David Chiu

I’ve kinda been neglecting my blog for a while now. A lot of it has to do with feeling uninspired, unmotivated and uncreative. But I’m trying to get back on track running the marathon towards my goals and dreams. Here’s a summary of everything to date:

My “role” in the corporate world
In July I was “laid-off” (aka fired) by some lame ass dot-com because they didn’t like my attitude. You couldn’t really blame me though, the place had a high turn-over rate and there were people quitting/leaving all the time. It was a pretty easy job though. Nice dot-com style perks (catered lunches, massages on Mon, nice location in Santa Monica, decent pay). It was my bad. I took the job for granted. So I got booted and landed in a web consultancy contract job across the street (literally). Things were going great there, people liked what I was doing, nice casual atmosphere - then I received a job offer from another company. Another company that wasn’t a dot-com. A very conservative corporate organization. I’ve never worked in a shirt and tie environment so I hesitated on accepting the offer. The consultancy I was contracting for decided they wanted to try to make me an offer as well and put me through a gruelling round of interviews for three days - technology interview, creative interview, project management interview. Everyone liked what I had to say in each respected area but the question always came up “How willing are you to travel?” Well considering that most of the people in that office traveled for more than 50% of the time I said “No”.

So now I am sitting in a fairly large cubicle with high walls and an old computer on my desk. I’m dressed in a formal shirt, tie, trousers and dress shoes (I had to buy an entirely new wardrobe for this job). I’ve slicked my hair back and am clean shaven. I am now playing a new role. The role of a hot shot corporate worker. I walk differently and talk differently. I’m all business. And my new character has already gotten in trouble. I got in trouble for being PROACTIVE! After three personal meetings with corporate bigwigs on whom I’m not allowed to contact directly (because I’m just a peon), I find it ironic that I initially got “laid off” for not being proactive, and now that I am proactive, in this new job I could get fired as well!

Ah, the drama of real life!

On location back east for “Mother’s Day”
I recently got word that the final edit for the short film “Mother’s Day” has been completed. I’m pretty impressed with how fast they finished editing. My short film “Supernova” (written and directed by Roy Eisenstein) took me 3 months to edit! I’m interested to see how the project came out since it was shot with a professional crew hired by a first time writer/director. It will also be very interesting to see my part in it since they only had 15min to shoot all my lines before they had to be out of that location!

I’m glad I participated though. It gave me a chance to visit friends and family in the DC/Virginia/Maryland area!

“Supernova”
I finished editing it the other night! What a great learning experience. Roy wrote/shot/directed it and I starred/edited/scored it. I will be posting it here soon…

“Anthem”
Another monologue piece written by Roy Eisenstein starring a friend of mine (Jeff Ross). I helped shoot some of the footage and now I’ve started editing this piece as well.

“Jake-Off”
A film-noir, monty-python-esque comedy pilot written by the talented Roy Eisenstein, starring Chase and an ensemble cast (including me) and shot by the multi-talented Chris Nelson and his amazing stash of high-end camera equipment and accessories.

Two weekends ago we all piled into a downtown loft in a shady part of town and boiled in the sauna-like environment while we filmed the majority of the pilot over two 12-hour periods. A great environment for learning, I wore multiple hats as grip/AD/PA/boom mic holder/actor/etc/etc. We recently saw some rough footage from the shoot processed through some color filters (as envisioned by Chris Nelson) and it looks AWESOME! That’s the benefit of using an Art Director/Graphic Designer/wedding videographer to shoot your project!

Now we probably have 4-days left of shooting. We’ll be shooting this Sat evening in downtown agian. Shouldn’t be that tough, it’s a couple of short scenes.

Scene study class
I’m back in class at the studio (Joanne Baron/DW Brown). I figured that I need to be back in class since I’ve started auditioning more lately. Especially after the guest-starring role pre-read audition for Malcolm in the Middle. So I brought a dramatic monologue and comedic monologue to class and was asked to perform first. I felt I did o.k. but when I received the critique from the acting coach the under-riding subtext was “you graduated from the two year program so why didn’t you apply the method that was taught you?” DOH! Well, that’s really my own subconscious talking but it’s a valid point. So now I really have to work on my monologues and bring them back next week. In addition, I have also been assigned a scene partner and the play “Doubt” which we’re suppose to pick a scene from to perform.

It’s 5am. My ass is at the gym
With my new job schedule (8am-5pm) I’ve been trying to get to the gym at 5am to get my workout in. My goal is to get in the best possible shape to help with my marketability as a leading male actor/model. I haven’t been that successful so far (working out at 5am, nor as an actor/model for that matter) but I’m getting there - I did two workouts this week at 5am!

Then there’s just general life. Life in the hood is still dramatic with two drunken high-speed crashes on our block within the last two months (nobody got hurt luckily). H and I have been going to Todai pretty frequently as well as making several trips to the Hollywood Bowl to drink wine, eat cheese, fruits and listen to good music. Moon cake festival is in a couple of days, I already received my moon cakes and I can’t believe fall is upon us and the holidays are once again, right around the corner.