One of my oldest friend is Paul Kyriazi who gave me my very first film job on WEAPONS OF DEATH building a biker camp at the Black Diamond Mines and generally being a go-fer on set for a few days. I was a stupid teenaged film student at Diablo Valley Community College where Paul was a celebrity. He was making kung fu movies for drive ins, and shooting them right there in my home town! With big 35mm Panavision cameras! And dollies. And grip trucks. And big lights! And I got to help for no pay! I was the happiest guy in the world!
Later Paul called and hired me to write NINJA BUSTERS and my screenwriting career began... and then ended for a while.
Paul is still a friend - he lives out of the country, but when he’s in town we get together and go to a movie or something. I recently re-ran the blog entry about the autograph show in Burbank, and Paul co-starred in that. Over the Holidays I was in my home town and so was he (visiting family) and I got a call out of the blue asking if I wanted to go to dinner... I told Paul I’d just ordered at Taco Bell, and he said “I’ll be there in a minute” and then drove up, At that time I had just put up my Action Book on Kindle and Paul was curious about the process. Paul has retired from film (yeah, right) and has been doing these amazing audio book projects - which are really movies on CDs. He hires a bunch of famous actors from the 60s and 70s and each plays a role. Kind of like an old fashioned radio show. There are sound effects and everything. I’m in one of them called HARD ROCK NIGHTMARE.
But Paul also does seminars - and you may have seen him on TV or on the radio talking about them. He came up with a great twist on the self-help seminar, called HOW TO LIVE THE JAMES BOND LIFESTYLE. Basically, he’s taken some great life lessons and found examples that illustrate them from James Bond movies. Some of the lessons are self-help and positive thinking type things, some are relationship things, some are money management things - but the lessons that I really liked were the ones on very practical things to improve your life - like how to get your rental car upgraded automatically. Things that can really help you live that James Bond lifestyle. Paul has done the seminars all over the world and a few years ago when he decided to do an audio version... I was the director. The easiest job in the world when the voice talent has done the seminar a million times before in real life.
But a few months ago in that Taco Bell, Paul was talking to me about making the James Bond Lifestyle class as an e-book, and expanding it with even more lessons and advice - and a prologue by David Hedison who played Felix Leiter in two James Bond movies. And now he has done that.
Full disclosure - though I have bought a copy of the Kindle version, I have not read it yet. I *did* hear that audio version of the seminar a few years back (since I was in the recording room with the cans on) so my recommendation is based on that version - I’m sure the expanded e-book version is even better. I was hoping to have read it by now... but I’ve been busy!
- Bill
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