Foodie Nation Rough Cut

Yesterday I had to show a rough cut of my film. Jin, why is the rough cut so extremely different from the dailies, and will it be extremely different from the final cut? To give you an idea of how many locations and subjects I filmed, here is my shooting schedule:

03/30/09: Nyala Ethiopian Cuisine. Food blogger = 1.
03/31/09: Serbian Tasting at Metro Diner. Foodies = 25 or so but interviewed about 10 (short questions).
04/5/09: LA Curry Festival. Foodie = 1.
04/06/09: La Casita Mexicana traditional menu tasting. Foodies = 20 something + chefs. (focused on the chefs).
04/08/09: Wonton Forest for lunch. Foodie = 1. Silverlake wine + Taco Run to Fletcher & Larga, and Rambos. Foodies = 2.
04/09/09: Dinner at Foodie home. Foodies = 2.
04/11/09: Nates BBQ for lunch. Foodies = 20 something. Dinner at Chicken Day, Soo Won BBQ, Hwa Sun Ji for dessert and tea. Foodies = 2.
04/13/09: Chicken Day pickup. Lady said I could film all the chicken fat they take out so I went to film it.
04/14/09: Dino’s Chicken and the Mich Paleteria in Duarte (Monrovia, Azusa), Filipino dinner @ Foodie’s home. Foodie = 1.
04/18/09: Special private Mexican dinner at the home of a self-taught chef. Foodie extravaganza. focused on two foodies, interviewed table of 12 short questions.
04/19/09: Tentative interview with a young food blogger at three different places. Two foodies later joined.

So how is it possible that I could condense all this to 5 minutes, right? I bought a 1 TB hard drive to store my media files. I also spoke to Brenda Goodman (producing professor) about the possibility of making it into a longer piece in the summer for which she will help me do the paperwork to get the rights of the project into my hands. My directing professor Albrezzi has encouraged me to explore it in a longer form so I’m definitely going to do this in the summer.

Speaking of summer, my summer plans are all over the place. I have a 5 year reunion at school for which I will have to fly over to Massachusetts for, and while I’m there I will definitely have to make my way over to NYC. Perhaps I can tour around the east coast for a while before coming back to start my internship and also take an improv acting class.  I really wish I can do something that brings in a bit more income, like being an SA or something but at the same time, I want to take it easy this summer and most importantly, just land one awesome summer internship and make side projects.

Career Day

So yesterday, a bunch of companies came on campus for career day. Some companies that I spoke to were ABC, CBS, Ascent Media, Fox, Lucasfilm, and Psychic Bunny. All of them have unpaid internships, which is down my alley since I can’t get paid for my services anyway. I’m going to find out how I can sign up for LACC internship courses so I don’t have to pay an arm and a leg to do this. Ideally, I will be working not so far from where I live because the commute is horrendous and I want to save myself some commuting time in the summer since I have to do it all over again in the fall. But, who am I to complain. If I get a good internship, I will drive two hours a day for it, no problem.

Footage Hell

Because I am swimming in gigabytes full of footage, I am still looking through them, coverting them to a readable data before even bringing them into the editing software. So technically speaking, I have not started editing yet. Am I worried? I need a rough cut by Thursday morning. My other professors are going to be there. I’ve thus far imported about 4% of my entire footage. I also bought a 1.5 TB external hard drive and it should be here in a few days. I need more storage space if I really want to work on this. I expect my rough cut and my final cut to look extremely different.

Reading

I had the privilege of being invited to my professor’s table reading yesterday. I got to read for three parts for his screenplay (Band member #3, a student, and a receptionist). The  best part about being a part of this table reading wasn’t just being able to sit in an actor’s seat going through the reading but to see how my professor works with his colleagues. I have even more respect for my professor now because I saw how collaborative he was in his process and although sometimes I thought he was a bit more profound for us students to understand, I genuinely saw where that profundity came from when I read his script. Sure it’s a first draft so there are structural things that will be re-written during the re-writing stage but the essence of the story really captured the truth in humanity (something he always encourages us to do).  It’s difficult writing about the subject that he chose to devote himself to, and I’m amazed at how inspired he was to undertake this on his own. Some famous people came to read for parts (names will be withheld but actors and actresses who were in high profile productions like Poltergeist, Sybil, Life Goes On, The Practice, 24, and on). It’s exciting to see how people grow together in their careers. I hope this is true for me and my friends as well.

After the reading and all the actors had left, we hung around in the back to talk a bit more with our professor. He’s really down to earth and informative. I wish we got to see more of him in the semester and that the program wasn’t broken up the way it was. At least we have an awesome professor who takes it upon himself to bring in his students. He even offered to have a 507 party at his house. Uh, Yeah!

Film Festival Screening of Go To Kenny

A short film I produced called “Go To Kenny” will be screened at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival. I go to this festival every year because this is basically the only venue in Los Angeles where I can see extremely good films made by people of Asian descent. How many times have I seen films here that I couldn’t see anywhere else? Too many to count.

Also, their shorts programs are awesome. Ours is playing on May 1st at 7:30pm in DGA for shorts program 3. That’s right. This film festival rents out the Director’s Guild of America for a week or so as well as Laemle on Sunset. I just got back from the kick off event last night at Blue Velvet and saw a lot of familiar faces. It was good catching up with my fellow filmmakers and also Armed With a Camera colleague and USC SCA alum.They have a lot of free events as well so check it out.

This is the link to our program if you want to come and support! Tickets are not too expensive and when else are you going to see these shorts?

Click here to fine more about “Go To Kenny”

a few tips on organizing events

A few days ago, I was waiting in line to see Tom Hanks and Robert Zemeckis (Director of Forrest Gump), Gary Sinise (Lt.Dan), and Eric Roth (the writer of Forrest Gump) at a special event at our campus. I was so excited and proud that I was one of few people who had rsvp’d early and thought I’d be guaranteed a seat. A few days prior to the event, I received an email stating that it was overbooked and that seating was on a first come, first serve basis. Okay, so now it wasn’t guaranteed, but I’d still come early so it wouldn’t be an issue, really.

ffwd to me and my boyfriend at 4pm standing in a line that kept growing (not just at the end of the line, but people who started cutting in the middle and the front). After around 2 hours or so, They announced that they’d be checking people in. All of a sudden there was a mad rush of people running to the “A-M” or the “N-Z” area (by this time there was no concept of a line) and this is where it becomes funny. The “A-M” line was about 4 times longer than the “N-Z” line. Hmmm… that’s interesting. Are you to say that there aren’t that many people who’s last names start with “Q” or “V” or “X” or “Z”? Luckily, my last name starts with a “Y” so I got to get in before some of the people who I knew were there since 1pm or 2pm but due to their inherently common first letter of their last name, they didn’t even get to go into the theater.

Once inside, we waited for another half an hour or so before we were finally told that there were absolutely no seats available. We had to leave. Not only were we teased in thinking that we made it, we saw people lie (“I’m serious. My friend is in the bathroom right now. She’s going to be back any second now.”) only to be exposed in front of many, we saw people use creative methods to stay inside the theater (some guy brought his own lawn chair but was asked to leave because he was a fire hazard), but it didn’t matter because in the end, we had to leave without even breathing the same air as these 4 talented and extraordinary people who I’m sure were inspirational and gripping to listen to and I hope that those newly admitted students who got guaranteed seats were happy that they were at such a momentous event. Do I sound jealous? If I do, it’s because I am. I’m paying a lot of money and this was one of those events where I chose to go, I rsvp’d early, I left a film festival where I had screened a film I had produced EARLY in order to get to campus EARLY only to wait in a line that kept on growing and pushing me further away from my goal. Seeing those newly admitted students get in without waiting in a line, and getting special treatment I never got did make me jealous. I’m human, ain’t I?

Before this post completely turns into a sob story, I will say that I appreciate USC’s efforts in bringing such high profile people on campus in the first place. Perhaps I didn’t get into this one but I’m sure there will be many more in the future and I hope USC continues to bring inspirational and legendary filmmakers to our school and hopefully we can find a way where if we do not get into such popular events, we could possibly go into an overflow room where we can watch it live on Trojan Vision or something (forgive me if there was such a thing on Friday and I didn’t know about it). So, I’d like to give a few organizing tips for future events as to spare people’s time and aggravation on both ends of the lines.

1) Only over book events that are a hard sell or where you have to explain who is coming by giving credentials. If someone sees “Tom Hanks” as one of the guests, I’m pretty sure they will stop doing their laundry (or whatever else they do on Friday nights) to come and get a glimpse of the Hanks. Perhaps the number of seats in the theater minus the people who get special seating should be the max cap in the RSVP list. Everyone else goes into the Wait list camp, and the Wait List camp should also have a cap at 25% of the total number of available seats. In events such as these, maybe even + 1’s should be limited or completely taken out. I admit I brought a guest but seeing how overbooked this event was, I found it a bit unfair that some of the people who were in there were not students who pay tuition but parents, distant relatives, significant others, etc.

2) Once people are lined up and the doors are supposed to open at a certain time (in this case, 5pm) at least have someone look at the line and, upon seeing that it is 5 times longer than the capacity, maybe give out ticketed numbers assigning each person waiting in line a numbered seat so they don’t go in there saving seats for people who will not get in. Not only will this be efficient because now you can save time for the people who cannot get tickets and they can just go home and finish doing their laundry (or whatever else people do on Friday nights), but it will prevent people from saving seats next to them and then lying about it to everyone around them (inadvertently saving face).

3) Instead of re-shifting people from one really long line to a long line behind the “A-M” sign and a really short line behind the “N-Z” sign, they should do what In-N-Out burger does and go one by one down the line and check off people’s names. This way, the people who truly came first will be served first, not the people who decided to cut the line or the people who were graced with beautiful last names that start with N-Z. This way, every person that is checked off will get a ticket (or sticker, or post it or what have you) and cutting will not be an option since you still need a ticket to get in. Once inside, the people with tickets who are friends can still sit next to each other if it can be negotiated with those who are already seated.

4) If you say “There will be no saving of seats” or any other rule for that matter, please have someone or some people enforcing these rules.

4) Charge money. Even though I hate to say this, because it was a free event, I think people went just a bit crazy. I wouldn’t have minded paying a little money to guarantee that I didn’t have to suffer for no reason on Friday.

Those are my suggestions. It’s just my 2 cents and it may have already been thought about and dismissed because it doesn’t work for whatever reason but Friday was just a frustrating experience I hope I don’t have to repeat. Tomorrow night I’m looking forward to watching the movies for the First Look closing night screening and awards ceremony at the DGA but I got a similar email stating that it’s overbooked, it’s first come first serve, and that there is no saving of seats. The event starts at 7:30pm and I will be there from 5pm. We shall see what happens. Will update tomorrow.

In other news, yes, a film I produced entitled “Go To Kenny” was screened at the Vietnamese International Film Festival on Friday, April 3rd at 11am. Had I known I would not have gotten into the Forrest Gump screening and Q&A, I would have stayed in Santa Ana to watch other great movies created by talented and visionary filmmakers of Vietnamese descent. I was really wowed by a few shorts and I even saw some schoolmates there representing their films.