SHAMELESS PLUG for Fellow Writer and Actor

I'm still in the old Mei Gwok. It's cold but comfortable. Biggest cliche in the world, but true. There's no place like New York...

Recently heard from an old friend, another talented writer from NYU, who is now in Ventura, CA. Her name is Tania Weissberg and she wrote this episode of SUSHI PACK, a cartoon on cable TV.



I also found out that NELSAN ELLIS, an amazing actor who was in my experimental short film ANTIGONE 5000, is not only a regular on Cable TV's TRUE BLOOD but will appear in a major supporting role in THE SOLOIST, a feature film starring JAMIE FOXX and ROBERT DOWNEY Jr.



I thank him for his amazing gung-ho attitude doing ANTIGONE 5000 with me back in the day. We ran the production out of my living room and shot it in the woods out in Jersey over the GW Bridge. He never once complained even when we were shooting in the freezing cold. Out of all the actors I've worked with, he's the one whom So Jene, my wife, pegged to be a star. And he's clearly on his way. The guy is amazing.

Anyway, here's to those of us who keep plugging away at writing and acting and making personal movies despite and against all the odds.

I've also finished up a screenplay to shoot as soon as I'm back in the U.S. It's a script I wrote about five years ago and just sat on looking for perfect conditions and waiting for money to materialize. What a stupid of waste of time that was. The material is good. I just reread and polished it up today. It reads well, which makes me wonder what the hell I was doing just sitting on it all this time.

My hiatus in Hong Kong has given me renewed perspective. This time around, I'll shoot with a goddamn camcorder if I have to.

Anyway, kudos to you, Tania and Nelsan. You guys rock!!!!

Four Predictions for the Near Future aka Joys of Going Home

Notice to all those who have stumbled upon this site by the vagaries that govern the blogosphere of Hong Kong:

I shall be radio silent once again for the next few weeks due to a trip back to the MEI GWOK.

My time in Hong Kong to date has filled me with amazing feng shui and other uncanny supernatural powers that allow me to gaze into the near future and see what will be before they are.

Here is a Youtube video that provides a glimpse of this most unnatural of dark powers:



That said, I will now make four and only four predictions concerning momentously unmomentous events of the near future as we plod bovinely to the Year of the Ox:


1) The Eagles will win the Conference Final, and then advance to and emerge victorious in the Super Bowl, sending shockwaves of euphoria to that great city of Philadelphia, my second heimat, which ranks in my esteemed book, just below NY for hipster living.

2) There will be partying in the streets at Obama's inauguration. Strangers will hug and cry and dance and sing.

3) It will be colder in much of the U.S. during the next few weeks than it is here in Hong Kong.

4) Yours truly will return to the Big Lychee in a few weeks, having put on the now customary 10 pounds from having stuffed his face silly w/ pizza, tacos, gyros, fried chicken, and other healthy American delicacies.


Here's to going home...

Will return to posting in a few weeks, heavier and happier...

'Till then, I now take time to bestow on you a VIRTUAL LAISEE packet and bid you.....a fond.... JOY GIN!!!!

Eat Kimchi a.k.a. B-ball at Wah Fu Estate

I'm still working on the movie. It's coming along somewhat slowly. In the meantime, to unwind a bit, I've also begun easing back into playing ball. I've been unable to play for 4+ months due to a really bad ankle sprain from back in August.

I played last Sunday morning and again this morning. My ankle still doesn't feel 100%, and I can't jump as well as before--which isn't saying much 'cuz I could never really jump high to begin with. I was the shortest guy on my high school team, but also the slowest and the one with the least ups.

Whatever the case, it was great to play again and to return to what had been a regular game for me before my injury. The same group of regulars, who range in age from early 20s to mid 50s, was there. And they were glad to see me back. It's always a good feeling to be welcomed back to a place.



Playing ball in Hong Kong has been great fun and one of the few ways to really feel a sense of belonging with the local people. I like these guys at Wah Fu so much more than the stuffed shirt types I meet elsewhere all over Hong Kong.

The style of play may be different, but basketball is basketball. It also gives me a good chance to practice speaking the Wah. I can still only say very basic things, and my tones are usually wrong, but I'm getting more comfortable and confident about speaking, which is always a good first step.

As for my jumpshot, it's pretty much shot after my long hiatus. But I can still get by with a lot of fakes and totally anachronistic spin moves that I picked up as a kid from oldtimers at my home court back in Jackson Heights. God, I sometimes miss playing ball back in NY so much...

Anyway, I hope this video gives you a sense of some of the antics that make playing ball in Hong Kong fun, a lot of which is the off-court shenanigans. I know it's juvenile male bonding stuff, but there's something to be said about that. It's why I'd rather play ball any day than just go to the gym.

**NOTE: I've fixed the English subtitles on the clip. There was a portion I couldn't understand, but a very helpful and informed reader (thank you!) filled me in on what one guy was actually saying: "Cheating is allowed..."

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this is likely a universal truth that applies to all oldtimer games be they in Harlem, Hong Kong, or Honduras... **

***I'm not sure why the Comment link below doesn't work. If you really want to write a comment, please click the individual link for this post under the BLOG ARCHIVE on the right-hand column (you need to scroll down a tad). It will take you to another page for this post, in which the Comment function works. I have no idea what this glitch is about.... Sorry.***

WRITING STEP OUTLINE and Talking to Actors

I've started getting more inquiries about film collaboration in Hong Kong. Most are from actors/artists/performers. Some with experience. Others with just enthusiasm, which can make up for so much. But many who are contacting me are doing so from far away. It's difficult to collaborate w/ actors who don't share proximity. Exchanging e-mails is okay for a short while, but making films requires face-to-face interaction.

I've also gotten some inquiries from people telling me they are IT specialists, computer effects guys, or management consultants asking me if they can be of some help toward my "project."

I am grateful for this interest and support, but their particular skill set doesn't really fit my needs right now, so I tell them I'm looking for actors, people who want to act on camera, or people who can show up and hold the camera or microphone, so if they're willing to do something physical and concrete, then they're welcome.

I think this is a good way to separate people who are focused and really interested in making a film from those who just have a general vague interest and like the idea of being affiliated with something creative and would like to just be there to watch. That's fine and dandy, but a bare bones production like mine really can't afford to have the extra weight.

I remember back when I was shooting my first film, I always had 10-12 people just hanging around the set doing nothing. Thinking back, I think I invited and welcomed that as a kind of security blanket and chorus just so I'd feel more secure about making a movie.

Now, I know better. I'm looking for people who can get behind the camera and/or in front of the camera and so something real and physical. The truth is that most filmmakers can also act. Once you do a couple of these things, the whole process becomes demystified. Shooting, lighting, recording audio, acting, writing... all these things become activities that one can do, and not some complex thing that only experts can do.

A major lesson that I learned back in film school was from Lorenzo Semple Jr., who taught a screenwriting class. I'm not sure if he's still alive. He was quite old even back when I was taking his class. He wrote the screenplay for various classic movies from the 60s and 70s, including one of my all-time favorites, PAPILLON. He also wrote the scripts for the campy TV show BATMAN, for which he told us he got death threats from hardcore purist fans who didn't like how he'd camped up the superhero and sidekick.

One of the coolest things he did for us students besides being completely blunt about whether what we'd written was good or not was to let us vote on his behalf for the Academy Awards. He was an Academy member of long standing, but no longer thought much of the direction movies had gone with their increasing emphasis on special effects and decreasing emphasis on story. Whatever the reason, he let the class (there were about a half dozen of us) pick the selections on his ballot for that year and had us mail it in. It demystified the whole film industry machine for us. It also taught us that a certain amount of irreverence was healthy.

Back to my present struggle. So far, I've exchanged e-mails w/ a couple of interested actors and have run into the same familiar difficulties of scheduling meetings w/ interested people. In comparison to the response I would have gotten back in New York, the HK response is a mere trickle. The same amount of postings about an indie feature production in NYC would have gotten me 30-50 headshots easy.

Here, I've gotten only about a half dozen. Again, this is simply an observation and a factual accounting, not a gripe that HK is not NY. I'm so over that. I don't even get worked up now about crowds and people encroaching on my personal space. In fact, all the usual trivial gripes that nearly all foreigners have about HK no longer faze me at all. This is HK, and it needn't be a carbon copy of NY or London or what have you.

In the meantime, I've got an original story for the film and am writing a step outline, with specific situations and parameters from which actors can come up with their own dialog. Improvisation is difficult without goals and guidelines. It's like when people do "brainstorming" sessions without specific parameters and end up with nothing. Ditto for actors and improvisation. You have to have a start and a finish to a scene.

I'm now focused mainly on polishing the story and looking for actors that can fit the pieces of the puzzle together. I'm very excited that this is starting to come along.

More imporantly, I've had a breakthrough in the way I look at my situation. I guess it's somewhat perverse, but I'm actually very pleased that so few film productions (be they industry or independent) are going on in Hong Kong and so very few good films came out of Hong Kong in 2008.

Why?

Because all this will make our film stand out even more and provide even greater sense of accomplishment once it's all done. I'm feeling great about this film. I can't wait to start shooting.

I've also been getting renewed inspiration from Melvin Van Peebles, a Chicagoan whose first feature film LA PERMISSION (1968) was made in France, after years of not being able to make a film in the U.S.

The road I face is much less arduous than his. He had to write and make films in French. HK is much more English-friendly, though I definitely plan to work some Cantonese into the film. Thank you, Mr. Van Peebles!!! You are a true independent!