Finished filming another short film

It's been a while since an update. Things have been fairly quiet so I took the time to make a new short film. It's based around the fact that I'm living in my friend's living room temporarily and it's super awkward at times. It's a super strange video, but I think it's a callback to some of my earlier strange videos. I think. It's not done just yet, but I'll post it when it is. For reference, here's a link to one of the first things I made. It's also very strange, but I think it's probably one of the best.

Not sixteen enough and martial arts

So the first few weeks of the new year have passed and I've already has some big opportunities. One was for a series regular role in a pilot and the other was for a small role in a really established TV show. The only problem was that the first one asked for someone 18-20 years old and the second was asked for someone 16.

It's no real secret... but I'm not an actual teenager. I have been able to play teenaged roles despite being older and I mostly go for auditions as the 18-21 year old. Sixteen is pushing it a little though. I actually thought I did really well in the first audition, but I found out later that they changed the breakdown to looking for 16-18 year olds so I guess I wasn't going to get it regardless of how well I did. Still, they say to book the room, not necessarily the role. So I feel like they'll probably call me in for something else once there's something right. As I left, she asked me "Do you know Martial Arts? We're casting for something and I think you might be a good fit for it." Everyone tells me I should have said yes, but I said no. This was maybe the 3rd time I was asked if I know martial arts, probably because I'm Asian. Unfortunately, as far as Asians go, I'm not that Asian. At least not in the knowing a fighting style department. Should I pick something up for the future? I'll.... think about it.

The second audition was especially tough because it was also for a well established casting director. I remember looking around at the other actors in the waiting room and thinking... I bet a lot of these guys are actual teenagers and these kids are wondering what the hell I'm even doing here... I don't usually get nervous for auditions, but I could feel my heart beating already. When I finally got called in, the casting director looked at me and immediately asked "So how old are you?" Now, I'm told that they can never actually ask this question and yet this was the second time I was straight up asked about my age. This time I was prepared with the answer I was taught by my teachers "I'm over 18." After hearing that, I feel like I could tell that he knew it was an understatement. About halfway through my read he just stopped looking at me and nerves started setting in even more and I just started falling apart. Long story short... I don't think I'm getting that role either.

It's only a few weeks in so we'll see where we go from here, but it's pretty interesting/exciting already so far!

Year in review 2014

I might be a little late on this post, but better late than never!

It's been a good year for sure I feel. Overall I feel like I've been progressing despite some other hickups. Workwise, I found a consistent way to create income by freelance assistant editing/editing for Collegehumor. This provided me the schedule leniency to still go out on auditions and such. On that note, I was also able to sign with a manager, commercial agent, and theatrical agent this year. I've auditioned more times this year than I probably have my entire life combined. That said, I didn't book anything this year (I did book a commercial, but I got cut out). I did get to go on bigger auditions and have gotten close numerous times though so it's not all a loss. So yeah, I now have my worklife figured out and I'm in a comfortable position on the acting front.

Creative wise, I created a couple of web shorts (Braggy Snitch stuff) that I was pretty proud of. Near the end of the year I did a short film (Five Minutes) that I think is really cool and was something I had always wanted to shoot. When I came out to Los Angeles, I had to find my network of people to work with and what resources I would have available to me and I think now I'm pretty much at a comfortable level for that as well. I attempted to write my feature length script with a partner and that went through a couple of hickups. It's likely I'll have to finish that on my own, but I definitely developed the idea a lot more and I'm really excited about working on that. Hopefully next year I get it written and take the steps to get it made.

To end things I guess I've give my mini version of my favorite movies of the year (though I still have to catch a couple)

1. Whiplash - This Sundance hit just had a great energy to it and was funny and had some genuine surprises in it (a feat that rarely happens for me these days). J.K. Simmons should win best supporting actor for sure and someone I'll definitely be watching for in the future.

2. Lego Movie - I might be a little biased since it's made by the guys who made Jump Street, but I found the comedy to just be so on point and, to top it all off, it actually had a very deep message behind it. While watching this movie, I couldn't help but feel jealousy because it was the exact kind of movie that I would want to make.

3. Birdman - This movie was just so cool. It's not a movie that blew me away from the story necessarily, but the way it told was just so unique... As you may know it's made to look like one shot, but it's not a gimmick at all and it actually gives the movie a really cool energy and makes the performances really dynamic. Kudos to the decision to have the entire soundtrack be a crazy cool drum soundtrack throughout. A great example of how you go about a story is as important if not more important than what it's about.

I've still yet to see Inherent Vice, Boyhood, Selma, and a host of others so maybe I'll revise in the future.

Asian auditions

I went into an audition not too long ago where I was supposed to be playing a Korean kid. The breakdown said I needed to know conversational Korean. Me being Chinese without even knowing any Chinese language conversationally, I asked my manager if it was a good idea if I should go. He told me I should just learn a couple of phrases and just go in. I got my friend to translate three phrases that fit into the script and I made my best attempt at emulating the accent and such. 

I went to the audition and signed in and sat across from another Asian guy. As I was sitting there going over my "Korean" lines I noticed the guy across from me was also doing it, but out loud. Eventually he asked me "hey, so do you actually know Korean?" And I told no, I just got a friend to translate it for me. He then tells me he basically did the same thing and that even though he's Korean he didn't really know the language.

I go in the audition and do pretty ok at it. Afterward he asks me if I'm actually Korean and I say I'm ethnically Chinese, but I have Korean friends and have picked up a few phrases here and there. Overall I got the sense that he wasn't super convinced though. As I leave I take one look at the sign in sheet and realize that most of the people called in aren't teallynkorean so they probably all faked it.

I've gotten a few auditions now asking to either speak mandarin or have a native Vietnamese accent and such and it's kinda frustrating. I grew up as an Asian guy in America, but more than anything I feel like I identify as just American more than anything. I guess more often than not I do get called in for "non Asian specific" roles, but it also seems weird that I'm expected to fill in as everything else that my skin color denotes as well. I guess it's better than nothing though.

First screening of short and updates

It's been a while since I posted. I guess because I realized there wasn't anything too important to write about and maybe because I just got lazy.

Mostly what I have been working on is the short film about the end of the world. I recently screened it to an audience for the first time last night. This was an interesting movie because once I was done with a fine cut of the movie I realized I still didn't know what the movie would be like since music and vfx would change the feel of the movie significantly. I had only just gotten all the elements together a few hours before the screening and suddenly the short became a different movie before my eyes. I didn't know if it was for better or worse but I decided to just screen it and see what happens.

As expected, the first few moments that were meant to be funny hit the right beats and I think people understood the premise right away. It was the ending that the audience did not laugh at all at. I think we did really professional special effects so the kind of ironic comedic ending I was going for was not appearing somber and depressing. As the movie ended, silence filled the theater and I almost wanted to say "come on guys! It's funny!"

Afterward people did congratulate me and say that they liked it, but I couldn't help but feel that I had failed somewhere. My co director for the movie stated that maybe this new reaction is just a new direction that we need to take the film in, but I'm not sure if I'm satisfied with that. I showed it to a few more people and I think I came up with a solution to "enhance" the ending in a way that more clearly shows what I was initially going for. We'll see how that turns out.

On a side note I'm auditioning more which is nice. Hopefully this is a good sign for the new year.

Update on Projects

Haven't been posting much, so I figured I'd just give an update on what's going on in general....

Finished the first cut of the end of the world short. It's coming along really well. I got the composer who did the music for the Pac-Man short and the Steve Chong movie to agree to do the music for this and it looks like it is on track to be showcased for that thing on Dec 8th. I'm pretty happy with it, but it has a long way to go from here.

The music video thing that I had planned is kind of falling through. At least my involvement with it. I hadn't done a music video before, so I was excited about the prospect of doing something really cool. As the weeks went by, it was becoming clear that it was a bigger ordeal than everyone was making it out to be. As it stands, we were supposed to shoot last week and the song hasn't even gotten finished yet. I met up with a friend on what could conceivably get done by this weekend before I had to leave to Louisiana for Thanksgiving and he said.... not much. So I told the group good luck and went off on my way. Oh well.

The voiceover project is still in development, but needs another script pass. We probably won't be able to get it done for the 8th, but it will definitely at least be shot before the end of the year.

I got my rejection notice from the Armed with a Camera fellowship. I was kind of disappointed, but having talked to other people about my idea I think it was very unlikely that they would accept it. Having said that though, I still might want to make it down the line. It was basically a commentary on the nature of race in films and how more often than not it is more convenient to just take it out of the equation by just making everyone white.

Haven't gotten very far on the feature script lately. I have been kinda backtracking and wondering if the idea we have is even the one that will make us break through. I believe it still is.... but in the meantime I still feel like it is important to get short projects off of the ground to build a base of sorts.

Anyways, lately I've been kind of inspired by the work of this directing duo named Daniels. They're more known for their crazy music videos (which I had been watching a lot of lately), but they also made shorts that I think are just really cool to watch. They released one recently that kind of.... blew me away. From now on, I think I definitely want to just make stuff that has a super unique voice and gives people the impression that they've never seen anything like this before.

Interesting Ball from DANIELS on Vimeo.

Wrapped on Short #1

Recently finished principal photography on the end of the world shoot. I Acted, Co-wrote, Co-directed, and Co-produced and will eventually add the editing credit to it. I wanted a co-director actually because I personally find it to be really hard to act and direct at the same time. I think because I started off as such a technical minded person, when I'm in front of the camera I find myself looking at all of the technical stuff in front of me and I can't help but think about that stuff and I usually step out of the character. I think this time it wasn't too bad since I had a co-director. I tried to not look at playback or even the monitor unless an opinion was really needed on my part.

Overall, I think the production went really well though. We had a 5 person crew, which technically makes it the biggest production I was able to assemble in Los Angeles. Most of the sketch comedy videos I had made recently have been super low key and usually it's just 1-2 person crew tops. I was able to borrow a camera from one friend, lights and sound equipment from another friend, and get most of the cast and crew to work for free. So yeah, it's good to know I can get a decent production together on a shoestring budget. Technically the biggest expense was lunch, which I always splurge on because I feel like a production with good food is a good production.

I'm trying to get this finished for this media showcase that is occurring on Dec. 8th, so it'll be done pretty soon. I'll post about it as things get done. I supposedly have another shoot set for this weekend, it's not as likely to happen though... we'll see...