Japan X-men Origins Wolverine 2 shooting

One of the great things about building a career in entertainment (or any field, really) is that after a while, you get to know everyone, and as long as you're not difficult to work with, yu get to build relationships with people, as you bump into them in project after project. What's surprising however is that that even seems to transcend borders as well.

While working on the shoot for House Hunters International last year, I had a chance to work with a really cool Autrailian director by the name of Paul. While most of the rest of the crew had been outsourced locally, Paul was usually flown all over Asia by the show to actually handle the direction.

As luck would have it, Paul was also asked to come back to Japan to direct the shooting of the behind the scenes footage for X-men Origins Wolverine 2, and as such I had a chance to catch up with him for a few days during the shoot.

I first found out about the shoot because a good friend of mine (the production manager of ATARU) was going to be working on the film as well, and he invited me to come along as an extra Japanese-English interpretation staff member. (Particularly for anything involving action and stunts). In the end, it ended up not working out, but given the fact that I've got 3 other friends involved in this project, I really wish I could have been as well. Even if I never got to step foot in front of the camera. (I also know one of the stunties working on the Australian shoot, and the stunt woman for the main Japanese actress is also someone I train with regularly. (She was actually in the stunt fighting part of the House Hunters shoot as well).

Overall, from what Paul told me, it was a really good shoot, and even if I couldn't be a part of it, it was nice to be able to meet a few of the other production staff as well. It was also good on two other fronts, 1) because I've got a short film in the works, and meeting up with Paul gave me a chance to run my ideas past him and get some expert advice, and 2) because it gave us a chance to discuss the possibility of collaborating on a project in the near future. I don't know if it is like this in all industries, but one of the things that I love about the entertainment industry is that there's always so much going on. As such, one door closing can always lead to another opening. Even though it didn't work out that I could be a part of this shoot, at the same time, I'm happy that so many good people I know could have been. From what I've heard from the people who worked with him on this (and on Real Steel when it was filming in Detroit), Hugh Jackman is absolutely always a great pleasure to work with, and I hope I get the chance to meet him myself sometime in the future. If not however, I'm still grateful for the chance to meet Paul again, and given how much fun this Austrailia thing sounds, and how much good advice I got from him for my own film, I'd still say I got a lot out of this shooting. Even if I ended up having nothing to do with it. ;)