First Appearance on an American TV Drama... sort of

I had a job for the new ABC drama Detroit 187 last week. As there is a scene in an upcoming episode that takes place in a boxing gym, they wanted to take photos of fights for the walls of the gym, and with my background, I was one of the people selected for the photos. Anyway, I was happy to be on the show, even if only as a still image ;)

It actually reminded me of a similar job I did for a Japanese TV drama once. There was a scene where the main character reflected on and recalled his time in Africa, and he had to hand a photo from it over to someone else in the scene to look at. Much like this past shoot, the attention to detail was simply insane. In that shoot, the guy was standing in front of a tank to stop the destruction of an orphanage, and they actually brought in 20 little African (or half-African) kids, 10 'soldiers' (of which I was a part) and an ACTUAL TANK. For the orphanage, they seemd to have painted the walls, put up banners, planted flowers, etc. and then they spent the WHOLE day shooting it from different angles simply to get that one image. This one was similar, although not quite that extreme. (Didn't get to ride a moving tank this time).

In the pictures, I was wearing camoflage trunks (which were actually pretty cool- wish I coulda kept them). They got a few really good shots, but as the person I was 'sparring' with didn't have any action experience, (and as such, didn't know how to 'sell a hit') they seemed the most happy with the shots where I was taking it to the face, so that's what will probably be on the show (unfortunately ;)

Another cool thing about the shoot though was the fact that I got a chance to meet IBF World Boxing Champion, Cornelieus 'K-9' Bundrage. (Also there for the shoot). During the downtime, he gave me a few tips on how to improve my boxing technique, and showed me a REDICULOUSLY SICK jumprope routine (which I can't even begin to copy and wished like he-- I coulda got on tape). After the shoot was completely finished, and we were just hanging out and talking I got a picture with him as well. Very very nice guy. Very modest and a family man. (Notice the size of his fists and forearms though- said he's been doing 1000 push-ups a day since he was 11.) Definately not the kind of arm I want to take a punch from.