In LA

Some of my friends and relatives don’t yet know that I’ve moved back to the U.S. A quick update on my life is in order:

1. I moved to Beijing, China in March of 2007
2. While in China I did a number of things:
   1. Studied Mandarin Chinese
   2. Met a lot of very cool Chinese people (我很想你们, 我有机会的时候我应该要去中国访问你们).
   3. Worked on the first NBA produced Chinese television show (”NBA制造”, a sly title meaning “made in NBA”). Edited the initial promotional materials for the show and about half of the pilot episode.
   4. Worked on the film The Children of Huang Shi (黄石的孩子) in an IT role likely unique to productions in China, facilitating the lines of communication and data between the director and producers in China and the editors in Australia –not an easy task given China’s internet censorship and general network instability. While working on that film in a little town named Hengdian, I met a director, producer, and postproduction supervisor who were doing preproduction work on “The Forbidden Kingdom”. This led directly to my subsequent job.
   5. Worked on the film The Forbidden Kingdom (功夫之王) as second assistant editor. We built our editing suites into a room in the not-too-luxurious Yingdu Hotel in Hengdian (横店).
   6. After four months of work in Hengdian, shooting of The Forbidden Kingdom ended. Last September I and the other members of the editorial department were sent to Los Angeles to continue editing the film.
3. Editorial began working on the director’s cut of the film over in Studio City. Initially I was to be sent back to Beijing (to continue working on the film there) after one month, but one month in LA became two, then four, and then they ended up keeping me in LA for the duration. Somewhere in the middle of those 6 months of work in LA, I decided I might as well consider the U.S.A. my home base again.
4. I’m now finished with The Forbidden Kingdom and have gone on to a new job in the editorial department of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I’m living in Studio City, not far from Universal Studios.

There’s a video up on one of China’s youtube clones of a Chinese TV broadcast, which features footage of actress Li Bing Bing re-recording some lines of dialogue in a session with director Rob Minkoff and ADR Editor Chris Sheldon. It’s over here.

There’s a great new trailer online for The Forbidden Kingdom, and it’s awesome. It is available as flash video embedded within a page and also available in HD Quicktime. To see it, go to Yahoo’s “The Forbidden Kingdom” page, look for the “Exclusive Trailer”, and click the button for the resolution of your choice (the 1080p version looks amazing, but if you don’t have the fastest computer or net connection I’d recommend the 720p), or click the “Click to play” button to see a reasonably ok looking embedded flash version (looks better than the trailer on youtube, but much worse than the HD QuickTimes).

Unlike the “Teaser Trailer”, this trailer concerns itself less with introducing the story and is more focused on imparting the feel of the film. There are tons of beautiful shots of scenery, action, Jackie Chan fighting Jet Li, Li Bing Bing being all hot and evil, Collin Chou looking devious, and Michael Angarano getting beaten up by just about everyone. In my opinion it’s more exciting than the teaser trailer, and given the amount of action in the film, a better representation of the film as well.

Yahoo’s “The Forbidden Kingdom” page also includes a countdown clock to the release date of the film. Right now it says 65 days, 21 hours, 15 minutes, and 55 seconds to go. Aiiiyaa!¹ How freaky to actually see how little time is left until release. I’m going to see that countdown clock in my fitful sleep tonight².

1. that’s Mandarin for “oy vey” [↩]
2. unless I can manage to disable my brain’s javascript interpreter [↩]

The video quality on youtube sucks, so I’m pleased that there’s now a much better quality version of that first trailer for The Forbidden Kingdom available on Apple’s trailer site.

If you’re hoping for a trailer with more Jackie and Jet, be patient and fear not.

The Jackie Chan and Jet Li film I’ve been working on for the past eight months in China and Los Angeles, The Forbidden Kingdom (Chinese title: 功夫之王), is nearing completion. A couple of months ago, some very pretty footage from the film first appeared on the internet. Now the first actual trailer¹ has surfaced. Enjoy:

Technorati Tags: Chinese, entertainment, film, Hengdian, Panavision Genesis

1. a trailer is an advertisement for an upcoming film [↩]

(hover over any of the Chinese text below to see a pop-up translation. Technique grabbed from the tip here.)

My cell phone just rang, I fumbled to place my bluetooth headset on my ear and answered.

Caller:	Can I speak to Yang Xiao Hong?
Me:	Who?
Caller:	mumble fuzz mumble Yang Xiao Hong
Me:	您找谁
Caller:	杨小红
Me:	我不认识杨小红，我是范杰。杨小红是功夫之王的演员马？
Caller:	不是， 杨小红是什么什么什么什么什么
Me:	Sorry, I didn’t catch that. Is Yang Xiao Hong related to the film 功夫之王? I ask because I might know who you’re looking for. I was just in China working on that film.
Caller:	Oh, sorry, this is a wrong number. 杨小红 just called me on the other line. Your number is very close to hers.
Me:	OK.
Caller:	Sorry, bye.

There were many odd things about this conversation:

1. Someone with a 626 area code called me, looking for someone with a Chinese name.
2. I heard a Chinese accent and reflexively switched into speaking mandarin –This is something I do with some regularity now in China when communication in broken English doesn’t seem to be working out. I did this quickly and without thinking.
3. Conversation continued for a bit in Mandarin.
4. When I realized I was not in China, was missing some relevant vocabulary, and that communication would likely be more fluid in English (the caller’s English was likely way better than my mandarin) I switched back.
5. My mandarin pronunciation sounded significantly worse to my ears than it did when I was in China –gotta get more practice.

Technorati Tags: Chinese Language, context switching, mandarin, wrong number

A large 40-page hole-punch

People often ask me what I do at work. Well, today, I used a gigantic hole-punching device to punch holes in hundreds of pieces of paper, which I then stuffed into very large binders.

The reason for this task: All of our notes and paperwork were shipped to LA from China and were handled roughly along the way. The Chinese binders didn’t work that well in the first place, but now they’re just broken. The nearby Office Depot did not have A4-sized 2-ring binders, so I had to buy letter-sized 3-ring binders and transfer everything.

While this might not be representative of the sort of work I really do every day, which always involves incessant clicking on mouse and keyboard, it was a fun day-trip (more like an hour-trip) into the world of actual physical objects. I also helped move a few tables.

Today I captured the last of the footage from the film’s 402 HDCam SR tapes, all shot on the Panavision Genesis camera. The total number of clips I’ve logged and captured¹ for this film: 10,062. That’s got to be some kind of record.

1. If you don’t know what this post means, what a Genesis is, etc, don’t worry. This post is just a brief bit of gloating. I’ll cover some of the details later. [↩]