First day working at TVB...

Today was the official first day of pre-production for my new film "Jiang Hu Yi" ( 江湖義), since the film is financed by Shaw Brothers Studios, we had our production office set up at the TVB building... The trip into Tsuen Kwun O took an hour and a bit since I live in the New Territories... the compound itself felt everybit like the campus of any university, there is a huge car park, different buildings for different departments and then there is the canteen...Entering the huge packed canteen at 6:30 for dinner was an experience on its own... soon as you enter you can see the different clicks and crews seated at different parts of the canteen floor... like jocks and nerds, emos and goths, there I saw all the big named TV actors in there own little corner, posh looking lifestyle show hosts to the left, then you have the atmosphere actors dressed in their Ching Dynasty soldier costumes...The one thing I noticed is that eventhough you have all these big stars walking around the same canteen, no one seems to care, the stars themselves lines up to pay for their food and line up again to pick up their food and you soon realize, they are normal everyday people too... they walk past countless tables, nodding to their friends or friendly faces, just going about their day... We had spent the whole day looking at head shots of countless actors in the office and we then saw most of them at the canteen, and the first thought that comes to your mind is always, "I thought they looked taller in the photo..."After sitting down at an empty table right in the middle of the canteen, we quickly realize our fresh faces stood out like sore thumbs, everyone seems to be looking at us, murmuring something, this is when the actor Kenny Wong Tak Bun spotted me... Kenny acted in my last film "Smile For Me". It was weird seeing him in a casual setting, he welcomed me to the "big family". My day ended with a stroll around the complex and right in front of us were countless girls whom were all applicants for the Miss Hong Kong Pagent, all dressed up and were being led into one of the studios...Tomorrow we will have to finalize the cast for all the supporting roles and side casts... instead of looking at the head shots of all the actors, I might just hang out at the canteen all day, see how these actors eat, chat with their friends or reading magazines... you can tell a lot about a person by the way they are with their friends and even more so by looking at the way they eat... its definitely gonna help with the whole casting process...