A while back

A while back my friends from nyc, Arel and Josh came out to Shanghai to visit their (and my) friend Ed. Josh introduced me to Ed via email when I got out here and we've become friends since then. He works for a production company out here that does some pretty cool stuff. He's also a graduate of NYU and an overall cool kid. It was great to see Josh and Arel out here. I promised they'd make the blog and here they are. Better late than never. Good to see you out here fellas. ---Josh,Arel and I went to camp together back in the day..they both live in NYC currently..

First flying attempt

This video is from a while ago already. It was the very first attempt of having me fly. We are not even shooting in this studio anymore, but I thought it was fun video anyway.

Original Gangster

 I love you big dog. Happy Father's Day!!

Scholastic Project

I know I haven't said too much about this project that I'm working on for Scholastic. I haven't really said anything because it has been a little all over the place and to be honest I wasn't sure if it was really going to be completed. I still don't know how the whole thing is really going to come together.  I'm part of a team of three people that helped write the curriculum for a new ambitious program that Scholastic wants to put in second tier cities throughout China. It seemed like a monstrous program from day one, and it is getting bigger and bigger each day.  Scholastic Asia wants to put a self sufficient, interactive, English teaching program into schools outside of Shanghai. We are working with a company that supplies white boards with similar technologies to a Smart Board. If you are unfamiliar, a board like this allows people to interact with and broadcast video images via touch. They have special markers that you can use to write over pictures and then erase it, as well as play games on the board that involve using your hands to move objects around and into other objects. The board is about the size of a normal classroom whiteboard. That part of the program is still in the works. So, along with helping with ideas for this project I have also been chosen as the actor on the program, leading the activities and modeling words and such for the kids. I wish I had some video to put up here so you could get an idea of what I'm talking about, because it is so much more than me speaking into a camera. The post production of the project is going to be huge. Everything is done in front of the green screen. So many editors are going to be so tired of looking at my face! This past week we shot ten hours a day, five days a week. I don't know if you know what kind of hours those are to be in makeup in an a studio with no ventilation and high powered lights streaming in on you, but it hurts by the end of the day. Literally. We are still not done either.  Unfortunately, as things seem to go in China, the production company that we are working with is not the most professional. There have been a lot of bumps along the way, and filming for this next week has been postponed. We need to look at videos, make sure we like what we see and then take it from there. Deadlines have to be rescheduled as well. With all that said, I am having a great time doing this. It is such a cool and unique situation to be in. I'm back acting which I really missed, and since there is not one TRUE director of this project I have a ton of creative control over the project. My ideas are heard and I get to influence the final product. I'm going to try to get my hands on some footage this week, which might be a little difficult. If your interested, leave a comment with your email address and I'll try to send out a mass email with some footage. 

P.S. It hit 100 degrees today. 

P.P.S. Check out this blog. My friend Kate is teaching in India and it looks amazing!

http://mookambigaienclave.blogspot.com/

Lately

My block:

My block: (black and white)
My block: (true colors)
My block: (true colors)
Top of the world financial building

Visit from NYC

My aunt teaches high school English at the Garden School in Jackson Heights and takes a trip or two each year with some of her students to various places in the world. This year she came out to China. I got to spend a little over a day with her and her students and her chaperones and had a really nice time showing them around the city. They were good sports about it. I don't know how they had the energy to do it after the long flight from NY, but they were up and about and took the city by storm. They left yesterday to go off to suzhou and from there they were making a few more stops in various cities before heading to the Great Wall and then back to the states. In total they'll be in China about 17 days. Here are a few pics from my time with them in Shanghai 

Jessica, a grad from the all womens Notre Dame school in Maryland, minored in photography and was getting her art on at the Jade Buddah Temple here in Shanghai.

This building (world financial building) is the second largest in the world (...I think.. ha!) ----  

--anyway, I'm pretty sure it has the highest observation deck in the world. We went up and got to take a look at Shanghai from the top of this monster. It was super overcast and to be honest you couldn't see much, but it was worth it nonetheless just to say you did it. As you can see from the pic there are about 25 stories that didn't fit into the frame of my camera because it is such a giant.

The whole crew outside the Shanghai Museum....a little run down on day one, but we trooped through and made it happen!

Subway, rush hour style..All smiles all the time :)

My aunt Marcia giving out some knowledge at the Jade Temple...Have to teach the youngins! 

All in all I think their Shanghai time was a success. It was really nice to have some visitors from NY out here. Always great to see my Aunt Marcia, and even cooler to see her here in the Hai. They're all off for more of an adventure, and I'm off to bed; filming in the morning..Updates on making movies --- coming soon to a blog near you..

your boy is back!

What's good everybody! China is going crazy blocking everything that lets anyone do anything, so I had to download this stuff that sends me to a different browser or something..I don't know, I'm not tech or internet savy..All I do know is that right here right now, your boy is back in business. I've done a lot in the last month and wish I had the blog to communicate but I'll do the best I can to catch you guys up...

Me and my buddy on my Birthday..June 5 in case you didn't know and want to send me some hebrew nationals in the mail.

The whole team was out and about. We did it real big! You know I throw a mean party!

I believe I can fly..This is a much larger post..I'm doing a crazy project for scholastic that I will go into in more detail very soon..

I did the Great Wall half marathon. Finished in 2hrs 14 minutes..Not too shabby. It was mad fun!

Lights, camera, action. I'm back in business!