My blog
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Cruiser Ninja Andrew
Tuesday, Nov 13, 2007 6:05AM / Standard Entry / andrew's film
[taken from kb's blog]
I can't believe it was only a year ago that we did the ninja! Since
every party involved has blogged about it, I feel compelled to put my
two yen in...
It was an innocent beginning when Terence called me and asked if he could crash at my place with a couple of his friends while they worked in tokyo. Luckily, I was not busy at the time and found myself following them around in what turned out to be a most interesting shoot. More importantly, I found new friends whom I have enjoyed the company of and found this site too!
You've seen the video, so I tried to find some behind the scene pics. Enjoy!
The Govenator! It was a really packed trip and we all got our sleep when we could!
Ramen late night!
More sleepy time!
Party time too!
random little pic
the boys late night!
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Guerilla shoot + ninja costume + Toyko = SUPER FUN
Friday, Nov 9, 2007 5:49PM / Standard Entry / andrew's film
[taken from kim chan's blog]
ok....... here we go....Guerilla shoot + ninja costume + Toyko = SUPER
FUN
i hve to say it was so much fun to shoot this project in tokyo, specially working with Andrew, Terence and Phat, also couple of new friends that i met in tokyo- "KB san" and "Peter Chan san" !!! They're awesome
Seeing Andrew in the ninja outfit and doing all those crazy things in Toyko street is hilarious, I had a hard time to stop laughing while we r shooting it, he is so good for those ninja move.
Shooting in that ninja park is also super cool, it is a Japan heritage theme park, locate in Nippon, 2 hrs train ride from Tokyo. The setup of this park is perfect for filming, ppls who work there dress in traditional and the raining day helps a lot for the training scene.
Beside all the fun, we actually work pretty hard on this film, hope you’ll enjoy it.
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Me=Ninja (Cruiser short film)
( 繁 | 简 )Friday, Nov 9, 2007 5:46PM / Standard Entry / andrew's film
[Taken from andrew lin's blog]
Wow!!!!!!!!!!!!! We are finally launching our short films for cruiser!!!I'd shot my part of the short film in Tokyo almost a year ago. We shot the whole film within a week of time. It was a tough shoot but very memorable. I had so much fun working with the THK crew again, it is almost like a half play half work kind of thing.
Terence already did a detail explanation about the theme for this film, So I don't need to go in depth about it. But I'd still remember when terence asked me for some opinions on what I wanted to be in my short film. I told him I either want to be a Cowboy or a Ninja. The reason I picked those two was, First of all, I really love watching westerns when I was a kid, and I know if I don't use this opportunity to be a cowboy, No one will ever cast me for a cowboy role. Especially I am asian man. And the reason I'd picked Ninja was, I'd used to train in martial arts and a big fan of Iaido (the way of the sword), so I figure only a samurai or a ninja would carry that trait. After the big discussion between terence and Marcus(director), they pick me as the "NINJA". So being a Ninja was not really my lifelong dream. It's just a character that I think I can portrait well without help from others so we can keep the production cost down to the minimal.
But let me tell ya. It was "Harrrrrrrrrrrrd". The first day of shooting, I have to approach random people on the street and ask them where to find a ninja master. People were looking at me and thinking this guy must be "Insane". But those were the kinds of reactions we wanted to get from them. Since Japanese people are generally very polite. it was really difficult to get a big reaction from them. 8 out of 10 people I'd approached would really spend the time to think and explain to me where I might be able to find a ninja master. Since we can't get the reactions we wanted. I have to work double hard to approach more people and get more reactions from different people.
Next difficult thing was, wearing a ninja outfit and running around the city like a fool. Thank god I had a mask on. So people wouldn't know it is me. But guess what, while we were shooting in Shibuya, in between takes, I took my mask off for a breath of air. Suddenly came a girl asking me for an autograph, she was a tourist from Hong Kong. And she had seen me running up and down the street like an idiot for the past hour.
It was a fun and challenging shoot, but I was so exhausted. As you can see in some shots, my eye bags were down to the middle of my cheek. Don't matter though, as long as the short film is good and funny. I really hope you guys will enjoy this short film. If Phat chan, and Kim chan will blog about the experience too, it will be terrific!! The crew and I worked our ass off. Now, go on and watch it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Andrew 's Quest To Be A Bad-Ass Ninja!
( 繁 | 简 )Tuesday, Nov 6, 2007 11:21AM / Standard Entry
This is the 1st film we produced and in many ways the most ambitious. We shot pretty much the entire film on location in Japan as the concept for Andrew's color is that he wants to fulfill his lifelong dream of becoming a ninja!
This film is truly a group effort as I worked out the concept of this film with my friends Marcus Savage and Kim Chan. We wanted to make a funny film where the stunts and the street gags are secondary to the comedy of Andrew interacting with real Japanese people in his search for a ninja master to teach him the secret arts of ninjitsu.
I did much research about ninjitsu while planning for this shoot and pretty much created the story with Marcus and Kim based on locations we found on the Internet that are relevant to a ninja story. We shot at the Ninja restaurant in Akasaka. The bad-ass urban ninja in the film is actually a waiter from the restaurant. We found a couple of ninja theme parks in Japan and shot the Ninja village scenes at one of the parks. We also found a ninjitsu school in Tokyo and shot some footage there, but only a small bit of that footage made it into the final film.
This shoot was a guerilla shoot to the core! We had a very small budget for each film and the cost of flying a crew of people over to Japan for this shoot takes up much all of the budget! Thankfully we have friends in Japan that were so generous with their time and support!
KB!!!! KB!!!!! We really wouldn't have been able to make this film without you! Thanks for letting all of us crash in your living room and for helping out so much during the shoot!
KB also helped us with the Japanese intro at the beginning of the film and also plays the ninja master Andrew trains with in the film.
Peter Chen: Thank you very much for your help with logistics and translation while we were in Japan!
The music in this film is done by Don Cruz of Audiotraffic and the sound production by Rob Porter. Thanks for your help and the awesome tunes!
I have to say, Andrew was a really good sport while we were making this film. He had to have wondered whether we were fxxking with him we asked him to do some of the gags! We really had him working hard, running in a ninja costume though Shibuya and Harajuku, and it takes a lot of nerve to go up to strangers dressd in a ninja costume asking questions.
We had a crazy time making this film! We had so much fun, but it was very hard work, and though many things went wrong as they do in guerilla shoots, things turned out alright in the end.
So I hope you all enjoy this film and that you will "Find Your True Color" no matter how crazy the idea may seem!
Terence
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What's Your Color? Find Your True Color!!!
( 繁 | 简 )Tuesday, Oct 30, 2007 10:00AM / Standard Entry
Welcome everybody to the Cruiser page on alivenotdead! Some of you may know that the Alive boys were hired by Cruiser to endorse their product through a series of print ads and events in Taiwan and China. As part of the deal, they also commissioned us to shoot 4 short films for them based on their brand slogan, "What's Your Color."
After making "The Heavenly Kings," I have become more and more interested with working behind-the scenes to produce films. I would like to thank Cruiser for giving me the opportunity to produce these films, to work with my friends, and to try out our crazy ideas! It has been a year old journey for me and there have been many ups and downs during this process. I am happy that we can finally share these films with all of your on alivenotdead and I hope you will enjoy the films as much as I enjoyed producing them!
The theme for all 4 short films is "Find Your True Color!" and the each film features one of the Alive boys and their interpretation of this theme. I think it's pretty cool that we were able to make 4 very different but related short films. Each film has a unique feel of its own loosely based on our personalities.
I will be blogging about the process of making each film as the films are released on this page. Jason Tobin, the director of Daniel's short film, will be blogging about their film together when it is released as I was not closely involved with the production of that film.
Enjoy the films! Drink some Cruiser when you get thirsty and I will be back soon to talk about the 1st film!
