GID Blog

What’s the deal with the hitchhiker? And why doesn’t Alex embrace his being gay at the end?

Can you learn to have a seisure from Google? Elvis did. Hear from the award winning ensemble cast on being in their first film.

What are the differences between shooting in the U.S. and S.Korea? -Money and fire.

I’ll let the fellas do the talking. ‘Nuff said.

I’ll keep this blog short. After finding a hotel in S.F. I drove back down to L.A. myself in the rental car to pick up the best feature film award from KOFFLA. While at their office, Jini Shin did a little street-side interview with me before I headed back on the road for San Francisco. Still pissed though that we missed out on a what would have been a great night. Our thanks to KOFFLA and it’s jury for our first award in the U.S.

So the actors and I are looking for a decent hotel, that’s fairly close to Japantown, where the film will screen as part of the 30th anniversary San Francisco Asian American International Film Festival. I consider this my home festival, as it has always been my greatest supporter throughout my career.

Only problem is that all the sponsored hotels are over $100.00, and I have to house 3 actors for 7 days. These guys deserve it for all their hard work dealing with unforeseen hardships and little or no compensation for sitting in an RV without air-conditioning during a Midwest summer. So I’m glad they are going to get to experience a larger scale event in a great city.

So I had three hotels on my list, but we ended up staying at the first one, The Embassy Hotel. It has a really great Irish Pub attached to it, and it’s an old historic building….with free parking! That’s a rare find in S.F. Apparently the rooms are getting all booked up for the St. Paddy’s Day parade, so we got in just in time. In a couple of days there’s going to be a huge all day party and bbq in the pub and parking lot in back.

Woke up this morning and said goodbye to Lauren. She’s not going to make the San Francisco screening, and is heading back with her boyfriend to New York. It was great to have her here, but she’s going to miss the best of the festivals. Erik is heading back down to L.A.with Cy Shim and I’ve decide to take the rest of the actors directly to S.F. Even though we’ve got four days until the screening, I think it’s best to just get them situated and also find a good hotel. Scoped out a couple close to the Tenderloin but also near the Kabuki theaters.

We realize in the morning that everyone and their bags are not going to fit in my car. So we stashed the box of t-shirts in Erik’s car and he’ll hold onto them until the S.F. premiere. Derek and I head for the San Jose airport to pick up a rental car to get everything up to S.F. We will drive both cars back to the hotel and say a fond farewell to San Jose. On the way out of town we treat Elvis to his first In and Out Burger, one of the few things I crave when I’m outside the states.

So, on to San Francisco for the SFAAIFF 30th anniversary and the departure of an old friend from it. I just found out recently that the head of the festival since my first film Roads and Bridges screened there in 2001 is stepping down.

We did not make it to Cinequest in time for the beginning of the film. We just snuck in about an hour before the ending. The crowd is again really lively, laughing a lot and enjoying the film. No place to get a drink nearby so we are just hanging out in the lobby and popping in to see specific scenes. I text Jini back in L.A. that we will definitely not be making the ceremony. She kept texting today that we should really come to the closing night, and I didn’t have the heart to tell her we couldn’t make it.

Q&A was engaging, a couple of kids from the university interviewed me at the end of the screening and again, there was nothing to do. So the actors hung out at the hotel and I went back to my room. After an hour or so, Jini texts me to tell us we won the best feature film award in L.A.-damn. It would have been such a better night for the cast if we had stayed in L.A. After they worked so hard on the film I really want them to have the best experience they can, and I think we just missed a great one.

Meanwhile here’s a bit of Erik Jinks, Redeyedrove, performing at last night’s L.A. screening.

So after my second 6 hour drive, we arrived in L.A. a couple of hours before the screening. I got lost downtown trying to find the Wilshire Grand Hotel to pick up the actors and Erik. By the time I got there, we were cutting it close, so I had to gun it down local streets to get to the theater in time, something that my passengers did not enjoy. We made it there with time to spare, and pulled in front of the theater to unload the t-shirts and Erik’s guitar. Erik was going to play inside the theater as people walked in.

I was surprised to see Greg Thomas, an old childhood friend from Kansas waiting for me outside. I had not seen him since I was twelve, only just recently reconnecting through Facebook. It was great to see him now, a dad and living in San Diego. He was very kind, offering to give me change to park at a meter. We talked for a bit, when suddenly a dreadlocked guy in a t-shirt asked me my name. He then handed me an envelope and ran off. I had seen this on TV before of course; I had just been given a court summons-yeesh. I would later learn it had to do with something I thought I had resolved years ago concerning my first film Roads and Bridges.

Not wanting to cause drama, I just shucked it into my trunk and continued chatting with Greg. After working and directing music videos in New York City, I got a thick skin dealing with the fly-by-night production companies and their weasel-like business maneuverings, and indie filmmaking as well demands that you don’t freak about things that normal people do. I’m not saying you learn to blow these things off, you just learn to manage stress. I’ll blog later about the whole thing once it’s resolved, but on with our story.

So I walked to Walgreens with Greg to get some money out of the ATM. I had to pay the manager of the theater for putting our film up on the marquis. It was great to see God Is D_ad lit up on Wilshire, and well worth the fee. The audience however was disappointing, maybe at half-capacity. The tech guys and projectionist were cool though, and got the surround tracks to decode correctly. Also, KOFFLA staff seemed fairly new to the festival business, wandering around and not being very helpful. Gini, the head of the festival staff, was a sweetheart though, and made up for the rest.

Erik’s set was cut short, but it sounded great. After the great audience reaction at Cinequest, our expectations were high for this screening. We were all pleasantly surprised when the same strong reactions came from the L.A. audience as well; laughs at all the right spots, moments hitting as they were written…all good. The audience filed out though before the Q&A began, so it was not so engaging. I got a small excerpt of Lauren Mayer answering questions, but shut the camera off early. But getting to see an old friend again mixed in with the shocker of the summons, made it certainly an interesting night. Now, time to take the actors to Koreatown for some much needed drinks.

So that’s out of the way. Good crowd today, all ages and sizes showed up to the screening. Not exactly sold out, but decent turn out. The actors didn’t get to speak too much today at the Q&A, which was surprising. Technically, the surround sound mix wasn’t firing from the center channel, but that’s a small problem. I was hoping to see a better turn out of comic book/gamer fans, and we didn’t collect any emails from anyone on the way out. Not exactly firing on all cylinders, but volunteers to sit at a table are a bit hard to come by on short notice. Lauren’s boyfriend was good to help out though.

No time to sit around, tomorrow I drive back down to Los Angeles for the KOFFLA screening at the Beverly Hills Laemmle. The ticket sales online service for the festival has been a bit wonky  from what some friends of Cy are saying. The Korean festival is small, but they are really putting a lot of effort into it. The opening ceremony, which we missed, was at the Egyptian featuring actress Kim Jung-Eun and spokesperson/actor John Cho. Wish we could be in two places at once, and after the mellow vibe at Cinequest, I’m wondering if we shouldn’t just stay in L.A. for the closing of the festival. We’ll see.