Writing Asian American Epic Fantasy

Back for a Visit

Hello out there,

It’s been months since I’ve posted. I’ve been teaching, grading papers and before that, writing, directing, and producing a webseries, Samurai Mon Amour. Currently, I am heading up the THE 96 HOUR ASIAN AMERICAN SHORT FILM CONTEST at Cal State Fullerton. We have a Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/events/366020276781553/ and a Youtube promo: THE 96 HOUR ASIAN AMERICAN SHORT FILM CONTEST Promo

Sigh! This spring semester seems to be a greater struggle that the semester before. And I had more students by a third. I was producing a film. But this semester it feels like I don’t have enough time and I’ve slowed down. I’ve been told it’s due to fatigue and more school holidays.  I like to work in sequence but the assignment links were troublesome and now I’m grading the 2nd paper before the 1st one. It’s a hairball!

I’m writing today to clear my mind before getting back to grading papers and to live in another mind set. It’s refreshing like a walk in a forest.

Thanks to Audible.com I’m listening to Alexander Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo. It’s a vintage adventure and it’s 58 hours long! I’ll be done by maybe next year.

I’m feeding my head with the classics.

This academic world is a world of learning much like the world of acting. I’m always learning.

On ward!

Samurai Mon Amour – Phase 1 completed

Now it can be said. I’ve been working on a project, a webseries entitled Samurai Mon Amour. It’s a sci-fi samurai flick that takes place in 1500 A.D. and time travels to 2012. There’s female samurai, ninjas, diabolical friars, and a rock band. I’ve been hesitant to speak about it in only the most general ways because I’ve been afraid of jinxing the project. But today we wrapped principle photography. The next step will be editing and all that comes with it. Here’s my Oscar speech because finishing the first step of this small film is a big deal. I want to thank so many people. Since this is the internet I include most everybody (I say this incase I forget someone).

I first want to thank my wife, Sachiko. She bankrolled the project. It is enough to know we went over budget but she made it work. She allowed me this extra day to finish. So, thanks Mrs. M. Next I want to thank Thomas Isao Morinaka and Alden Villaverde (or Alden Ray if you’re talking about the actor). They were my producers. They held my hand as I slogged through this process. They knew more and saw more than I did, and saved me many times. They helped fill out the crew and find the locations. They worked behind and in front of the camera in of this project and me and Sachi. But they were not the first person I contacted when we decided to go forward with the project. The first person I contacted was Sachiyo K. Back in the days when Sachiyo K was Sachiko Hayashi we first met her when we were administrating the East West Players Summer Conservatory. It’s been a long time. I knew she was studying Japanese sword choreography and I knew her work as an actor.  I began with her.   She became the female samurai, Orin.   Thomas became the contemporary rock guitarist, Chris, and also Orin’s ninja lover, Tadao.  The rest of the rock band was made up by the drummer, Toby played by Alden Ray.  The base player was named John Henry who was played by, oddly enough, John Henry.

Lessons I learned:  You can’t see everything.  Surround yourself with people you trust who have better eye sight.  Learn as you go so you’ll know more the next time.  Understand that things change so quickly that what you did last year may be old news.

In Rememberance of Heidi Helen Davis

Just finished screening a copy of The Descendants starring George Clooney. The gest of it is Clooney and his two daughters must cope with his wife and their mother in a coma and eventually dying. There’s more to it but it’s enough for now.

It puts me in the mind of when my dad passed away in 1997. And I am also reminded of the passing of my friend, director, and mentor, Heidi Helen Davis, on December 16, 2011.

I first saw her on the American Conservatory Theatre (ACT) stage at 450 Geary Street, San Francisco. I had graduated from the  Advanced Training Program several years before and was living in Los Angeles. But I enjoyed going up to San Francisco and watching ACT’s current productions. In the 1978-79 season I saw George Bernard Shaw’s Heartbreak House and was pleased to see the school mates who had made it into the acting company. There were also new actors in the production.  I took notice, measuring them against my own skills, wondering if I’d ever be called back as a professional to work on that stage, again.   I remember her standing on an empty stage.  She had a monologue, talking to the audience, and she caught my eye. I have no idea why. I  looked for her name in the program.  It has only become significant now decades later.

It was 1987. I was working at the East West Players theatre becoming not only an actor but also a playwright and director.  It’s an Asian American theater.  I was into Asian American things.  A fellow actor called me out of the blue. He had just booked a major role in the movie, Iron Triangle. The bad news was that he was currently acting in a stage play entitled Tachinoki, about  a local Japanese American woman and her experiences in the internment camps and post-war Los Angeles.  He needed me to cover for him. I said yes and in a few days I was on stage working with a number of other Asian American actors.  I was playing a father, a boss, and a number of nameless charachters.  I was working opposite the director, who was also playing the mother.  It was Heidi Helen Davis.   I did my job.  She said thanks.  And we were done.

Go forward about two years. At the EWP my wife and I were cast in a new play by Wakako Yamauchi entitled, Not a Through Street directed by Heidi.   I learned later that Heidi’s name was derived from the Japanese name, Hideko. She was what Hawaiians would call “hapa”, part-Japanese, part-Caucasian. I will not speculate about why Heidi maintained her relationship with EWP. I can tell you that my wife, Sachiko, and I, back when we were adminisrating the EWP Conservatory, made a point of hiring her at every opportunity as a teacher.  She was simply an excellent teacher. We were not alone in this estimation. Heidi, who had no undergraduate or graduate degrees, found work as an acting teacher, script analysis teacher, a teacher of directors, and acting coach on the sets of movies for many, many years.

In 2005 Heidi cast me as Robert in the EWP production of Proof. I had a great time working for her. I felt like I had something to offer in this role, this play, and the theatre. Heidi’s direction was a gift. She was insightful and clear thinking. She gave me a lot of elbow room to find my character and my place in this play.  I did well in this show because of her.

Soon after, I got it into my head to go back to school. I had graduated from the University of San Francisco in 1972. Over 30 years later and I’m thinking of going back to school. How crazy was that?

I think it was because I was asking Heidi for a letter of recommendation for my applications that I discovered she too was having  thoughts of going to grad school. It turns out that because she was a working actress she didn’t graduate from college.  Though she put in the time she had no BFA or MFA.   She thought it was time. She ahd been looking into and recommended the Cal State Long Beach MFA program. We could receive an MFA Degree in two years. I was interested. In the end, Heidi didn’t go back to school.  It was not the right time.  Meanwhile I went forward auditioning for the Cal State Long Beach program, getting accepted, and doing a rigorous two years teaching, taking classes, in rehearsals and in performance. 

After graduating, Sachi and I would help Heidi out serving as actors for her Acting for Directors class at the L.A. Film School.

My last memory of Heidi was she sent me an e-mail that she was leaving town to take care of her folks up in Northern California. We tried to meet up for a final dinner but it never happened. And then we got busy and I presume she did too.  I found out later that she wasn’t moving up north after all. And our lives went on.

Until I got notice on Facebook Heidi was dying.

I’m thinking I should have tried harder to meet up with her.

Heidi was a most incredibly durable woman. She made a life for her and her son.  Her skills were so exceptional and her determination so indomitable.  She inspires me even now.  

Sachiko and I send her family our sympathies and prayers.

God speed, Heidi.

Sammy and Me

I’m on campus prepping for my first class of the semester. I’m listening to Youtube episodes with Sammy Davis Jr. I’m getting into my “rat pack” persona. Got my hat, my coat, shirt and tie. No braces. That’s for later. Sammy had such confidence when he performed. He was an entertainer’s entertainer. He had been doing this work for so long. To watch him with an audience gives me so many lessons. You have to give an audience something You must prove yourself immediately to earn their respect and awe and attention. And of course, Sammy, was reeeeeeallll good at so many things. So, how do I get reeeeeeallll good at teaching my class this afternoon? Legitimate clarity (and from that prep and execution).

Brad Bird, Ghost Protocol, and Writer’s Notions

Things start with the writer but they don’t end with the writer. In the world of media many hands shape and form the final image. Note – I said image. Moving pictures.  Not text. Just saw Tom Cruise in MI:GHOST PROTOCOL. Enjoyed it. Enjoyed it more because I saw that Brad Bird was the director. Viewing the movie through his eyes was enlightening and a joy. There was humor and it was not all from Simon Pegg. I liked it. I’ll study it against the John Woo version to get the differences between styles.  I found this Brad Bird quote from IMBD (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0083348/bio). It’s very instructive.

When I write things, often at the moment I’m writing, I’m thinking of camera angles; it’s not a separate part of the process, it kind of comes out all at the same time. So I have really strong opinions about how things are presented, but at the same time I’m thinking about things that I want to present. It’s like when somebody speaks, they assemble words in a certain way, but it’s not always that conscious, it just comes out. That’s the way film is for me.

Well, I like superheroes, but I’m not one of those guys who knows what issue 437 is of “Whatever.” And I think people assume that because The Incredibles is about superheroes, that I know all that stuff. I kind of got it second-hand, from the movies. I’m happy to hear from anybody that does know that stuff, but I’m fairly oblivious to that really large volume of comic book lore that’s been generated.

I think there’s a tendency [among some animators] to wink at the audience so much that you feel that you’re above the world that you’re presenting-like the filmmaker doesn’t really believe in the world that he’s putting on screen. And there’s a safety in that, because if you try to make the audience feel something besides comedy, like if you try to make them feel moved, you risk looking really silly if it doesn’t work.

I love, love, love the medium of film. But that is the strange dichotomy of film, is that the medium is so unbelievably magical and wonderful, and the business is so–UGH! It’s kind of the price you pay. Some friend of mine said you’re not getting paid to work in the medium; you’d almost do that for free. But you’re getting paid to suffer all the, you know-[Laughs].

There is a contingent of the digital-effects community to whom that is the holy grail – to create photographically real humans. To me that is the dumbest goal that you could possibly have. What’s wonderful about the medium of animation isn’t recreating reality. It’s distilling it.

“Really, really little kids should not see this movie. They should wait till they get older. We’re getting some reactions from people who were disappointed that their four-year-old was a little freaked out by it. Well, I don’t want to compromise the intensity in order to please a four-year-old.” [on 'Incredibles, The']

I reject that whole point of view – that animation is a children’s medium. The way people talk about it is, well, hey, it’s a good thing I have kids, because now I get to see this. Well, hey, no, man! You can just go and see it. There’s no other art form that is defined in such a narrow way. It’s narrowminded, and I can’t wait for it to die.
(About Ed Catmull, John Lasseter and Steve Jobs at Pixar): “I refer to those guys as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Ed, who invented this cool medium and is the designer of the human machine that is Pixar, is the Father. John, its driving creating force, is the Son. And you-know-who is the Holy Ghost.”

People think of animation only doing things where people are dancing around and doing a lot of histrionics, but animation is not a genre. And people keep saying, “The animation genre.” It’s not a genre! A Western is a genre! Animation is an art form, and it can do any genre. You know, it can do a detective film, a cowboy film, a horror film, an R-rated film or a kids’ fairy tale. But it doesn’t do one thing. And, next time I hear, “What’s it like working in the animation genre?” I’m going to punch that person! [From the audio commentary on the DVD for The Incredibles (2004)]

I think all movies are an illusion, whether they are live action or animation. And I think the best special effect that people don’t pay enough attention to is caring about the characters who are going through the set pieces. If you can be invested in the characters that you are putting in danger, then you can amp up the pressure, and it really means something because people are rooting for them to survive. Characters are the special effect.

[on the nature of Pixar's ideas and how the commercial world views those ideas] If you explain the basics of any one of these ideas, they probably will sound as nutty as a cooking French rat or a silent film starring robots in a post-apocalyptic world,” Bird said. “Each one of those films, when we were in preparation on them, the financial community said each one of them stunk and none of them had the ability to be a financial success. And then the film would come out and they’d go, ‘Well, they did it that time but the next one sounds like a piece of crap.’ The truth of the matter is Wall Street is only interested in you repeating yourself. If you want to do something that sounds a little odd, the financial community is all about a feeling of predictable success. And the only thing that fits that model is something similar to what you’ve done before. Everyone was very enthusiastic about Pixar doing ‘Toy Story 3′ but they weren’t excited about the idea of ‘Up.’ So if I told you about the ideas of various Pixar films, you and I might get excited about them, but the financial community would say ‘Oh that sounds crazy.’ But that’s probably why Pixar films are the way they are, because they’re films that the storytellers are excited to be getting on the screen. They’re not some sort of focus group. So because Pixar comes from a very pure place, it’s why I’m interested in staying involved with them as long as I can.

Unpacking and unraveling

Good morning, I’m on a holding pattern. It’s Martin Luther King Day and a holiday. No business today but some prep for Tuesday. Yesterday I was at the same Starbucks putting my life in order. I noted that on Facebook. I drafted a job application. Thought about my class down at Fullerton and thought about my novel. You see, I’ve been away. Not physically but my head’s been full of production issues. I’ve been spending the last five months thinking about and in production of a web series entitled, Samurai Mon Amour. I have been doing this with my wife, Sachiko. I have also had the support and contribution of an incredible production team and an incredible cast of actors. I have been reluctant to name names because we’re not finished, yet. However, I will mention Thomas Isao Morinaka, Alden Ray, and Sachiyo K who were with me at the very beginning. We were scheduled to end two Sundays ago but did not finish. It’s a tough way to end the shooting day. Vince Lombardi, the iconic football coach, once said, “We don’t lose a game. We just ran out of time.” That’s what happened to us. We were filming outdoors and nature doesn’t care if you need to get in the last two scenes of your script. The sun goes down and it’s a wrap. The feelings of not finishing are tumultuous. You are fixed on finishing and you don’t. You try to cut corners but you cannot if you want to get all your shots in. It is what it is and it is not easy. Sigh. So, I write to unpack this hair ball of frustration and pressing forward. Also, I’m teaching at Cal State Fullerton and I must prepare. That’s life, isn’t it? Real life doesn’t end cleanly. It doesn’t end on a downbeat. Some things finish. Some things linger. Some things disappear and then come up again when you least expect it. Ah!  All in all much as been accomplished but it’s not completed. It’s okay. The important things are still in place: Sachi. Our health. Our spirit. My job. And what’s going on right this moment.

Sherlock Holmes 2 – When good gets better

Just saw the recent SHERLOCK HOLMES: A Game of Shadows movie. It stars Robert Downey, Jr., Jude Law, Jared Harris, Noomi Rapace, Rachel McAdams, Stephen Fry, along with director, Guy Ritchie. I liked it. It impresses me that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s character continues to live on century to century. Currently, there is the BBC’s episodic tv series, SHERLOCK, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman as a 21st Century Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. I enjoyed the intricate, smart script and the captivating movie making. A lot of locations. A lot of eye candy. So, as I prepare for the final weekend of shooting this web series, I think about visual storytelling, too.

Shooting a film, to me, is making the ingredients for a great meal.  It starts with quality parts (fresh vegetables, high quality meats, fresh water, etc.).  That what we’re doing now. Making the best quality parts we can.  Where it all comes together is in the editing room.  My observation of this recent Sherlock Holmes movie is that a lot of the story telling took place in post production.  The pictures are crisp but the movement of those pictures is what really tells the story.  Fight scenes that alternate between quick movement and then slow motion.  Repeating a series of movements like loading a rifle from shoving a cartridge into a chamber to taking aim to firing in pieces and then showing the sequence again in one fast motion.  All of this heightens the viewing enjoyment.  This is were the text sets the ground work but the visuals take this film to a higher level.  

That’s a very high bar to reach. But it’s worth it.

I’ve been away but I’m still here

I’ve been teaching 4 classes and I’m producing, writing, and directing a webseries entitled, SAMURAI MON AMOUR. Oy! No time for blogging. But after January 8th I will be back and tell you what I’ve seen.

Happy New Year everybody!

The Captain, The Nisei, and the Howling Commandos

Just saw the movie, CAPTAIN AMERICA, and was very pleased on so many levels.
First, for personal reasons, they inserted characters from the SGT. FURY AND HIS HOWLING COMMANDOS comics into the story. There was Dum-Dum, Gabe, Percival Pinkerton, and my favorite, Jim Morita of the 442nd Combat Team, the Japanese American unit that fought in Europe. Morita first appeared in issue #38. Kenneth Choi played the character and was highlighted visually in many of the group scenes. Respect to writers, Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely, and director, Joe Johnston, for allowing this to happen. Once again I’m seeing in the Marvel universe and in Harry Potter’s world, diversity. Multi-racial and multi-cultural. In THOR the home of the Norse Gods is multi-racial. There are people of color there. Blacks, Asians. Amazing. In this universe Hemidall is a Black man played by actor, Idris Elba. I think this is a very big deal for people who are not anglo. It means we will be part of the party instead of standing outside staring through the windows. That is encouraging.
Earning the name, Captain America, is not easy. Just like taking over the James Bond franchise. The foot-chase between the new James Bond, played by Daniel Craig, and his quarry, a spider-man type climber was extended and rigorous. Craig sweated buckets to get his man. And in doing so earned his “spurs” to play the famous British spy. I don’t think its an accident that Daniel Radcliff’s Harry Potter shows on a poster all dinged up with bruises and lacerations. Or the poster for the Captain America movie poster showed his shield with all the wear and tear of battle. I think we admire and trust the signs of time i.e. a well-used leather jacket, torn and distressed jeans. In the CAPTAIN AMERICA movie, Chris Evans, also earns his moniker. He gets the body of a god but he isn’t taken into battle. He stays stateside working on the selling of war bonds. He gets a lot of adulation for his show but he’s laughed at when he performs in front of the troops. Their lives are real. He’s an actor. And he knows he’s just faking it until he goes on an adventure to rescue his friend, Bucky Barnes. He succeeds. He’s banged up a little but he’s proven himself and now he can call himself Captain America.
Maybe my age is showing but this movie harkens to a time when sacrificing your life for the greater good makes sense. Fighting the horror of the Axis Powers was a real thing, I think, to the people of the times. I’m thinking of the Japanese Americans, the children of the immigrants, the Nisei, who want to join the fight. This was the good fight and they did not want to be kept out of it. There is a Saturday morning serial quality to the movie but it doesn’t get in the way of my enjoying it.
Did I mention they had a Nisei soldier in the movie? Amazing!

Harry Potter 7 Pt. II – The Long Good bye

(Saw the movie the Tuesday after it opened. I went home and wrote this.)
Well, it’s happened. The final chapter of HARRY POTTER has hit the theatres and we’ve seen it. I will concentrate on the storytelling, characters, and the effect of a long-term franchise like HARRY POTTER. I’ll refrain from recapping the story line.

I liked it! Liked the movie and I liked the series. It’s a gentle story that grows with the reader. It’s so deceptively child-like and yet there is an emotional sophistication that attracts and demands adult appreciation. That’s a comment about the books. As I’ve noted in a previous submision: I don’t read, I listen. I enjoy audio books a lot. I’ve listened to the final book more than once. In my imagination my movie version is more touching, more dynamic – simply the perfect rendering of the final book. So, did I find David Yates’ version wanting? No. It was different like The Guthrie’s HAMLET is different than the Old Globe’s HAMLET. I did suffer from what I think those who experienced the writing felt. While the movie was playing there was a small voice making commentary of how it was different from the book. It was bothersome and dampened my enjoyment of the movie up until Harry, Hermione, and Ron sneak into the Hogwarts school. I realized that 1) Steve Kloves was cutting back on the detail of J.K. Rowling’s work. A picture can take the place of a thousand words. Moving pictures even more so. 2) I had to let go of that commentary of book vs. movie. There was no point to it. Kloves and Yates were doing their own version of the final book. Go with the flow. So I did. The voice didn’t go away but it moved from “shotgun” position to the trunk. I let the artists do their job and I came for the ride. It was a great ride.

There’s a great deal of nostalgia working in the movie. The final chapter in the book was the epilogue in the movie. Radcliff, Watson, and Ginty are now adults. Harry marries Ginny. Hermione marries Ron. Everybody has kids. The kids go to Hogwarts.  My observations of young people who are actors is that they can play adults well. It  is a comfortable fit. Also, we’ve been with these actors since they were very young and now they’re young adults.
The writing was very crisp from the beginning. It wasn’t talky. There was great focus and the story moved like gangbusters. There was urgency and threat. My criticism of HP 7 Pt 1 was that it was missing these qualities.  Unlike the book, HP 7 Part 1 had exposition but no visceral threat.

I will enjoy listening my audio novels. I will collect the movie series. Yes, I too grew up with J.K. Rowling’s writing. It was a pleasure.