First job in China - The White Crane Chronicles

So I guess I'll start off this blog with the first big job under my belt.  The project is called the White Crane Chronicles.  It's of the action genre and the first part of the story is of the Caucasian Wudang Master, Crane (David Carradine), seeking out to avenge his teacher/mentor/master.  It is a chronicle so that means that the story of Crane (actual historical figure) will continue with sequels if the show does well.  I play a young Wudang with Crane as my mentor.

The show is starring David Carradine and Darryl Hannah from America.

Most of the actors based from Canada, China and Singapore.  I was one of three from Canada.  Christian Lee from Beijing and Anya Wu from Shanghai/Bejing.  And a great group from Singapore, Jimmy T, Rosalind Pho, Kay Tong Lim and Yu-Beng Lim.  The crew was mostly from China, a bunch from Hong Kong as well.  RHI production, with Canadian Director Phillip Spink and a great producer on set, Shan Tam along with Matthew and Micheal O'Connor on post.

That was a long intro... I have a tendency to do that but I'm not deleting a thing.  More credits in the beginning is a good thing for the people working.   One more guy I need to mention, Xiao Tang.  He's the wardrobe guy, and my best friend out of the crew.  His English was great and it was only from High School.  Only the handful of translators were better but not by much.  My favorite thing about him was that he got all the jokes we told and he shot a few out there himself (in English).  And they made sense and were funny!  6 months in Beijing, 2 months in HengDian, first time I met someone who's never leave the country do that.  Very impressive.

I don't have much experience to reflect from but as far as first impressions go, I was happy with the way things went.  Most everyone was very cheerful and helpful.  A surprisingly few amount of bad days for such a long shoot with the circumstances,  3 working languages, last minute changes and time constraints.  The first week was great.  I got to meet and train with the Adventure Girls, Li-Tong, Betty and Mandy.  It was so great in fact, that the only two days of shoot our producer Matthew stayed for were the siren scenes.  And who can blame him?  All 3 girls were so cool, all great dancers and singers (I was very impressed at KTV) and they looked very good in their wardrobe. 

Jimmy was pretty sexy too.. but it's just not the same.

I did a lot of training which was good because the snacks were so cheap that I needed something to keep me from getting too much out of shape and preventing me from doing all the action sequences.  On the off days we were really able to bond with the other actors.  David is quite the character, cool guy, to sum him up in a sentence, he loves to drink and smoke.  When I say love, I really mean it.  The impressive thing is that not only does he drink like a camel and smokes like a chimney but he knows so much about the alcohol he's consuming and the cigarettes he's smoking.  The way he talks about the different types of alcohol he could have easily been teaching a course on it.  Of course I don't drink or smoke so everything he said was new to me.  I'll have to ask the others who sat through his stories if they were as impressed.  Darryl I didn't get to hang around with as much, but I was expecting a really high maintenance person and she turned out to be very sweet.  Loves horses and not eating meat.

I hung out with the Singapore fellows the most.  So many of them, all with so different of backgrounds.  They all love to drink wine, I always had a coke with me to not feel left out.  Along with Christian and Anya, we went out a lot together, a lot of good meals.  The editors too, those guys were so cool.  Not just because they're from Canada either.

But I'm going to miss Jimmy and Roz the most.  Jimmy was 2nd to come after me, and every morning he'd call me, very early I might add, to go eat at Bonnie Coffee.  He's the pickiest person I ever met, and not until some of the other actors arrive did we try another restaurant.  His room was beside mine so we hung out a lot.  Roz came shortly after, we all hung around in Jimmy's room and watched movies and the entire Entourage collection Jimmy had.  Production/Crew/Office people said we were quite the trio.  So shooting just finished a few days ago and it was an experience I won't soon forget.  As far as actors were concerned I was the first to arrive and last to leave.  So I've seen everyone come and go and near the end it really started to feel like home.  Now that I'm back it feels so weird, partly because I haven't really been home at all this year, spent 6 months in Beijing practicing wushu, then a week in Montreal for competition and now another 2 months and a bit in Hengdian.  So I'm feeling really lost and distant from everything I'm doing here right now.  All my efforts are going to cleansing my face and body from all the dirt (broke out like crazy the last weeks) and getting into shape. 

Right now I'm just sitting on the floor here writing this whole bit, don't think I would do it on a normal day.  But got the invite from my buddy Jimmy, feels good to be connected.

This blog thing is a really good idea.  Who came up with it?  Really saves the trouble of retelling a story over and over again.  I'll write more if enough people read it.  Or if anything else is happening I suppose.  Need to go find a job again.