Short Film: Youcake with their 3rd film “Interpretations”

I can’t get enough of these guys and working with them on their next installment called “Interpretations”, written and directed by my Melbourne-based film buddy Somchay Phakonkham. Its always great times developing my acting skills with these guys, as they are fun loving and know a think or two about keeping it real.

This time round I get to act alongside a newcomber, Sang Nguyen who delighted us with his enthusiasm and patience as myself and Somchay mould his skills accordingly to the script.

I love Melbourne but hate its dreary cold weather, but persevered nevertheless.

This time round, we got the chance to experiment with a series of different sets, from outdoors to indoors and wrapped our last scene at 11pm at a Thai restaurant all the way in Dandenong.

Shout out to Mr Somchay Phakonkham for all his hard work in pulling a dedicated team together for a full day Sunday shoot. I’m impressed the amount of focus he still maintained, even after a bad Friday night Usher concert.

Interpretations – coming soon to You Tube in May, 2011.

TREASURE: Quest for Jackie Chan Fan Sketch!

While working on 3 computers in succession (one on each state of mind), the "recreational" computer was trawling online and landed across this ever so cute Quest for Jackie Chan! dedication.

Sophia A. was one of the audience members of the "Maximum Choppage: Round 2" screening I did in Newcastle earlier this year. I recall driving for like 2 and a half hours north out of Sydney to launch and speak at this event, and always in great spirits that other youngies get inspired to take on the arts field, whether, filmmaking or acting.

At the end of the session, I gave away my last two Jackie Chan shirts I had in stock as well as some stick art. A few responded with their own art works that were sketched on the fly and I guess Ms little Sophia missed out - only to be discovered online.

All the best Sophia! and thank you for your kindness and founded digital piece of inspiration, that adds to the growth of the "Quest".

Intended title: For Maria Tran's Quest for Jackie Chan!

last night i went to the loft in town, and had another Inzine meeting about the current upcoming Inzine, and talked about the things i still have to submit for it. Which are a review on the best ninja game in the world (my opinion) "Red Ninja" and a drawing for a pirate and ninja spot the difference.


After the meeting, me and the other members went ahead watched a movie made by Maria Tran, who is currently doing a project to find and meet Jackie Chan. This picture included in this post is dedicated to her quest. It is a chibi of the legendary kung fu comedy actor himself, Jackie Chan!!


GOOD LUCK MARIA TRAN!! I hope you succeed in meeting jackie Chan.

by ~MangaArtist123

Fan Art / Digital Art / Drawings / Movies & TV

©2011 ~MangaArtist123

Inte

EVENT: 2011 Shortcuts Film Festival

I had a great time co-hosting the 2011 Shortcuts Film Festival – Western Sydney’s only youth short film festival at the Powerhouse Youth Theatre. There was a turn out of approximately 150 people all coming to support their budding filmmakers and their short film.

I would like to congratulate Vinh Nguyen [pictured right] (whom was involved in Vietnamese Stories Digital Storytelling Project & Vietnamese Theatre Project – projects that I’ve coordinated in the past) on his award for Best Film – The Tech Effect. Vinh has entered into Shortcuts for the past 5 years and have been vying for the major category ever since. He’s definitely grown as a filmmaker over the years, testing different styles, genres and formats of storytelling.

Also a major big congratulations to the makers of short film “Canvale High – School of Cliques”. Directed by John Nguyen and Peter Thai Tran, with the collaboration of their year 10 school mates, their first time ever film took out runners up for People’s Choice Awards on the night. I facilitated their filmmaking sessions at Canley Vale High and am impressed with their developments throughout the short time span I was with them.

It was also awesome to see Mr Robert Shehadie (“Fat Pizza” and “Housos”) made a supporting appearance and share a few bellyful of laughs as well.

This year, we had Aga Kolaczkowski (Emerging & Filmmakers Fund for Screen NSW) and TV actor Steve LeMarquand as our judges. Unfortunately, two of our other judges pulled out the last minute and our dependable and all time mentor Craig Anderson (“Double The Fist”) was happy to fill in.

Big ups to Kimberley Tan for a great festival coordination of the event and hopefully it will develop even further in 2012.

SHORTCUTS ’11 Winners

Best Film

The Tech Effect – Vinh Nguyen

Audience Choice Award

The Tech Effect – Vinh Nguyen

Best Script

Metal Kingdom – Skylie Moss, Corey Bolton & Hayley Franke

Best Actor

Kyle Mcleavy in No Empathy

Best Cinematography

Hello Panda – Ali Kadhim

Best Sound Design

A Rock’s Life – Robert NC Thomas

Best Editing

The Tech Effect – Vinh Nguyen

Charming & clever Rob Shehadie

SERIOUS: All Asian do not look the same!

After a recent forward by a facebook triple "A" (Asian-Australian Activist), Timothy Ly and I have been recently linked to the most unrelated article to date. I don't know where friggin' mainstream media stuff up at, but the person who thought.."Hmm....Asian and Kung Fu, where do we get the most chopsocky pic that may look like it relates to this exotic incident".

So they chose our pic, which, has got nothing to do with the "oh..my god...Asians do kung fu...on airlines!". The photo that I took with Daily Telegraph was in conjunction to Maximum Choppage: Round 2 and Bruce Lee's outdoor film screening (Click here).

Seriously the story itself (which is about HK Airline training their staff in Kung Fu) is less than fascinating. Asians do kung fu everywhere, at home, the workplace, the toilet...whats the big deal that now its airborne. Its the same thing as Aussies eating weatbix everywhere, at home, the workplace, and if they are lazy, maybe the toilet. Yeah, I know what you may be thinking, Maria, your god damn racist. No, not at all, I'm just making my point that Asian stereotypes are simply so boring nowadays.

Now back to the picture, its not that I'm trying to make a big deal about it, I'm more than happy for you to use the pic News.com.au. It would be nice to at least let me know about it and to think that you'll get away with it....No way...Asians are everywhere in this country, we are disguised as "nerds" but our excel in maths, sciences and in a lot of case English (we read newspapers three times over to make the most of it) so it would of eventually come back to me.

But don't they get it? Mainstream ignorant actions can have dire consequences, even if it only affects two Asian people amongst others in Australia. An affect that could mean that the next time I fly out of the country, other passengers will recognise me as the face to "Kung Fu Militant Airline Association" and place their own life in my supposingly Kung Fu skills that really, I don't have. Imagine a whole plane or so, thinking I can save them, placing their bets on my competency in Airline Kung Fu training.

Unfortunately, I will fail them, and probably drive the friggin' plane into something iconically Australian at the same time.

Think, Hundreds dead, hundreds more injured and I blasted most of the Australian Protectionist Party's Headquarters. Its not my fault, its all news.com.au small error.

MARIA TRAN: Showreel 2011

Finally, I’ve collated some material to cut together my showreel. It’s a 5 min long clip (usually the standard is 2 mins) but I thought to myself that if I get the attention of somebody, might as well show then a little bit more. I’m not sure if this works for everybody, but hey, its my first reel. It took me a full day to get this one all together. I experienced the MAC vs PC issue, particularly with my 9 hard drives that I had to get working in the right format. Then I dumped all the footage in one drive and start cut up the bits together.

I had some feedback on the reel, some think it wasn’t dramatic enough (I apparently needed a sex scene, some wrist slashing moments and breakdowns to prove myself worthy). Oh dear.... Whatever...

ONLINE: My Place ABC Children’s TV Series

All episodes has now been DVD pre-packaged and selling at ABC Shops across Australia. You can check out my impressions as late 30s Vietnamese mum “Thi Mai” in this episode “Lily – 1988”.

An interactive website is also up and running as well as this series has been made into some sort of educational pack for schools across Australia. Good job Matchbox Pictures!

For more about my experiences you can check my previous blogs.

Blog 1

Blog 2

WATCH: Laurent Boiteux on Hungry Jack’s TVC

Congratulations to budding actor/ filmmaker Laurent Boiteux and his first commercial gig on the Australia nation-wide airing of Hungry Jack’s commercial. Laurent is Brisbane born and has since risked it all, and migrated to Sydney for the past year. His transition into being a working actor has been an easy one, but after further developing his skills, collaborating on many projects, gathering enough material for his showreel, he has finally hit a nice and juicy gig – his first TVC.

On the topic of acting, here are some tips:

1. Skill yourself up: Acting is a craft and you need to sharpen your skills in preparation of any potential role. A pretty face can only get you so far and great acting will be the determining factor in leaving a good and professional impression.

2. Know where the jobs are at: If you want to work in film and TV, it is good to know where to find work. NY and LA are the place where most casting directors are based. But if you can’t relocate, that’s still fine, just be prepared to go back and forth if something potential pops up.

3. Sacrifice: Understand that there are just some things that have to be missed out for the sake of the craft. That could mean letting go of a relationship, missing out on certain friendships. Its safe to say that acting isn’t a structured 9-5 kind of thing, you may be required to work up to 14 hours per day and be away from home for months.

4. Let go of your ego: Good actors are able to let themselves go 100% to the characters they are portraying in order to get a quality performance.

5. Be nice: Live of a philosophy of being kind and positive towards other people, no who they are and what they do. What goes around comes around.