Under the Gun Premiere

After my typical Saturday afternoon of soccer, lunch and napping, I hopped in the shower and got ready to go to the premiere for an independent action film I starred in called "Under the Gun." I've written about a screening of the first half of this movie that they had several months back, but this past Saturday was the first time the film was to be shown in it's entirety.

There was a lovely little pre-show cocktail hour with tons of fried appetizers and featuring a band consisting of two 11-year olds on drum and bass, doing covers of heavy metal songs. In the corner a lesbian ballroom dancing couple, one in a sparkling gown, the other in a tux, tried tango for a few measures of Zeppelin, then gave up, smiling and giggling.

After a bit of a delay, they canceled the drinks service (right before I got up to the counter as luck would have it), took away the food (nooooo!) and filed us into the adjoining room where a screen and projector had been set up. A brief speech by Douglas Ferguson, the director, and the screening commenced.

Citizen Kane it was not. And watching myself act for 90 minutes on screen is about as gut wrenching as a plate of bad sushi. I managed to compose myself and keep my eyes open most of the time. The most painful for me I think were my half-naked love scenes; I was so out of shape when we shot them due to an accident I had back in 2006. Followed closely behind were the fights - due to the erratic shooting schedule and the aforementioned accident, I was never in proper fighting form when it came time to film the action scenes.

However, all that said, it was an incredibly impressive accomplishment from a first time feature director, especially considering the fact that Doug is 22 years old! When I was 22 years old, I was sitting on a couch "finding myself." Hell, I'm still sitting on a couch trying to find myself.

Cinematically the DP Johnny Tsang did amazing things with limited resources - there are some very nice visual sequences for a low-budget indie flick.

All in all, it turned out better than expected and people had some very nice things to say about my performance and the end product. Again, the important thing here is that he MADE the movie. I know so many people, myself included, who have all these big ideas for creative projects, but they never come to fruition. Doug made it happen, and that's to be greatly respected.

And the chicken fingers were pretty good.

P.S. Now I can cross "Star in an action film" off my life list. Next up: "Develop marketable skills!"