Aaron Man Films

PERSP3CTIVE is a production house and Digital Media Network in Bangkok and Singapore.

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So here it finally is, we shot this video in the first week of December…. amazing cameo performances from Djay Buddah, twopee and Freddy V from Southside!! I never knew these guys could act but DAAAYUM they killed it hahah!

Enjoy the video and please dont forget to share it and throw a like on our facebook page http://www.facebook.com/aaronmanfilms

Thanks for Watching!!!!!

A quick look behind the scenes of Thaitaniums latest music video ‘Come Alive’ .

Enjoy!

Dont forget to like our facebook page http://www.facebook.com/aaronmanfilms

Some great pictures from our last shoot of 2011 ‘Come Alive’ for Thaitanium ent.

Photos courtesy of Shaun Wood.

Keep an eye out for the ‘Come Alive’ behind the scenes video which will be online soon.

Ok so I thought long and hard about whether or not to blog about this. It is an email I wrote in response to an article entitled ‘why I charge more’ that was emailed to me by a senior member of the video and film industry here in Bangkok who cancelled the equipment I planned to hire (my fourth rental from them over the last 12 months) 2 weeks before a job I had booked (the company and the individual i dealt with will remain completely anonymous)

I really was in 2 minds about putting this in my blog for all to read…. I wondered if it would seem as if I was ‘airing dirty laundry’, But somehow I feel this is a very important story about nurture and support in life and business, specifically that i think will ring a chord for other creatives like myself who take pride in their work and aren’t always ‘prostituting ourselves’ for any amount projects just to earn a living…. We take the projects we care about while trying to grow in our field and push the boundaries by creating work that is organic and multi dimensional.

Thanks for reading… The email is below in full (the company name I have replaced with ‘camera-rental-company’ and the name of the person I was dealing with I have replaced with ‘John’ - a made up name used in order to respect this persons right to anonymity)

—————————-THE eMAIL————————

Hey ‘John’,

Good to hear from you. I hope the flooding around your house leaves
soon..that can’t be pleasant to deal with especially as you have a wife and
young child… But I’m sure Hua Hin is lovely and a much needed break is not
going amiss.

That is a great article you sent me, I really took the time to read it and
absorb it. Many great points there. I really hope you will in return also
take a minute to read my response because I genuinely believe the article
you sent me was to help and guide me as a new film maker as opposed to
trying to prove yourself right.

My thoughts go like this - the article is fantastic and hits a few points on
the head very well….. I’m not a fan of self help books, self help blogs or
anything of that nature the reason for that is I find they are usually very
subjective and generalized. With regards the article you sent me I agree
with what the writer says ‘charge more and you care more about providing a
higher end result as justification of your price tag’ but the problem
is…he hasn’t taken in to account that ‘human beings’ are a huge
variable…not every person is good or has good intentions; for example..
what happens if the person taking your money in exchange for a service only
aims at giving you garbage regardless of how little or how much you are
giving him…whether its camera equipment, a meal at a nice restaurant or he
is looking after your garden or servicing your car. Not everyone has good
intentions and the flip side to this coin and the point which I am most
trying to communicate with you is that sometimes in life situations cannot
all be placed in the same category…sometimes it pays to asses different
situations and different people individually based on their own individual
merits. Now how does this relate to me and you plus
‘camera-rental-company’, ill try to explain as best I can;

I was talking with a friend of mine the other day, he is a Director from
California who recently arrived in Bangkok, he has worked in the business
for a long time…. And is very successful. He was not always successful,
of course we all must start from somewhere as he did, and that place at the
start of the journey is often not as glamorous as that place near the middle
or end of that same journey. At present he now directs some of the worlds
best known extreme sports films featuring the best athletes on the planet,
the Shawn Whites and Kelly Slaters of this world, that’s as good as it gets
in that genre…and he is very well remunerated for what he does. I was
talking with him about my journey thus far as a director and I happened to
mention our situation and the way I was handled by ‘camera-rental-company’,
and that it left a bad taste in my mouth. He told me that the rental houses
he uses today are the same rental houses he used when he started out, and as
a young film maker with energy and enthusiasm they supported him as and
where they could. He started off with no discount, then 10%, then
30%….today whenever he rents equipment he gets 70% discount due to the
sheer amount of gear he requires for his shoots…understandably so, they
use everything from expensive cable cam rigs to ,multiple helicopters. My
point is that on this road i’m taking, not all of the budgets can be big,
its a steady process, 2 years ago I started with budgets of less than $300 sometimes i even had to chip in myself, which have grown considerably per video (even though occasionally
I selectively take a passion project for a friend or some similar situation - they need the videos because in today’s market with the
prevalence of youtube it is almost a pre-requisite needed in order to
successfully push their music to a wider audience and in turn the next
level… I understand the importance of this to them and I try to work on a
basis of mutual support. I am growing, if I can support those around me
then we grow together, its healthy and more than anything it helps provide
grass roots support for the next generation of film makers/musicians, actors
etc etc, which I feel is a mutual responsibility that should be taken
seriously by bigger players in the industry such as yourself and the rental
houses, by shutting young hard working film makers out like me on the sole
basis of your profit margins is in my opinion counter productive and
short-sighted because ultimately it is us who will control the big budgets
5-10 years from now. When we spoke on the phone you made it sound as if you
felt my budgets were getting lower and lower and lower which is not the
case, sometimes there are decent budgets sometimes there is not, that’s
life… and as life would have it I just confirmed biggest music video to date (in my opinion this is a mark of progress in a very
upward direction for a newbie director who never went to film school and 2
years ago had no idea how to use a real camera or final cut pro) I have the
first production meeting for that project on Tuesday. I work with what I have
without being a desperate film maker…I don’t need to do that, I have an
internet company which provides my main income. As long as the budgets ‘in
general’ keep going up (even if they do drop back off occasionally) then I
know I’m on the right path.

As I mentioned when we spoke on the phone, I was really upset when I
received an email from you that said ‘I have discussed with the people here
at ‘camera-rental-company’ and we came to the conclusion that we need a
certain minimum standard for working. That means in this case we have to
give this request from you for equipment back and we advice you to rent at
other companies.’

A very generic response that I didn’t understand at the time but during our
phone conversation you explained that what it meant in actuality was that
there was a ‘minimum budget that ‘camera-rental-company’ was prepared to accept’ which had
never been mentioned to me before by you or anyone else at
‘camera-rental-company’, nor was I given the opportunity to respond, the
decision was final at that point it seemed. I was upset that in your eyes
after 3 shoots using ‘camera-rental-company’ and always trying my best and seemingly getting
on with you I didn’t deserve the decency of a phone call, just an abrupt
email.

Anyway, I have taken your advice to heart, and It was good advice….the
email article you sent, I also took some very good points from it. I
appreciate you taking the time to send this over.

Stay well, stay dry.

Many Thanks & All the best

Aaron

I’m really very excited to debut this music video in particularly because of the fact that one half of flight school is someone who’s work and dedication to independent music has inspired me for as long as I’ve known him. He constantly pushes for the next level and without a shadow of doubt great things are ahead for him on his chosen path. Thanks for choosing me to direct this Video man! Take off is imminent - ‘Welcome to FlightSchool’

This coming December see’s the launch of ‘Welcome To Flight School’ the very first album from a creative collaboration between Day Diz & Muzique, two producers come artists who live and breathe a musical style that is as unique and honest as the personalities behind the music. The first single “In The Clouds” features none other than Joe Budden (Slaughterhouse / Shady Records).

Http://www.welcometoflightschool.com

I recently shot a set of Still images for Dj D-Kut from Switzerland…… we lucked out for sure……we arrived on top of this building a little late and i was concerned that we werent going to get a decent sunset but to my surprise the sunset burnt through the clouds and we ended up with a set of photos that looked like the world was about to end…so i decided to call this photo set ‘The Endworld images’.

Check them out.

(* All images are subject to copyright aaronman 2011)

An adventure in the land of still photography:

I love video but this year ive found myself producing some stills, here’s the best of what i came up with so far.

_

aaronman.com

Directed and shot by: AARONMAN.COM
Editor: Aaron Man
Producer: Prinya Intachai/Thaitanium Ent.
Lighting Martin Geissman/Tawan AV
Art Direction: Solarsin Ngoenwichit
Add Prod: Solarsin Ngoenwichit
Thanks: Royal Motors & RPU Cars

A huge thanks to everyone who contributed to the making of this video without you guys….’not possible’..massive thanks to Martin Geissman as usual, thanks to my assistant Nada Boonant, thanks to Solarsin for the great set designs and of course a huge thanks to Way, Khan, Day, P Gaew, and Khun Sue and all the team at Thaitanium Ent. for giving me the opportunity to realize my visions for music videos around their songs.

Its been 18 months since i directed my first music video….last month i directed my 7th Music Video and by the time we reach the beginning of August i will be smack bang in the middle of Directing my 9th Music Video as an independent Music Video Director and Editor……

It was 18 months ago that i reached a point where i felt that although i was loving life and having an incredible time…when i lay in bed at night and had those personal mind diving one to one sessions that we all have with ourselves late at night when we cant sleep that i really felt i was genuinely capable of anything i put my mind to….so it was at that point i asked myself a dauntingly honest question……’if i could be anything in the world…..what would i be?’….and the answer that question regurgitated was…….. ‘A Feature Film Director’.

Id always loved films since i was a kid, and although i was an athletic achiever i still found a lot of time to watch TV and Films (although admittedly my school homework was neglected very regularly which got me into constant trouble at school). So the very next day i decided to start looking online at film schools in New York and Los Angeles and chatting to people who i thought may be able to offer me some advice on the best route to take on my road to Feature Film ‘Directordom’. To go to UCLA i needed qualifications and as i decided to skip University getting into UCLA was going to be a bit of an issue….. so eventually i looked at New York Film School, this was an option because i didn’t need any major qualifications, i just needed to complete a 1 year film course that would allow me study what i really wanted to study there in my second year, and oh yeah pay the hefty tuition fee’s. Then a very good friend recommended Vancouver Film School in Canada, apparently it was one of the best intensive Film Schools in the world and there was no semester breaks they just power through the curriculum in a year instead of 2…. this sounded good. I researched VFS and to cut a long story short i eventually went to visit Vancouver to see how i felt about the place and check out the school. I went there and liked the place enough to live there, it was a cool city for sure and the school was impressive. I Felt good.

I left Vancouver and flew back to Asia where i have been living for nearly 5 years now…at that time i had moved from Bangkok, Thailand to Bali in Indonesia…. one of the surf capitals of the world. I had a plan now, i needed to save $30,000 to pay for tuition and be in Vancouver for a year studying. I felt like i had taken my first step.

Living in Bali was great, i was surfing a lot, but there was a huge down side, i wasn’t working very hard! After surfing twice a day there isn’t much else you want to do apart from eat and sleep…so when i wasn’t surfing i spent a lot of time lying on my bed or the sofa ….watching movies!!! This was reminiscent of times gone by when i was watching movies instead of doing what i should have actually been doing such as ‘school homework’ only now it was just ‘work’.

Then something happened that would alter my path slightly, i had to go to Singapore (an hour flight from Bali) to renew my Visa to be in Bali (you have to go in and out of the country to do this for those in the U.S or Europe who aren’t familiar with this wacky process)…. while i was in Singapore i saw something that was nearly as sexy as Adriana Lima in nothing but high heels and Black Victorias Secret lingerie……. it was a Sony Ex1 Cinealta Camera with solid state memory card recording…and…full HD video in a plethora of different frame recording rates (yep i know i’m a nerd)…..id saved about $6000 towards my $30,000 Vancouver Film School fund and as stupid as it sounds i decided to blow it all on this camera….in that minute had this moment where i felt like i should be making short films and i needed a decent camera to do that and this was the one.

So i went back to Bali with my new camera in tow, and sure enough i proceeded to make a couple of short films, one in Bangkok, one in Bali and one on a surf trip to Brazil…… but they were all to music, without dialogue and weren’t getting a lot of views online. It was at this point that i figured well they’re kind of music video-ish so i should just find upcoming artists who need music videos and shoot music videos because then not only would i be promoting my work, but the artists would, and the fans would and that would give my work much more visibility, and i felt that’s what i needed. So i got online and managed to find an artist in Thailand who i thought was talented and that i liked called ‘Eazy’ so i contacted him and explained that although i haven’t made an actual music video before id love to make a free music video for him….he was keen and hesitant at the same time as you can imagine. Eventually we arranged a day and shot the video ‘feeling good’ and during the shoot i was lucky enough to meet ‘Dandee Supwattana’ another artist who i would shoot my next video with (and still one of my favourite to this date) ‘Kane Money’. The budgets at the time were tiny but Id eventually to come to have a really good working relationship with Dan which would lead to 2 more videos for songs and artists he was involved with that had increasingly bigger budgets, one being Project E.A.R ( a Rock/Hip Hop hybrid band that consists of some southeast asia’s most popular groups such as Thaitanium, Slapshock and Pop Shuvit) and Liquidsilvas - Become Number 1 Music Video. It was after these videos that i first got a call from Way (Thatanium - undisputedly Thailands Number 1 hip hop group) who id met on the Project E.A.R shoot who asked me if id direct Thaitaniums next video ‘Tae Ung’…this was incredible for me as a i clearly remember coming to Thailand 5 years ago and as i liked Hip Hop….Thai people and mostly taxi drivers during those inane taxi conversations would always tell me ‘oooh Thaitanium…Thaitanium…Thai Hip Hop velly good :)’ so i was curious and went to the mall and bought a Thaitanium album….if someone had told me the day i handed my money over for that Thaitanium album that 5 years later id be on the cusp of directing my second Thaitanium Music Video that would get heavy Daily airplay on MTV Asia id have thought that person was mad.

So now as i look forward to the future and post up my Directors Reel i ask myself again what the next step is to get where I’m going….and the answer to that question is ….. to get director representation and move to LA……Hollywood ‘The Land of Hope and Broken Dreams’, time to throw my hat into the ring. Here i come.

‘Anything is Possible’

Thanks for Reading.

Aaron