About my appearence in "All's Well, Ends Well 2009" (家有囍事2009)

I mentioned the other day,  I actually have a VERY BRIEF appearance in the New Years film "All's Well, Ends Well 2009" (家有囍事2009) directed by Vincent Kok.  

Vincent and I are actually pretty good friends and I'm always asking him about his past project and upcoming projects.  In the spring of 2008 he said he's working on an upcoming comedy and he asked if I wanted to be in it,  he said there was a scene he thought I would be good for.  I really didn't know what to say, since I'm no actor... but I appreciated the fact that he was going out of his way to give me this opportunity to participate in his project.  

It turned out the scene I was supposed to be in filmed at the end of May.  Both Shan and I were going to do scenes in the film... they even asked us to both go down to the production company's offices for taking some photos, take some measurements and do some screen test videos... let me tell you: acting is hard!

(i'm not good at being emotive on command!).   :-P

A few days before the filming they called me to tell me the time and location.  They asked me to bring down a suit and a couple ties.  On a Friday morning I got up early and made my way to a private school near the Peak Tram where we were going to be filming:

It turns out this was for a scene at the VERY start of the movie.  I am one of the prospective students in a 'Sut Lun' (失戀) seminar -- that is for a self-help class for guys who have been dumped or otherwise out of love. 

Cheung Tat-ming (張達明) plays the instructor who is giving a sort of sales pitch about the class.

Ronald Cheng (鄭中基), who is the main male supporting actor the film plays an example of a 'sut luen' guy brought up in front of the class.

I am supposed to be a random IT looking white guy in the front row,  there were several other guys picked to be in the front row and some extra 'extras' in the back rows to fill out the scene.   

For the guys in the front rows we each did many takes as a group as well as close-ups and some dialogue.

Some were long shots where we're supposed to be listening to Cheung Tat-Ming's monologue and also a few 'reaction' shots where we are shocked by what we're hearing.    The hardest part was the fact that we had lines... myself included... in Cantonese!  For the other guys it was easier, since they are native speakers.  I felt a lot of pressure!  (think about 50 people stopping and quietly watching while you try acting in a foreign language...)

As a whole I spent about 4-5 hours filming and they did a few hours of set up and take down before and after I was there...  its impressive to see a big film crew in action and all the production assistants,  camera men, costume people etc at work.  Its amazing all the pieces that have to fit to get a film made! :-O

After our part was done I took a few pics on the set:

The funny thing is the long wait between when we filmed (May 2008) and when the film was finally released (January 23rd, 2009 in HK).  

Ronald is really cool in person!

Btw the guy on the left is... I'm not sure exactly what his title is... assistant director or production assistant or what,  but he was pretty helpful when it came to coaching me through the scene... they even gave me on the spot cantonese tutoring...

Apparently Vincent didn't regret his decision! :-P

I took those pics that day but couldn't post them up til now. Blogging aside, the really hard thing to wait for was to see how the scenes turned out... what of all the stuff we filmed would make it into the final cut?

After finishing a rough cut a few months ago, Vincent had warned me that he had had to cut out most of what we had filmed, so I was prepared for it to be cut down to almost nothing. But I was still eager to see what made it in.  It turns out my face is only in like two seconds of film...  two quick shots.  

Unfortunately a lot of Cheung Tat-ming's awesome performance and the funny performances of the other actors sitting next to me were all cut!  Doh!  Since the scene is only tangentially related to Ronald Cheng's character, they had to cut it down to keep the main plot moving and not getting too sidetracked. Doh!  

I am happy that my potato chip reaction shot still made it into the movie though.  ;-)

I'm curious if there's going to be a directors cut or if the deleted scenes will make it into the DVD...   

Anyway, my first Hong Kong film acting experience...

Update:  I forgot to link to 24Herbs' photo album from their part in the movie too.