UPDATES: Short Film "Gaffa" hits top 60 for Tropfest - World's Largest Film Festival

Great news everybody! You know that short film that I was working the day before I left before heading to China? Yes its called GAFFA and a fantastic popcorn collaboration between Craig Anderson, Andy Minh Trieu and myself and also with the same king pin team: Adrian Chino Castro, Justin Gong and Trung Ly, and we made it to the top 60 for Tropfest!

I got the news from Adrian who got the news from a phone call notifying him of the news. 

I'm not sure if we will make it to the 16 as Tropfest has notoriously evolved to be more "mainstream" in cast, crew and storytelling wise. But hey, top 60 amongst the 700 entries globally is freaking awesome.

Here's the behind the scenes, provided by James Peniata (another gungho filmmaker who helped us out on the day). 

Click link here.

CREDITS
Daniel Van Ly
Joshua Tieu
Angela Tran
Ian Tran
Benjamin Cao
Maria Tran
Andy Minh Trieu

Graphics Design
David Minh Tam Nguyen

Director of Photography
Justin Gong

Editor 
Craig Anderson

Fight Choreographer
Trung Ly

Director
Adrian Castro

SHORT FILM "Gaffa" | Behind-the-Scenes Tropfest Entry

Date: 27th of December, 2012

Written By: Phuong Le
http://www.lea-d.com/blog/gaffa-tropfest-entry/

Last Saturday we were on-location at the CraigFX warehouse in Marrickville for an indy short film production for this year’s Tropfest. Tropfest is a prestigious international short film festival where budding film-makers are asked to create a short film based around a particular “signature item”.

This year’s signature item is “BALLOON” and entrants will be competing for over $100,000 in prizes (not to mention all the glory of having your short film screened to thousands of people nationally).

The short, titled “Gaffa”, is an action-packed kung-fu comedy starring martial artist and TV personality, Andy Minh Trieu, and serial social media blogger, martial artist and actor, Maria Tran. Behind the scenes we had the lines of Craig Anderson of CraigFX and Adrian Castro of Fideo Films.

It was a very short turn-around – there were a couple of days of rehearsals and a single day to do the whole shoot. Below are a few photographs from the day. Video of bloopers will be uploaded at a later date.

ACTING: "Team 11" - comedy drama pilot for Australian TV

Busy, busy, busy, straight after work on SBS production "Once Upon A Time..." I rushed to Marrickville for the first script reading on pilot TV show "Team 11". The project is a collaboration between Sarah Duffy and Berlinda King (writers), paired with Craig Anderson's Australian TV directing experience.

Tonight, I met the cast of experienced actors playing quirky roles in this estrange look at the predominately female sport of netball. I can't reveal too much at the moment, but it looks very promising from the get go. Great writing style, good comedic timing, drama and predicaments at every corner and seriously a lot of fun!

I play Asian, 29 year old, Amanda, and a very horrible player at the game, mixed in with a bunch of oddball girls, who dream of taking out the championships.

When I think of it, this story is like "Shaolin Soccer" meets "Mean Girls".

Rehearsals will start after hours during the next month with the shoot starting at the end of the year.

So looks I have to get back into shape before the game! 

SHOOT & LEARNINGS: Late Night Angel Weenie Baby Webisodes – Directed & Produced by Craig Anderson

Craig Anderson shooting guerrilla

Early morning today and myself and fellow acting pal Andy Minh Trieu join in the guerrilla fun of making things on the fly with my long time Australia-based film mentor; Craig Anderson (who has currently finishing his works as an actor on ABC TV “Laid”).

In between making institials, pitch projects, pilot episodes and webisodes, Craig is all about effective open communication, positive can-do attitudes and all guerrilla. It was great to see him work his “guerrilla” system of redrock rig gear, lapel mics and the Canon 60D. I’m still in awe of how he sets up his shots and does things effectively on the fly.

So  “Late Night Angle Weenie Baby” is a hard core, inappropriate, funny, offensive and wrong. LNAWB is a six part sketch comedy web series exploring what it means to be a modern woman. I will be cameoing as your “Asian” waitress amongst the cast, who tries to avoid the main character’s dilemma (or attention seeking behaviour) of having her “sex tape” leaked online.  

EVENT: 2011 Shortcuts Film Festival

I had a great time co-hosting the 2011 Shortcuts Film Festival – Western Sydney’s only youth short film festival at the Powerhouse Youth Theatre. There was a turn out of approximately 150 people all coming to support their budding filmmakers and their short film.

I would like to congratulate Vinh Nguyen [pictured right] (whom was involved in Vietnamese Stories Digital Storytelling Project & Vietnamese Theatre Project – projects that I’ve coordinated in the past) on his award for Best Film – The Tech Effect. Vinh has entered into Shortcuts for the past 5 years and have been vying for the major category ever since. He’s definitely grown as a filmmaker over the years, testing different styles, genres and formats of storytelling.

Also a major big congratulations to the makers of short film “Canvale High – School of Cliques”. Directed by John Nguyen and Peter Thai Tran, with the collaboration of their year 10 school mates, their first time ever film took out runners up for People’s Choice Awards on the night. I facilitated their filmmaking sessions at Canley Vale High and am impressed with their developments throughout the short time span I was with them.

It was also awesome to see Mr Robert Shehadie (“Fat Pizza” and “Housos”) made a supporting appearance and share a few bellyful of laughs as well.

This year, we had Aga Kolaczkowski (Emerging & Filmmakers Fund for Screen NSW) and TV actor Steve LeMarquand as our judges. Unfortunately, two of our other judges pulled out the last minute and our dependable and all time mentor Craig Anderson (“Double The Fist”) was happy to fill in.

Big ups to Kimberley Tan for a great festival coordination of the event and hopefully it will develop even further in 2012.

SHORTCUTS ’11 Winners

Best Film

The Tech Effect – Vinh Nguyen

Audience Choice Award

The Tech Effect – Vinh Nguyen

Best Script

Metal Kingdom – Skylie Moss, Corey Bolton & Hayley Franke

Best Actor

Kyle Mcleavy in No Empathy

Best Cinematography

Hello Panda – Ali Kadhim

Best Sound Design

A Rock’s Life – Robert NC Thomas

Best Editing

The Tech Effect – Vinh Nguyen

Charming & clever Rob Shehadie

Clown 101

In the three hour session, taught by Craig Anderson, myself and Joseph Hieu Dinh indulged in the world of clowns and street theatre. This was not a class for people who had a strong aversion to all things silly, because it was a class that rock the boat of acting appropriately and a course that will be sure to give you a stomach full of laughs.

We warmed up to some light bouts of juggling tricks, hula hooping and other circus tricks and soon enough we went straight into a number of rediculous silly music based games such as the “typewriter”.

Craig gave us a quick run down of the historics of clowns (they have a history?), the types, the global clown tournaments back in the 70s, and also acting and storytelling through the physiques.

So what are clowns? They are comical performers stereotypically with coloured wigs, stylised make up and costumes, awkwardly large footwear and red nose, all with the intent to entertainment kids.


Types of Clowns
There are three types of clowns: Whiteface, Auguste & Hobbo/ Tramp.
Whiteface: most common clown, when performing with the Auguste and/or Tramp, this clown will remain in charge, setting up the routine, throwing rather than taking the pie, slap or kick. Although more comical than the Straight Whiteface, this clown is a bit more reserved than the impish and gregarious Auguste.

Auguste: The most comical of all clowns. He/she is impish, gregarious and thrives on slapstick. His/her actions are big, clumsy and awkward. He/she does not have much in common with the Whiteface except for the makeup and costume. His/her personality is that of a rabble rouser. When appearing with the Whiteface, the Auguste (German meaning "foolish") is the brunt of the joke. However, with the Tramp, he becomes the instigator in control of the situation.

Hobbo/Tramp: forlorn and downtrodden character who has nothing and knows he will never have anything, probably be a loner, which is reflected in his determination to be silent, generally not talking to anyone but his peers. His downcast mannerisms and shuffling burdensome movements reflect his hard life.

Does anyone remember...STEPHEN KING's movie IT?

This 1990's movie was one to really traumatise you with the unthinkable horrors of a psycho clown.

A group of adults take a blast from the past. They remember when they were nerds in school, hanging out, victim of bullies. But nothing out of the question compares with one big bully of Evil unspeakable. the bully is a monster in a clowns suit. He is deadly, can be any were anyone, at any time. with supernatural powers. They call him "IT". Written by sam from IMBD.

Prior to this, I only knew Ronald Mc Donald. But what is it about clowns that are so freaky? Aren't they designed to entertainment kids?