Action & Fitness Magazine
Action & Fitness Magazine recently did a feature on Marrese Crump and his philosophies on the martial arts in their June 2009 issue! It covered a brief history of Marrese’s training and his accolades and featured my photography in the article! Enjoy!
Elamintal Hits One Million
The official Elamintal Multimedia YouTube Channel has now reached one million hits on its videos! Elamintal Multimedia is my company that offers a wide range of media services including film and video production.
The YouTube channel was originally created to have a place to put the promotional videos I started editing and eventually producing for renowned martial artist Marrese Crump. We put out the first few videos with good success and exploded when we put out Crump Workout. Once we released the videos with our friend Dave Batista, it was a wrap.
What’s really cool as well is that only 4 videos account for the one million hits. We had released a few more at one point, which would have had us over the one million mark a few months ago, but some of them were made private for a few different reasons. There are lots of other projects I’ve produced over the years and are on the clients’ channels or not published on YouTube, including my directorial debut of a short film that is making its way around the festival circuit. Another cool element is that if you put the videos in chronological order from when they were uploaded, you can see the progression in the quality.
Between this blog and YouTube channels, they not only provide a platform to showcase my work and projects, but also act as a journal of sorts for me to reflect on my accomplishments so far and to put my future path into perspective. You can expect lots of big projects soon as things progress.
One million hits might not be a big deal for some, but for me… it’s a nice milestone for someone who started out with nothing more than a camcorder, a computer, a camera…. and a dream.
Pronobozo Music
Pronobozo isn’t someone you may have heard of yet, but you will… soon.
I first came across his music when it was laid over a promo video put together by Team Ryouko, a martial arts team out of Canada. As great as the footage was, I was amazed by the music. I looked it up and found his website, www.pronobozo.com.
I downloaded his album, zero=one=everything, and fell in love with it. At the time, I was running a small martial arts organization for children called Warriors Tribe and I had emailed him about using his music on my website.
Over the years, I’ve taken it upon myself to help get his music out there… having it featured in films and soundtracks… and just telling my friends about it like I am now. A Patriot Act was the first film I had his music featured in that made waves at many film festivals and those who were at the premiere of my directorial debut, Traceur, got a small taste of an upcoming track during the credits. I even put his music on the latest promo video I produced, Batista Crump Kali, which is now gaining about 1,000 hits a day.
He just posted a small promo video about his new album coming out soon including a sneak preview of a track called Evol. It’s very… guerrilla style… which I like. So check it out:
More Info:
www.pronobozo.com
myspace.com/pronobozo
youtube.com/pronobozostudios
twitter.com/pronobozo
Experiment 7
This past weekend, I wrapped my fight choreography and stunt performer services on the set of Experiment 7, the latest film from Joe Davison (100 Tears). Here’s the description of the film from IMDb.com:
Dr. Felix Copper is a doctor of Biological Sciences and is on a quest to find a solution to purifying radiation from water in the year 2022, ten years after the fall of humankind. He has to travel to the far outreaches of every city known, trying to make his way to the coveted underground lab, if the Mutants don’t get him first. Along the way he meets some unwarranted friends, Sam and William, two off the cuff heroes who cause more problems than they fix, and Aco, a super-model turned weapons expert. Together, Dr. Copper just might survive long enough to find a cure.
It was an exciting experience working on this film and a nice change from the typical vampires and zombies, although almost everyone was mistakenly calling the mutants ‘zombies’. Being on this type of set reminded me how easily you can make the most of the resources you have. Joe had some of the best skill and talent around… all to be apart of a great film. Joe had great energy and was fun to work with, Chris Rish had great vision as the cinematographer to turn great fight scenes into epic ones, and working with the talent of Candice Rojas for the second time and Dwight Cenac for the first time made me wish I would have been more involved in this film somehow. As with every film project, big or small, there’s going to be some times where things don’t go exactly as planned. Behind the scenes, Jori and Karaly helped keep everything moving along nicely and kept everyone sane under some stressful times.
Since this was the first time working with Joe Davison, working under stunt coordinator, Jonathan Tilley, was seemless and his input and adjustments on the fight scenes helped give Joe exactly what he was looking for. It was refreshing working with someone like JT where egos did not get in the way of making great fight scenes. Some people made some comments about ’stealing thunder’, but I set that straight real fast. Fight choreography is a specialty under stunts. That means that when there’s a stunt coordinator, I report to that person. Jumping out of windows and setting people on fire is not my thing. I’m not trained or certified to do it and I don’t really care to do it. I choreograph a fight scene, present it to the stunt coordinator who may make adjustments as needed, then we take it to the director and cinematographer.
Finally working with professional boxer Jenna Shiver was a pleasure as well. She’s been training with Marrese Crump on and off between fights and may be a great addition to our team. She took direction well and after just a few rehearsals, her movements and timing were pretty sharp. I look forward to training and working with her more in the future and helping her use that potential and energy for film.
Although I’m listed as the fight choreographer on my website and on IMDb.com profile, I only worked on two major fight scenes. I have been extremely busy with my new son and a few other projects so I wasn’t as involved as I’d like to be. I’d tell you which scenes they were, but I’d rather everyone go see the movie and tell me which fight scenes you enjoyed the most. Word is, it will be premiering at Screamfest in Orlando this year so I’ll be there and hope to see all of you there as well! I’d have some pictures for everyone, but they are keeping everything under tight wrap until the release of the movie. However, you can head over to Fangoria.com to check out some exclusive photos and comments they have. Enjoy!
CrumpDojo.com is Launched!
Well, actually… it’s been launched for a little over a week now. Anyway, Crump Dojo is a social network for martial artists BY martial artists. You can create a profile, upload photos and videos, start a blog, partake in discussions on a wide range of martial arts related topics and more!
Although this social network is created on the Ning network, my company… Elamintal Multimedia, was in charge of creating the network, designing its header and look, and is in charge of maintaining the site.
We will soon be releasing more content, including “Warrior Journal” training videos that are currently in production and info on seminar tours and events.
So if you’re a martial artist and would like to share your ideas, thoughts, philosophies and training with like-minded people, please feel free to join!
Photoshoot with Oscar Lugo
I first wanted to say that I’m pretty sure I’ve found my niche. Every photographer has a specialty that they shoot. Their skills may be versatile enough to shoot anything great, but there’s always an element that shines more than anything else.
My niche is capturing the martial arts. I have come to specialize in capturing the warrior spirit of those in the martial arts community through film/video production and photography. As a practicing martial artist myself, I understand the timing and technique to be able to produce high quality results more than any normal photographer trying to do the same.
Right before the Batista Crump Kali video shoot, I decided to snap a few shots of martial artist Oscar Lugo. These photos aren’t as in depth in terms of showing Oscar’s skill as I would like, but we were pressed for time. Enjoy.
Redesign of Elamintal.com
While looking over my recent work and how to properly implement it into my company website, I realized… I need a new layout. The original one was great, but it wasn’t apparent to the visitors what my company is and what we offer. So without further ado, here is a screenshot:
If you click the image above, it will take you straight to the website. It’s makeover is complete for now, pending some small changes here and there. Please feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you think of the new layout!
Batista Crump Kali Video
Elamintal Multimedia has just released the newest martial arts promo video for Marrese Crump featuring Oscar Lugo and WWE Superstar Dave Batista (Bautista is his real name). The trio go through various sequences of Filipino Martial Arts (kali, arnis, escrima).
Ray Cole (Owner of Tampa Muay Thai), Dave Batista, Marrese Crump, Oscar Lugo,
Anesti Vega (Owner of Elamintal Multimedia)
Many thanks to all who were involved, as well as Tampa Muay Thai, where it was filmed… and pronobozo for the permission to use such great quality music. It was a long day of shooting and an exhausting editing session until 4AM, but it was a lot of fun and look forward to doing it again real soon. To sum it all up in the joking words of Marrese while editing at about 3AM…
“Dude!…. it looks like I actually know what I’m doing!”
Enjoy!
The Premiere of TRACEUR
TRACEUR, the first short film produced and directed by Anesti Vega of Elamintal Filmwerx (the film division of Elamintal Multimedia), will be premiering at the Tampa Film Network event on March 27th!
Time: March 27, 2009 from 7:30pm to 10pm
Admission: FREE!
Location: The Art Institute of Tampa
Street: 4401 N Himes Ave # 150
City/Town: Tampa, FL 33614
Map: http://maps.google.com/maps…
Contact Info: (813) 873-2112 (Art Institute number)
Organized By: Daniel Brienza (Weekend Film Crew Productions)
.
.
Anesti Vega will also be the Guest Speaker that night on the topic of “The Future of Action & Fight Choreography in Independent Film”. Please leave a comment below to RSVP so we know who to look for!
Thank you to everyone who was involved in making TRACEUR! It couldn’t have been pulled off without every single one of you and we look forward to you, your family and your friends coming out to support our collective work!
The Beauvilles – Lips (Music Video)
Here is a music video I wanted to share with everyone that I was finally able to dig up and upload. It was produced by Galileo Studios by a great up-and-coming band, The Beauvilles.
I choreographed the fight scene in the bathroom. The scene is a bit choppy and cuts real fast (I didn’t sit in on the editing), but I hope you get the idea. It was a lot of fun to work on and I met some great people like Nevada Caldwell who I look forward to working with again in the future, hopefully on my own projects.
Enjoy!
