Welcome to the Malina Mansion!

New year! New start! New friends!

I've... we've relocated to a new place here in Taipei, and it's one worth talking about, and dedicating a blog entry to. The new roommates: Albina, Charles, Gleb, Irene, Val and myself all met coincidentally this year and quickly grew close. So, here we are, at our rocking new residence - The Malina Mansion!

By the way, happy holidays!

Episode 4 - Taipei Holiday

The holidays are here! Well, they were here. When this episode was taped. In this installment of my video blog, I take and show you what Taiwan is like during the holiday season. What’s cool is, here we get to enjoy longer holidays (sort of) than back home. We get two consecutive New Years – Western and Chinese – and a Christmas somewhere in there. This, I guess, sort of makes up for the lack of Christmas spirit around these parts. Although the shops are open, the decorations are up, and the Jingle Bells is being played on every corner, ironically, the Christmas spirit is absent. First and foremost, because the Taiwanese WORK on Christmas. Yes, that means the white folks work, too.

For New Years Eve and Day, we usually get these days off. Even if they fall in the middle of the week, which is nice. The Chinese New Year is the best time though. A lot of people get a whole month off, and most get around two weeks. They are pretty generous with vacation time here. This is no America for you. And not to mention the LOADS of national holidays and other random times that gives you days off. For my Chinese New Year trip (as most take one), I traveled back to Moscow with Val. I haven’t been back in over a decade and it was insanely great to see all my family and friends again. However, I left this part for the next episode.

On a technical note, the past two episodes have been rather lengthy, so I decided to cut back and return to my initial set timing of ten minutes per episode. I also shortened the transitions and lengthened the content itself. This way, it should be more enjoyable to watch. I just personally enjoy mixing the music and videos for these transitions and sometimes get carried away. 

The idea for the title came from childhood memories. I used to watch many of Audrey Hepburn movies with the family and one of them (the more famous one) is Roman Holiday, so I thought it’d be appropriate to do a little play on. Some of the highlights include our Chinese class presentations, teaching jobs and Christmas shopping with my Chinese Christian friend, Paul Gao. Oh yeah, and of course more partying – Russian style! 

2011 Kavalan Short Film Festival

I was walkin back home from dinner a few weeks ago, when I came across this flyer. A short film festival here in Taiwan? Moreover, a cell phone shot short film? That sounds like something right up my alley. Right away I was pretty excited to kick things into gear. Given that I've been playing around with editing and shooting this whole year, and really developing this hobby of mine, the mobile short film competition will be a good way to see what the "experts" in the field think of my work.

I am pretty excited about what we have conjured up. Music. Singing. Some laughs. Taiwan. Even some Lady Gaga. All that is going to be included in my one minute short film debut. It took a little while to put the idea together in a comprehensible and rational manner, but I think we've managed pretty well. We commenced shooting today, July 26, and have until August 5 to submit the material. Top prize winner takes home NT$20,000. Not too shabby. It could sure go a long way in helping pay off some bills and debt. 

The first day of shooting was pretty successful and fun. Even thought today Taiwan's weather decided to bring us heavy rain, we worked around it and I am remaining optimistic that tomorrow we can sneak in at least a few hours of sunshine in the morning. That's how it works here - it shines in the morning and it pours in the afternoon and evening. For more info, go here. 

Now on to day two... lights, camera, action! 

Episode 4 Trailer

I am still only half way through editing the fourth episode, but I've finished the trailer. This one is taking a bit of time since I am pretty busy with job search and planning my life out for the next year. It looks like I might stick around here for another year. Even apply to do my MBA degree, as well. 

The fourth episode shows a bit of what's it like to teach English in Taiwan. Anything from college students all they way down to those little, adorable, and yet VERY crazy kindergarteners. Also, throughout the year I've caught on tape some pretty funny moments, both of random Taiwanese people as well as my friends. People's whack work out routines at the gym, to dancing on the MRT, to acting a fool in class. That's all here. Finally, my first trip to Russian in over ten years, is going to be shown here. It was a pretty special time for me since I haven't seen most of my family in the past decade. But that's all to come when I finish putting it together. For now, here's the trailer!

The Dot Com Situation

Situation 101 gets its own website - 101.khandurin.com - now up and running.

The other day I had an idea to organize all the episodes in a neat and creative way, so voila, the 101 website! Wix.com offers some cool flash templates, with which you can quickly make a clean looking, modern, and professional website. There are many free templates options as well, which is great!

Also, for quickness, I made a another subdomain off my website - blog.khandurin.com - which takes you directly to this blog. It beats the actual web address, I think. Plus, I like doing these tech things.

Add Some Blood To The Mix

While waiting on more from Taiwan, I'd recommend checking this show out. Yeah, I know, it's about vampires, but its cleverly done. I, myself, was never into the whole "Twilight" saga, but this is quite different. Well thought out. Interestingly shot. Good actors. Enthusing story line. 

No HBO? Go here.

Speaking of blood, I was recently cast in a music video for an up and coming Taiwanese rap star. He's really new, and his style isn't exactly what you'd expect from a rapper, but hey, when in Taiwan... I played the part of some army general, interrogating and torturing this kid. It was a pretty low budget shoot, but turned out pretty well. My part was shot in a span of about an hour on some dorm roof top of a university here in Taipei. You can check out the behind the scenes action in one of the upcoming episodes. For now, check out the the final product below. 

Blog goes Mobile

The other day I discovered that Blogspot now supports mobile browsing. I enabled the option and it now works a lot better on my iPhone than the cumbersome full webpage. I think it works well on most Smart Phones. Try it out!