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• It’s all about LOVE.
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  Tuesday, Mar 24, 2009 1:18AM / Standard Entry / Members only
  66 comments

  Superfriends at work!

  

   

  As some might have read, I was recently given the opportunity to direct my first non-martial-arts-action commercial short film for my good friend, Race Wong, to be released as part of a DVD/CD package with her upcoming album.

   

  Race was given the tremendous task of producing and performing both her own music video as well as a 20-30minute short film that is to be released along with her upcoming album.  While she was able to do the near-impossible of gathering together every necessary component together to perform such as task, she would need help in areas that she might not be as familiar with.  Having came up with a very romantic love story about two lost souls needing to be found by each other, Race needed someone to direct it as she would have multiple difficult tasks to handle as the film’s producer and lead actress.  Gratefully, I had enough of her trust to have been asked to handle the task of directing her story.

   

  Lucky for me, after having worked a number of years as both an actor and martial arts director I had gained some confidence in my own ability to tell a story through movement and images.  So I took that approach while telling this story, using very little dialogue, relatively slow camera movements, and letting the actors do their jobs in midst of long takes.  This gave the actors the luxury of going thru the different stages of an emotion in real time rather than doing the performance out of sequence. 

   

  This is the first time that I have really worked with Race on a commercial project, but our super friendship made working together a great joy.  Now I know why she’s so popular with directors, she is a super actress.  She thinks through her actions and then uses the moment to makes it happen into reality, and the exact same can be said about my buddy, Vanness Wu.  Vanness and I have worked together since our first film (with him as an actor, and me as a fight choreographer), and directing him has made me realize how much he has grown as an artiste. It was a joy to witness him juicing his past experiences and distilling them into every scene.  Not only was I fortunate to have such wonderful actors (and friends) to work with, but I had the opportunity to work with a great DP (Jam Yau) who took the shots that I wanted to a new level with his great framing and fantastically controlled camera movements.  The list of wonderful people involved with this project goes on.

   

  This project is also a testament to the power of honesty in friendship and business that has developed alivenotdead.com into a place of trust that can bear a fruit such as this.  If not for alivenotdead.com, I would not have met Race or Rosanne, and would not have had the opportunity to introduce them to my buddy Van, and then the likelihood of this project coming to fruition would have been much slimmer.  Also, it was through Patrick that Race had connected with the representatives of the W Hotel, whom generously let us run amok for several days through their entire facility with great cooperation from their wonderful staff.

   

  It was a tough and difficult two-day shoot, with everyone’s incentive for making this film mainly being our love for each other and our love for making film.  After we wrapped the shoot on the second day, Vanness, Race, and I bowed our heads while Vanness led a prayer that thanked God for His love, and His blessing us with the opportunity for being there for each other through a rather meaningful experience that was worth every ounce of each person’s effort.

   

  Please support our collective effort by picking up Race's new album when its released to take a look at our happy little project.

   

  Some press photos from the press-con at the W Hotel

  

   

  

   

  

   

  

  "Superfriends powers, ACTIVATE!"