Fellowships and Film Festivals

How did you get you hear about / get involved with the Tribeca x Netflix x Gold House Future Gold Fellowship?

I saw an Instagram post from Gold House about the Tribeca x Netflix x Gold House Future Gold Fellowship and I thought it would be very interesting to apply for it. My good friend and creative partner Lawrence Chen and I had been working on lots of short films scripts previously and there were two that we decided to submit. Both of them were sci-fi based from an Asian-American perspective. So we submitted those two along with a budget I created for this fellowship program. 

I also had another friend, Lloyd Lee Choi, who I mentioned to him that Lawrence and I had applied for this fellowship and he decided to apply for it also on the same day. As it goes, somehow, Lloyd got the fellowship- even though he wrote a script in a day! So, whether it’s fate or luck that it happened, who knows? 

Or just pure talent.

Yeah, I don’t know! Sometimes it’s just whoever is reading the script, you don’t know where they’re at in their life, like maybe they were just not in a mood for sci-fi that day [laughs]. So, yeah, they accepted Lloyd.

That was a long process. The selection process happened in January of this year and we had a lot of meetings with Tribeca Studios, which really spearheaded the development process. We had weekly meetings with them to talk about budget, casting - they were so supportive. They gave us all the documents we needed to make it happen and the funding. And we shot it all in April and around that time, I also found out that a feature film that I had helped produce in 2020 also got into Tribeca of this same year, so it was a great experience to be able to go to the festival for two reasons: one for the horror film, A Wounded Fawn, and another was for this film fellowship. 

What was also crazy is that my longtime collaborator DP friend, Tinx Chan, also got into Tribeca with a film that he DP’d called Our Father, The Devil. And another producer friend of mine, Nerenda Eid, she got into the film market where she was pitching her TV show. So, it’s weird but it’s not that weird at the same time, where you get to see your peers who work just as hard if not harder than you getting to the same place. It was a really nice celebration to be there with my friends. Another friend, Jake Saner, his film that he DP’d Good Girl Jane was also there. So, it was just very strange. At one point in your life, in your career, you just notice that you’re coming to the same place with everyone.

That’s awesome, super exciting. You talked about what it was like to work with Tribeca. I was wondering if you got to get in touch with Netflix in the process of working on the fellowship and what that was like.

It seems that Tribeca Studios was really the point person on this job. We never spoke directly to Netflix. We only spoke through Tribeca. Tribeca was managing the filmmakers. There were three filmmakers: Lloyd Lee Choi, Erin Lau, and Derek Nguyen. So, they were managing us three as well as the people at Netflix and the people at Gold House. They were helping us get funding, promotion through Netflix, news and press releases, industry screenings - a lot of the actual role that a studio would do. They gave us more money when we needed it. They would give us notes from Netflix, on the edits and the casting choices.

Do you think it was more helpful to have this feedback/information coming from one point?

I’m used to dealing with a lot of communication and feedback in my industry. I’m talking to every single person on the crew as well as the agency, legal department, and clients. And as budgets get smaller, sometimes the client and the agency person are handling everything and I’m handling everything on the production side. So, I’m used to it but I’m glad- it felt very professional and clear to have a point person throughout that process. So, I really applaud the people there at Tribeca Studios - Michelle Hamada and Alex Ingber.

What was the timeline of the fellowship and where are you now in that process? What are the steps moving forward?

We finished the Tribeca run. The opportunity was for it to have a theatrical screening at Tribeca, which ultimately didn’t happen but they did give us a private theatrical screening as well as they let our film play on Tribeca At Home, which is their streaming platform. But, in the eyes of Tribeca, the film is done and now we have the opportunity to submit the film into other film festivals. So, we are also submitting Closing Dynasty to Sundance as well as TIFF and Venice and other film festivals now. So, they’ve basically helped give us funding and legal advice and film festival strategy advice to make a film. And now we can go and promote our film as well as use that film to try to get other opportunities. They’ve also given us a great network to talk to the other filmmakers, Erin and Derek, who are in the competition also. We keep in touch. So, it’s pretty nice that our network expanded through the fellowship itself. And I hope that next year we get to be reinvited somehow and get to talk to the next group of filmmakers! 

That would be the best way to keep this program running, which is to create a mentoring, alumni sort of program versus we’re just going to make content for this year and let’s make new content next year. They should try to make a community to support each other and that’s just going to lead to bigger and better opportunities for everyone.

Thanks for sharing your experience. I was seeing a lot of news from TIFF and the Venice Film Festival the past few months so it would be awesome to see you guys there next year or one day. I was curious - how was the experience going to Tribeca as part of the fellowship different from going as a so-called “independent” producer, like as part of the team behind A Wounded Fawn? 

As part of the fellowship, we got the industry pass, which allows you into the cocktail hours, any screenings, any panels. You can just buy that pass, but it is a pretty penny, so to get that free was good. We didn’t get more special access than anyone who could have bought a pass, but it’s nice to be there with a film that’s playing there versus going there and saying “I’m working on a film” or not having something playing there. It’s a different mentality. You could be going there just to watch films, or make contacts and network with people. I think the way the water is flowing is that the people who have films playing there are going to be the hot topic and people are going to flock to them more than you if you’re going there without a film. For me, it was very much using the sort of status of being a Gold House fellow, as well as having a horror feature film there. I also want to touch on something, which is that the fellowship really promotes the directors as the filmmakers, even though each director had a whole production team behind them. The production team was not as invited or part of it, which I think is part of the industry that I don’t love but I guess that’s what works right now. The directors are the centerpiece for all of these things. 

Just to clarify, what was your involvement with A Wounded Fawn, the horror feature film?

I was mostly an executive producer, kind of hands-off. I invested in it, helped with finding the director, and picking the script but I had no say in the casting or the production or anything like that. That was by Joe Barbagallo with his production company, BarB House. I think Travis Stevens, the director, has had a lot of horror movies go through the festival route. This is his fifth film, if I’m not mistaken. So, he was automatically entered into the Brooklyn Horror Film Festival, which had a partnership with Tribeca. So, the film got in through another festival, basically, through the director’s connections. I think the more festivals you get invited to and attend, the easier it gets for you to be part of a festival. That’s something that I learned a lot during this period, which is, once you’re in with a festival, once you get to know the people who run it and what they’re looking for as a film festival, it’s so much easier to get in. I don’t think anyone teaches you in film school or anything to go to these things and to invest in your own career by buying that industry pass. I know to do that now, like I already bought my pass for next year because I want to keep my connections fresh and I want to see my friends there again. The Tribeca festival is so big, it has immersive, music, so there’s a lot to go see and I didn’t get to see a lot because I was there promoting the two films. But just being able to participate and there’s a lot of pitching that happens too. 

A Wounded Fawn Trailer Dropped!

The film has had an amazing film festival run with Tribeca/FantasticFest/Sitges/BrooklynHorror/Chicago Film Festivals in the past 6 months. Hsubox Productions is so lucky to have had it's first endeavor in film financing investment, development, and producing pay off in such a big way! Joe Barbagallo of BarB House Productions was definitely to thank for showing the script to Jonathan for interest while trying to figure out next moves during the pandemic of 2020.

With a script by Nathan Faudree, writer/director/producer Travis Stevens who took a script idea to the next level as well as the talent actors Josh Ruben, Sarah Lind, and Malin Barr. Premieres December 1 on Shudder.

To summarize, I would recommend people buy the industry pass if you’re serious about working in this industry. Go buy a pass, get to know who the festival directors are, go out of your way to find that person and get to know the programmers and the people who are moderators, like there are a lot of Q&A’s that happen. Those moderators are usually invited in because they might not have a film playing there but they are recognized thought-leaders or filmmakers in their own right. So, just get to know those people. Do your research - look up all the different films playing, see which ones interest you, learn about that director or producer and go talk to them. That’s the cool thing about it - it’s almost like a convention where you are there to be among peers and find potential mentors. That part of maintaining relationships is huge in providing opportunities. You increase your chances of getting your films made or helping other people get their films made and being a part of it by networking. So get the industry pass. If you have never gone, just do it. If you’ve gone before but haven’t gone in a long time, go for it. Expose yourself to something new. Falling short of getting a film in there, just go there!

On Set Diversity and Representation

What does representation mean to you?

Representation, to me, means showing the true values that a culture holds - for example, there are a lot of tropes and prejudices that each Asian culture may have (I’ll speak specifically to Asian culture) - because they each have a different set of cultural values. Family-centered. But then you look at all countries, of course Jewish families are very family-centered and so are Latinx cultures, they are family-centric. So that is a kind of global ideal, so how is it any special? I guess it gets special when you’re talking about representation- how do they express that value? Whether it's honoring ancestors with certain ceremonies on their birthdays, new year, or death. As well as what they think of when they say “to honor the family name.” That means something different within different cultures. 

In media, it’s accurately portraying those and making sure you don’t go into a caricature of that culture.

I remember someone saying specificity makes it easier for something to be universally relatable, so that’s a good point.

Why does representation matter? Why is it important to represent these different cultures on screen?

I think to offer the wealth of experience to those outside of the cultures. You want diversity of content. You don’t want to see the same idea, the same love story between boy-meets-girl, or girl-meets-girl, or all these different combinations. You want to see the diversity of the human condition, of human connection and relationships. 

It’s the same reason why you wouldn’t want to eat the same thing every day.

What role does representation play when you’re choosing projects to work on or to produce, especially as someone who is part of the AAPI community yourself?

I make it a point to have diversity on my crews, but just because I have a diverse crew, it doesn’t mean anything unless those crew members are free to express their creative and personal opinions on set. I could hire a diverse crew and tell them to shut up and do what I want, which to me, cancels out why you would want to hire a diverse crew. You want someone on set to call out the creative and say “hey, that would never happen in an Asian household.” 

[jokes]Like  “The father would never say ‘I love you!’ out loud.” Something like that. Or, of course, there’s a plastic bag full of plastic bags under the kitchen sink if you are set dressing an asian american household.

Joking aside, it’s highly important, especially when dealing with commercials, if you’re trying to have your brand and message appeal to everyone, as many potential customers as possible, you want to be authentic and genuine in your message, as well as the worldview that you are projecting in your TV spot or radio commercial. Those are short, so you only have a limited amount of time to express all that. And it can’t be everything. …everywhere. all at once. [laughs] 👀

But you can, when you’re specific about something, that can touch on a universal note that maybe someone will learn something from that. Either someone will be familiar with it and be like “aha!” or someone will be unfamiliar and be exposed to a new idea. So you gotta make sure that idea is authentic.

How do you make sure your crew and people working behind the camera feel comfortable expressing their thoughts?

I make it a point to talk to everyone on the set. I don’t just talk to the above-the-line people, I talk to everyone. I make sure they know they can ask me questions or text me prior or during the shoot. And it does take time. You have to develop these relationships. If you’re on set with someone for their first time, they’re not going to bring it up to me. So, I make sure I’m loyal and that I hire the same people that are good and then develop these relationships with the key roles.

A specific example would be I ordered lunch for a crew that had different options that I could think of and I made a point to ask the crew about their different dietary needs and restrictions. But I missed one because we had a last-minute replacement because of COVID. And that guy was a specific kind of vegan. So, I didn’t eat lunch that day. I jumped in my car - I asked him what he wanted to eat and I went to that restaurant to pick up his food for him because I wanted to make sure he felt heard.

Then the next time I hired him, I had a meal ready for him and he was more open to me during that shoot about how things were running on set. He could talk to me about the load-in, load-out situation and not feel like he just had to make things happen. He could ask questions because he could see that I respected him as a person. 

What is a movie or show you first remember identifying with or feeling seen by?

The earliest I can remember is Jackie Chan in Rumble in the Bronx. When I saw the trailer for it on TV, I was like “wait, this isn’t like an old-school martial arts movie with people in robes or with long white beards doing Kung Fu finger push-ups. This was a guy in jeans and a tank top doing flips on cars.” I had seen Jackie Chan before in martial arts movies but this was my first exposure to him on American TV in between American commercials. And I remember my brother and I watching it at the same time and jumping up and being like “oh my gosh, that’s awesome! We have to go see that!” There was a lot of pride seeing that happen. Seeing a person with almost-like superhero powers fighting for justice in the Bronx was amazing.

Something that I think a lot of AAPI organizations and figures are intentional about is making sure that AAPI doesn’t become hyper-focused on East Asian cultures. We are not a monolith. There is diversity even within the AAPI community. What are your thoughts on on-screen representation making sure we honor the diversity within these communities? 

A reference point is some of the criticism that Crazy Rich Asians (2018, dir. Jon Chu) faced when casting was first announced. A lot of the cast were of East Asian descent and there were criticisms that the characters did not accurately represent the ethnic makeup of Singapore.

Some studio exec definitely heard that criticism and ignored it, but you also have to be true to the script and the story. You cannot please everyone when you’re making your art. Specific is global. If you try to appease everyone, you end up with some weird, bland thing. 

How do you solve the problem? It depends on context. Is it to check a box or hit some sort of quota? If so, that may not be a true representation of what the needs are. 

I guess it is broadening your network. Because I am of East Asian heritage, a lot of my community and network reaches into East Asian culture. It is more effort for me to look into South Asian or Pacific Islander communities, but I’ll have to seek them out and that's the work that we all have to put into our lives. It's not going to happen organically because despite American culture being hailed as "the melting pot" there are systemic racial/ethnic issues that America has been struggling with since the founding of the nation. There are invisible lines that still hold us back from becoming truly united.