对所有中国人民！现在我希望大家明白我写什么。不好意思我中文很差的，可是我努力努力呀！
如果我中文写错了，请告诉我！我马上改正啦。
而且，你不明白我前英文写什么，你也可以告诉我，我努力帮你翻译以下。
可能你不认识我。那么我介绍一下: 我中文名字叫凯洱。我在波兰出生，但是以后住过在很多的国家。我现在觉得我没有国家呀。我的一个语是波兰话，可是现在我最流利的语是英文。我也学习法语在加拿大和学习日语在日本。但是我觉得中文不太难学。好像学习两语的，一个口语的，一个著述的。
现在我住在上海作演员。我拍了几个电视剧，还几个电影。现在在电影院有一个电影叫《牛奶风尚》。 我是这个电影的坏人(敌手)。你回忆起《成长的烦恼》的本？我跟他一起扮演。他是我的“老板”。你看过告诉我怎么样好吧？
欢迎再来我的星球！
The Shanghai Actors Association’s recrudescence is amazing. A little over a year ago a lack of support in the community led to the SAA to a period of declension. Though it seems now that the community has been refreshed and is ready to start anew! With all sorts of interest groups and projects popping up left and right, the activity is aflutter!
The site lost it’s old URL (saa.org.cn) but it is always available at the default one and now the current one at: http://saa.planetkarl.com
If you are an actor or other talent, you can put your profile up for people to see. If you know of an agent (good or bad) be sure to check the Agents List. There you can comment on the good, the bad and the ugly agents, or add one that is not already listed.
As for agents, you can create a login and browse through the list of talent to find someone suitable for that next lead role in the Tom Cruise film!
Perhaps you have noticed Jeremy Miller’s 《杰里米 米勒》 fame in China such as here, here or here. Jeremy played “Ben”《本》 on the Growing Pains 《成长的烦恼》 sitcom. In the late 1980’s Growing Pains and Garrison’s Gorillas were the only two foreign TV shows allowed into China. As such, you can expect they left a big impression on the TV watching audience. Garrison’s Gorillas was from 1967 featuring a group of convicts recruited into the U.S. Army that function as commandos. If that doesn’t make you watch it, well… I guess I’m not going to watch it.
Jeremy Miller is circulating around the Chinese publications these days, as we finished filming Milk and Fashion 《牛奶时尚》. The film is unique that it is produced by a US production company, based in Shanghai, with a majority foreign cast, all speaking Chinese, with the film intended for Chinese audiences. Jeremy Miller’s Chinese is, of course, an exception, though he does have a few short lines in Chinese.
The other Hollywood starlet that was brought in for this film was Vanessa Branch (Chinese link here). Her Chinese as well as French speaking skills are outstanding, not to mention her acting skills. Unlike Jeremy she is virtually unknown in the Chinese market, but in Hollywood her most recent notable appearances are in Pirates of the Caribbean 1 and 2.
Kyle Rothstein has some exposure in China, as an actor as well as a fluent Chinese speaker. Impressive, considering he is only 16 years old.
As for me, my best Chinese is spoken after downing a few beers. Though, everyone in the film performed wonderfully and I look forward to seeing the finished result.
The film is now in post production, but expected release date is around July 2007, so look for all of us in theaters then. Until then, enjoy the pictures below:
Shots on the set:
Alas, since it was a show about fashion, there were plenty of models about. Here are a few shots for you to peruse.
Models:
One aspect that is always interesting about making movies is the stunt work… Here are some interesting shots of some wire work we did on set at Milk and Fashion 《牛奶时尚》. This was one scene in which one of the main characters had to do some amazing basketball dunks and jumps.
On another note, if you are a stuntman in Shanghai, there is a group of stuntmen working with the Megafit in Hong Kong New World Plaza to set up the official first training facility for stuntmen in Shanghai, and perhaps in China. For more info you should contact Drago Lazetich.
I have always enjoyed acting. From a small stage play to a big movie, it is always fun to take on a role, a new identity. The thing is, though, that is acting is fun, but most of the time spent is usually not doing that. In my experience, and (I seem to say this often) especially in China, that schedules are often floating and you spend many hours waiting for the next shot.
In the last movie I was filming, we had days as long as 16 hours, with only 2-3 hours of actual shooting. Unfortunately that is typical for the industry in China. Though, there is always something fun you can occupy yourself with. Some people have games, some books, or even sleep. Once you have memorized your script many times over, there is still a lot of time you have to practice your basket weaving.
Though the danger of immersing yourself in a book or some other activity is that when you are called up for your scene, you have to quickly get back into character and remember the lines and the scene. Next time, how about some more accurate schedules guys?
Anyhow, we did have an outstanding team of actors (Jeremy Miller, Vanessa Branch, Faith, and Li-Tong), as well as a great Director (Roy Chin 金国钊) and Director of Photography (Jeffrey Chu).
For those of you that are not aware cosplay(コスプレ) is a combination of “costume” and “play”, a term coined by the Japanese to describe this whole penomenon of people dressing up in costumes. Not to be confused with 制服コスプレ(seifuku cosplay), which is the adult kind of cosplay (think naughty nurse). Anyhow, this is not limited to just the Japanese. There is a huge cosplay culture around Asia, even in China, despite it’s Japanese roots.
Actually, this provides a great example of Chinese and Japanese getting along great and contributing to each others’ culture. In the cosplay event I was in, they had brought in “celebrity cosplayers” from Japan. One of these was Shiina Sakuya, a girl that is famous for playing all male roles. I knew from that whole Kabuki thing that Japanese were mixed up, but hey, I don’t mind. In fact that just makes it more interesting. She was the headliner of the show, famous for playing such parts as Obiwan Kenobi, Harry Potter and Jack Sparrow among others. Also among the celebrity cosplayers was Mariko Goku, famed for her Queen Amidala role. You can check out the pictures below to see.
My friend Redondo’s company, is one of the ones responsible for organizing such events. It seems there are many such events every year around China. Cosplay is actually a big business, with many companies and even individuals having stalls at the event selling all sorts of movie, TV show and other paraphernalia. The guests were older than one would expect, some perhaps more than 30 years old. I suppose this goes with the same phenomenon as Internet cafes where people come together to escape into another reality, one more enticing than than reality.
All in all it is just one big fun fest where everyone is just playing around having fun. There is almost a juvenile like spirit in the air, where everyone can just sit back and have fun, like being a kid for a day. I think it is a suitable alternative to getting piss drunk and making obnoxious passes at chicks. Anyhow, those crazy Japanese, spreading their Japanese insanity all over the world; It’s fun, no?
Here are some photos of the cosplay event I was in:
If you were lucky enough to get tickets to the apparently sold out ballet performance “Sigh of Love“, (Chinese title 花样年华) you got to see something quite unique.
The Shanghai Ballet, under the guidance of French choreographer Bertrand d’At with Claude Agrafeil created what I would call a “Ballet Art Play”. It is not quite ballet, not quite a musical, but whatever it was, it was beautiful. From the audience’s perspective you see a series of heartfelt dancing scenes, which seem a bit discombobulated, only in a sense that it might be hard to understand the story. Though, the dancing scenes are very admirably performed by the dancers that really give you a sense of deep emotion behind every move.
As with most artistic professions, those who do it, do it for the love of the art. The dancers, as far as my conversations, all chose to do dancing as a career, not because they nothing else, but because they really had a passion for it. Having a job that is your passion is really something we all look for in life. Though, it is not all roses, as most of the dancers have been dancing for about 9 years or more. As you might guess, some of them have lost a certain amount of enthusiasm for their vocation. This, though, does not seem to lessen the seriousness with which they take their job.
Overall, they are performers doing what they want to do. Their salaries are not what you might expect for people in a highly specialized profession such as ballet dancing, but they don’t seem to mind too much, and it is still more than your typical Chinese salary.
If you missed their performance this time, be sure to catch it next time when they are on stage in October.
For those of you who missed the Improv game-show at the Acting up! event yesterday you missed a doozy! The audience was laughing their ass of at the hilarious antics! They will be doing it the 3rd Monday of every month from now on.
Read more about it at the SAA website.
