My blog
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alive, not dead!
Wednesday, Jun 24, 2009 12:07PM / Standard Entry
I'm starting to see why the fellas named this site what it is. I'm alive...not dead! That's what I want to scream after realizing I haven't blogged something since early May??! Is that right? Can't be so? What the hell have I been doing??
It ain't that I don't love this site, but I think I just got blogged out this year. Not that I was blogging a bunch to begin with, but I sorta keep another blog and since I've been in China, it's been damn near impossible getting onto it, so I've just let that go basically and as a result, think my blogskills have soured here too. I guess that one's a little more personal and the AnD stop has always been what's going on with the career kinda thing. I should just fuse it all together already. Stupid me, me stupid.
Anyway - since early May, it's been a whirlwind! Shanghai Rush kicked off (it's still going on btw, we just aired episode 8 this past Sunday) I left China to go back to the States for a bit and stopped in Hawaii for a week, NYC for 3 weeks, and then came back here, which puts me about where I am at this moment - in Shanghai and ready to head to Taipei for the next few days.
The travel has been killer and I should just tell people these days I live in an airplane, but I guess I shouldn't complain. It's strictly business and for that I'm grateful.
It's kinda funny - for SR, I have to lay down voiceover tracks each week as the production team is editing each episode week by week. My narration over the episode is the last thing they put into the final cut before they send it off to ICS. This means that for the 4 weeks I've been gone from SHG, I had to find places to do narration work. Oh man, to think where some of them have been done as I watch an actual episode. No one watching thinks about these kinds of things, but since it was me, I do! I did episode 3 from an apartment in Honolulu, Hawaii. Episode 5 was from my living room in NYC. 4 and 6 were from the MTV Studios in Times Square. All this tells me is, basically, have voice, will travel. With technology these days, anything is possible!
Anyways, I came back to SHG in time for the Shanghai International Film Festival. This was the first time I've ever attended it and what a year to pick for the first time! As we all know, China is becoming the center of the universe. Business, sports, film, food & beverage, anything and everything you can think of, people are flooding into here to build it. Fortune 500 companies, the NBA (building 12 arenas around the country), Hollywood, all the western cuisine you can think of, have set up shop here. You feel it walking about town, you hear it in all the English being spoken here, you see it happening every day by day.
In the business of film and tv, it's no different. The Festival has become truly international now with people from the world over descending about SHG to do their thing at the festival. Danny Boyle, whom I had the pleasure of meeting, presided over the grand jury. Other big stars were in town all week - people from Clive Owen to Halle Berry to Andie McDowell to Quincy Jones (picking up a lifetime achievement award and working with Tan Dun on something for the World Expo 2010) to Ewan McGregor to the regular Chinese stars like Zhang Ziyi and Karen Mok. I had a nice chat with Chris Doyle too, but that dude's pretty much Chinese and always around Asia, so his presence wasn't surprising. My favorite might have been getting to know Singaporean filmmaker Royston Tan. Dude is fierce!
My production company is co-producing a film that was accepted into the co-pitch program in the festival. We're very excited as hotshot Belgian director Christophe Van Rompaey has come on board to lens the pic! His first feature: Moscow, Belgium was a smash hit and everyone's going to be curious about his follow-up. It was a full week of non-stop wheeling and dealing, networking, drinking, pitching, seminars, lectures, etc. Exhausting. I also hosted a student short films award ceremony one night that turned into an evening of "how to look cool when sweating your ass off while up on stage." It was hella hot in there!!! Met some nice peoples, including the executive director of the Hawaii International Film Festival, which is great as I just learned that another film we were behind will be going there in October -- so looks like it'll be Honolulu time for me yet again this fall! I can never get enough of that place - and plus my best friends will just have had their first baby right around then!
A few more episodes of recording for SR (our executive producer talked about us in The Hollywood Reporter! and remember, you can catch the series on Youku - though it loads crappy from the States), a visit from Mom, and then it looks like it's back Stateside for awhile...just in time for the Asian American Int'l Film Festival (a short I was in is playing in it.) Man, they really miniaturized it this year! Went from 10 days down to 3? Is this a reflection of the economy of lack of fare? Either way, I'm disturbed. And either way, this is a good article my friend sent out that addresses the lay of the land today: I Need Eggs!
Oh, if you're in NYC - and I'm bummed I'm missing this - my friend Karin Chien (an amazing indie film producer) is presenting her Chinatown Film Project which is a collection of 10 shorts set in NYC Chinatown done by 10 amazing filmmakers on July 1. (I was lucky enough to get to act in one of them directed by Miguel Arteta who did The Good Girl and more recently a film called Youth in Revolt with Michael Cera.) This project is the first film exhibition that the newly designed MoCa is presenting. Curious to see this new Maya Lin project!
Alright, that's what's been up, more stuff on the horizon, but still waiting to see how it all shakes out. Too much to think about....one day at a time...
My thoughts are continually with Laura Ling and Euna Lee who are still in North Korea. What a terrible situation....
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GO!
Monday, May 4, 2009 6:55PM / Standard Entry
And...we're off!
It became official last night here in Shanghai as Shanghai Rush finally kicked off! It was too much fun watching it with everyone. I think we've created a really fun, enjoyable show for the public and gauging from the early feedback, it seems people think so as well. Viewers can interact by texting for their favorite teams and the one-liners on the show were priceless (and repeated often). Thank you producer people - you guys rocked it and created/edited/pulled together the best people for it all.
To my delight/surprise, everything is watchable on-line, so if you're not here in Shanghai, no worries.
Follow our journey here:
Episode 1: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XODg5NDI2MDQ=.html
Show website: SHANGHAI RUSH - Vote, guess, read, blog.
Thanks everyone who made this possible. I hope everyone enjoys and that everyone feels the RUSH!
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hi folks!
Thursday, Apr 23, 2009 12:08AM / Video
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it's coming...
Tuesday, Apr 14, 2009 4:18PM / Standard Entry
Phew! Today has been my first real day where I haven't had to be anywhere doing anything since I arrived in Asia. A nice breather...though there's lots to do yet. We recently wrapped shooting and post-pro is in full swing. I've started seeing clips here and there and let me just say that post-pro people are magicians! It's coming soon...so tune in, Shanghai!
I'm hoping somehow episodes starting May 3 will make it onto Tudou so friends back home can watch!
My sisters came out last week for a visit and basically ate/shopped their way through the city. Always fun hanging with them as we rarely get to these days. Two words for them: Fabric Market. We got away to Suzhou on a day trip and saw Shanghai properly since our first trip as a family in 2000 "didn't count." You know how it is when you're with the 'rents.
The timing on everything worked out great. It was crazy. Selena arrived at the Pudong airport right when we were shooting something there. I can't tell you the odds of that happening, but it was way too randomly awesome as I got to pick her up personally and she got to ride back with us. Then when both Steph and her left, I was leaving at the exact same time for Taipei and Hong Kong this past weekend so we all went to the airport together. None of this was planned. On our cab ride, we got a driver who kept falling asleep at the wheel. Man, I had to keep coming up with questions to keep him awake. "Sir, have you a brother?" "Sir, have you a child?" "Sir, what's your favorite colour?" I guess this could happen anywhere, but for some reason, the fact that this happened in China...well, it just adds to the craziness of this place.
And so when I arrived in Taipei where the air is better, the people friendlier, the food better, the cabs newer, well, let's just say I really really fell in love with it all over again. So much so that I'm now thinking about moving there! It was a whirlwind weekend, but every step of it was a joy. I went on food crawls, discovered new spots, got great spring weather, found a sweet jogging route around the Sun-Yat Sen Memorial Hall, and hit the town at night to some spots I could get used to.
Had a quick jaunt to HK and caught up on some business and with friends - and now back in SH. Guess it's back to the grind...if you can call it that! ; )
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Pause...
Wednesday, Mar 25, 2009 5:43PM / Standard Entry
Wow - a much needed day off from production today! Well, for me anyways. Poor crew - they're still at it feverishly...I figured I'd throw in a blog on my off day as I haven't really been able to sit at a computer for more than 15 minutes in the last couple weeks ever since we started going at it! 5:45/6:00am wake ups and not returning till up to 10pm.
I can't decide what I can or can't say, but after I opened the local Shanghai Daily today and read this article, I guess some things I thought couldn't be talked about are fair game now. If it's in the press, it's on!
As the article alludes to, we are going all over the place. And folks, I mean ALL over! I wake up everyday and realize how ridiculously lucky I am to be a part of this whole thing. Hosting this thing is great, but the opportunity this has afforded me to see parts of Shanghai I would have otherwise never gone too....that's the best part of all! Yep, we went to the Shanghai Film Studio where everywhere it looked like 1930's Shanghai. Unreal. Maybe the most surreal point of this whole thing happened then when, at one point, we were shooting a segment right smack in the middle of a set that was shooting a TV series. I'm kind of still not sure how that happened, but it was nuts. All around us were these extras in 30's attire, rickshaws, and old cars moving down a busy street and we sat there in the midst of it all talking about that day's episode. You kinda had to be there to understand. I was wondering if we'd get into anyone's shot. Finally, after about 30 minutes of shooting, some official looking person came over and instructed us to move. I could only keep thinking that if this were to happen on a set in the States...well, it just never would. It really is true folks, anything can happen here in China.
Shanghai, circa 1930
Yes, as the article also says, we hit a Formula 1 race track. I didn't get to gun it in an F1 car, but just being on a track like that was, well....to think: I USED SIT MY BUM IN A CUBICLE AT AIG!!! (I found it hilarious that the building down on Wall Street I used to walk in and out of everyday took down their big ass logo from the front in an effort to "rebrand." Right. In an effort to not get eggs and things thrown at it everyday is more like it.)
There are 20 districts that comprise Shanghai and we are hitting half of them as part of this show. I dare say I've seen more to this place than the average local person now. Normally, one never leaves the comforts of the central Puxi area where all the hotels, bars, clubs, etc. are and here I was yesterday wandering the grounds of a 4,000 year old temple when a monk on an iPhone walked by me. I almost feel bad saying this, but I love my life!
They don't pay me to say this, but I really think we have a great show on our hands here. There have been your normal bumps and bruises (and man, have there been bruises) of producing a reality show, but as we've been moving along, it's really starting to feel like something. Our crew is outstanding and despite our sleepless days, we really are having fun. I know I'm having the time of my life! Our shooters who follow the contestants are all using HVX 200 cameras while there is one P2HD getting coverage and a master high-def camera that my friend in the know promises me will make it all look crisply outstanding. I get a glimpse of some footage every once in awhile and from what I'm seeing of the challenges, contestants, and venues we've hit, it's lookin' hot to trot! (Did I just use that phrase? And speaking of trot, I'm bummed I missed my Hall & Oates Dancin With the Stars experience on Tuesday night's episode. If anyone has a copy and can send it to me through the web somehow...)
Shooters' gear...
I'm learning so much about Shanghai through this experience that I gotta admit...I am falling in love with this town. The amazing food, the ancient history, the modern art galleries, the internationalness of it all. (I was waxing poetic to friends about how only here in Shanghai are you able to so easily make friends with people from all over the world and bond with them - life in the States seems so dry by comparison.) I can't peep yet how the future will go, but suddenly situating myself from this side of the world - especially now as things Stateside appear to be dead - seems within reach. I wish I could bring certain people and things from the US over here to be with me (March Madness and Starbucks' White Chocolate Mochas to start), but really, I got nothing to complain about.
They say you never know what can happen in life. Right now, literally, I am living by that phrase virtually every moment. I wonder what tomorrow will bring?
Stats
- Brian is a Chinese-American actor who was born in Columbus, Ohio, raised in the Bay Area, California, and currently lives in New York, New York...
- Occupation: Actor , Film/TV Producer
- Gender: Male
- Total visits: 53,674
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