Admiralty 2.0

Nearly three years ago, I embarked on my journey to directing. Since then I've directed several commercials and a music video. Today, I'm directing my latest commercial, developing my next batch of commercial projects and writing my first feature film.

None of my current projects would have been possible had I not taken that first step by directing my first live action piece, Admiralty. I never finished that particular piece. Despite the many months, weeks and hours that several volunteers put into it, I never saw it to completion.

That has always bothered me.

There have been many excuses. The biggest excuses being a lack of time and money. Which is largely true considering the experimental FX and animation ambitions of the project.

I've thought about keeping this project shelved. After all, it was shot years ago and I'm a different person and director now. But those are just excuses too. So after several fits of starting and stopping the project, I've started again. In fact, I plan to re-shoot much of the short that I originally shot on Beta with the much-hyped new Red One camera.

Above is a photo I took from a rehearsal for Admiralty 2.0. My buddy, Ian will fight choreograph the fight sequences and a large FX studio in Beijing will handle much of the FX and animation. Given the upgrade in camera, fight choreography, FX studio and director (that would be a slightly more experienced me); I'm hoping this won't look like the first thing I've ever directed.

To be continued... and finished!

What's on Your "Kindle?"

Last year, I held off on buying the Amazon Kindle, because I knew the new and improved Kindle 2 was on its way in '09. So when the Kindle 2 was released a few weeks ago, boy was I ready to jump aboard the e-book bandwagon.

Only, I didn't jump.

Call me cheap, but despite the many great reviews about the Kindle 2, something bothered me about spending $359.00 for a specialized device that's designed for one main function. Then a couple of weeks ago a free Kindle was offered.

This time I jumped.

Well, it wasn't exactly a Kindle. More like a free iPhone app provided by Amazon that allows you to read Kindle formatted books. To be honest, this isn't the first time I've read an e-book. That disctinction goes to my Palm V days of yore. Nor is it the first e-book I've attempted to read on my iPhone. That distinction goes to "The Heart of Darkness" which I read last year. But it is the first time I've become hooked on reading an e-book

The image above is a screen shot of my free "Kindle." As you can see I've downloaded many a free chapter. And I've even bought a few ebooks. I finished my first Kindle book, Neil Gaiman'"s "Coraline" in slightly less than half a week. Granted that's a children's book. But a week and a half later, I'm almost halfway through a book on geopolitics by George Friedman called "The Next 100 Years."

Over the weekend, I saw an interview with the author of "What Would Google Do?" Within minutes I downloaded the sample chapter and read it over lunch. There's something to this Kindle stuff. So I'm back to my fundamental question: 2 Kindle 2 or not 2 Kindle 2?

Given the great experience I was pretty convinced I was going to Kindle 2 it. But then the rumors for an Apple Netbook has been hitting critical mass lately. So, I guess I can wait until the rumored Oct release date of the Apple iBook, iPod Touch HD, iPod Air or whatever they end up calling it.

Yes! I've decided not to decide.

Who Runs on What?

I'm a terrible blogger. At least I'm a terribly infrequent blogger. It's been over 4 months since my last blog entry. Sheesh!

So I'm planning to rectify that this year. Starting now. What could possibly be worthy of a blog entry since my previous entry when Obama was elected? The answer is: Nothing of any major cosmic or global significance. But it was something that brought a slight chuckle to my day.

This afternoon I went for a run as part of my battle against the weight I've gained from the holiday bingeing and traveling I've done during the period from November through February. It was a rather nice day and despite having rather tight and sore legs from a previous workout, it wasn't a half bad run.

After my run, I stretched out in front of my apartment. Just as I was finishing up an old lady walked by and gave me a rather strange look. As I was finished with my stretches, I followed her inside and rode the elevator up with her. While in the elevator she asked me what type of work was I doing. I replied with a question, "Now?" To which she replied, "Yes." I told her I wasn't working, but was exercising. At least that's how I interpreted the conversation.

This might be a good time to say that I'm still living in Beijing at this time and this entire conversation took place in Mandarin. There are subtleties of language and culture that I'm so used to in U.S. English, but I just don't have in Chinese. So it's in that context that I thought I may have misunderstood what she meant with her question. This thought was further reinforced by the fact that as she exited the elevator, she looked unsatisfied and confused by my answer. Her reaction in turn made me unsatisfied and confused with my answer as well.

As I exited the elevator and shortly afterward, entered my apartment, I noticed my outfit. As the accompanying photo shows; I was wearing a blue "America Runs on Dunkin" t-shirt with a long-sleeve t-shirt underneath and my sunglasses. Seems innocuous enough. But it's all about context. I don't live in a neighborhood with many other Asian Americans or expats. Most people in my complex seem to be local folk. They often dress in pretty drab grey or dark colors during the winter and I don't remember seeing anyone wear sunglasses. It struck me that I must look like a multi-colored freak doing these strange things in front of her apartment. She may very well have thought I was wearing some strange uniform and wondered what the heck I was doing in front of her apartment. I'm pretty sure I stood out like a sore thumb dressed as I was while doing strange things in front of her apartment building.

So I had a little chuckle about the matter and snapped the accompanying pic from my iPhone to commemorate the incident. I could very well have been suffering from the effects of a runners high and completely misinterpreted the situation. In fact, I'm pretty sure I have. But it gave me a chuckle and I deemed it blog-worthy enough to break my 4 month non-blogging streak.