One Big Hapa Family
The One Big Hapa Family Production Blog will be a diary about the pre-production, production, and post-production of my upcoming documentary. This film will focus on multiracial identity and interracial marriage within the Japanese Canadian community in Canada.
I just got back to Kelowna after an insane three weeks. The first two weeks were spent at the Tribeca Film Festival where my film Yellow Sticky Notes was having it’s US premiere in New York. The film screened six times as part of the shorts program Window Seat and had 4 out of the 5 public screenings sell out! So it was a big success and I have hopefully secured some distribution from that festival. The entire time was spent promoting the film, doing interviews, smoozing and boozing at some amazing parties, galas events, and receptions, and trying to sneak in a bit of sight seeing.
As soon as I got back to Vancouver I did an interview with Urban Rush - a Shaw television talk show. The next day I drove out to Kelowna where I jetted off to the an event called Pangea Day in Los Angeles. If you haven’t heard about this event you need to. Check out www.pangeaday.org for more details. It was amazing and they brought over 100 filmmakers from around the world for a filmmakers retreat like nothing I have ever experienced before. It was truly an epic event bring the world closer together through film!
As soon as I returned home from the Pangea Day, I received a great phone call on Monday. Walter Daroshin, president of the the Leo Awards, called me up and let me know that I had received the Channel M Diversity in Cultures Award for One Big Hapa Family. The Channel M Diversity in Cultures Award is given to the documentary program committed to promoting the ideals of diversity that make up the many cultures in British Columbia. He mentioned that even though my doc was a bit out-of-the-box, it was very well received by the judges. Therefore, I may have secured the licensing fee I need to trigger the tax credits. The awards ceremony is next Saturday but I will unfortunately be unable to make it since I’ll be at the 61st Yorkton Short Film and Video Festival where Yellow Sticky Notes is up for the Best Animated Short Award and I’m up for Best Director Fiction. Ruth Vincent, One Big Hapa Families, producer will be going in my place to the Leo Awards in Vancouver. I’ll post some pictures from the Pangea Day and Tribeca Film Festival sometime later this week. Keep posted!
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- photo Allan Tong
I just finished putting on the 11th annual Okanagan Film Festival in my hometown of Kelowna, British Columbia which ran April 16th to the 20th. The Okanagan Film Festival Society, in which I am the Vice President, spent countless hours organizing and running this five day festival. For anyone who has tried to organize a film festival, it’s not easy work. We had over 35 events, workshops, panels, parties, galas, and screenings. All the work is done by volunteers…there’s no staff. So needless to say, this festival totally wiped me out! Good friends of mine Allan Tong and Ann Marie Fleming came out and presented their films at our festival. Just when I think I can take a break, I head off to New York on Wednesday for the Tribeca Film Festival to present my film, Yellow Sticky Notes.
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One of the main sources of inspiration for wanting to create One Big Hapa Family is my 91 year old Grandpa Chiba. He’s one of the hardest working guys I know and at the age of 91 he still bowls twice a week, manages a 1/4 acre garden, and goes Ocean fishing. I remember when I was young I came across this photo of him holding a sign that read, “City of Kelowna Wecomes You, Population 5500, Coastal Japs You Are Not Wanted, Get Out.” This photo always intrigued me. The photo was taken sometime in the 80’s. I would have been about 7 or 8 at the time. My grandpa has no recollection of who took the photo or why. I would love to find out who took the photo but no one in my family seems to know. It’s a great bit of detective work to try and find out where it came from and who took the photo.
This photo is a source of inspiration for my doc and the sign that used to hang outside of Kelowna during WWII definitely sparked my curiosity. Because of that sign, I really want to get to the bottom of how Japanese Canadians in the Okanagan were perceived in the community and the tensions between the Okanagan Japanese Canadians and Coastal Japanese Canadians during that time.
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Well as promised from my last post, the wine selection at the Telefilm reception consisted of reds and whites from Mission Hill a local Okanagan winery. The actual pitch session was very informative. Although, right off the bat, I scrapped even discussing my new documentary. Mostly because the Telefilm Feature documentary fund has been frozen for the time being. So, I pretty much just asked Earl Hong Tai every question I ever had about Telefilm. What I found intriguing is that Telefilm has a funding program set up for New Media. Which means that if I had an idea for a video game or online game I could apply for up to $500,000 in funding as long as I had the matching funds already in place. Of course Telefilm also funds up to 49% of a feature film’s budget so I inquired about feature animation funding. According to Early, they don’t get a lot of requests for feature length animated films but this year they funded a stop motion feature film being done out of Vancouver. So for my future plans after I complete One Big Hapa Family, this meeting was really successful in inspiring me to pursue my goal of one day developing a feature length animated film or the creation of an online video game.
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Last week was a bit of a busy week in terms of applying for grants. It was my first week as an unemployed full-time filmmaker. As an unemployed full-time filmmaker, I need to find some money to eat, so I’m applying for a travel grant from the Canada Council to travel to the Tribeca Film Festival. It’s a lot of writing but worth if it goes through. I realized it will cost me over $3500 to travel to New York for two weeks and as much as I love eating rice, I don’t want to be doing everyday for the next few months.
As far as activity on the new doc, I’ve applied One Big Hapa Family to a Channel M documentary competition open to BC filmmakers. Ruth has made contact with the Super Channel and they have my proposal for consideration at the moment. We just need to find that one pre-license to trigger those great provincial and national tax credits - which could total up to 44% of all labor.
Tomorrow I have a meeting with Telefilm to pitch to them One Big Hapa Family. Here’s the details on what’s going on…
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Those interested in checking out my latest animated film Yellow Sticky Notes, here’s some screening dates for the US…if you have friends in these areas please tell them to come out and see Yellow Sticky Notes! Thanks for the support!
Tribeca Film Festival - Manhattan, New York
As part of Window Seat Shorts Program:
Friday, April 25, 1:45 pm, AV7-04
Sunday, April 27, 6:45 pm, A19-03
Tuesday, April 29, 3:45 pm, AV7-07
Saturday, May 3, 11:15 am, VEC-03
Sunday, May 4, 7:00 pm, VEC-05
Venues:
AMC Village VII (AV7) - 66 Third Avenue (at 11th Street)
AMC 19th Street East (A19) - 890 Broadway (at 19th Street)
Village East Cinemas (VEC) - 181 Second Avenue (at 12th Street)
Order tickets at http://www.tribecafilmfestival.org
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Alright, I finally quit my animation teaching gig and last Friday was my final day. I turned in my key and parking pass and now there’s no going back. So now I have all the time in the world to focus on making this documentary right? Well, not quite. I’ve been the Vice President of the Okanagan Film Festival for a couple years now and the festival is coming up in a couple weeks. Needless to say, I’ve already spent over 80 hours designing the poster and program for the festival this year. 80 hours that have distracted me from starting production on my film. I’ve included the poster design in this post. On top of that, right after the Okanagan Film Festival I leave for two weeks to New York for Tribeca. So, my start date for production keeps getting pushed further and further away.
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Well, it’s been a while since my last post. Since then, I’ve planned my trip to Tribeca. I’m heading down for the entire duration of the festival. Yup, it’s going to be expensive. Although, I heard the parties are amazing so I’m hoping that it’s worth it! My film Yellow Sticky Notes is screening 5 times as part of the Window Seat Program. Here are the screening dates and times in case you’re in the Manhattan area near the end of April:
Screening Schedule
Friday, April 25, 1:45 pm, AV7-04
Sunday, April 27, 6:45 pm, A19-03
Tuesday, April 29, 3:45 pm, AV7-07
Saturday, May 3, 11:15 am, VEC-03
Sunday, May 4, 7:00 pm, VEC-05
As far as One Big Hapa Family is concerned…after I fired off the grant applications, I put it on the shelf for a bit to focus on all the other million things I had to get done. Organizing the Okanagan Film Festival as Vice President, making the program layouts, creating the poster, and marking assignments for my college instructor gig.
I officially quit my job yesterday as the classical animation instructor at the Centre for Arts and Technology - a technical art college based in Kelowna. Therefore, I’ve freed up my week by 24 hours with not having to teach anymore. I realized that in order to make One Big Hapa Family, I needed to have the flow of creativity. That flow would be blocked whenever I had to teach because I had to turn my focus on a totally different task. Teaching takes a lot of energy and I noticed that it was impossible to focus on making One Big Hapa Family if I continued teaching. So I’m taking a leave of absence to pursue filmmaking full-time! This will be the first time in my life where my only job title will be filmmaker. So this week I’ll be contacting Channel M and some other broadcasters to get some input on my project and hopefully we can trigger some tax credits!
Moving Images Distribution has agreed to distribute One Big Hapa Family once it’s complete…so all that’s left now is to start production!
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It’s been very difficult to focus on this new documentary with so many distractions in my life. Right now I’m promoting my latest animated film, Yellow Sticky Notes internationally through the film festival circuit. It just happens that I’m starting to hear back from all the festivals I applied to back in the fall. So far Yellow Sticky Notes is sitting at a 90% acceptance rate. That’s super high considering my last film, “What Are You Anyways?” had about a 40% acceptance rate to the festivals I applied to.
Yellow Sticky Notes was accepted into the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival in New York! The film is in the official competition and will be playing sometime between April 24rd to May 4th. I will be traveling to New York for the festival where I will be meeting up with the film’s composer, Genevieve Vincent who is currently in Boston. This film festival is huge and I’ve heard there’s some amazing parties! The film will be screening in HD so if you’re in the New York area come and check it out! See more info at www.tribecafilmfestival.org
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Well I just received in the mail the latest issue of Hyphen Magazine and guess who’s on the cover…well it’s my Hapa brother from another mother, Kip Fulbeck! Kip is shown on the cover as the majestic manimal - the centaur. The issue is entitled: The Hybrid Issue and tackles some new and thought provoking issues associated with being Hapa and using the term Hapa.
Hyphen Magazine is an Asian American magazine run by many Asians of mixed decent. Here’s what they’re about:
Hyphen is a magazine about Asian America for the culturally and politically savvy. Built around a clarity of image, word and social awareness, Hyphen takes form from the artists, thinkers and creators who are shaping a new multiethnic generation.
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