And then?

And then I went to Indonesia to collect my World TV award for the Doco/ drama I made for FBC TV called A Day At the Beach and to attend the Asia Media Summit.

What an awesome experience. You know I've always wanted to travel and more so I've always wanted to travel to Asia. Earlier this year I was fortunate enough to take part in a work shop in Malaysia which was a country I've been longing to visit.  

I flew into Indonesia through Sydney and then through Singapore which was awesome because I've always wanted to visit Singapore as well. I got spend twelve hours there and though it late when I got with me being very tiered (it was a total of 11 hours flying and 4 hours waiting at Sydney Airport before I got there) I was eager to explore.

The city was amazing - the first thing that struck me was how clean and fresh everything looked. Even for a city that was towering and bright there was a certain air of "zen" about the whole thing. And I use the word zen not because of some hipster connotation to it - but because it just had a great sense of balance to it.

I didn't do much shopping in Singapore though because I was saving my money for my final destination. I did however buy some very awesome Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle figures that I have come to love dearly.

When I got into Manado, Indonesia I thought I knew what to expect. I had saw some pictures of it online and was looking forward to a up and coming tourist town, instead I arrived in a place that was in very early stages of development. In fact despite the tall buildings and enormous number of fast food joints - my home city Suva here in Fiji was actually more modern that it.

On my first night I met up with my CEO who was also there for the Asia Media summit and the two us decided to hit the town. We walked around for about three hours before we decided to just have dinner and head back to our hotels.

I stayed at the Swiss Bell Hotel which was about 2km away from anything interesting in Mando, it had very friendly staff and the place looked great. The food was pretty awesome as well - though a little on the expensive side for our Fijian dollars. Though the Indonesian dollar is a little on the low side of the exchange rate, they make up for it by making most things very expensive.

The next day I attended a work shop on "The Medias role during a pandemic"  which was very interesting. I was very grateful that I had played the Android game Plague Inc because a lot of what I had learned from it actually came in handy. In fact I even suggested that the participants at the work shop check it out.

The work shop was a relief for me because I was suppose to do a talk as well on "How media can help raise awareness on sustainable development" - so I saw the 30 or so people in this work shop and though - I can do this.

The next day I found out that I was actually speaking in the "main convention room" to a Broadcasting crowd of about 300 to 350 people >_<

O boy...

The next day was the big award day - I was asked to sit somewhere in the front so that it would be easier for me to go up to collect the award. The days events started about 9:30am and the awards were at 12:30pm.

I don't know why but I was very nervous even though I already knew that I had won.

Before they called me up they had all the judges come up and talk about what thy liked or what they saw in "A day at the Beach" and to hear all their thoughts was a surreal feeling for me. I've often talked about all the little themes and messages I've found in movies and to have people dissect something I wrote and planned was interesting. I was pleased that a few of the nods I had put in hadn't gone unnoticed. One judge had picked up on my T.S Elliot reference and a few others saw drew some really deep ideas from it.

As I collected the award I was so damn excited that I stood there speechless, though I had prepared a speech I didn't get to read it because of some kind of error on the organizers part. But they apologized after but I didn't mind.

Later that afternoon I met with my fellow panelists to discuss our talk/ presentation.

When it was time to be up on stage I soon became quit comfortable about it. As I heard the panelists talk i knew I had prepared something interesting enough. My contribution to it was more from a production standpoint. How to make programs on any kind of awareness more engaging for the viewer. Coming up with concepts, looking at budgets, considering the mulch-platofroms of new media to get the info out.

A consultant for UNEP and a man who has become a good friend of mine did a nice little blog post about my talk which you can read here. I was pleased that a lot of people enjoyed my talk saying that it was very "practical and real". Which is all I ever wanted it to be.

That night I did an interview on Radio 24 which is a Malaysian station. I talked about my award and what it was like starting off as a radio host before moving in to TV and film production. Later I got a call from a friend I mad on my trip named Chandra, who was from India. He and another cool guy i met named Adam were keen on hitting the night life a bit. So I though "what the heck"


We ended up going to a karaoke bar which was on the basement level of the hotel I was staying at. i walked into the place with a live band screaming out Nirvana's Smells like teen spirit. I was loving the place already. I had a few drinks and stayed for a little over an hour before I decided I'd better get some sleep. 2am in Manado was 6am Fijian for me - and I hadn't totally adjusted to the time difference.

Thursday was the last day of the summit which was wrapped up pretty early so I spent the day with the new friends I had made and just pretty much saying good byes. Bye to Adam and Debasmita, two very awesome people I have to keep in touch with.

That night Chandra and I chit chatted over whiskey and snacks he had brought from India before I head off to bed.

I left Manado at about 1 in the afternoon and took the same route back home through Singapore and Sydney. The flight out of Manado was made interesting cause I got sit next to a very nice young lady from Capetown. Conversations always make the journey better. I hadn't bought anything else on the trip so I picked up some books in Singapore.

I was so pleased to be home after the crazy long flight. Nothing beats Fiji man...

A Day At the Beach wins a World TV Award.

And then I won a World TV award.

A short film I did with my FBC TV crew called "A Day At the Beach" won the World Television Awards 2013 Science/environment category for the Best TV Programme on “Creating Ozone Safe Generations".

Now I get to present the Film at the Asia Media Summit, which is a global gathering of broadcasters from around the world, scheduled for the the 29 May in Manado, Indonesia. That's where I get presented with my award too :)

According to the website there's going to be 500 representatives from various broadcasters at the summit so it should be very interesting. 

I was so damn excited when I heard that I had won. It was 1am on a Saturday Morning and I had just finished a few hours of playing Loadout when I got the call from my Boss who had gotten an email telling him I had won. I actually just sat there kinda like "o really... awesome"

Inside though I was kinda in shock because this was my first international award, and a World TV award at that - which is pretty huge.

The film was a made as part of the workshop I had attended in Malaysia.

 As far as films go I never make anything I wouldn't watch. So when I set out to make something on Ozone Depletion one idea just jumped into my head.

After hearing all this talk about stop ozone depleting substances by the year 2050 I started thinking about what kind of effect that would have on us here in Fiji. Can Fiji or the whole Pacific wait that long? What will happen before then? or after that?

Check out the "Boom Mic"

So what came out in scripting was a ravaged Fiji in the year 2063 and the rest just fell into place.

Drawing from such things as Cormac McCarthy's The Road and even a bit of Jack Vance's Dying Earth stories soon the script was locked into place.

I had a great crew working with me too so after about a week of planning and a day of shooting we  knew we had something awesome going. I'm lucky to always have a crew that sort of trusts me with concept and planing and especially direction.

I wanted to make the short informative, while still being accessible, so I had written a father and daughter reflecting on all the things that happened to Fiji for it to be the dry, barren place it was in the script.    

We shot the project down at the Sigatoka sand dunes which gave us the perfect back drop for our story.

Before the actual day of the shoot my buddy Samu Soqoyawa and I went up to the dunes to check out the location. I shot a small video of the location on my handycam just to get a feel for the place. I then cut this into a little "mood video" that I showed the crew to give them a sense of what I was trying to capture. I also used this is a site reference when scripting.

The Day of the actual was shoot was a lot harder as the area gets a lot of rain. So it meant packing equipment up now and then, sometimes in the middle of takes, so we didn't get it wet.

What was also interesting is that I had planned to have a  CGI character in the story as well. A computer that talks to the father and daughter, explaining things about the Ozone and the effects of the depletion.

The design for this A.I was pretty simple but looked great - and I owe a lot of thanks to our graphics guy and my friend David Whiteside for his designs. I'm lucky that he is a huge video game buff like me so he had a lot to draw from. In fact he designed all the graphics I animated based on a few crude sketches I had given him. though our render resources and such was pretty scarce - I thought the end product with the AI turned out great.

Lending her voice to the AI, that we named Jacki-0, was the lovely Jacqueline Speight from our very own FBC TV news desk.

The score for the short was done by our very awesome sound guy Jone Nakasamai, who actually composed the main theme a day before we submitted the film for the award.

Our two leads Peceli Rokotuivuna and Ny Vann were great sports. As we had one camera it meant we had to do a lot of multiple takes to get the different angles. Even Seremaia bui Cabecabe who was our drive for the day helped with carrying equipment up and down those mad high sand dunes.

In the end we had something we were all very proud of and to have something that is essentially a work of passion recognized with an award like this is truly amazing.  

Here's the trailer for the short - which plays on FBC TV on the 15th of May at 6:30pm. I'll have a copy online soon after I get back from Indonesia.

ZOMBIE PARKOUR 2 needs your support!

Even though I've worked on two short film projects and hope to dish out even more in the not so distant future, I don't really consider myself a film maker; at least not in the traditional sense.

I'm just a guy that has a few ideas of my own that I'd like to see play out and I'm fortunate enough to have friends that are willing to help bring these ideas to life.

It is very hard though to get a movie done. Even if you have like minded people putting in their time and effort to help out, the sheer cost of the littlest things add up like crazy.

Recently I had the pleasure of getting in touch with Bozant Katzakian, an independent film producer from NYC. He is part of the creative genies that produced the very awesome short "Zombie Parkour."



Zombie Parkour was a huge hit on the net and has gained over 160 thousand views to date. Now the crew behind the fun zombie action short are hoping to do a sequel to the project, aptly titled Zombie Parkour 2.

If you've seen Zombie Parkour (which is just up there at the top if you missed it) then you would know that these guys are very passionate about what they do. Especially looking at some of the risks the actual Parkour guys are putting themselves through.

We had no budget to really make this film but we pulled it off and the feedback has been incredibly positive. 160,000 hits on youtube ain't bad but its only the beginning. There's so much more we can do. We've just scratched the surface.

To get Zombie Parkour 2 under away the dedicated crew is looking to raise $25,000. This will go towards such things as wardrobe for the characters, as well as make up and prosthetics for the zombies. The money is also needed to secure such things as permits for shooting locations and even to do up certain environments to prepare it for scenes, not to mention paying for insurence for the actors and equipment.

Basically the guys are out to make Zombie Parkour 2 bigger and better than the first one, with huge action sequences, scarier zombies and madder Parkour moves.

Like I said, the first Zombie Parkour has already accumulated over a 160 thousands views online, now imagine if even half those views were kind enough to donate as little as a dollar towards this new project, the crew would be well on their way to making their project a reality, and giving you another mad awesome zombie short.

In the crews own words:

You'll help in taking the Zombie genre into someplace new and fresh and spreading the art of Parkour to more people around the world, and you get to possibly be a part of it and to also help advance peoples careers and possibly yours. If you can't donate anything then just spread the word.

Remember that even giving as little as a dollar could help these guys out. You can however donate as much as you want and you even get some cool extras if you do decide to contribute more.

You can visit the Zombie Parkour 2 "kick starter" page over at Indiegogo.com to make a donation. Simply click HERE to find out more about the project and how you can help.