Falling through

So I had another gig just fall through again. This time it was for a huge movie, but it would have been a smaller role. The whole process was really strange actually.

I auditioned for a one line role for this movie about a month ago and didn't hear anything. Three weeks later I got an email saying I didn't get that role, but they were looking to put me in another role and they would let me know in a few days. A few days later they said I would have a meeting with the director the next day at the studio. At this point, I still don't know what the role is for and it seems really strange to have a "meeting" with a director for such a small role. If it was a small role at all. I still had no idea what it was for and I asked my manager if he could divulge any details at all. After a long while he tells me "they want you to drool nerdy".

The next day I show up to the studio in a graphic tee and a hoodie (my nerdy look, or at least as far as I was willing to go). I wander to the stage where I'm supposed to meet and I see like 10 other people dressed as nerds just standing outside including one in a full batman getup. I assume this is where I was supposed to stand and I just wait there for about 20 minutes. Finally someone shows up and says that they're actually in the middle of a shooting schedule and we would "meet" the director when they had a break between setups. Finally we get some details of what the role is. It apparently involves stunts and doesn't "involve acting at all". After another 20 minutes or so of waiting outside we finally start going through the stage in a line. As we're walking through, the casting director tells us "Isn't this the weirdest thing? The director was very insistent on not having a stunt person. He wanted comedic faces." Finally our "meeting" comes up. One by one we walked up, waved hi to the director, they took our picture, then they told us to leave. That was it. We waited for about an hour and we were pretty much out of there in less than 10 seconds.

When I got back, everyone was curious to know how my meeting went. When I went around telling people that I had a meeting with the director I was under the impression it would be a more involved interaction than an audition when in fact it was less. I think everyone shared my disappointment. The next day I got an email from my manager telling me that apparently they did have to go with a stunt person after all. Funny enough, this wasn't even the first time this happened. I got replaced by a stunt person when I got a role in the movie "Oldboy" by Spike Lee. But yeah.... basically I feel like I hyped things up for myself and I now have another "miss" to add to my belt for the year. I've got another prospect that came up yesterday that I'm not gonna tell anyone about. Hopefully that will be the ticket to booking...

Website is launched

www.stanleywongisawesome.com

It's still kind of unfinished actually... but it should be fine for now considering I'm only posting it on this blog and I still never publicly posted this blog either.

Two recent screenings and what was wrong with them...

So one of the benefits of living in Los Angeles is there is always free screenings to go to. I went to two recently that were special sneak preview screenings that had the cast and crew there. Both movies were considered "indies" I guess but were movies that probably had less than a $5,000,000 budget and had a handful of names but were probably still constricted by budget. Both were also flawed in a way and I guess I'll talk about them.

The first was Revenge of the Green Dragons that was directed by the guy who made Infernal Affairs, which was the movie that The Departed was a remake of which became a best picture winner in the Oscars. Martin Scorsese put his name on it as Executive Producer probably as a favor to the filmmakers. Honestly, he should probably be pretty ashamed to be associated with it at all. The movie is a pretty big mess. I honestly could not really tell you what went on through a majority of the movie. I feel like it tried to just fill every gangster movie cliche into a 90 minute movie. At the end they randomly had a twist that was unnecessary and just served to make everything before it even more confusing. I started laughing out loud when it occurred and a handful of people looked at me like I was as an asshole. It wouldn't be the first time though. Probably the worst aspect of it to me was the casting. They had a handful of Asian American "celebrities" but they were horribly miscast. A lot of characters seemed like pretty boys trying to shed their image and trying too hard in doing so. This was the worst of the two movies for sure. The whole story just rang false too, which is surprising because apparently it's based on a true story (of course that doesn't mean a damn thing these days). I'd probably give this like a 3/10.

Sex Ed was the second movie. It starred Haley Joel Osment of the Sixth Sense and AI except now he's like 25 and he's in an R rated sex comedy now. This wasn't as bad, but I feel like this movie suffered from now being too bold. The movie was mildly funny, but there were times where I felt like the movie could have pushed further and they didn't and other times where something really strange would happen and it would just feel off tone. Overall it just felt very predictable and feels like it could have just as easily have been a studio movie/ So as it stands it just looks and feels like a cheap studio movie with a star who is kind of worth seeing it for. They mentioned that they were worried throughout about pissing parents off with the topic of Sex Ed since it's kind of a hot button issue these days, but I feel like they should have went further with it. They're probably not going to get those people in the theater anyways, so the least they could have done is made a really interesting take on the whole issue, but instead it was pretty flat. It was ok though... I'd give it like a 6/10.

Both make me wonder what to do when I eventually want to make my indie feature film debut. I am writing a movie currently, I guess I just gotta learn from these examples and try to do better.

Some more videos to post

Working on my website. Probably will launch it in the next day or two. Was trying to find a place for these videos, but I feel like they're kind of in a class of their own. Anyways, these are a series of 30 second to 1 minutes videos I did with my old roommate back in Louisiana. They were pretty fun.

Gonna be a busy month

So I haven't been able to post everyday. I don't think I should... there's isn't always something to say.

That and over the next month I'm gonna be working on producing at least 3 different short film projects. I recently started going to these #Weownthe8th meetings that is run by Dante Basco who played Rufio in the movie "Hook". Anyways, they're holding a media showcase of sorts on Dec 8th and they broke people into groups to create content for it. I was already looking to shoot a couple of different things and this deadline provided a good excuse. Here's what I have going so far....

I broke into a group who wanted to make a musical of some sort. The idea developed and we eventually decided that it would be about following people's lives going through a shitty day. Before long a song was made and I came up with a pretty crazy idea for a video. This one is the most elaborate and may not end up happening, but I'm excited about it. I'm directing/editing, but won't be in it.

Second project is based on a anthology concept I came up with some friends back in New Orleans. It's basically what people would do if they had literally 5-10 minutes left before the world ended. I decided to shoot the one that seemed the easiest and the concept for that is a guy deciding that he wants to confess his love to a girl. When he gets to the girl's apartment he starts spewing it out but within seconds another guy comes in and confesses his love to the same girl as well. Hijinks ensue. I'll be co-directing/acting in this one.

Last project will be a short comedy sketch based on the experience I had with a voiceover agent. I submitted to be represented by her and she responded that they currently weren't looking for anyone who had an Asian accent, but they would let me know when they did. Only problem... I don't have an accent at all. It was silly.

Anyways, too lazy to write more. But it'll be a busy month. I also submitted an application to this Armed With A Camera Fellowship which is basically a grant program for Asian American filmmakers to get a short film made. We'll see how that goes too. Oh yeah, and I'm still attempting to finish writing this feature film I've been working about my high school days.

Not many people have seen this...

I don't know who actually reads this blog, but I'll just post this. A friend from high school asked me to be in this... it was an interesting time... I'll just put this here for you to enjoy.

Short auditions, weird convos, and talking cats

Not sure if I'll actually be writing posts once a day, but I figure I'm on a roll so far so why not?

I went to an audition today for a tv show. I was auditioning for four different roles actually, but each of the roles were pretty much one line that was between 1-6 words. The night before I watched a couple episodes of the show, thought about the wardrobe, tone of the show, genre, what the people who made it did before, where my character would fit in this world, etc etc etc. All this stuff that I learned in class that I should do. Then I showed up, and did four 5 second auditions for the lady and I was out of there. It's crazy to think, but I guess that's the business I'm in....

On my way back I stopped at a trader joe's and saw the wife of one of the directors from 21/22 Jump Street and had a weird conversation. Didn't really know what to say... was kind of in a hurry, but it was basically pretty awkward on my part. Oh well, hopefully it doesn't reflect too poorly. Here's a link to a video I saw last night of a talking cat that's pretty amazing.

Almost, but not yet

So I recently auditioned for a role in a movie where there weren't many lines, but I would be around for the whole movie. So basically something like that I had for 21 Jump Street so it would have been a pretty sweet deal. I submitted a tape to my Louisiana agent for it and a few weeks later they asked for my availability since I was being considered for the role.

I usually try not to get too excited because things aren't official until they're official (there was the time where I was told I was booked for a role and shot the next day and then two hours later it was given to someone else because they had stunt experience). But they didn't get back to me in a week and I started just telling people the "good news". Unfortunately today, I found out that I wasn't cast and now I kind of immediately regret telling anyone at all. Kind of sucks, but I guess there's always the next one. I think from now on I'm not going to tell anyone anything until after something comes out. It's always more fun when people message me saying they had no idea I was even in this or that.

New sketch comedy video up!

We have a new video up on my sketch comedy team's page. All Asians Look Alike (An Action Thriller). This from was from an idea my brother pitched to me years and years ago, but we never got around to making it. When I got around to making sketch videos again this one was kind of a favorite in the pitch sessions. I was originally going to be in it, but because at the time we were a small operation I wanted to run the camera so I could try a handful of cool shots. Looking at it now... there aren't really that many cool shots though.

Thanks to Harrison Pak, Desmond Chiam, Tim Montoya, and Jinhee Joung (Kimmy Jin from Pitch Perfect) for agreeing to be in our video. Also to Romero's Chicken and Donuts for allowing us to shoot there.

A lot of people are confused by the ending. Does anyone else not get it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfUMuZlETss

I got a URL!

Recently bought the URL for what my official website will be.

www.stanleywongisawesome.com

It's not up yet, but I'm glad no one took the URL. For those wondering why I chose it, it comes from a t-shirt that my friend bought be in high school. I wore it for my Senior Superlative high school picture when I was voted most witty.

I think I still have the shirt at home, but it's pretty beat up. Here's one of the few pictures still left of it.

Thanks to Nick Marinello for taking the pic more than eight years ago.

Not sure what I'm doing...

I'm just trying to figure things out. Let's just start this off with my first video I ever did. It's probably still one of the works I'm most proud of.