Recently

Just saw AnD creator Stephen Wang in Shanghai and finally have a moment to breathe, so surfing around on this site and able to throw a blog in again.  I'm so sporadic, it frustrates me.  Good thing I'm not paid to blog for I'd be completely broke if it were the case.

This has been a weird year.  By weird I mean good.  But crazy.  It's just been very out of the ordinary.  I haven't really had an ordinary year in the last few years, but this one juts out.  2011 has been pretty good to me from the acting side of things, but as of late, the producing side has returned to the forefront and as a whole, I'm not entirely sure what thing I've been involved with this year I'm most excited about.  I guess I should just count my blessings and enjoy them all!

The month of June was spent bouncing around all over again as I left NYC (just as I was settling in there again during my only full month there this year) right after some friends' wedding on the 5th for Singapore.  As luck would I have it, my flight out of NYC was delayed by 4 or 5 hours (I lost count), meaning I was going to miss my Japan connector to Singapore which would have been simply unacceptable since it would mean missing out on a date at ScreenSingapore that was essentially the meat and potatoes of the whole week.  I got into Narita was told I'd have to stay the night but waited it out, lucked out, and caught a late flight on a different airline into Sing that landed there at nearly 3am local time.  Not ideal, but at least it allowed me to be present by the next morning at ScreenSing for the start of a week of panels, networking, and the heat that is Singapore.  (Good for my skin?)  Everything took place on Sentosa Island, the most manufactured place in State.  I'm torn on Sing for now.  I like it for what it is, but as far as business, I'm wondering still how I might be able to fit in.  I feel like Sing is a place that's neither here, nor there.  It's English speaking, but it's not Western.  It's Chinese, but not Chinese enough.  It's Asia-lite as they say, so what does that really truly mean for the film biz?  I guess the journey to find out continues for now.

Anyways, it was a productive week there and I made lots of new friends along the way, so that's never a bad thing.  Much thanks to Michael Leow who set up a great dinner starring the local goods - chili and black pepper crab.  I was glad that the American Goodloe and Anderson attorneys were able to sample it at least.  Watch out for these gals on the scene!

From Sing, the Shanghai Int'l Film Festival awaited and I hit it for my 3rd straight year.  I don't know if it's just an automatic reflex now, but I feel like I've been going so wanted to continue to do so even though I wasn't sure what to expect this year.  After going, I'm glad I did.  It turned into quite the grounds for me to, again, meet new people, and in particular explore the new media world in China currently, something that is perfectly timed for me in terms of a project that I'm working on.  It's always good to be back in Shanghai as well.  Seeing friends, hitting my spots, and even getting to squeeze in a last minute TVC shoot on my last day there for Buick that took place in Wuxi, 2 hours outside of the city.  It was so calm and peaceful there, I'm really glad I did it, even if it delayed me a day in getting to LA.

LA next.

I had to get to LA as preproduction was in full force with a small indie feature that we're set to lens end of summer/early fall.  This amazing up and coming AFI director is attached to steer.  We had 3 full days of castings and meetings that proved very productive and then on my last day of being in LA, I attended the LA Film Festival for the screening of a short called " I D" that Ted Chung directed through the Project Involve program Film Independent runs each year.  I have to admit, I saw the film on my laptop for the first time while in Singapore (in Archie Kao's villa no less with him as my first guest eyeballs) and this 2nd time watching it on the big screen was a completely different experience.  A much better one at that.  I think I was too focused on me in the 1st time and that's just being too actor-ego-ey.  I was able to watch it for what it was this time and really got amped at the prospects of the future feature in the making that it is.  Ted's taking it to the PiFan festival in July to shop it.  Not sure what will result of that, but getting a seat at that event can't hurt, so kudos to him for that.  I'm very eager to one day work on the feature length with him for it.  Working with Ted on a feature has basically been one of my lifelong goals.  Since I met him in 1998, I knew I had to work with him again at some point.  Ted is my muse.

Being in LA for it though was sort of killing me as it meant I was missing production up in the Bay Area on another project 408 is producing.  This one is a project very near and dear to me and has been a labor of love in the making for nearly 2 years.  Thursday, we began for reals, production on a documentary-like look at an NBA player's story.  I hustled up to the Bay on Saturday morning and I just finished 4 solid days on it, details of which shall remain undiscussed, but trust that what happened thus far has been amazing.  I can't wait to share this one with the world!

So, I'm finally getting a chance to breathe and catch up on fun web things like this as well as responding to the numerous emails that I haven't been able to since this all began.  Friday, discussions on a potentially exciting new action flick take place at an MMA star's gym in San Jose.  Saturday, I'm off to Alaska for a week long wedding.

I'm a little bit drained.  But I don't dare complain.