere like the death of alien. Coolant massacre, I wasn't going to bring frankenstein back to life again so I got it towed from avondale (the other side of Auckland where I was doing a fitting so bad timing) back here to panmure and sold it for parts. Carless but not going back to public transport I bought a cheap run around from the same mechanic so I could get to all my engagements. Check out some pics below, its like a ladybird on wheels :) A mazda revue ;)

Parking is alot easier now, just like my Austin. Strange that its red, christchurch seems to be blue cars, Auckland red, coincidences are funny.

 

Having a job again means I can start buying action films from around the world like I used to like to do, look what arrived from India yesterday, my boy Salman khan :) Mr charisma is awesome, I love his movies, I decided the next ones Id watch Id own instead, so yeah, looking forward to watching these :)

 So I've finally FINALLY got myself a copy of Adobe premiere and photoshop. Now I can finally start doing my mini film projects and then prepare for Chase. The first of these projects is a short test film I filmed with 2 friends, Rhys, who I met during the emperor shoot last year and Ben, who I studied with at SAE. Here are some screenshots from some of the editing work before I cut it up.

 

And here is the finished video, check it out, the first short film for 2013 :)

And lastly, I wanted to talk about vision, and everything happening for a reason. I do a lot of things that seem crazy at the time but I figure in my gut there is a reason for it. The other day I saw Guillotines in Cinema by myself (subtitled films you see) and Though it wasn't that good, I met up with Ben who I hadn't seen since graduation, we talked and I found he was free on wednesday which meant I had someone like minded to help me shoot on wednesday, then I went to an artshow which I never do to see some of Rhys work and learnt hes still in the acting game hard out and blam, next minute Pay up was sorted...

With my full time job its hard to find time off that I can be bothered with doing some extra work, The last 2 days this week I took part in a commercial which was awesome, I'll share more about it once it airs but thought it was 15 and 13 hour days it was a lot of fun and I hope one day to get my damned film off the ground and start making a career of it because, don't get me wrong, I love my job, but that wasn't why I moved to Auckland nor what i want out of life. 

In staying with my, everything happens for a reason thing, though I don't normally say yes to doing extra work I did on this occasion for some reason it turned out to be an awesome decision, not only did I meet up with my emperor co extra Denny (short film later this year I hope) I laso met a guy who actually taught my original sensei and he has own club affiliated with japan. Guess who will be studying karate again next week? :)

Seen Die hard this weekend, was bloody awesome, destruction, one liners and trucks and cars flying everywhere, fnatatsic, wish for more willis though,a tip for diehard 6? He was awesome as always :), love the cut out in the cinema :)

 Also hoping to do some more karoake, I forgot how awesome bohemian rhapsody is to sing lol

Anyways all in all, making progress slowly but this year is make or break so expect some big changes over the coming months in terms of promoting myself and my dream, thanks for keeping up with me, and I hope everything is going well with your own journeys, I'll leave you with some of my fav photos of our zoo trip last month which was fun :)

Til next time!!!

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 :)