BR working with Doan Nguyen

After weeks of emailing and collaboration with Doan Nguyen, the managing director of Passive Productions, we are finally able to shape what is looking to be set cast and reliable crew. Of course with the amount of information that's come in and out of our heads during this time, it is difficult to document everything. I'll just stick to the main points for now.

So it has been decided that Yenii and I will be the core members of Brisbane Rumble. This works better in terms of chain of command as the top are ultimately in charge and accountable for everything.

After a few meetings with Doan, both Yenii and I have been given actual roles which in the beginning, seemed rather daunting. After further discussion, we realised that what we were getting ourselves into was much much bigger than we had anticipated.. it was no longer daunting... it was just scary :p

Yenii's role is set manager, the person who will look after the set, props and equipment for the shoots. This is a HUGE task since she needs to be able to manage everything that isn't people. Considering she does not have any experience in film, this will be quite a mission for her... I'm sure she'll have no problems picking it up though I am more concerned about her confidence to do it. She may seem unsure of herself but everyone knows (everyone being Maria and I) that she is very capable and definitely able to complete this task well.

My role is the production manager. When she announced it, I actually had no idea what I'd actually be doing :p Doan later informed me that I'll basically be handling all the cast and crew. At the time I didn't actually realise the magnitude of this role until she gave me further tasks.

On top of that, I will also be the fight choreographer for the entire production. I am to choreograph fight scenes accomodating for karate and aikido. Whilst karate shouldn't be too hard to do, I don't have any experience with aikido... that could be a problem. I guess I'll have to get some help with that area. Now the problem with this, is that I'll only have about a month to come up with all the action scenes. Shouldn't be too hard a task so long I spend full days on it and practice up as much as I can. This is where things get complicated... it doesn't matter how well I perform these things, I still have to train the actors to do it. Honestly, I think that is too much of an uncertainty without knowing what their capabilities are along with the time frame I actually have to do all of this in.

Anyway, crazy near impossible tasks to achieve aside, that's where I thought my problems why... not the case... Doan has also casted ME as the villain of the feature, Nick. I'm a badass who just wants the money or to kick ass. Unfortauntely, Nick isn't the best fighter and gets beat up by Benjiman in every single one of their encounters. I don't mind that at all considering I'll be the closest person to a stuntman on set. I'm not a big fan of acting so it'll be another new and interesting experience I guess.

Another task I've been doing is helping Doan with casting. So far I have been able to lock in a friend I play Tekken with named, Peter O'Flannigan. Though the name is Irish, he's actually black in appearance and he has an afro! He'll be playing the role of a bouncer. Though short, he is solid framed and does look the part.

I will be introducing more friends when they can meet Doan so they can be locked in. At the moment I am working on casting one of the lead roles, Lien, who will hopefully be played by my friend, Karen Truong, possibly the cutest girl I know. I am not too sure about her abilities on screen and if she can take on the role with that type of character. I guess time will tell.

Anyway, my head is too scattered at the moment. I know I'm missing a stack of things to talk about but I guess I'll save them for another time.

- B