Vancouver & UCW

got back from Vancouver the other day.  i had a very nice time there and would like to thank the people at the Vancouver Asian Film Festival for inviting my film.  i want to especially thank Yoosik Oum, theVAFF Programming Coordinator, for all the work he has done to make the screenings go smoothly.  he just recently joined AnD as well!

so the festival was held at the massive Tindeltown Theater.

one day in between screenings, i walked over to Chinatown to get some dumplings and found this sign.

i guess the comparison works.

during the festival i was able to meet fellow AnD-ers Justin Lin, Roger Fan, Quentin Lee, and Fay Ann Lee.  it was strange to actually meet them in person.  i enjoyed Quentin's doc 0506HK.  i love documentaries that are like personal diaries.  i really appreciate when the filmmaker is able to bare his soul to the audience.  it's not easy.

on Sunday it was the filmmaker's brunch.  there i was able to catch up with fellow filmmaker Frank Yeean Chan.

Frank and i met at the San Francisco Asian American Film Festival in March.  he is a native of San Fran who is really into biking.

Frank was at Vancouver with his film "Russian Hill Roulette", where he filmed himself biking up the steepest hills in San Francisco.  you can watch the film here: http://russianhillroulette.com/

talk about putting your sweat and tears into a film!

my screening on Sunday afternoon went very well.  lot of people showed up and it was nice to meet the other filmmakers from the same program. 

i still don't feel comfortable watching my films with an audience.  since growing up in Korea i was raised not to express myself.  so filmmaking became my tool of expressing my feelings.  since my themes are usually very personal, it makes me feel so naked and vulnerable when i show my films to others.

Q&A's always make me nervous. 

now the little vacation is over, back to working on the doc.  we have about 90 plus hours of footage that we have to watch and log.  the scary thing is that we are still shooting!

logging is the part i dislike about filmmaking.  i like to be on set, being active.  sitting in a dark room and going through the footage is just plain old snooze fest.  but i understand why it needs to be done.  it gives us an idea on how the story is shaping and what is missing that we need to get.

here is a still of one of our main characters, "God's Property" Billy Jack.  after following him for the past year, i have nothing to complain about my life.  nothing goes right for this man.  he has a very tough life and an interesting story that i will write more about later. 

thank you for reading this.  and thank you for commenting on my blogs and signing my guestbook.  i will reply to everyone very soon. 

enjoy your weekend.

sincerely,

Jae-Ho