This was shot about 4 -5 years ago. We had a lot of fun doing this project. It was the first time I was on screen “professionally”. The experience was definitely memorable and for me personally, it was a measure of how i’ve grown as an actor and movement artist over the past few years.

I’ve seen this clip before a couple of times, but watching them now actually brings a smile to my face. I’d be lying if I denied missing those good old days. Sure there was a lot of drama and problems, but at the end of it all when you look back, it’s not the drama and problems that you remember, but the happy times.

Anyways, here’s a clip of me performing with some really good and close friends of mine back in the day. Enjoy!

Singtel street marketing performance:

Men’s health zouk performance:

Launch 2

Daniel Milton and myself

Launch 2 is Singapore’s premiere networking mixer. This was the second time it was organized and I have to give credit to Derrick Siu for all the hard work he’s put in to make this event happen.

The event itself was “upgraded”. This time round the venue was much bigger and it was held on the eve of a public holiday which meant a much higher turn out rate.

I won’t dive into the details of the event, but I’m keen to share what I gained from it. Other than catching up with all my fellow artistes and industry professionals, I learnt the essential skills of doing proper networking. Many times people go to these events with the idea of networking, and they end up not knowing what to do and just collect business cards.

Daniel Milton. Also known as Daniel “Ari Gold” Milton showed me the importance of essential networking. Again, in a very succinct manner it’s all about giving and receiving. It was an a downright eye opener for me and I must say I’m pretty amazed at Dan’s results. Immediately after Launch Dan was given a couple of jobs, and now he’s fully booked for the next few months. Nothing like someone who walks the talk!

The night ended with a bang with the whole group of us heading over to Attica to have some drinks and partying for a bit before parting ways. All in all very insightful night and most importantly an extremely productive and fun night.

Edwin, myself and Stefan fanthome director of cubik

Coaching Xavier See on acting

Daniel is coming up with a new short film and he has casted Xavier as one of the leads. Looking at where he wants to go with the film it has certainly given me a sense of excitement and challenge. I’m excited because I see great potential in his film. It’s rare to find a film like this in Singapore. It is one of those films you dream of doing, but never get the opportunity to do or just don’t know how to do it. But in the hands of Daniel Milton this film has become a reality.

I’m also playing one of the leads and the role itself is challenging and physical. This is a character driven film, thus a lot of work has gone into building and developing the character. Which leads to my next point. Getting Xavier up to scratch in a few months.

Brief background, Xavier is a professional dating coach in Singapore and is one of the best in South East Asia. He also owns his own company and has never tried acting professionally before. Daniel and Xavier are best buddies and he actually wrote the role for Xavier.

So with that said, my challenge is to use all the knowledge that I have and help train/coach Xavier to becoming a competent actor. To be honest I’ve never envisioned myself coaching someone in acting. There have been people asking me, but I’ll always push the request over to someone else. I feel that I’m still a student in the craft and I’d like to explore and learn more about it in years to come. Acting to me is a journey. A journey of continuous learning and integration. However in this scenario, Daniel has requested specifically that I train Xavier and get him up to speed in 2 months.

Instead of turning it down, I embrace it and the reason I do so is because after being trained as a competent performance and life coach I felt that I could integrate the methodologies and structures I’ve learnt as a coach and fuse it with the basic acting principles to see how it turns out. Before I continue any further I have to personally thank Laura Kee, good friend and fellow artiste for the advice,guidance and sharing her experiences as a drama trainer. I’m truly very grateful.

So back to coaching acting. We’ve done our first session, sadly it was too dark to film anything as we did it outdoors. We’re looking to acquire a studio for our second session and some footage will definitely be shot. So far so good, it’s something new for me but am looking forward to learning more from it and improve as an actor and coach.

I just love the christmas atmosphere. Everything seems very warm and magical. December always puts me in a holiday mood. It reminds me of those classic christmas tales with Scrooge, a nice cabin in the mountain, hot chocolate and  some snow.

December also makes me reflect on the year and what I’ve done so far. With that being said, I felt compelled to put together a brief entry on my adventures during the last few months. Enjoy!

Army video shoot – onedash22

Half way through the exercise

This shoot was particularly fun as well as very tiring to do. I was playing the signaller and basically had to lug around the signal set for the whole day. After a few hours walking around the jungle the weight really takes a toll on you! Reminded me of my days during my own military training.

The crew was an awesome bunch to work with. All very friendly and chilled. Everyone got a long pretty well. What I loved the most was the different characters we played. There were four of us so there was a very strong resemblance to the teenage mutant ninja turtles. Other than color of course! I played the Donatello like character. Level headed, obedient, helps to back the leader of the pack when needed and always having a gadget around me. The dynamics of the group were excellent. You could see clearly how each one of us was different from the other.

Keep it going mr steady cam

All in all it was a good working experience with the lot and I’m looking forward to future collaborations!

Book out day!!

Thief of time – The Voice

My very first proper theatre performance. Learnt a lot from this production. Coming from a TV background the land of theatre is a totally new animal for me. But thankfully I had a good director who knew where I was coming from and was patient enough to help guide me through the fundamentals of basic theatre work.

Some of the theatre exercises really did help me and it clicked in my head. Especially the few about movement and voice. It sounded and looked stupid but the effects were very rewarding and honestly it surprised me!

The cast was an amazing bunch to work with. Chemistry took some time to build but once we got that handled our characters came to life and people could relate to them.

Family dinner

I had feedback that people were actually so touched and moved by the scenes that they were tearing and some even cried. After a first glance of the script the message didn’t really strike me. I was much more engrossed and interested to see how the characters developed and the kind of lines they had. However when it was showtime, my fellow co-stars played out the subtext of the piece really well. Couple that with dramatic lighting and music and your heart-strings will definitely be tugged at.

Final scene

Phillips lighting – Multimedia people

The most recent shoot. A Phillips corporate video. I love my new hair do for this video! The stylist was creative and managed to give me a young,hip and anime like hairdo which was really cool!

Not much on set pictures here, but if you’d like to see how it all turned out go to any Phillips showroom under the lighting gallery and see if you can spot me

Green Living at North West – Les Thespians

Been touring the local schools with this show. It’s a drama skit done to educate the primary and secondary school students to safe the environment and go green. Challenge here was getting the energy up and delivering a good show to the students in the wee hours of the morning! I’m talking about being able to entertain and be fully animated at 7 am.

Two days ago we finished the tour. I’m happy and satisfied with the whole out come. Looking forward to a good break in the next few months. Have already switched on my holiday mood cap

Our final goodbye

The cast and directors

So that’s it folks! That’s a wrap… for now. Currently am working on an AFA in-house production and collaborating with another director. A lot of planning and research have been done and the pre production journey and work is really something to be commended and acknowledged. Will shoot more updates as the time goes by.

This is val signing off for now!

Thankfully I’ve calmed down quite a bit now and got my thoughts together.

Firstly, I was involved in a community theatre project. Which marked my very first step into proper theatre. It was a new and enriching experience. I loved it. I opened up my mind a lot more and it taught me how to be aware of the space I was in. We had a lot of good feedback from the audience and if I were to be asked to do it again I would. Some audience members were moved to tears, something I really did not expect at all!

If you guys are curious, the title of the performance was called Thief of time.

I’ll add in the photos in my next post for you guys.

Then came a break through for my team and I. A couple of friends of mine who shared a similar interest in action films came together and formed actionfilmartistes. Here’s our blog : Actionfilmartistes.

We worked together with FPS productions Singapore to create Steadfast. A very first for the Singapore action film industry. The film was made under 10 k and featured a ten minute long fight scene. Working on this project was challenging especially since the actors had to be trained for two months prior to the shoot. But it was rewarding to see it on the big screen and to get acknowledgement from the director, producers and main cast. My humble thanks to all of you guys!

There are more developments on the way, currently within actionfilmartistes we have two projects on going. One an in house production which we designed and created from scratch and second a collaboration with another director. I’m not going to reveal much right now, but do check out the actionfilmartistes blog as well as my facebook fan page for updates!

Well that sums about everything up on the entertainment side of things, as for my career I’m going to be launching a new blog which deals with coaching as I’m currently undergoing a course to train to become a life coach who specializes in working with individuals to master their full potential and increase their performance. It’s exciting and nerve wrecking, since it’s a new world for me, but I’m learning a lot from my peers around me who’re much more senior than me and have powerful corporate backgrounds. I want to take this opportunity to thank them for being very supportive and understanding. I know how weird it must be to have to allow a youngster such as myself to coach you, but thank you for the opportunity, feedback and guidance.

Ok, so that sums everything up, I’ll be posting new updates soon with pictures and videos. Got two media events lined up. Cubik’s premiere this friday! As well as Launch 2 on the 9th of september. Really excited and looking forward to new developments and working opportunities!

Val out

Another surprise came in the form of my co star whom I’ve worked with also on other projects. It is indeed a small world!

In omega, I play noah. An unbecoming hero who would eventually lead a rebellion. So, sit back grab some pop corns and enjoy!

For me, it was when I was much younger. I believed that it would one day snow in Singapore and that New York was a place full of chinese people. I was a weird kid. I had one heck of an imagination. I also used to have this toy figurine which I would always rehearse and role play different action sequences and scenes with. I could spend hours doing that.

Fast forward to the present. I’m working hard on getting that form of uninhibited access to my vivid imagination back. As one grows older, his imagination withers and dies. This is due to the choices we have to make and the “system” we are taught to follow as we mature.

Having a sense of freedom in imagination would result in me believing much much more. There was a point in my life sometime around this time last year when I started to doubt many things including my abilities.

At around this time last year, I had just stepped into acting and was trying to make it a full time career. I trained hard, went for courses, met with so many different people and had many great dialogue sessions with the people from the creative industry. One thought however, kept hounding me. That thought was, “ You really think your good enough?” . This one thought tore me to shreds.

I spent a few months after that in search of an answer of sorts. I was neither here nor there. It was bad, because my sense of confidence was shaken and I started to doubt myself terribly.

When all else was failing and I was close to being a complete wreck, these three letters were highlighted to me. Those letters were TDD.

TDD, was the mould from which I came from. It was through TDD that I mustered enough courage to lead the life I truly want to lead. I remembered very very clearly what my mentor, Troy told me. It was before I started my very own masterclass. It was in the elevator of his hotel. He said, “ You know, val I’m not sure what it is but I know that you’ll be successful one day in the field that you are currently in. You have that stamp on your head that says made for success.”

This phrase woke me up big time. Because he believed. He believed whole heartedly in me. And here I was in limbo unsure of what was happening and losing faith in myself. That one phrase propelled me to take on a new course of action.

I spent the next few months believing and reconnecting with my TDD family. And boy, was I in for a whole new experience. The more I started believing in myself, the more things became much clearer to me. I landed better gigs, networked with people of high status, mentored a well established senior plastic surgeon on fashion and most recently been offered a series of different international gigs.

Never believe the hype guys. People might want to pull you down and say bad things to dampen your mood and spirit. When that remember this, they are not you and even though they’ve tried they are still not you. There’s a reason for you to think that it would work. Trust in that reasoning and just believe in it whole heartedly. Soon enough, you’ll see your dreams manifest.

But, alas good news. My specialist has recently cleared me and said that I can go back into training full on! I’m excited but am trying to take it slow. As usual am impatient about results. I’ve learnt to discipline myself and quieten my mind down and actually focus.

Quieting my mind down and focusing is a huge problem. I’m way too fidgety. Here’s the thing about problems. You never should let it grow. Tackle it from the start and fix it. Ego aside, it’s time to man up and actually admit that for once you’re stuck and need help.

Now, being a guy, my ego always gets the better of me. However in this instance learning to adopt the mentality of a white belt and humbly admitting that I have a problem and I need to fix it greatly helped. Firstly people did not judge me and make fun of me. They were indeed concerned and very helpful. My personal thanks goes out to all of you who’ve helped me during the course of my injury.

One thing that makes you an attractive and confident guy is your ability to shove your ego aside and actually ask for help genuinely when you need it. People love to help. But they only would do so if they feel that you are genuinely in need of it. It all comes from the essence of wanting to care and be cared for, a basic human need.

Well, with all that being said and done now begins the true journey. I’ve got to get my ass back in tip-top condition in the next few months and start to acquire and upgrade my skills. Until then I’m hitting the fitness corners so I’ll catch you guys soon! Peace!