I attended the Q&A session with Jason David Frank. Jason is the actor who plays The Green Power Ranger, Tommy Oliver.  The Q&A was held at the Lane event center during EUCON (Eugene Comic-Con). Jason did the Q&A as a favor to Chris 51, the owner of Area 51 tattoo in Springfield. He talks a lot about reaching out to the “Fandom” and doing things for his fans, because they are what keeps a show on the air for 22 years and counting.

When asked what got him into acting, he responded by saying it’s his way to escape and get away from the rest of the world. He said that it’s just like any artist, you want to express how you feel. I find it interesting that he really is Tommy in a lot of ways as far as the character personality. Jason owns the Rising Sun Karate Academy, and he likes to do extreme sports like sky diving and parachuting. It shows that A movie is a huge project and really holds the souls of everyone that has put time into creating it. Jason talked about how important it is to have a good director when shooting film. He reflected back to a director that didn’t understand how hard it was to be doing these flips and kicks in a hot suit, and he would have them do 50 shots or more in a row, and then start from the top. He commented that you need to know the language of what you are creating, you need to understand the project and what it takes.

Jason has appeared in over 225 episodes in the Power Ranger series, and been in two feature films. He has done work behind the camera with executive producing, hopes to create a Green Ranger series, and has been working on his reality show, “My Morphin Life”.  He expressed how wearing it can be n a person to film a reality television show, because it’s like “being on customer service mode 24/7”. He wants to keep it clean and upbeat with no fighting, so he has to work hard to keep himself positive  the entire time. Chris 51 also commented on his own television show Epic Ink, and how he only did 10 episodes and it killed him. He said he can’t  imagine the work that must have gone into 3 seasons.

The message I received from the Q&A was that you just need to put yourself out there creatively and do the work, then see what comes in time. Jason brought Robert, his editor for the reality series with him. They met because Robert had taken the Power Rangers series and spliced pieces together to make a film. He sent it to Jason and now a few years later, they are working on a series together. Robert commented that “it’s funny how the world works”. Jason said something that I think works quite well with their story, “If you don’t see results, stay with it. Because the minute you see results, you want to keep working harder.”