Green Ninja: Origins (Day 1) [Behind the Scenes]

Today we wrapped up day one of shooting for the Green Ninja: Origins project with Spartan Studio Films, a San Jose State University sponsored film directed by Babak Sarrafan and filmed by San Jose State students and members of the Film Production Society, with Jim Orr as the Director of Photography. The Green Ninja Project is the brainchild of Babak Sarrafan, professor (Radio Televison & Film) at San Jose State University, birth from an idea originally proposed by Eugene Cordero, a professor and scientist in the field of Meteorology and Climate Science,  representing one of the lagest collaborative effort between multiple departments and colleges within San Jose State University.

My part on this project was casting the legendary Professor Greg Lagera to play the Sensei, and the Crazy Dragons for the talent. If you don’t know who they are, you must not know the history of Kajukenbo! Read about them! Everyone was a blast to work with and very professional. Professor Lagera, who teaches for free, informed me that be has been in a couple of movies before….and it shows! This is exciting stuff!!! Did I mention we are shooting on 35mm film!!!

Today’s shoot was at Hakone Gardens in Saratoga, CA, a beautiful place I will definitely have to come back and visit again sometime. For a student-ran film project, everything went very smooth and everyone was extremely professional and on point. I can get used to this. I am also doing behind the scenes footage and will edit together some nice vids for you guys to see…a real film crew!!! Also, Nokia donated us some N8 phones (thanks!!) that shoot 1080 footage from a 12mp cam! I’ll try to post some soon….Stay tuned….