...the good life...

So the webisode pilot I shot about a month ago is finally up. I got a hard copy of it and posted it to my website and b/c it's a rather large file, I'm not going to post it to blogger.

So go to MY WEBSITE and click on 'projects' at the top, then on the left side you will see "The Good Life (pilot)."

I think it's o.k. It's not the best thing ever but I think there is a chance it could be picked up and I think the episodes would only get better and that could be cool.

Anyway. There ya go.

...pray for me and my career...

Hey guys. So I just wanted to a put few things on your radar to be praying for:

1) I shot a webisode pilot about a month ago. It will be online and viewable soon but they pitched to some NBC people that evidently liked it. It'd be awesome to get picked up b/c it's only once a week but pays me something, it's fun and would be nice exposure

and

2) I have a meeting with Osbrink Agency on Thursday at noon. It's better than an interview because an interview is like: shake hands, give them a headshot and "we'll call you if we like you." BUT this is a meeting with an agent for commercial representation. They are a pretty good agency with a great reputation and hopefully something could come out of it for theatrical representation and then I'll also have my own show, plus host a late-night show when Jimmy Fallon needs a fill-in.

Thanks guys. I appreciate your help and love the picture of having you all on my team. It's like the Verizon commercials and I have thousands of people on my side...and 2 helicopters...always 2 helicopters.

Thanks again.

B

...what are you doing in 8 hours?...

So this past Tuesday night I got a call at 11:00p.m.
Me: Hello?
Ryan: Hi. My name is Ryan and you don't know me
Me: (wondering what in the world this could be about) Um. O.k.
Ryan: So I got your name from a friend of a friend. Do you know Michael Hobert and Alex Beh?
Me: Yeah. I know them.
Ryan: Yeah. So here's the deal. I am a director and am shooting a short film and one of my actors just dropped out last minute and I wanted to see if you were free?
Me: Maybe. When is it?
Ryan: Well it's in 8 hours.
Me: What?
Ryan: Yeah call time is 7:30 tomm morning. We shoot all day Wednesday and all day Thursday.
Me: O.k. well that might be able to happen.

He sent me the script and we chatted. His script, Tour de Fright, won funding by Boost Mobile for a "Screamfest 2008" Horror film festival. Well he only really does comedy (Scrubs, etc.) so his film is more like a joke/satire/riff but still pretty good.

The premise is that there are 4 cyclists training for the Tour de France (hence the name) and they joke with the new guy (me) about an old tale of a frenchman cyclist who was killed during the Tour de France and haunts the woods.

(Spoiler alert) The guys break the news to me just as I'm starting to believe it that it's a joke. Then you find out that it's actually real b/c the Frenchman ends up killing us. It's not gory. Just funny.

So I'll post some pics from the shoot as they come in but this one here is amazing. The makeup lady and SFX (special effects) people were awesome.

This is probably going to be my new headshot. Thoughts?

...a spoof...

So with the beginning of Plow The Yard, Daniel and I brainstormed a spoof video.

This is the original video:

And this is what we did. I helped write and edit it alongside Daniel Wall and Nate White. It will soon go on our Plow The Yard website which will soon be created but I wanted to (again) give my friends and family a first look at it. Hope you enjoy them both.

(PS: might be good to watch the first one just as a reference point)

My theology of Willy Wonka

***NOTE:If you read my latest blog entry on workshop and my life right now this will make more sense...so maybe scroll to the story below this one first...then come back.

Recently, I watched my favorite movie, Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory (that's the old one) and since it's my favorite movie, there is no doubt I watch it over and over again. I love DVDs so I can just skip to chapters I want to watch. Anyway, Charlie withstands a number of tests without knowing that is what he is 'going through' (he thinks it's just a factory tour) and at the end he is the last kid. At the end of the tour Wonka yells at Grandpa Joe saying they do not win the special prize of a "lifetime supply of chocolate" because they broke one of the rules. They actually "drank fizzy lifting drinks"--an obvious problem.

Grandpa Joe begins to leave with Charlie and remarks that he will get Wonka back somehow. The easiest and most obvious way would be to spill the secrets of Wonka's candy making process to a competitor named Slugworth. Charlie, however (spoiler alert), brings a piece of candy Wonka previously gave to each of the children, puts its on his desk and turns to leave--he wouldn't betray Wonka.

At that moment, Wonka turns to Charlie and remarks, "so shines a good deed in a weary world." Then tells Charlie he's "passed the test." Charlie asks if that means he gets the chocolate and Wonka seems almost to laugh at this low-level of dreaming/expectation. He says, "the chocolate, yes, but so much more." He goes on to show him the entire factory and give him the keys! He gets the WHOLE place.

I love this scene and put God in Wonka's place and me in the place of Charlie. God is testing and refining me and I don't even know it (sometimes I DO) and at the end of it he says, "Bradley, my boy. You passed the test." And I ask for the chocolate (t.v. show, money, wife, health, etc.) and he laughs at this low-level dreaming/expectation. "Yes, Bradley, the chocolate. But SO much more."

I cling to this.

I just wanted to share my theology of Willy Wonka.

Thank you.

...the workshop...

Over the past year, I have had some trying times and I think we each can find a few of those moments or even chapters in our life that seem like we are the only ones out there. Or, in my case, it seemed like at least God was out there but he was just that, out THERE and not with me in those moments.

In this industry and this city I find myself tried/tested/bruised/flying high more than anything else at any other point in my life. LA and acting to me is almost one big fire (o.k. that's a bit dramatic but so am I...so...deal with it).

Recently I came across a passage from My Utmost for His Highest that went along with what I have been feeling. It was divinely appointed, I think, because I had the date wrong and probably would have missed it b/c I don't read it everyday.

Anyway:

"We imagine we would be all right if a big crisis arose; but the big crisis will only reveal the stuff we are made of, it will not put anything into us. 'If God gives the call, of course I will rise to the occasion.' You will not unless you have risen to the occasion in the workshop, unless you have been the real thing before God there. If you are not doing the thing that lies nearest, because God has engineered it, when the crisis comes instead of being revealed as fit, you will be revealed as unfit. Crises always reveal character."--O.Chambers Sept 10

I like the idea of a workshop...that trials are a workshop for what is coming up. Sometimes it feels like God is dragging his (probably enormous) feet in my life, career, love life, personal development, financial freedom, etc. AND I KNOW God's timing is perfect. Yes. I know this...but.

"For you, O God, have tested us; you have tried us as silver is tried. You brought us into the net; you laid a crushing burden on our backs; you let men ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water; yet you have brought us out to a place of abundance."--Psalm 66:10-12

ARGHHHHH.

That's how I feel about that.

A new project

So in the hopes of putting myself out there even more than I am a friend of mine and I have started a political/pop ("poplitics") website that will have probably what turns out to be weekly or bi-weekly video posts around 4-5 minutes of what's news and what's not. It's in the vein of Weekend Update (from SNL) and The Daily Show.

We will be supplementing the off-the-cuff, improved-style show (with a few talking points) with video spoofs, 'on-location reporting' and other segments.

I was approached to be a part of this because there is not much in the way of conservative conversation happening on the web. There is radio (Rush, etc.) but not so much in the video world. PLUS it opens the door to lots of other options for us.

This is the first installment. I'm not putting it on my website yet b/c we are still working out what it will look like and all that BUT I wanted to bring y'all in on this process.

We will have a website up and running soon too. It will be www.plowtheyard.com. We landed on "Plow The Yard" because we are shooting it in the backyard of my friend (Daniel, co-host) and also it wasn't taken and seems kinda catchy. So that's why we picked that.

Anyway. The website and e-mail will be up and running soon and our first spoof video is almost edited and finished so that will be up too.

Enjoy.