Day 10 of The BulletList -Screenshots from Sunday's Gabriel vs Killer Scene

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 :)

Ending here we come! :)

Powerstation - Finished short film link

As promised here is the Powerstation test short film we shot as Plan B to an original shoot this easter (fullstory last post);

Hope you enjoy! I'm working on creating more things, maybe a couple more short films before Bullet List is done and I start on the independent feature film I have been talking about for so long :) As normal, I welcome any comments/suggestions in the comments section.

ps. Sidenote; The last shot had to be the sound effect as the battery was dead and the last 4 or 5 shots of the day were one takes, and sadly I didn't have a clear one of the final kick, still, looks good for a first time working together, love acting again lol looking forward to more this year :)

2013/2014 Showreel Uploaded!

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 :)

My House uploaded to Youtube channel

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 :)

Updates and Parnell Rise finished Video

Day off today, decided to enter Action on film festival via a script submission considering I haven't filmed anything else lately, so one act down, two acts to go! Definitely feels like the best stuff I've ever written. Short Film is called 'Away'. It's about a hit-man about to quit and leave town when his old employers decide quitting's not an option. Basically an excuse to stretch some writing muscles and paint some great action scenes I couldn't possibly film at this stage in my career. But one day, right? Will keep you all up to date with how 'Away' turns out.

 

 scene from Kung Fu Elliot doco

Feedback after watching Kung Fu Elliot a couple days ago? Well done documentary, I was literally clapping, some moments of unintentional humor in there with some laugh out loud moments as the wife and I could relate to some of the acting and location stuff. It was a great story, but definitely sickening in the end. This guy has the desire but goes about it the wrong way, love his passion to film stuff and hope he makes something of himself one day but he definitely has relationship issues. Great film to learn from anyway which was the intention, the lessons I gleaned from it is always stay true to yourself and your fans, family comes first, never forget your friends who get you there, and do things for the right reasons. Hope he did make it to China and wasn't just talking shit. Googled that but nothing came up so who knows?

Matial arts :) Lately as you can gather from my last blog's, have been looking at training again properly with other people, not just skipping/working out in my garage. Investigated Hardcore JKD as on the website says can be an instructor in 5 years, which is definitely something I'd be interested in, saw a facebook page in NZ, not sure if Legit, but will follow up on main website as a definite possibility, when I do my fights on screen, I don't want anyone to question my authenticity.At the moment what I do is my expression of myself based on my basic knowledge of karate I learned at GKR and JKD I've learned from DVD's, books and with sifu when I didn't work fulltime. Nice, but my tools are basic, I want to be able to do more than just punch and kick, wrestling and locks seem interesting, and I would like to broaden my artillery.

Been watching heaps of battle raps lately thanks to total slaughter for reigniting my love of hiphop battles :), Dizaster and Daylyt my fav two at the moment, Pat stay is funny as too. Been writing some songs again which is nice, maybe finally finish that one album this year and cross that off of my bucket list ;)

Check out the screenshot below!

 Steve vs Me again :)

Thats right, It's been a year since I've actually completed this, but finally decided to get around to adding the final touches to Parnell Rise!- the web series I abandoned last year due to budget/casting issues. The scenes that we had shot I've edited together to make a somewhat coherent story. But please bear in mind it was shot a year ago (before Ambush 2 and No way out and some other shorts we've completed since then) and I wanted to finish it so I could show the guys/girls that their efforts weren't wasted and they have been immortalized in film.

Check it out below (for those who want to watch just for the fight scene it's at 6minutes 30 )

Thanks again for your support :)

Getting scheduling done for Bulletlist shoot and Kung Fu Elliot

The Bullet List project is finally underway. All day at work I'm trying figure out what I can do on this project when I get home. Been reading 'Three feet from Gold' by the Napoleon Hill foundation and Greg S reid, its full of inspirational stuff and living your passion, so it's great I'm back to my old habits of staying inspired via reading/watching others who have achieved their dreams and it feels nice to get some motivation back, I was suffering from self doubt there for a little minute.

"The knowing. There is a big difference between believing something and knowing."

I know I can be an action star. So what am I waiting for? I've got to get out there and start training again, get mingling and network with other creatives, take any extra jobs I can, sign up for a real acting agency and do what it is I'm really here to do. Customer service pays my bills but my soul doesn't feed on cash. With that said I'll share the little progress I've made since my last post here on the project.

I've copied and pasted the six episode scripts together into one celtx file and it turns out this project will be an hour long!! (that's if the one page equals one minute of screen time ratio plays out, it won't, the action scenes will be cut much longer). Needless to say, for a simple project this still turned out to be something ambitious. This will be the longest project I've ever completed myself but I'll finally have something to call my own!. This is exactly what I need to do.

Below is a screenshot of what my breakdown looks like for when I was figuring what scenes to shoot when so I can try make this achievable. I worked it out to be sixteen different locations.

And below is the first page of my script. Proof :)

Now that I have my jacket for the character of Mark Maxwell, I just need to find some nice kicks and design a simple Tshirt (so I can sell it via my merch site for any enthusiasts but also to stay unique) for him to wear.

Next for the project is the intended camera shots (Shooting script) Exact locations -Might get a camera on my next day off and go on a photo spree :) And then figure out some equipment. Sound is my biggest issue, and half the picture so a biggie!

This weekend I just realxed otherwise, caught up opn The Transporter TV series, definately not statham but an enteratining show nonetheless with some good action scenes, one liners, hot chicks, explosions and car stunts. Bought the wife a bike today and put it together, nothing more empowering than building something, even if I am following instructions ;) Tomorrow We are goign to watch a documentary I saw a trailer for since it's playign at NZ film festival this year. It's a docu on someone similar to myself. He's a big fan of chuck norris and 70's action films (like me lol) and canada has no action stars so he decided he would become one and has dedicated his life to following his dream, it looks funny and sad at the same time but hope for his sake he found happiness. I wanted to watch this in case there are any mistakes I can learn from and to stay realistic with myself. I know the chances of making it are small, but there's still that chance.

Anyway, the trailer is below for those who might be able to find it on netflix or something like that, til next time amigos!

Ambush 2 - Finished Video and Making Of

 With a couple days off in a row lined up and a much needed break from writing the 'Fight Me' Script needed I contacted Steve and Ben and we came up with an idea to shoot Ambush 2, a sequel to this years earlier short film Ambush. Steve plays the same terrorist type figure (or is he?) and this time he is hunted down by a different spy.

Like all film making endeavours something bad always happens and we have to hurdle it, this time it was getting lost trying to find totara park, thanks to most of south auckland looking alike. anyway, a couple of hours later me and ben made it and met Steve and his friends at the park. It was a fun shoot, alot of it was improviosed, dialog, half of the choreography and shots. But the end result looks cool. The purpose of this was to build a body of recent work that I caqn use in my pitch for funding/sponsorship when I come to start 'Fight me' Later this year, just have to finish building this script!!!

It's amazing how hard it is to write words on blank pages sometime knowing that this will be the skeleton you build the muscle on later, one wrong move and the thing collapses and you have days of rewrites ahead. Ah, it breaks my heart, but I must fight on!!

Anyway, here is the little 'break' project AMBUSH 2 and a couple of random outtakes, hope you enjoy :)