It's been about a year now...

Wow, how time has just flown by...just like that and Jeanne Hartman is back!

I remember last year, her workshop opened so many doors for me both figuratively and creatively speaking.  Her encouragement after her workshop was what gave me more confidence in my "pursuit of happyness".  First off, the workshop itself, although blogged about before, is such an incredible experience and a great tool that artists within the film/TV industry should take advantage of.

Jeanne's a great lady who knows how to personalize her approach to make you understand.  Her classes are forever-challenging but educational and definitely worth your time.  She is on her way back to do another round of these workshops and I do hope that there's enough space for everyone, 'cause they fill up quickly!

My plan was to join the pro class this year since I joined the "Newbies" class last time and encouraged to upgrade next time she comes back.  But because she was so damn good, and her support so strong, I've been busying myself with my film, Love Hurts.  I'm not sure if I'm able to but will definitely try to make it and embarrass myself in front of the real "Pros"...

Either way, if I make it or not, whoever is reading this, should definitely look into signing up because it will help you get to where you want to get to in more ways than you could ever think of.  She's the real deal.  Check her out and she'll do the rest of the impressing in her classes.

DON'T MISS OUT!! IF YOU CAN MAKE IT, DO IT! 

Wish you all the best Jeanne and I do hope to see you before you leave if I am unfortunate enough to miss your workshops!! 



TLo is outtie.

Well, well, well...that subject line worked pretty well didn't it? 

I've finally got the video online for your viewing pleasure...and I do mean viewing pleasure because the sound is not worth talking about...just turn it up just in case you miss a line or two...

A reminder, just in case you were unaware, this was the 48 hour film project.

Elements given:

- Character: Edwin or Eva Lai, hairdresser
- Prop: Lychee martini
- Line of dialogue: "What's tomorrow's weather going to be?"
- Genre: Buddy Film/Dark Humor

This is Cocktail Definition:



Hope that was bearable...


Keep well.

TLo

So....

Just got the news...

Spontaneous Combustion just won a few awards with our film, "Cocktail Definition"!!

Unfortunately we didn't get any one of the top prizes but did for the following:

**Best Directing**
**Best Acting**
**Best Screenplay**

Not bad for a team with a bunch of first time filmmakers and actors!  This is a great way for us to close the book on a great adventure...a 48 hour one...well, 60-something if include the before and after stuff...

Anyways, congrats to my lovely team!!  And congratulations to the winners of this inaugural year for 48 HFP!  It was a pleasure meeting and competing!!

Keep well.

TLo

As some of you already know, I have been working on my project Love Hurts for a while now and I am happy to announce that we will be beginning our casting process in the coming weeks!!!

Below is the posting for the roles I am looking to fill.  Please have a read through and respond through the following email along with your headshot and resume:

lovehurtscasting@gmail.com

I want to find diamonds in the rough so if you think you have talent but haven't had the opportunity, this is your chance to prove yourself...I welcome all interested parties to come and blow me away with your performance!  I am open to re-writing roles if you show me that you're worth it!

Look forward to seeing you in the audition room!








Jack, a sex addict who fantasizes about his wife all the time, is duped into a threesome with a young colleague of his and her fiancée.  In order to keep his marriage together, Jack sacrifices everything he has to make it up to his love.  He is out to prove to her that their love is powerful enough to keep them together, especially when it hurts.





JACK             (lead) Male, mid-late 30’s, English speaker, Any Race

Not a particularly good or strong looking guy; mild introvert, quirky and energetic. His world revolves only around him and his wife Annie. In his mind, sex is a big part of his relationship with her. Annie finds out about his infidelity and leaves him. But it is his fight and desire to keep his marriage together that defines his value as a husband, and it is his sacrifice that portrays how selfless he is in the face of love. In terms of character, Caveh Zahedi in “I’m a Sex Addict” is comparable, especially with the quirkiness.


ANNIE            (lead) Female, Bi-Racial, Early to mid 30's, Bi-lingual in English and Cantonese

A strong woman, high on values, morals, and routine; anything out of the ordinary of her routine makes her uncomfortable. Possesses a lot of motherly qualities in terms of her relationship with Jack.


ALEXIS            (lead) Female, Asian, 20’s, Bi-lingual in English and Cantonese

Young, attractive, naïve and selfish in nature; adventurous in many ways but more so sexually. Alexis has been spoiled all her life, she can be ignorant of other’s feelings when she wants something. Her personality pales in comparison to her physical attributes.


MARK            (lead) Male, Asian, 20’s, Cantonese Speaker

Young, handsome; a genuine being that is often seen as the quiet guy. Mark is also a passive individual; he makes most of his decisions based on his emotion. But because of his obedient nature, his decisions are often pushed by someone else, hence constantly being pushed around by his girlfriend Alexis.


NATHAN        (supporting) Male, Caucasian, mid-late 30’s, English Speaker

Witty and humorous.  He was roommate of Jack’s in university in the UK, and now is boss in Hong Kong. A very easy going, responsible, and caring person, which he chooses to hide with his sarcasm.


CATHY    (supporting) Female, Asian or Eurasian, 20’s, Bi-lingual in Cantonese and English

A classic good girl, young, and sometimes passive. Cathy is Annie’s cousin on her mother’s side, and a close friend and coworker of Alexis. Her choices and decisions, although logical, are not always considered the right one to make. Through the mistakes she makes, Cathy learn to take her share of responsibility, but not until everything has gone out of control.


GEORGE        (Minor) Male, Caucasian, 50’s-60’s, Bi-lingual in Cantonese and English

A grumpy old man who dislikes his son-in-law.  Has a strained relationship with his daughter, Annie.  He is an educated man who has been working in China his entire professional career and married a Chinese woman, Stella.  Has been living in Shanghai for past several years.


STELLA        (Minor) Female, Asian, 50’s-60’s, Cantonese Speaker

A stereotypical mother who cares more about her child than anything else, including her husband.  She has been a perfect role model for Annie throughout her life and is always supportive no matter the situation.  She keeps the family together.


JACKIE        (Minor) Female, Caucasian, 50’s-60’s, English Speaker

Jack’s mom.  She never stayed in touch with Jack since his first year in university.  She pays a visit when she finds out Jack is in the hospital.


THERAPIST     (Minor) Male, Any race, 40’s-50’s, English Speaker

A marriage and sex therapist who counsels Jack.


DOCTORS (3)    (Minor) Male, Asian, 40’s, Cantonese Speaker

            Doctor #1 – Performs surgery
            Doctor #2 – Physician that Annie visits
            Doctor #3 – Dr. Lau, a doctor at a hospital


WOMAN        (minor) Female, Any race, 20’s, English Speaker

A sexy woman who has a one-night stand with Jack.


EXTRAS        Any race, 20’s-30’s

            Nurse (3) – 2x Performs surgery; 1x Working at clinic
            Jill (30’s-40’s)- Nathan’s wife
            Colleagues (3) – walking into work; one has a line of dialogue
            Waiter
            Club-goers (10-15) – Dancing on the dance floor

Hey people...it's been a long f-ing time since my last blog...and I apologize for that...although it's been for good reasons but I should not neglect my blog for as long as I did...so here goes with the days that have gone by without a word from me...

I have done absolutely nothing. 

I hope you enjoyed that...

Thanks,

Come again.






Okay, seriously, here we go...

For the past month or so, after my big birthday party that my GF threw for me, things have been moving in the right direction.  I've been able to stay busy doing a plethora of things.

Quick hits:

- incorporated i-Kandy productions with a couple of partners
- developed business plan for film
- treatment and script polished and ready for use
- directed two commercials, both for Wellcome and both shown on Roadshow and cable
- played beach volleyball for the first time and was on the WINNING team (yeah, I kick ass!)
- brought two trusted key crew members onto Love Hurts team
- prepping for film; locations, contracts, casting, equipment deals, film stock deals, etc.
- sending out Buck Wild out to film festivals
- playing basketball every week to stay in shape although I still feel round around the edges!
- writing an intro for my work (wowwowtank) to be used in the demo reels that are sent out
- gathering information and designing the website
- watched the Toronto Raptors season opening win over the Cavs, live! (online, of course...)


That's the gist of it...in between I still found time to talk with Momma Lo, who has been going through some tough times back in Toronto, spent time with my lady, forged some friendships along the way, and eat whenever time permitted!

And now, this past weekend, I participated in the 48 hours film project.  And what an experience!

My team consisted of the following lovely people:

- Yung Yung Yu
- Simon Young
- May Lee
- Andrew Lang
- Stephanie Fodor
- Sean Tierney
- Lara Dangerfield
- and ME!

One thing to note here, we had a lot of first time filmmakers on the team:

Yung Yung, first time working behind the scene;

May Lee, first time doing anything in filmmaking;

Andrew Lang, first time acting in a film;

Stephanie Fodor, first time working behind the scene as well;

Sean Tierney, first time acting in a film as well;

and Lara Dangerfield, first time working with any of us (and I'm not sure what her background is but very grateful for her thoughts and opinions throughout the weekend!)

This team really needed the 48 hr-winning experience of Simon and he delivered on his end to the best of his ability.


So we all got together after receiving our package and hashed out a story according to our elements. 

What the 48HFP peeps gave us to work with:

- Genre: Buddy Film
- Prop: Lychee Martini
- Character: Edwin or Eva Lai, Hairdresser
- Line of dialogue: "what's tomorrow's weather going to be?"

Once we got the story down, May got us two locations to work with at last minute since the ones that we did secure prior to the kickoff (one of which was the alivenotdead Halloween party!  Thanks to Patrick, Raffi, and Kate Sullivan for all their support and cooperation!), didn't quite work out since the story didn't call for it.   So anyway, off the team went to my warehouse and started to look for wardrobe and props while I stayed in the office to write the script.  Once that was done, it was about 3am, I think....well, got back with the team and did a quick script read.

After that, we packed our stuff and off we went to our first location.

We finished shooting by 12pm and then off to lunch.  After feeding our aching bellies, we set off to Central to do some landmark shots with the ladies.  When we got the first one, we sent most of the team back to the warehouse (home base) to get some rest.  Simon and I continued on to shoot the next one and then back to home we went...

Once we got back, I saw several bodies laying in every which way possible.  Simon and I started to do the transferring of files from camera to editing system.  Then, time came to shoot the next location in CWB.  I woke everyone up, which was everyone except for me and Simon, and off we went to location #2. 

Things went fairly smooth and that was a wrap!! So we thought...

The band split, the keys went back home and we continued to do the transfer.  5 hours of transferring HD files and converting to SD, we were finding different ways to stay up and stay in tune and have some sense of sanity.  When it was complete, we checked the footage.  And therein laid the problem...

Our location #2 files all had a sound problem, none of the dialogue was audible and we didn't have a sound guy...by this time, it was 10am on delivery day...

The remaining parts that were up, Simon, Yung Yung, Andrew, and myself, started to brainstorm solutions.  We went from dubbing the dialogue, to building a set, to re-writing the scene, to finding another location for a re-shoot, thanks to YY! 

So off we went to re-shoot the scene in Central.  Got it done in 40 minutes, in and out!  Great job by the actors to show up and help us through this tough time because they all thought we were done and they didn't have much rest either so I truly am grateful for their resiliency. 

Back to the editing desk where I started picking out the good takes and lined up the assembly cut.  During this long process my eyes were giving up on me but I pulled myself up long enough to complete and handed it over to Simon to cut the assembly down to the first cut.  He was such a huge help!  I downed my eleventeenth coffee and we were ready to move...

After Simon put the first cut together, it was my turn to do the final cut.  I put the music I selected from rumblefish and also Sean's own music into the film, cut the film down to the required limit of 7 minutes because our first cut was over 3 minutes over the limit. 

I rushed through the credit sequence, Simon played with the audio to make sure that the levels were good and to fix up the ones with really loud background noise. 

By this time, everyone was working on the final paperwork and questionnaires in the other room while SImon and I used whatever fumes we had left in our systems to complete the film to its final form. 

We called for a taxi to wait downstairs as we pushed the eject button from the camera and delivered the mini DV to Central from Chai Wan just in time to beat the deadline...by about two minutes or so...

The final product?  Title: Cocktail Definition  The screening is on Friday and most of us will be attending.  I'm happy with what we ended up with and proud of my team's efforts in making this film so whatever happens on Friday would be icing on the cake. 

In reality, we were actually able to shoot the entire film in 24 hours but because of some equipment problems wihtout a go-to guy to help us, we had to do a re-shoot.  I knew at some point we would be facing adversity but didn't know to what degree...well, we found out and not only did we not panic, we thrived and succeeded under the pressure.  This was a total team effort and thank you to all who were involved as it couldn't have been completed without your input!

I will put up some pictures when I receive them from one of our team members and will link the film if it gets any airtime on 48.tv!

Thank you to all my teammates, phenomenal job, and look forward to working with all of you again!!

I hope that their first time was as good as they had hoped for and I truly wish them all the best! 

Thanks again to the following:

JP Concept Salon, The One bar, Wowwowtank, e.v.e.n.t., alivenotdead, xenter jut, Zuma Restaurant and Bar, Yellow frog media, Ivy Lam, Spencer Douglass, and the rest of the 48HFP family!


Anyway, back to reality and back to my project...my next blog post will be for casting for Love Hurts.  Stay posted!


Keep well.


TLo