Blog entries

• Previous |
• Next |
• All

• Spiderman Unmasked

  Friday, Jul 18, 2008 12:32AM / News / Members only
  2 comments

  Hey Guys,

  It's been a while since I have done a real blog.  I guess I'm not huge blogger.  Since some semi-cool things are happening in my life this year, I may as well start.

  On 6/25/08 was the start of such a crappy day.  I was originally going to go to my friend's birthday party on the July 5th, but he left me a voicemail that my ex-girlfriend was going to be there and I felt that it completely ruined my day.

  Then later, I just realized that I was supposed to be attending this event at Harper College called "Spidey Unmasked."  It's basically a presentation by Chris Daniels, which is Toby Mcguire's stunt double for all three Spiderman films.  Video of him is below.
  

  I called Manny up because he is a huge Spiderman fan.  *Spidermexican* Duh...  Unfortunately, he couldn't go because he had a parkour session to go to.  So I decided to go by myself.

  Before going, I had planned on trying to talk to Chris alone after the presentation to talk about the industry.  So beforehand, I wanted to burn a copy of my reel and make sure the reel plays in my portable media player.

  I went home to pick up my computer and a blank dvd.  Once I got back to work, I went ahead and burned a copy of the DVD.  After that, I double checked my media player and realized that it wouldn't turn on.  I figured the battery was dead.. So I went ahead and plugged it in.  I later realized that it wasn't charging and I was freaking out. 

  I went to several websites to see what might be wrong and they all said to download an updated software.  I couldn't do that at work.  So I had to go back home for my actual lunch break to try that.  When I got home and it took forever to download the software. Once the software was downloaded, I tried it and it didn't work. 

  I was so pissed because if I was going to show this guy what I could do, I had to be able to show him my reel.  If I just gave him a DVD, he could either throw it away or lose it that same day.

  So I was depressed for the next couple hours at work.  Then out of the blue, I just took out the battery of the media player and put in back in.  Believe it or not, that actual fixed my media player and it turned on. WTF??!

  So I left work a happy man and went to Harper.  Once I got there, I saw my friend Larry from my Kung Fu class.  He just happened to be there because he is a teacher at Harper.  So I sat with him and chatted before the presentation started.

  The presentation was fun.  He just talked about his career, how he got started, and did a demonstration of a high fall onto some boxes.  It was kind of funny because 99% of the questions were Spiderman fan questions and I would ask him questions like how long it took him to get his first gig. =)

  Then came autograph time.  I was number 4 in line.  As he was signing my flyer, I asked him if it was possible to talk to him after autographs.  He said sure.  I waited about an hour and a half for all the autographs to go through.  In the meantime, I was talking to Larry.

  Once the line died down, I got back in and was able to talk to him.  I asked him if I could take at least a minute and a half of his time to look at my reel.  After looking at my reel, he was really impressed.  He actually said that half the reels he gets aren't as good as this.  Since he was impressed, he said he was willing to see more.  I went ahead and showed him the fight between me and the almighty Stunt People.  He was even more impressed then.  He asked me why I wasn't living in L.A.  I told him that I was afraid of politics and him of all people know it takes more than just talent to get in.

  Once I said that, the words I wanted to come out of his mouth actually came out.  He asked me if I had a copy of my reel on me.  I had the DVD in my pocket and gave it to him.  He said he would give it to someone.  Who?  I have no idea.  But I was seriously not going to give it to him unless he asked.  I'm really glad he asked.

  By all means, I don't expect this guy to get me work or anything.  For all I know my reel will burn a hole in his suitcase or he may have lost it.

  This experience overall just gave me confidence that I have the ability to at least move further.  Until this day, I still question what I am capable of...  Chris, a person I can say that is a stunt professional, at least open my eyes for me to tell myself that it isn't impossible.

  Chris,

  If you ever read this, I wanted to say thank you.

  -Shawn Bernal

  P.S.

  Larry was nice enough to take a few pictures.

  Chris giving the camera the web.
  

  Chris peeping out my reel on my media player.