Stuntman Hits the Floor

the quality isn't so great but that's kind of the point. makes it sillier I suppose but you can view it bigger and with a little better resolution by watching on youtube and click the HQ button.

A Few Picts From the last weeks shoot

Sorry but I don't have much time to take pictures but I wanted to put some up of our various actors.

This is kind of a scary picture of Numchucks, yes, that's his English name. He plays a small part but his life story is amazing and troubling all at the same time. Great kid we just met in a very strange manner. Also, he can make you a Numchucks master in two months. Don't doubt him.

This is my student, Scott. He plays The 'Rich' characters son. He helped us on this day as a Production Assistant/Translator etc etc. He also took most of the following pictures therefore we have pictures of some of the stuff we did on Tuesday. I'm helping him study for the SAT so he can go to university in the States.

The rest of these are shots of Holly and Fred and the scene we did in this hotel restaurant. We also were able to use a room for two scenes of an argument between the two and the 'final scene' of Fred's character. As you can see in this scene, we use mainly natural lighting or whatever we can finagle. Holly is 19 and I met her last summer when I was 'acting' in a commercial with her. I didn't see her at all until last month when I was in another commercial. She was just what we were looking for, for this character so I got her number and she was very professional with direction and her dialogue. I don't think she has ever had any speaking parts even though she has modeled for over a year. She just new what to do which was great.












Don't know why I am looking so silly and flashing the 'peace' sign like most giggly Chinese girls do when she is just taking a normal picture but I enjoy making a fool of myself.

Light at the End of the Tunnel

We have and will film every day this week and a big scene in a hotel next Tuesday. We are super busy. It's amazing to see all the odd bits and pieces coming together and it has been fun to film with more than one actor and to film 'bigger' scenes. We've said from the beginning we wanted to pay all the actors and we have been doing that and now our 'actor funds' are running low along with other incidental expense. A very nice hotel is letting use one of their rooms for a few hours and that has helped at lot but we could use an infusion of funds to finish this project. Any small about will help, if you'd like to donate please click the 'donate' button on the top right. Thanks so much.

For the Fred's Out There

This is one of the reasons I'm still working on this film which I feel that I'm daily beyond my breaking point.

Fred had not seen the trailer before, and after filming very monotonous/stressful elevator scenes last week, I showed Fred the trailer/preview for the first time. He does not have a computer or Internet. So, it begin to play and all these emotions went thru him as he saw himself acting for the first time. He was happy, ecstatic and then he was clapping and kind of doing a dance on the tip of his toes. I have never seen anyone so joyful at something I've helped to create. I've written columns were people have laughed at lot when reading them or laughed more when they are in the story but I've never seen this much joy in someone especially someone who doesn't seem too joyful very often. I've let it slip into the recesses of my mind that this project is for the actors and others involved in many ways. Creating a small income and most importantly, creating a creative outlet for them to express themselves. I just met a 17 year old kid named Leon, who has been DJing since he was 11 and rapping the last few years. We've been looking for a local rapper to rap in the local dialect and he just feel out of the air Saturday night. He's very excited to get together and start working on this project. I hope when this film is done he will have a similar expression of joy on his face as Fred did last week. He might not be as ecstatic, but seeing is craft displayed for others to see will fill him with something good. With these thoughts I will continue to inch my way to the light at the end of the tunnel one way or another.

These pictures are when we we to the used clothes market to outfit Fred with snazzier white shirt. It was 20 Yuan if you're wondering and the tie we got later was 10 Yuan. He's looking good.

Chinese Army prepares for 60th Anniversary of P.R.C. Oct 1

How silly is this, really? Yeah for the 60th anniversary of the Peoples Republic of China for which it stands, one nation, under layers of facades... Image is everything, content is nothing. BTW this national day anniversary is 2009's reason for crackdowns. Last year, 2008 was the Olympics. I wonder what lame reason they'll come up with for 2010? Any guesses. They'll dream up more reasons to make it harder for foreigners and locals alike.

School's Back in Session

Our two month hiatus is over. We hiatused for various reason but mainly because Roger was off in Texas sweating and letting his parents see his daughter and vice-versa but mainly sweating and eating fattening food. I was mainly doing family stuff as well. Anyway, now that Roger is 20 pounds heavier he is raring to heft a camera on his shoulder and I'm starving for some 'action' and a return to being remotely creative since I've stopped writing for the magazine back in Chicago.

We will resume filming 'For the Love of Money', 'Love/Money' (working title) on Friday. After some Chinese friends viewed the trailer they said that the 'Rich' character didn't look rich enough. We already knew this but this trailer was just a 'pre production' trailer if you will. Their views reinforced that we needed to find better wardrobe etc. Therefore many changes will be made despite the fact we like a lot of those shots. We will just have to duplicate them. What this boils down to is we need a shiny gold watch, fake or otherwise, so someone send on over. Please and thank you.

These pictures are from our ever evolving 'Nagaland Project' , and also for the Love/Money movie as we will use some of Abu's music on that film. He has an alternative country sound that should compare and contrast nicely with our film of love/money juxtaposition. Abu approached me earlier in the year, discussing doing a film project about his homeland similar to the CCTV one that I did. We hope to do something like that someday but for now our budget is somewhat lacking or nonexistent. Anyway, it's an amazing story about their history and the sacrifices therein. For the time being we are hoping to go to NorthEastern India in early December. We are going to do a short documentary chronicling musicians in this little known province of India. We hope to get that out there and then use it as a platform to get funding to do the bigger project.

Questions: david@springcityfilms.com

There is a lot of work ahead and we need a lot of assistance but we know we are on the right track. It looks like I will be doing a tourism commercial for a town in North East Yunnan called QuJing. on Thursday. It will be with a few other foreigners playing tourists. It hardly pays anything but I need money to pay for my new visa and I figure it could help get some contacts for future projects so why not suffer a 3 hour bus ride there and back for the 'experience'.

Skype Uncle Dave Returns

Now that Kaits and Kyra have returned Stateside I'm back to playing with them on Skype. Actually I should say Kaits has returned to the States and Kyra has made her much ballyhooed premiere. Either way it lends itself to some cutest Skype moments ever. If Skype would advertise they should record our Skype calls. They are the cutest things on earth. Kaitlyn and I have all manner of conversations but ultimately it's a game of copy Uncle Dave that breaks out. I do all manner of exciting actions but mainly I just tilt my head to one side or another and she finds this funny. I also play two very lazy versions of peek a boo. One is just leaning out of range of the camera and the other more exciting one is pushing the button that stops my video from showing. When I reappear Kaitlyn squeals with laughter. I also employ a version of this by sometimes stopping the video then starting it again when I'm out of frame. This camera trickery pleases the wee ones and old ones alike.

So if you need a Skype Nanny just hit me up. I have lots of experience. It started over two years ago when Kaitlyn was four months old and we would hang out during 'tummy time'. They moved to China a year later then I was gone fall of last year then it was new baby time in Thailand where they awaited the overly anticipated arrival of Cute Kyra and Kaitlyn and I spent over three months catching up over Skype where her favorite thing was to see Nemo 'swimming' around me on the screen. My puppetry work would make Jim Henson Jealous. And that training was only three months ago and now I'm once again back into Skype Uncle mode. If you need to fill in for a less committed Uncle my fee is rather cheap.

This is the 'Hat with Mobile Phone' technique. Usually only works with 8 month olds and under.

The Mass Diaspora Nears it's End

Life, in many ways, is a series of goodbyes. Moving every other year or so for most of my life has made saying goodbye a constant. I suppose I'm rather cold and indifferent to it at this point but in the last two months in Kunming there has been a mass exodus of all sorts of people the majority of which have no intention of returning anytime soon. Family and friends who I won't be able to text, call, go visit so easily, or bump into on the street. It is hard to complain since ten years ago there was no video Skype and 20 years ago there was no email. Yet still, being a 16 hour plane ride from family and friends is a bit overwhelming. As a foreigner living in another country it does make the community feel very fluid. Especially in the summer.

One positive element is that your social calender is fully engaged when you have lots of going away parties and last suppers to attend. All of which will feel all the more hallow once you're left alone crying in your empty room. Yes, I'm over dramatizing for effect, and I'm one of the fortunate ones, since in the past year I have 11 family members living here. Maybe that is what makes it so dramatic, or the fact that last summer I don't recall such an exodus as this. I tend to ask too many question that don't have any readily available answers but I prefer to move beyond just observing and answer questions. Soon people will be returning. We'll five of them anyway. I stopped counting at 30 people who have left thus far.

Still Blocked but I'm Back On

When I first moved to China two years ago I was confused to learn that my blog was blocked but I could still publish the blog. Almost a month ago the 20th anniversary of something that happened in Beijing arrived and they decided to block blogger.com too and youtube has been blocked for awhile now but I've found a way around the scoundrels and now have downloaded Hotspot Shield. It's great for people living in China or Iran. Check it out at www.hotspotshield.com

In Hong Kong with a trailer

Helping my Mum with some of her work and meeting some people who might be interested in film and films in China. 

We have a preview/trailer on our website. Check it out http://www.springcityfilms.com/ 

Let me know what you think.