Film & TV

Appearing as “Yen-Boi” a Supporting Role in TV Series XIII2 Ep 12 “Berzerk”

July 27, 2012

I landed a supporting role at the action TV show “XIII” season 2 episode 12 “Berzerk”, playing a 13-year-old Chinese boy Yen-Boi setting in Shanghai. I filmed from July 19th to July 27th, 2012 and had enjoyed it greatly. One of the interesting things was, I was pleasantly surprised to find out my Kung Fu master – Sifu Alan Tang, whom I trained Wushu (Kungfu) with since age 7 in Sunny Tang Martial Arts School in Scarborough, was the stunt double for me in this show! When he showed up onset, I was like “wow!”

I started to train Wushu (a.k.a. Kungfu, a type of Chinese martial arts) at age 7 and sort of stop training for competitive martial arts at age 12 after I competed in Canadian National Wushu Championships, because my feet were feeling a bit weird perhaps from some minor injuries during training, and my mom worried that I might not be able to grow tall if I kept training Wushu due to all those stretching I had to do every day lol.

Well, I am 5’8″ at age 14, so I guess height isn’t becoming a problem at all! 😛
Some on-set still images can be seen over here.

Working in Short Film “Searching for Wonder”

November 13, 2011

In 2010, my agency forwarded an email to my mom in which a young Toronto director Tricia Lee of A Film Monkey Production invited myself to play a lead role in her upcoming short film production “Searching for Wonder”. It is about a 12-year-old child prodigy who attends University and lives in an adult world, who discovers the feeling of wonder for the first time when a street magician blows his mind with magic. It”s about a kid learning to be a kid again. My mom read the script and discussed with me, we both love this character and what this film would bring out, so I accepted the role – Kevin and I looked forward to playing it.

In summer 2011, after finishing my work for “Flashpoint”, I worked 2 days (August 6 & 7) shooting this short film. The cast and the crew are all very nice and helpful, especially Tricia, a very dynamic and energetic, at the same time, rather strict director. Some shots/scenes we had to do many takes before she”d say “ok, let”s move on.” She made sure it is done as perfect as possible. That”s what my impression about her. “Searching for Wonder” was screened during 2011 Toronto Reel Asian Film Festival and on Bravo!, I went to the premier held at National Film Board (NFB) in Toronto. The production is indeed very nice! Everyone”s hard work got paid off! It is also a Bravo!FACT production.

Here is the video of the short film “Searching for Wonder”for your viewing pleasure:

Also check out those behind the scenes shots 🙂

Recording for Animation Production “The 99”

August 9, 2009

This is the 3rd role I landed, which is a voice-over job for a UK animation production called “The 99” about a bunch of kids (friends) who have super power and fight against intruders…fantasy type of animation show.

I am an Indian kid in this show (only providing voice so…) with a normal name “Ashok” and a hero name “Wassi”. 😛 I was in the recording studio working for about 3 hours last Friday and I had SOOOO much fun as our voice got twisted into “monster” and “chipmunk” as we transformed to heros. I love working on this project!

Benny gave voice to Ashok in animation series The 99

Onset for “Doodlebops” – Green Screen Experience!

July 23, 2009

So today I was onset filming “Doodlebops” as character Ken in “Doodlebops – Rock’n Road Show” series. In this episode, I transformed to a cartoon animation character and have a great time with Doodlebops. All my filming today was in a studio in front of green screen, because in the post production, I will be put in a totally different scene. I got my “tool kits” and I talked and danced to the Doodlebops, there”s also a part where I act to “transform” into a cartoon character. You could see this from the videos that my mom took for me on set today in the “Videos” page. Comparing to shooting for “Being Erica”, today”s shooting was much lighter 😛 , I was wrapped in 3 hours. It was very fun tough!

More behind-the-scenes photos from my shooting today: ‘Onset Filming “Doodlebops” – Green Screen Experience can be seen over here!

And you can check out my behind-the-scenes footages by clicking the thumbnails below:

Benny in Doodlebops Rock n Roll Show - Green Screen 2

Benny in Doodlebops Rock n Roll Show - Green Screen 1

My first acting job in “Being Erica” 2

July 22, 2009

It is wonderful and a lot of fun filming “Being Erica 2” when I was on set yesterday. My call time was 5:30pm and I worked until mid-night before I got “wrapped” (that”s the film industry term of “done for the day”). I got a bit stomach ache around 9pm because I didn”t eat for too long 🙁 but the crew were so nice to me, they made me a toasted sandwich and shuttled me back to the base camp to my little room in the trailer so that I could lay down and rest. I soon resumed my energy and went back on set to finish filming.

Oh yeah, forgot to mention, the cool thing is I got a little unit/room in the trailer in the base camp where I could rest and change to my costume 😛 . There”s a little TV, radio and bed in there, and the name of the character I played is at the door. Erin (the actress who plays Erica) is super nice and a great actress. I worked with her a lot in the scenes I did, along with about 15 background actors (all kids around my age). It was just fun and exciting! I was a bit exhausted after wrapped because by the time I got home, it was past 1am!! 😐

Here is a clip of me in “Being Erica” season 2 “Cultural Revolution” and behind-the-scenes of making it. Click on the thumbnails below to view the videos!