Hi! Happy to announce to everyone that the 'webisodes' are up online now on my Youtube channel (www.youtube.com/themattkinsman) for my project, THE BULLETLIST. :)
Check it out below! :) I really hope you enjoy it. I learnt alot (emphasize ALOT) on this journey and now turn my attention to shooting a feature film. Thanks again for your patience, juggling real life with my dream has been a 'challenge' but I'm happy there is something to show for it, enjoy :)
Also, a special thanks to those that made this possible - First and foremost, Steve! You rocked playing Gabriel and helped out heaps with most of the fightscenes, your attitude to work was inspiring especially since you were juggling this with your job as well and thanks for sticking through with it until the end. Hope this looks good on the resume ;)
Kat, thanks so much, ever the professional, you impressed us and inspired us to step up our acting game plus had fun on set, I hope you enjoyed your time creating with us.
Tui, Kamy, Toutai, Walter and Amber, thanks for taking part in our project with your various roles, hope your happy with the result :)
and last but not least, LJ, thanks for helping us film the last episode and for your cameo in ep5, I'm looking forward to making some more magic on camera :)
and to YOU - Thank you all for your support and I hope you'll be here for the next project/s :)
Day 11 and 12 of The BulletList - The final shoots.
Locations. I was running out of locations. My house was shot to bits as well as local parks and such...When I wrote the script for this webseries I envisioned an apartment or hotel room where the main character would have been staying. Since this was a 'no budget' shoot and our character was supposed to be on the downlow- I ended up hiring a motel room. Seedy I know, but cost effective, private and spacey -surprisingly it turned out well. We shot on Friday night and Sunday night as we were all working during the day.
Day 11 was shooting all the remaining scenes between Suzy and Gabriel and Day 12 was shooting the action scene. I wont share any screenshots from that so it doesn't spoil anything for the story. But It was one of my more interesting shoots in a while, first for everything they say.
Anyway here are a couple non-spoilery screenshots in the meantime;
48hour Short film - Why won't she Love me - Now online!
I have uploaded the short film to my youtube channel now we got the ADR done for the first line of the film. It's about a first date not going the way the main character was hoping. Shooting this was a great experience and we learnt alot from it. Having backup actors/actresses, PLAN B's, Post Edit time management etc...
If you haven't seen it yet, now's your chance! Hope you enjoy it :)
So now what?
As I mentioned in earlier blogs I've returned to Karate training (after how many years? 4?) and it's been a great blessing, my technique is getting much sharper again, It's a great time out from the routine of work/home and I am going to work towards getting that Black belt one day.
I entered the Sanda tournament this past weekend for the NZ nationals but was heart broken when I was all geared up for the 7th and final fight, sitting on the opponent chair with my team, waiting for an opponent who would never appear ( he got injured during one of the first fights they tell me and no one wanted to fight me, I was 71k and everyone was bigger or had already fought or was from my club)
It was one of the biggest disappointments in my life. I had been training the last month and a half at home/in my garage and had already fixed my mindset, as well as taken a leave day off work. The next invitational is in September. I might be out of town then but would love to try again. I feel I have unfinished business in the Sanda ring. My record is 1-1 and I still want to rectify that first loss as I've been working on my low kick/wrestling game since then and have improved I feel. I've got to do this again - Proving to myself I have what it takes...Standing there, frustrated. Watching the others get medals I unwrapped my hands with a heavy heart and swore next time I get on those mats, I'm going all out...
Now that I've finished the Bulletlist Shoots I'm going to finish the editing and upload the series onto my Youtube channel by mid August (in a couple of weeks). I plan to start finishing the screenplay to my indy feature I am working on and try and begin preproduction/fundraising on that. I also hope to do a couple of short films in order to increase traffic to my channel, shooting fan films of things that I'm a fan of and network with some more actors/crew in order to build my next project.
I've watched alot of great TV shows and movies recently and feel I've learnt alot of storytelling techniques and ways to build up character I hadn't been aware of previously. Already with The Bulletlist if I could do it over from scratch it would be vastly different, but I am happy with how it turned out for what it was, just a couple of people running around with a camera making up a story as they went along for practice and to lead to bigger things...
Work's sort of busy at the moment but Being an action actor/filmmaker has always been the main goal and I need to make things happen. Look at all the things Bruce Lee achieved by the time he was 32? I haven't even done a single film to my name. That's got to change if I've got any hope of nailing my goal. I've got to be the change I want to see ;)
As an actor/Director the most frustrating feeling you can have is the feeling that you can't be in two places at once. I love to direct and see the action happen on the lens realtime, but I also love to do the acting out. It's as vain as Kayne saying the worst feeling for him is he'll never get to see Kayne live haha. Anyway, I reached out to LJ if she was going to be free to shoot something with us on Sunday and she replied she was keen :) Which is Fantastic cos that meant we wouldnt have to suit our fight the run and tripod way (see My house; or any of my early fight films with Sam)
So with my Sunday off work (finally) LJ was kind enough to donate some time to help us out with shooting the finale episode's fight scene between myself and Steve, who was nice enough to be free on Sunday also :)
I had originally envisioned it to be the best stuff I have ever done, however due to time constraints and budget issues again I had to lower the bar on my ambitions (blood, powder/ breakables) and save it for another day, but what we came up with was pretty awesome in my biased, enjoyed the hell out of our time, opinion. Best stuff I've ever done on film anyway. Got to break something and at least it wasn't the window (almost) LJ (electrical lamp cord, long story) the lampshade (a little) or any bones ;)
The stuff we captured looks great onscreen even though we were playing with shadows most of the time as we were shooting indoors/low light and had no extra lighting.
LJ's camera has much better lens option and quality res than my own 'should be ok' camera I have used for the rest of the series. Only a couple more days of shooting now and a day on ADR....can't wait to have this thing in the bag :)
Below are some screen shots straight from Premiere, as much as I can without spoilers :)
Friday. I was dreading it as it was forecasted to rain a week earlier, but the sun was shining so thank god it didn't :)
Today we shot the fight scene for episode four. I'm happy I'm doing this project, I've learnt alot of things that I will do next time around (locations, casting, writing etc), first I have to finish it but it's been eye opening anyway and I look forward to sharing with you all what we came up with.
We shot on the rooftop of a parking building we used first time around before the rewrite. (so familiar to some) .The fight scene between Gabriel (Steve Heke) and Vinnie (Kamy Grewel) featured a little kicking and some dialog and is arguably some of the best stuff we have done, this and the last shoot were quite good. I'm in the middle of writing the choreography for the last episode as it has to be the best! :)
Screen shots from the shoot are below for your viewing.
Some badass screenshots, no?
In other news the Mastercard ad I did some extra work has been released, as I mentioned in an earlier blog, I didn't think I would be seen as way out, but I got a screenshot so have proof lol. Anyway, one day it will be more than just background apperances I can share. Just got to finish bulletlist, release a short film and get my feature up and running so I can show the world what I can do! :)
In white shirt, back right lol - I actually work in this mall for real so funny to see...
Good news. I have a week off of work. Bad news. It's supposed to rain all week.
I was determined to get some more of these scenes shot for The Bulletlist so this is the first week I've had to pay for a location (as with others coming up) so let's consider it an investment on my part. And sure enough, with all my history of shooting stuff in public, there was bound to be complications.
We shot at Lagoon stadium, an indoor sports stadium. I knew of this location because I play weekly futsal there and kick ass but that's a different story ;) I needed a gym location for this scene so this was perfect. Upside. It's normally dead weekdays in the am, but we were *not* lucky enough to have some bballers in the background. Which downside, means we will have to do ADR later for a couple of scenes I couldn't edit around. I shot myself playing Bball in the background so hopefully that is enough to establish there are b-ballers there when 'Gabriel' walks into shot but we'll see.
For Episode three Gabriel meets another hitman on The Bulletlist for him to 'cross' out. Amber Vanessa Davenport plays thecharacter of 'Wolf' and the two fight it out. It was our first time working with her and she was professional, easy going, focused and suited the part. She did an amazing job working with Steve to make this awesome fight and I feel we choreographed a nice exchange.
Anyway, screenshots below from the edit, stay tuned for more news :)
I love filming, I try to enjoy the moments of making the magic come alive on screen and tell an entertaining story, I can't wait until this is my job for real so I'll never have to work again lol -feature film here I come :)
Last week I did a day on the set of The Patriarch, a feature film being shot here by Lee Tamahori (director of The Devil's Double, 007 Die Another Day) which was awesome to see him work in person. Taught me you only need to shoot until you have the shot then move on. Lee of course, shot to fame over his film Once were warriors so this film seems a similar theme of family. Anyway, can't really talk about what happened in scene or what I did on it until it's release but just wanted to share I'm working on things here and there as I upskill and network :)
Day 7 was completed today for The Bulletlist webseries project, shot the missing scenes from Episode two and Episode One today at Highbrook park with Toutai and Steve so both those shoots are wrapped now, yes!! :)
4 more episodes to complete, mainly action scenes featuring Steve and others. Hoping to have this series released week by week late June/Early July. Will keep you up to date for sure. Just wanted to share some screenshots from today with you all :)
Toutai (left) and Steve (right) in character overlooking Mt Wellington in the background. Nice shot huh :)
19 April 2015 - Bullet List Day 6
Shooting digital at night was a learning experience. The eye can see things in a lot more detail than my little old camera can so making sure I was in an environment with lots of light sources was a priority. Sunday night was a work night but I needed to get some action happening on The Bulletlist project, as those following my blog will know, it's taken me a couple months just to get 6 shooting days done!
Anyway, May is the month we can hopefully wrap things up and get it all together in time for late june release each week :)
So for the night shoot it was 2 secenes, one from Episode 2 and 3 respectively, between Suzy (Katherine Mewett) and Gabriel (Steve Heke). I have shared some screenshots with you below. It was a fun, quiet shoot, (apart from the cafe, so much background noise, will have to overdub it later I think....) and the night ranged from asking a coffee place if I could shoot just before they closed, to a retiree who was sailing the world, mentioning the giant behemoth of a boat we shot near was worth 35 million. That's some expensive rubber duck lol - the maintenance alone would be worth more dollars than what most people make in a year.
Suzy (kat) and Gabriel (Steve) get to know each other in Episode 2.
The night, street light contrast was beautiful, Kat brought out the best of it.
This shot might not be in final edit but I'm so damn proud of it! Director Matt lol.
22 April 2015 -Plans, Commercial, Feature Film, 48 hour film competition
Busy week, after the shoot Sunday night, got home 11pm, had work Monday, football Monday night, work Tuesday, work function night and football 9pm Tuesday night, then today, Wednesday, off work and working on a commercial for a credit card company with a sport star, Tonight have an investment seminar to attend then away for 4 days on a long weekend road trip with the wife to rest from work/dreams/sport for a breather.
Once the Ad is finished I will share a link with you guys, won't talk about anything regarding the content to avoid breaking any contracts but it was nice to get back out there and do some filming again. Awesome to see the cameras the big boys use, people lugging around lighting materials, sound crew setting up and away again and the AD's herding the extras - it all definitely looks like a lot of work/fun. Can't wait to get to that stage myself, but for now slowly building my team :)
My feature script is finished now. Just choreography and locations to decide. Will do this once get back from our trip. But I'm super excited to get started on this, just have to sort out a sound guy and I can start my super low budget feature, a feature nonetheless, the action has to be spectacular to stand any chance on video shop shelves and he story has to get people engaged to watch until the showdown in the end.
48 hours 2015 competion coming up 1st May 7pm -3rd May 7pm. I'm a bit anxious for our entry as this is the first time I have done the 48 hour film competition since settling in Auckland. But I have assembled a champion spirited team and much ass we will kick! (or at least entertain)
It finally arrived, First day of our hero with the female lead - the motive to drive the story forward :)
Target or Friend?
Last month I put out a casting call for the role of Suzy as I needed a young woman who was enthusiastic, had some dance or martial arts experience and believed in the project and endgoal.
After many applications, We found our star in Kat!
Kat as SUZY in The BulletList
She was awesome to work with, friendly, easy going, responded to direction well and brought plenty extra of her own to the role, great expressions and projection. It was a fun shoot made easier by her professionalism. This also pushed Steve who came with some fine acting of his own. Really looking forward to editing this one. (post note, finished editing- looks good :D)
Like all film shoots, everything went wrong before we made things right but as I am known to say, smooth seas do not make skilful sailors. To be a directoor we need to Direct, that includes solving problems! We had to shoot early evening to balance our work commitments, earlier in the day was sorting the mechanic about my car, and sorting out the script/ shooting plan for Day 5. So 5pm planned start turned into 530pm once we found a park, fighting with Traffic to arrive.
The amount of time I was in my wife's car today, I felt like I just got out of a space shuttle when I got home, seriously, that little pod went all the way from Manurewa and town, twice, also to town twice as I went earlier in the day for some DVDS, the shirt for my sunday project (next blog) and martial arts shop investigation. (however didn't find the extra nunchuks or rubber tonfa I was looking for, may have to ebay these) Wish my BMW was back, driving it long distances was my favorite part of having it :|
So with fading light, ( I knew in my heart it would be close) People everywhere (joys of public shooting), threatening rainclouds (rained on the way, rained after, great timing), car alarms, church bells and passing cars - we persevered - and managed to pull off the plan and the results were fantastic! Can't wait to share the scene with you guys, even got a shot of possums in the park which was random but hey, right place right time :)
Below is another screenshot that doesn't give too much away apart from how great these two stars play their characters :) Thanks to this day, I have finished a rough cut of episode one! Five to go :)
My little brother came up from Christchurch for a couple weeks with his girlfriend so we went out for couple dates and all 4 of us played pool, bowling, futsal nights, restaurants, theme park and lots of Fifa and board/fun games.
Also have been focusing hard on work, eyes on the prize, heart and my mind. And this sunday recently completed the round the bays marathon, 8k so great entry point and haven't really trained so was a little worried but in the end finished, really should have done better. Was kicking myself, thought had 2 k to go but it was the finish line! Conserved way too much energy, next year I will get a much better time, this year it was 49minutes which was disappointing for me, but first time :) So OK, for now ;)
Anyway, Little brothers returned now, and no other distractions so I can return to focusing on the dream and step 1. Finishing The Bullet List!!
Since Steve was teaching a class this afternoon we planned a quick shoot and all the scenes at the airport were shot today.
Scouted the domestic terminal when I picked up my brother a couple weeks ago but far busier today, just that time I guess. Parking still cost me 9 bucks even though I tried to stay under an hour but hey, can't leave my car out in the open lest it disappear thanks to security. To be honest I was surprised. I thought we would have been stopped or asked for ID or permits or something as we were putting our bag on the baggage carousel and taking it off again as well as just loitering around the airport but because my camera looked touristy and we weren't suspicious or troublesome(I hope) we weren't asked to leave or noticed so that worked out OK and we got the shots we needed which was great!
Paticularly proud of this shot as wrote smoke bursts from the tyres in the script so surprised to actually get it on film, nice!
After I dropped Steve off I returned to the airport to wait fro planes to land/take off and get some footage for some cutscenes. So overall got all the shots we needed for todays schedule. Tomorrow is Day 3 and the gun fight :) scripts good, let's hope it turns out that way :)
So as you've previously read I have rewritten The Bullet List so it's coherent, has a story to follow, is quick to film for lowbudget and some great action scenes. (best I've done/attempted anyways)
Here is the link to the Facebook site to stay up to date with the latest news :)
Yesterday we reshot the car fight scene and it turned out great, the location seemed seedy but was quite expansive and the actors sold the story well, can't wait for you guys to see it, in the meantime here are a couple of screenshots below, if we stay on track we should be airing this thing by late June early July! :)
Hi Guys, I turned 28 today. Holy shit, time flies fast. I look back at my days lived so far and I can honestly say I've achieved a little, married (7 years this December wow), moved cities, did a little work in the dream department (TV and a feature film, awesome!), did a little work in the career department (work in a bank -at least I have a solid planB), but I really thought I would have made a huge dent in my dreams by now, guess I have to try harder this year ;) Most of the actors I looked up to really hit their mark in their 30's after struggling for sometime, got to remember even Brad Pitt started as an extra. (video proof below lol, it's interesting howhe turned into a bigger name later in their careers)
When I get back from Holiday this year I will do an acting course, sign with an acting agency and really get the ball rolling. Looking to get back into training soon too, realized a reason I feel a little bit missing in my life is that I haven't really done martial arts training in last couple of years. Running rings around people at futsal doesn't have the same life and death appeal of avoiding a punch and countering with a sidekick and shuffling away. ;)
On the Bulletlist front there's been no real progress this week. We got the car back yesterday which is awesome, means I can have transport to and from shoot's again. Shame about the 1,200 dollar pricetag but better a car than no car.....I'm Hoping to shoot a chunk of main scenes next week, fingers crossed I get reliable casting :)
Below is a quick teaser of what we have done so far, just a couple of shots, so you can see some of the progress thus far, -only 2 days of shooting in the can and no ADR yet either. Why do I set myself such ambitious goals? (might be 25-30 days shoot as only shoot for 3-4 hours due to budget/time)
I'm trying to come up with a quick non action drama short film I can shoot between shoots...anyway, enjoy the quick BULLET LIST teaser below...
With my renewed vigor in following my dream I realized I needed to update my show reel for my film CV, so below is the finished cut. Just a selection of some of the fight scenes I have completed over the last couple of years.
Looking back at it now It's only like 4-6 short films. Plus all seem to be with good acting buddy Steve apart from one lol But hey, I'm looking forward to shooting The Bullet List web series soon to show you guys, myself and potential directors what I'm really capable of. Get some real acting going on I hope, anyway, enjoy the video below :)
Ps. Still waiting on my stunt course footage to share with you guys, I will post once I get it, just here though, not on my YT channel, thanks for your support :)
After a busy week fianlly have managed to edit our Monday shoot from last week.
Behold in all it's 1min 30 glory! (video below)
For last minute stuff turned out pretty good, since then though I have done that workshop I mentioned last blog so heaps of new stuff I want to try out when it comes to shooting the fight scenes for The Bulletlist. Steve's a swords guy so thinking maybe an errant knight battle might be fun? Anyway, hope you enjoyed it for what it was :)
Will post Workshop review once I have been sent the videos :)
Had my one day off on the 18th August Monday (7 day rosters are (not) fun) and had planned to shoot day two of the bulletlist and had everything set up, Steve had moved some things around and I had banged out the script, locations and shooting plan earlier in the weeknights to be able to do this, however, the actress we had in mind to play Briana had to cancel at the last minute due to personal reasons which sucked for us but I understand.
Still from My House (Steve Heke)
So to keep the motivation and momentum up since I can never get enough time off for this I txted Steve, "Wanna shoot another test film instead?", we haven't shot a short film since Ambush 2 which was ages ago. "sure, my place is all good if you want". I was happy as, "OK, cool, see you in a couple of hours". I sat in front of my computer....ready to type,....What could be a good reason for a fight scene? lol. Banged out a rough plan and drove over. So funny, spent half an hour tearing my house apart looking for a balaclava I had used when I shot Mondays back at SAE in 2011. Couldn't find it so thank goodness Steve had one. What do you think? It was a hot day, so it was very uncomfortable haha.
Still from My House (Me, Matt Kinsman)
I haven't shot a film my old way since I left Christchurch. Which are basically all my films I shot with Sam back in the day. This 'method' involves me setting up the camera on a tripod, setting the frame, pushing record, running around in front of it, shooting our scene a couple times for the editing room then running back, stopping record, replaying it, reframing and repeating the cycle! Phew! tough but fun. Below is one unedited take so you can see what I mean. (finished film to be uploaded after sfx added, maybe next week)
May contain spoilers -however chose scene that doesn't give too much away
I have been trying to keep active too. I'm 27 now. It's make or break at my job at the moment so If I want this dream I have to make it happen or it's in with the suit and the sales focus.
Most actors do their best work in their 30's so I need to make my move now. The First of my moves is getting some credibility (ironic since that was my first film) and getting out in the industry again, so tomorrow I am doing a stunt school fight for camera workshop. Pretty excited/nervous but hoping through it that I a)learn some new things, b)meet some new people who have the same interests and might like to part in shooting bulletlist with me and c)get a notch on my film CV.
Second of my moves is being proactive in sourcing opportunities so I've also put in for an audition for a kids action tv series and an internship as a director in another series. I hope to get good news but the fact I've even applied for this makes me happy, If you don't take action today then you are no better than you were yesterday. Between you and me I really hope I get these roles :)
I also did a camera test for my outfit as 'Mark' in The Bullet List as I had planned on shooting the scene on Monday, (next month now til next free day) so I'll share one of the pics with you below, I reckon it will be nice to play an actual character for once...
Anyway, post a blog tomorrow about how my first day went of this 2 day stunt school course I'm doing. So nervous lol, am I the real deal or a pretender?, we're going to find out... Wish me luck, apart from my football I'm so unfit, hoping to survive haha....
