A Day in the Life of Alfred Hsing – July 24th, 2010

Recently over dinner I met someone who mentioned a project called “Life in a Day“. I saw a short clip of it a few days ago.. and then lo and behold I log in to YouTube today and see it boldly blasting all over the place. Today is “YouTube Filming Day” for the project of Life in a Day.

Life In A Day is a historic global experiment to create a user-generated documentary film shot in a single day. This experimental documentary will be executive produced by Ridley Scott and directed by Oscar winning director Kevin Macdonald. The film will premier at the Sundance Film Festival Jan 2011.

It also just so happens that July 24th and 25th (which is still the 24th in the US) are the only days I will have YouTube access because I’ll be back in China tomorrow (where YouTube is blocked). Thus I felt some calling to document my life on this day… and plus I had been meaning to create a video on “A Day in the Life of Alfred Hsing“.

Let me know what you guys thing because I plan to submit this tomorrow.

In other news, I created a new website – www.alfredrocks.com

alfredrocks.com

I’ve always had the domain alfredrocks.com, but before it simply linked to a blogspot page. Now that I am getting more involved in production and acting, I felt it was only right to have a clean simple page with my head shot, demo reel, and resume – all of which are on the site. =)

There are still a few minor changes I might make to both the “Life in a Day” short and my new alfredrocks.com site. Overall they were both fun to work on. Feel free to leave feedback!

So I’ve been out in Beijing for a little over 2 weeks now. Why did I move out here? I got an offer to work for Jet Li / The One Foundation and in less than 24 hours I had decided I would relocate everything to Beijing. A frequent slogan of the one foundation is that with “one” it symbolizes a beginning to something. Without 1 there can not be a 2 and subsequent growth.

People ask me what do I do? This is such a difficult question because there’s just so much. As much as the previous assistant explained and prepared me for what was in store when I got off that plane, actually diving into it head on was a completely different sensation. I remember 3 days in RW constructively told me “stop sighing… I know it’s a lot to take in. I sighed a lot when I first got here too, but I know you can handle it.” ..and since then I do feel a better grasp on things of course, but I just wanted to use that quote to exemplify how much was going on.

One Foundation Research Institute Ceremony

So a quick recap of some of the things that happened in the life of Alfred Hsing upon first arriving. I feel like I barely drop off my 2 huge luggage bags and before I know it I am on a plane again. We essentially traveled to Shanghai, Changzhou, Hangzhou, Macau, and back to Beijing in 7 days or so. We had meetings, lunches, interviews, dinners, red carpet events, philanthropy discussions, and press conferences to attend throughout the day. The first first day on the job for me was the announcement of the One Foundation Research Institute at Beijing Normal University. After that it all blends together, but a few notable events include meeting the CEO of Alibaba.com, fighting our way out through a mob of fans, seeing Jet promote his “WuJi” Adidas line, first hand tour of part of the Shanghai Expo, and attending press events for his latest movie “Ocean Heaven”.

Ocean Heaven

I had the opportunity to watch Ocean Heaven with the One Foundation team. Let me cue you all in on both real quick in case you don’t know. Ocean Heaven is a non-action film starring Jet where he is the father of an autistic child. One of the reasons he did this film was to support various causes and create awareness for people out there. This sort of ties in with the One Foundation in terms of his aims to help others. The One Foundation was created in 2007 and the simple message is that everyone should do a little every month because the world is one big family. He says that above all.. before we get into races and genders and who owns what and who does what.. we are all humans and we share one earth.. so we should all do our part to help out. That is a very high level explanation, but day to day there is a LOT more going on. He and the team are always striving to develop and grow the foundation so that it can do more in cases of natural disasters, poverty, education, health, and environmental protection.

Ocean Heaven Red Carpet Event

Wushu
I think it’s cool that Jet was one of the first that broke through and brought wushu to the world and a couple of wushu generations later I am still practicing wushu and working alongside him. We had a brief chat about who I trained with and it was cool that he knew most of the people and they were people that competed in his era and or trained with him. We had a meeting with some wushu federation members and it came up that I would be attending the Sport Accord Combat Games which they are helping to host.

For the Sport Accord Combat Games I will be competing in changquan only. Some friends in China asked to see my longfist form and some videos since youtube is BLOCKED in China.. I’ve uploaded my videos on youku.com! Here are two clips:

Social Life
I haven’t had much time to go out since I’ve just started working, but I was able to hang out with some friends at Shi Cha Hai and train once or twice with the Beijing Wushu Team. Although I’m working a lot and learning a ton, I need to remind myself to stay in shape still… on top of that, I need to keep in shape for this last tournament in August at least. I also have interacted with Jet’s previous assistants and they have all been very talented and very cool people.

Food
One thing about this job is that food and hotels are never shabby. I have had some really delicious food the past few weeks. The other half of the time when we are not out at a restaurant room service becomes your friend.

Thank You Room Service

Thoughts
I am definitely learning a lot out here. I do not for a second regret this decision although to be honest at times I do think to myself “I could be in LA with family and friends. I could be in an environment where I know all the places; I know the people around me; the language, roads, etc are more familiar” but then I do consider that this is a very rare opportunity to take in as much as possible from the movers and shakers of the world. We’ve met UN officials, real estate moguls, and the largest web entrepreneur in Asia. I am very passionate about the work we do and it just so happens that the things my boss is involved in happens to be “business, entertainment, and martial arts.”

Jet and Wang Shi

My June 2010 Tricking Sampler!

10 days before the BIG DAY! Got tons going on. So for this week I am teaching 3 classes, training, doing a demo, tying up loose ends, and then heading up to nor cal to visit family and support the wildaid / kung fu magazine tournament in San Jose.

An update on my previous to do list:
(completed)
UPS shipper account company testing trial period
update FAQ
find customer support staff
book flight up north
book flight to china
buy new laptop
buy new luggage case (maybe also buy one of those traveler backpacks)
optometrist appointments
acting classes

(in progress)
transfer business email forwarding
find new roommate
clean house
get visas
sell car
martial arts training
teaching lessons
buy new camera lens
buy new phone (thinking unlocked iphone)

My latest action reel.

Here it is on vimeo too.

Alfred Hsing 2010 Demo Reel from Alfred Hsing.

alfred comp card

I’ve been working on a comp card and updating my theatrical resume today because I’ve been meaning to send out my demo reel along with my CV to some places. The above is still a work in progress, but thought I would post something up for now and continue to work on it.

Also I been playing the new police story trailer over and over because I like the September Storm song Jackie Chan sings.

Okay, I am off to a wushu demo in downtown. Ciao!

Alfred next Kato in Green Hornet!

is what I would like to see happen. Let’s make it happen!

I spent all weekend updating my 2009 demo reel.
Stephen Chow even gives me a personal endorsement in my demo reel! =)

Here is My 2009 Demo Reel

Alfred Hsing 2009 Demo Reel from Alfred Hsing on Vimeo.

So my agent tells me on Friday that I need to immediately get her my headshots, resume, and demo reel so that she can submit me for the role of KATO in The Green Hornet movie being directed by Seth Rogen.

Here is a little background- Sony pictures is slated to release a movie version of the 1970s tv show “The Green Hornet” in summer of 2010.

For those who don’t know about the show. It is about a pair of crime fighters and the sidekick KATO is played by Bruce Lee.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kato_(The_Green_Hornet)

For 2010, Stephen Chow (Kung Fu Hustle, Shaolin Soccer) was supposed to play the role of Kato and Seth Rogen would be the main super hero Britt Reid.

Stephen Chow was originally supposed to help Seth Rogen direct The Green Hornet and act as Kato. First news came out that there were some differences and he was no longer filling the directing role and would instead just act as Kato. However recent news indicates that due to his schedule and other circumstances he may not act as Kato at all.

If ur diggin this article please digg/stumble/twitter this article: http://www.casualiscool.com/martial-arts/alfred-hsing-as-kato-in-the-green-hornet-plus-my-new-2009-demo-reel/

As I mentioned, I spent the whole weekend updating my demo reel and also getting some Kato style pictures taken. Special special thanks to John Nguyen (and Ruby) who helped me take some awesome pictures under terrible circumstances (aka no location and no professional lighting equipment, and middle of the night) and also thanks to my roommate Alex for helping with the lighting and also doing some color correction for me on my demo reel dvd!

Alfred doing a Kato action kick for The Green Hornet

(Here is the youtube version. They didn’t allow my other song choice so I went with the Jay Chou Huo Yuan Jia / Jet Li’s Fearless song)

Alfred Hsing 2008 Demo Reel (2009 coming soon in a few months)

Alfred Hsing 2008 Demo Reel from Alfred Hsing on Vimeo.