FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

CRUMP SET TO STAR IN PINKAEW’S NEW FILM

Bangkok, Thailand – November 8th 2009 – Well known American martial artist Marrese Crump has been confirmed to be in talks with action director Prachya Pinkaew to star in his next film. The news was announced through a video that was released on YouTube outlining not only Crump as starring, but Yanin “Jeeja” Vismitananda (Chocolate, Raging Phoenix) as well. Crump, known for his wide range of exceptional martial arts skill, has said to be very excited about working with Pinkaew and Yanin as well as Panna Rittikrai.

“After meeting with Prachya and his team in Thailand, we are all confident that we will be making a quality film that both fans and martial arts practitioners alike will appreciate and be proud of.” says Marrese after returning from Baa Ram Ewe Studios in Bangkok.

Prachya, most notable for Ong Bak: Thai Warrior and Tom Yum Goong (aka The Protector), is well known for incorporating intricate fight scenes and cutting edge cinematography into his films, ranking them at the top of martial artists’ favorites worldwide.

The collaboration is said to be unprecedented as Prachya’s productions have done well to showcase the talents of fellow Thai’s, but has never starred an American martial artist before. Some of the specifics have yet to be released, but production is slated to take place in Thailand early next year.

Promo Teaser on YouTube:

Video of Crump working with Ong Bak Stunt Team:

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 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

For those of you who don’t know, I attend the University of Tampa. It’s a prestigious private school that’s difficult to get into (and very expensive, but I don’t pay for it) and I’m happy to be there for the most part. I am a Communications major with an emphasis in film & video production. This semester, I enrolled in a photography course… thinking it was going to be easy. I thought, “Great… I’ll get a grade for doing what I’m already doing anyway.” It’ll be that easy, right?

Haha. I knew a few things were going to be different and that was OK. I imagined the course would help me establish a new found respect for the art and help me fill in a few technical gaps I may have missed through my self-taught process. The first time we processed and developed our film, coupled with the printing process, was a very humbling experience for someone who has been doing photography for a good part of 2 years now. But it presented a challenge… I like that.

The second project of this course needed to be 5 shots of a series or sequence of some sort. Since I had a photoshoot with Marrese Crump coming up, I figured I’d bring along my 35mm camera and kill two birds with one stone. Here are the digital versions of the prints I turned in for the project:

Obviously, the sequence is of a martial artist going through a workout, beginning to end. Another small element I incorporated was the small white towel in each shot. The white towel tells a story of how, we as a people, are sentimental by nature. This grown man, a warrior, feels the need to carry this towel everywhere he goes… especially during a workout. It’s much like a toddler carrying around his security blanket. This isn’t actually the case for Marrese, but it was a small element that had a story for anyone who noticed the towel in every shot.

So the class posts up their work on the wall and I partake in my first official critique where we discuss what we think of eachothers work, series by series. I started out by discussing a friend’s series based on the economic crisis. Her last shot was of a bum sitting on a street corner. I wish I could show you the shot, but to explain… the bum was framed on the right side looking to the right. This meant he was looking right at the edge of the print. We can’t see what he was looking at.

I had commented how I feel that shot was the strongest print of the series because of the framing. Normally when you shoot a subject looking to the right, you want to frame them on the left to give them a clear line of sight through the photograph. This gives a feeling of comfort. I felt this print was strong because the subject didn’t have a clear line of sight, insighting a sense of tension and anxiety. This is a concept that I subconsciously knew for a long time and was brought into a much clearer context in a Film Production course I’m also presently taking. I’m not sure if it was done intentionally, but I think it was very fitting, considering the subject matter. I interpreted it as this homeless person not having a clear view of the future, which most of us can relate to.

Well I got shot down like a WWII Kamikaze. The professor looked at me like I was crazy and said she didn’t understand my concept of how the framing and composition of the subject invoked any sort of grim feeling or tension. She was a Fine Arts major with a Masters by the way. Class participation is part of our grade, but after attempting to offer my thoughts a few times after that, I gave up and was quiet throughout the rest of class. I didn’t feel singled out though, as she did the same thing to a few others in the class. Anytime anyone stepped up to express their feelings and thoughts on a series, the professor proceeded to tell us how we should ‘actually’ feel, based on the subject matter and use of lighting. For anyone who knows me, you can imagine… I don’t like to be told how to think OR feel.

So the second series that was picked to go over was mine that you saw above. From the class, I had gotten quite a bit of positive feedback as well as a few areas of improvement. Mainly, the last two prints could have been exposed a little longer to bring out a richer black. I took both types of critique with stride and an open mind. That’s the whole point.

She said it was decent work, but they didn’t create a ‘circle of interest’ (or whatever she called it), with the exception of the third shot. She said this circle draws the viewer into the shot, . Why? Because his head, arm and water bottle actually make a bit of a circle! Are you kidding me?! It appears I can pass this class with flying colors if I don’t do much more with my composition than to incorporate an enclosed circle of sorts. This bothers me on many levels, especially after my discussions with Celtic Rebel on the subject and his blog entry that followed.

When discussing my work, I also told the story of the towel. She said she didn’t get that at all because of my composition and that she barely noticed that the towel was in every shot as a result. I attempted to explain to her that the towel was just a side element and was not the main concept that the composition was supposed to reflect, but it didn’t matter. She’s the ‘teacher’ and I’m the ’student’. Case closed. But let me make one thing clear here:

I don’t create art for other artists… I don’t take pictures for other photographers… and I don’t make films for other filmmakers.

I do it for myself and for the people.

My viewer, my audience. My work may not be technically sound, but just because “that’s how it’s always been done” doesn’t mean that’s how I want to do it. Now I’m not trying to bash my professor, but I imagine at a minimum… I am Communications oriented and she is Fine Arts oriented, and the concepts and philosophies between the two appear to differ greatly. Coupled with our own personal concepts and philosophies as individuals, it didn’t make for a very fun evening.

But a grade is a grade. And since I need a good one in this class or else I’ll actually have to pay for the class myself (and it’s too late to drop it), I will create the rest of my prints with her feedback in mind. And when it’s all said and done and class is over, I’m taking everything I ‘learned’ in this class and throwing it right out the window. And I won’t be taking any more ‘Fine Arts’ classes, at least not with the same professor. All the other Communications and Production courses I’ve taken so far have been great and I’ve learned a lot. What a waste of time in this class though.

But to end on a positive note, I had mentioned the feedback I had gotten from my fellow classmates. Apart from what was mentioned in the discussion, a few others had felt the apparent tension and had come up to me afterward, one-on-one, and stated variations of: “Don’t worry, I really liked your work.”

One comment made during the discussion struck a chord in my heart:

“They look like shots straight out of a Gatorade commercial.”

I’ll take that, thank you very much!

My Son: Geo Ioannis Vega

(The middle name is Greek, pronounced “Yannis”)

Born February 15, 2009 at 5:47PM in Tampa, FL

8lbs. 6oz.   22in long!

Last week, I was sitting at the local ale house eating my lobster dinner. Being the naturally social person that I am, I struck up a conversation with Michele, the waitress, who had this anxious/nervous vibe about her. At first, I thought she might be having a bad day. But as I talked with her, I found out she was getting prepared for a trip to the Bahamas the next morning. She also said that her and her friend are Florida Gators fans and will be watching the BCS National Championship while they are down there. I didn’t think much else of it until later on.

While I was watching the game in my own home, my mind began to wander (mostly during the extremely uneventful first quarter). I thought to myself, “You know, there’s a waitress on a much needed vacation in the Bahamas watching this very game this very second.” Now when you think about the fact that it is THE championship game and that it’s nationally broadcast and even internationally broadcast in some areas, it doesn’t seem like much of a big deal. But when you factor in the power and influence of what we see (television) has on our mind (our thoughts), it is a big deal.

Now there are way too many free thinkers and truth seekers out there that will be quick to tell you, “Turn the TV off”. It’s because these people understand the influential power that TV has over our thoughts, mostly in a subliminal and manipulative way. I am one of those people. There was a span of almost a year that I didn’t even watch television. In 2007, I had found out only through a friend that a tropical storm was headed right for us. He thought I was crazy for not seeing anything on the news about it already.

I won’t even begin to discuss the ways and reasons ‘blockbuster’ films and television might have an adverse effect on our thoughts and what we think our lives are supposed to be like, although an article written by Celtic Rebel called The Art of Revealing covers the topic nicely for those interested. But I did hear about some new technology in visual communication where they can bypass the images you physically see with your eyes and embed images directly into your visual cortex. So you’re telling me they can skip right over my eyeballs and get directly into my brain without me knowing about it? Subliminal advertising has been around for a long time, but that is a bit scary.

To hopefully put things into a simple perspective… a movie at the theater runs at about 24 frames per second, while most television broadcasts run at 30 frames per second or higher. So when you’re watching them, you are seeing 24 to 30 pictures every second. If one picture ’speaks a thousand words’, how much does a whole movie or a few hours of TV speak?

My viewpoints have since changed and I started watching television here and there since then, but only through my ‘third eye’ as I weed through most of the garbage and interpret some of the messages for what they are really saying to us. My extensive research into his(our)story, symbology and most importantly the recovery of my critical thinking skills (you know, the concept we had as a small child of questioning everything, that has since disappeared as we grew up?) has helped me to see life more clearly now.

As most of you know, I work in the film & entertainment industry. That may seem like a bit of a paradox. I’ve taken a more optimistic approach to the power of visual aesthetics and to life in general with wanting to pass on my values and philosophies to those that are willing to see. The power of communication is much like any other power… it can be used for either good or evil, order or chaos. Images can evoke emotion… I want to use mine to evoke thought.

“It’s great to be a Gator?!”

hmmm… how about…

“It’s great to be alive in a world of opportunity!”

Not as catchy, but I still like it.

I’ve decided to share my New Year’s resolutions with everyone for many different reasons. The main one being that now that everyone knows what they are, I will feel more accountable for them and even more motivated to accomplish them.

When we look at the phrase ‘New Year’s Resolutions’, what really comes to mind is merely a list of goals for the year. But when you look at the word ‘resolution’ by itself, we tend to think of the solving of an issue, most likely an already existing one. When we set our goals for the new year, we have in mind some sort of end result, hopefully achieved by the end of the year. That is the whole concept, right? What are these end results?

Good Health? Love? Happiness?

Our goals should not attempt to reach these end results because they are not capable of being end results. Rather, the pursuit of these concepts alone should help us reach our goals! Shifting our thought process and focusing on the things that matter most in life will lead us on an endless journey of perpetual good health, love and happiness.

Most of my resolutions are not new goals that I am looking to start, but a continuation or a betterment of what I am already doing. My goals that I have set will, without a doubt, be achieved… just by being on my path.

1. Be a better family member and friend.

With some of the success I’ve had, it’s been a bit hard being there and spending time with the ones I care about most. I plan on balancing my time a lot better to share with them, for they are the reason for my drive and motivation to be successful.

2. Meditate and focus more.

Sometimes I feel a little overwhelmed and ahead of myself. Recently, a spiritual guide told me that I need to stop and listen to the spirits of our forefathers. They have great knowledge to share that will help me on my path and I need to connect with them more often. Everything will come in due time.

3. Read more.

I have more than a dozen books that were recommended or given to me by my loved ones. Books on philosophy, martial arts, spirituality and many more. I value knowledge and will gain as much as possible to help me along my path.

4. Continue to focus on my health.

Most of my friends and family say that I am the healthiest person they know. 2008 was the year I decided to take the value of my good health to the next level, including becoming a vegetarian. This year, I will continue along this path of good health. I’m going to be around on this Earth for a very long time.

5. Goal: Open a studio.

As odd as it may seem to some of you, the path to achieve this goal has had light shone upon it in a recent vision quest. The details were so sharp, I’m actually planning on writing another blog soon to share this vision with you. I have shared this interest and goal with some already, but never has it seemed more attainable than now. I know that this will take a lot of hard work and time. It may not even be by the end of the year, but this is the time to start.

Those are what I have mapped out for myself for the year 2009. I encourage everyone who has read this to share their thoughts and even their own resolutions here. Much love and respect to the deserving ones in 2009!

I can’t remember the last time I’ve listened to the radio. It’s just the same old crap. So I’ve relied on my own collection of music as well as recommendations from my friends who are also conscious about life and what I consider “awake”

When Gnarls Barkley came out with his first ‘hit’, I thought it was pretty good. The beat was catchy and if you listened to the words, it actually had meaning. He wasn’t singing about 24″ rims on his Escalade and ‘poppin’ bottles’. The music had substance. I was wondering how long it would last though. Most intellectual artists come out with some great stuff and fade away after a while with the exception of a few.

Once I saw his new video (provided below), I am pleasantly surprised. The song is excellent and is something we can all relate to. The video itself is shot very well and the CGI is exceptional for a music video.

Gnarls Barkley, I am officially a fan.

Original Article: http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/news?slug=ki-carano100808&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

The video (Gina Carano stripping naked to make weight):

Now I could go on and on about the double standard of men vs. women in society, or that we all have this notion that men and women both have their places in this world and fighting in a cage is no place for a woman, but I’ll leave all that alone.

What I will touch on is the subconscious notion this article brings to anyone looking up to Gina Carano as a role model, especially young girls. As much as society and mass advertising breed insecurity and low self esteem into young women as it is, it also feels the need to put the issue of weight on blast every chance it gets.

While I know that the actions of everyone should be accounted for and that I think the concept of ‘idols’ and ‘role models’ are way overrated, I do know that I haven’t seen an article in this capacity for any MALE fighter. Although this article attempts to balance itself out by mentioning boxer Jose Luis Castillo having issues making weight, it fails to mention the drastic weight cuts of today’s male fighters such as Joe Riggs, who came down from Heavyweight to fight at 170lbs. among many others.

Aside from all that, young women (and all people for that matter) need to break away from these standards that society tries to set. Pay no attention to magazines and TV as they set ridiculously false ideals on how your life is supposed to be. If you want to look up to Gina Carano as inspiration, great! But do yourself a favor… think your own thoughts, find your own path, and be sure to march to the beat of your own drum along the way.

In a world where both major ‘political parties’ serve the same agenda, when your critical thinking has become skewed thanks to the mainstream media, and you just feel like your civil liberties are being stripped away day by day… There’s only one thing to do:

Vote Anesti Vega for President in 2008!

Now I’m just wondering who’s going to be my Vice President?