My Reelity

About this time every year, I’ll give a full time report, and it will always have that as a title.

Not having that as a title this time round probably speaks volume (or is it volumes?). But don’t get me wrong, it’s still a full time report for 2009. Sorta anyway.

This year is, in all likelihood, worse than last year. The roles I’ve gotten were not only just as few, but they were far less meatier as well. Even the lead role didn’t feel like a lead role. So to call a spade a spade, this year kinda confirms the slide that began mid last year.

The year is not a total washout though. True, I still crash and burn in the romance department but I prolly had my best April evar. I still managed to “pop” a few “cherries”. I hit a financial milestone. I achieved my financial target.

I’ve always told myself that when it starts to slide, that’s when I have to consider Plan B. Thing is, I never really thought long and hard what Plan B should be. Heck my only other plan was, if I became too old to act, I’d start making films.

No shit.

I did start making inquiries during the year to see if I can get started somewhere. Not film-making though (cuz I foresee I’ll need capital for that and right now my capital is just a letter “c”) but more like a film buyer. Turns out this particularly part of the industry is not that easy to break into as well, and I wasn’t able to find any leads.

So as I was wondering where my next step should be, one of my clients offered me a position. It’s not the first time; I believe this is like the third time in five years he has offered me a position.

Imagine this : You are a waiter and the restaurant boss has been wanting to promote you for the past few years. The only catch is you have to do the job full time. And you have turned it down all this while because waitering gives you the flexibility to act.

So over the years, you’ve turned down a supervisor role and a manager role. But now the owner comes and asks you to help run the business together. He’s offering you to be part of the business. And the acting’s really been shitty and you’re feeling kinda disllusioned and jaded already. It’s almost a no-brainer what you should do right?

Granted that I wait on a totally different set of tables, this analogy is otherwise totally true for me. I did, however, delayed taking up this offer as long as I could; up to the end of the year in fact.

It is not easy, putting your dreams on hold. I can’t even bring myself to say that I’m really giving this up. I feel like a failure. I feel like a quitter. What do you call people who stop chasing their dreams?

It has been 10 years. At times its been a hell of a ride, but most of the time its been more like being stuck in a traffic jam. A very long traffic jam. I guess I’m getting out of the cab now.

Is this the end? I hope not. I hoped I’ve pressed “pause” instead.

Happy New Year guys. May it be a perfect 10 for all of you.

Check this out from the very talented Jeff. It was truly the highlight of the awesome Christmas party last night. A party where I went there half-drunk and end up being half-sober while I was leaving.

Some of you might not get all the jokes unless you are part of said hive though… but this might help. 😉

Wishing all my readers and the AnD community a Merry Merry Christmas and hangover free Boxing Day!

About a month back, I did a docudrama about the First Volunteer Force in Singapore, playing one of the co-founders, Mr Lim Boon Keng.

Prior to the shoot, I have no idea who the dude was, other than he got some road named after him.

So imagine my surprise when this came up from what I googled :

Of course, I play a younger version of him. *koff koff*

Anyway, although it was one of the two lead roles in the docudrama, I felt my involvement was just one of a supporting character. Out of 3 days of shoot, I was only involved in one and my most significant screen time was one when I deliver a speech to Parliament. It seems they liked my delivery of that speech very much, and it was also how I landed the role.

I would of course very much preferred the other role, especially when I found out I’d get to have a wedding scene with a lovely bride…

Anyway, I digress.

The shoot was not a pleasant experience all together though. This was largely due to poor wardrobe logistics on the part of the production house. Imagine, they made us wear clothes and SOCKS that were worn by sweaty extras the day before, which were still damp! There was a huge battle scene the day before involving the extras in uniform and you can imagine the yucky feeling I had when I had to wear them in the state that they are.

I’ve been to many shoots before, and this is the first time I’ve been treated this badly in this aspect. But like they say, the show must go on. It does make me reconsider working with them in the future though.

This was the uniform I had to wear. Makes me look more like a Jap soldier, no?

The other wardrobe change I had was thankfully clean clothes at last.

I think this makes me look like a perv. Somewhere out there, Mr Lim must be rolling in his grace. 😛

Towards the end of the shoot, I had to wear back the same yucky uniform again. And when I finish my scenes, they asked me if I could do a stand-in for one actor who had failed to turn up.

I was like wtf? But thankfully, they manage to get hold of him eventually and I did not had to make a decision on that matter.

I went straight home and had a long shower to scrub myself clean. Like I said, not a pleasant experience all together.

Not dead, though this blog has been dead for the past two months.

What have I been up to? Apart from just one shoot, I’ve been kinda in a state of funk. But details of that shoot later.

Jill told me to sign myself up on alivenotdead.com, so I did. And in doing so, I found out I actually have an IMDb credit!

I’m alive!! 😛