02. Painting and Kung Fu

The Video includes some Kung Futage

So now for the second of the pre fajigamatography Bio.  A little more about myself.

As mentioned before, I have a BFA, majoring in painting and drawing.  For elementary school and high school, and obviously through University I was 2 things in peoples minds.  1. A Painter and Drawer, and 2. The son of one of Saskatoons most famous people, Director and Order of Canada recipient Tibor Feheregyhazi.  Always being an artist in my own right, I strove to define myself as separate from my father.  Don’t get me wrong, I had great respect for him and loved what he did.  I have to say that live theatre in a large part was spoiled for me because I saw so many of his productions.  He accepted nothing less than greatness, and worked himself until they were great.  What I learned from my father was to strive for greatness in whatever you do, (although there was many a time that I let fun get in the way.)

Anyway, I think one of the reasons I pursued something he didn’t really understand is so that I wouldn’t be compared to him, and thus be a disappointment when they saw that I didn’t measure up.  So I tried to excel in another field.  In a field I loved.

Even though I had been drawing since I was… well since I could hold a pencil, when I hid university I thought I would try my hand at the non artist route.  In my first year I took all non art courses.  This was to see if there was something I wanted to do other than art.  Alas what happened was I would draw in my notebooks and on my desks while listening to my teacher speak.  So that summer I decided to test the waters with a Painting, and Drawing class.  I haven’t looked back since.

Here’s some paintings I did In university

In the Summer of 2000, half way through my University Career, I was sitting, sipping on some chocolate milk, discussing something quite profound, when one of my friends said “We should make a Kung Fu film.”  I turned to him and said “I concur my dear fellow.”  Then we gathered our friends and began.

The only problem was our friend who had both the video camera (an old VHS camera from the 80’s) and the Kung fu skills happened to be leaving in 2 days.  So we decided to get it written, shot, and edited before he left.  So with $10, 36 hours, and the hearts of lions, we ventured forth to create “Walking on Sunshine.”  We had problems, we had solutions, and we had a spray bottle of sweat.

The editing was done on a 2 VCR set up where you pressed play, then record and hoped that 1. you didn’t get the little play arrow in the corner (We were unsuccessful on that front) and 2. that you actually got the part you were hoping for. (A little more successful here.)  At the end of the 36 hours we had to complete it we ended up with a 25 minute pile of shit, left by a man who ate a strict diet of amazing every day.  And thus “Walking on Sunshine” was born.  Also known by it’s “year 2000″ name “Millennium Fist 2000, To the EXTREEME.”  This played on the trend of films that year to have references to the millennium in their titles.

Now we…well I submitted it to a University Film festival.  Since it was 25 minutes, it was way too long to be featured, but the committee enjoyed it so much (I’m assuming due to the sex scene in the middle) that they decided to play it as the intermission movie.  Now unbeknownst to me, they kept using it as an intermission movie at other USSU (University of Saskatchewan Students Union) showings.  Before long it had become a bit of a Cult hit at the University.  People would recognize me and my friends as “the Guys from that Kung Fu film.”

This was my first taste of making film…and I liked it.

If you want to see some short clips from “Walking on Sunshine” watch the video above.

Until next time

Andrei