Sooooo Much Cabo

Latest video that I made from my recent trip to Cabo. Check it out!

Tryin' Shit Episode 1

A Chord of Summer in Vancouver

Just some stuff I shot with fancy new Sony EX1 and edited together last night.

Love this camera!

A Chord of Summer in Vancouver from Mathew Joki on Vimeo.

ShamWow Dude Arrested

Remember this Guy?


Well he apparently was arrested for beating up a prostitute after she "bit his tongue and wouldn't let go." Yeah, I know, crazy huh!?

From The Smoking Gun:

Shlomi, 44, was arrested last month on a felony battery charge following a violent confrontation with a prostitute in his South Beach hotel room. According to an arrest affidavit, Shlomi met Sasha Harris, 26, at a Miami Beach nightclub on February 7 and subsequently retired with her to his $750 room at the lavish Setai hotel. Shlomi told cops he paid Harris about $1000 in cash after she "propositioned him for straight sex." Shlomi said that when he kissed Harris, she suddenly "bit his tongue and would not let go." Shlomi then punched Harris several times until she released his tongue.

Billy Mays muse be having a hay-day now, especially after Billy tried calling him out to a pitchoff:


"Billy May's doesn't take this! I'm the ultimate pitch man, if you wanna come after me I'm any time, anywhere!... I'm not the Beastie Boys or Run DMC, I'm Billy Mays and I'mma knock you down to your knees!"

A Return to Shaolin

I've been watching a lot of Bruce Lee and kung fu movies lately and it's really making me want to train again. I found this clip of my Shi De Cheng, my Shifu ("master/teacher" in Cantonese) from when I used to train Shaolin Kung Fu in Dengfeng, China, doing the form Xiao Hong Quan (Little Red Fist) and thought that I'd share it for nostalgic purposes.

Below that I also have a clip of my doing the same form after 6 weeks of training under shifu Shi De Cheng.





And another of shifu Shi De Cheng just being an absolute don with the rope dart:

Prometheus: Online

It's been a REAAAAAAALLY long time since I graduated from the Foundation program and VFS, and I just FINALLY got my final project on to YouTube! No, I don't really have any excuses for why it took so long, but it has now been tweaked a little bit to make it look a little bit more crisp and it's officially on there!

So check it out, if you were unable to watch it on the Babelgum site that I know so many people had troubles viewing it on in the past.

Hope you enjoy it. (And even if you don't, I hope you rate it 5 stars just because! ;) )

All Kinds of Awesome

Don't know why I haven't shared any of this with my readers earlier....







Live it. Love it. Embrace it. Be it!

.....?

Straight Up Regal!

For those who don't know, I bought a car last week: 1993 Buick Regal Gran Sport


That's not my actual car, but essential it's the same.

It's a pretty pimp ride; fully loaded; leather, A/C, sunroof, power everything, keyless entry. P.I.M.P.!

And the best part: less then $800!

I figure I'll use this a stepping stone towards my next car...

Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Pur Sang:








...I wonder if they'll take my Regal in on trade?

Best Commercial EVER!

Honestly, I laugh myself to tears every single time I watch this! (And I've seen it like a thousand times!)

I Jizzed In My Pants (SNL)

Props to Marc-Anthony for showing me this.

Apparently embedding has been disabled for this post so check it out HERE, it's F'ing hilarious!

PEACE


I Jizzed In My Pants (SNL)

Greatest Thing Ever? Or Greatest Thing FORever!?

This needs no explanation.

Awesome Vid

This is probably the greatest thing in my life right now! Watch:

Wanderlie Silva is a Psycopath!

Watch the video below and you'll understand why...
Raw Vegas Video

And go HERE and watch the 3rd video from the top to further solidify that understanding

Video of Tae Kwon Do Form

I find it next to impossible to find Tae Kwon Do forms (aka. hyungs or tuls) on the internet. Most of them are slow, bouncy and weak, with bad timing and atrocious footwork. When I was at home last, I recorded one form called Hwa-Rang, with my phone when I was at the TKD gym (aka. Dojang or Dojo) working out by myself. This a low-res video, so bare with me.

I hope you enjoy and get to see what I consider to be a proper TKD form.



I've got some belt test footage on my computer that I just dug up recently so hopefully soon I will get some more up here.
I'm also planning film a more cinematic version of my black belt form, Kwang-Gae, and will have that up online as soon as I'm finished shooting and editing it.

Until later,
Joki

Videos of My Shaolin Kung Fu in China

I know it's been like two-and-a-half years now, but I finally got around to posting up some of the Shaolin kung fu forms (AKA "tao lu") on YouTube.

The following are after only 6 weeks of training, so the technique is still a bit rough.
Enjoy.

Xiao Hong Quan ("Little Red Fist")


Lian Huan Quan ("Continuous Linking Fist")


Tong Bei Quan ("Through-the-Back Fist")


Yin Shou Gun ("One-Section Staff")



My training took place at the Shi De Cheng Wushu Center of Song Shan Shaolin Kung Fu, in the city of Dengfeng, Henan province, China, under the tutelage of former Shaolin Temple monk, Shifu (master/teacher) Shi De Cheng. I trained there for a total of 6 weeks before heading back to Thailand to continue my training in Muay Thai. The city of Dengfeng itself is only hours away from the original Shaolin Temple -- Shaolin Si -- positioned at the foot of the Song mountain range ("shan" translating as "mountain" in English).

And that's my quick lesson in Shaolin history for today.
Later!

The Greatest YouTube Video EVER!

This is, without a shadow of a doubt, the single greatest video on YouTube!

Enjoy!

VFS Final Accept to Online Film Fest

The day has finally come! My Vancouver Film School final, a 10-minute short film entitled Prometheus, has been officially selected from more than 2000 other submissions to be a part of the Babelgum Online Film Festival, which is being hosted by none other than the influential and prolific director and filmmaker, Spike Lee!

So of course, I encourage all of you to download the Babelgum TV program here, so that you can create an account, view my short film and if it's not asking too much, vote very graciously towards the film so that I might be able to win upwards to €20,000 as well as meet Spike Lee at a gala luncheon in Cannes, France! The other bonus is that for every advertisement that accompanies my film, I get a share of the profits. So help me out and watch my film as many times as possible so I can make a dime in the process. Trust me! I promise not to forget all the people that help me work my way towards fame and fortune! (*Fingers crossed*)

********************************************************

I would like to preface, however with a few thoughts and explanations about my short film. For me, this was an attempt to "break all the rules" of cinema; an attempt to get across a concept that was possibly too complex for the short film format; but most importantly, it was an experiment to see how far I could push the envelope in questioning traditional cinema conventions and to try and employ the use of special effects and compositing to explore the problem of translating internal conflict onto the screen.

In retrospect, I would probably have gained more from doing a simpler film, but I'm all about the challenge, and now that I've experimented so vastly on this project, I'm ready to focus my talents on a more story-driven and more 'conventional' approach to film.

Thank you all for your support and please find the embedded site below.

Prometheus
**I'm not sure if this is working for anyone else, but if not you can use the following links:
-Prometheus on Babelgum
-Babelgum Online Film Festival
-Download Babelgum TV

Obama's a Muslim!?

I don't post anything political on the blog, and to be honest i haven't even been following politics very much recently, but the other day I came across this on the TV:



I'm still pissed that they even aired something like this on television! I mean seriously, isn't the US supposed to be a democracy with freedom of choice? How can a major news network go on the air and talk about "allegations" about someone being a Muslim in the same sort of demeanor that they would if they where addressing whether they're a pedophile or a neo-nazi!?

I can understand that within the interview scenario, the interviewer has the ability to guild the interviewee's answers with the way they choose to word there questions, but regardless of that, the only correct response that Hilary Clinton could have given to that question would have been, "Well I don't really see why it matters, or how it would make any difference, regardless of the religious views!"

Here's more on the whole bullshit news story:


Why can't we all just chill out at appreciate each other as human beings. Each of us with our own beliefs and experiences.
Why can't people understand that a specific sequence of neuron synapses firing in a single person's brain is absolutely infinitesimally insignificant when compare to the magnanimous proportion of the universe.


(Take into account that our Milky Way is one of more that half-a-trillion galaxy that comprise our universe.)

Tolerance is fun!
:D

Special FX: Then and Now

I found some really awesome displays of the practical uses of special effects spanning the decades. Have a look will you?

Then (1981):


Now:


And something just to mess with you head:

Jungle Man

We’re here in Dominica, and it is INSANE!!!!
I need to spend a good deal more time here some time in the future. Only next time I need to bring along my love, JaeHee! :D

When we were on our way to our accommodations (Cocoa Cottages) we stopped the taxi along the road and went for a trek into the forest, leading up to magnificent waterfall in a clearly. A sight that words can’t describe! We played around there for a little while, drank from the pools of water, climbed over the hill to another waterfall, explored a cave, and just lost ourselves in awe of the spectacle that nature was presenting before us.

Once at our hotel we were introduced to our living accommodations. Rustic, natural, pristine. Simply beautiful, in every aspect of the word! The girls got themselves shacked up in the Honeymoon suite, the boys in “The TV Room” – an open foyer with chairs facing out towards an large floor-to-ceiling window that faces into the jungle (this window being “the TV”) – and myself, I managed to set myself up outside on a small bed hanging from chains underneath the terrace of an upstairs suite; completely open to the elements of nature. I’ve got no walls enclosing me out here, only the fresh scent of rain, chirp of the tree frogs, and rustling of the wind through the jungle fronds. If that isn’t the exact definition of heaven, then I don’t know what is!

After we dropped our bags off at the cottages we went and had a late lunch at a restaurant with a view to die for. Then it was chilling in the hot springs, jumping into brisk pools of waterfall runoff, and a “shower” under the waterfall adjacent. I defy anyone to tell me how life could get any better, aside from having your number one girl beside you. ;)

Tomorrow morning we’re going to shoot a scene near one of Dominica’s 365 waterfalls and then go scout for a location to shoot one other scene that we never had time to shoot while we were in Antigua. The scene that we’re scouting for has been alluding us for this entire time, so we’ve got this one last chance in Dominica to actually get it done, once and for all! The first day that we attempted to shoot it at Nelson’s Dockyard, we had to throw in the towel due to the relentless onslaught of tourists and cruise shippers who wouldn’t stop waling through our shot. The second day we attempted to shoot in the few hours after the tourists have left the Dockyard, but we ended up in an impossible battle with the shifting sun, with its irregular shadows and rapidly changing light quality. So this time, it’s all or nothing, baby!

-Ocean/Mountains near airport

-That waterfall I mentioned.


-Luke and Shab climbing a jungle mountain


-Beastmaster!



-Our actress, Mikel Bauer, contemplating the ramifications of micro bacteria spreading in rain runoff as a result of global warming...


-Fitzroy!


-A video that Marc-Anthony took with his digital camera of us doing what we do at the falls.

More pictures, videos and other fun stuff to come. Stay tuned!