Starbucks Filmmaker Talk & Big Read Seminar

My day started fairly early on Sunday, since I went to Gerard Elmore's Filmmaker Talk at Starbucks in the morning. It was held in a corner of the store, and there were about 20 people in attendance. Some of the actors and actresses from his film "All For Melissa" were also there. The talk was moderated by Lance Rae. The atmosphere was nice and relaxed. Gerard talked for a while about how making his first feature length film was a challenge. He did it on a small budget, paid for mostly by his savings. The actors in attendance said how it was refreshing to work on an independant film since they could feel the passion and dedication, versus a commercial venture where everyone was just there to get paid and get it over with.

I also sat in on some of the "Big Read Seminar", which followed a screening of "The Joy Luck Club", a 1993 film based on the 1989 book by author Amy Tan. It focuses on the private lives of four immigrant Chinese-American families. The seminar was moderated by Dr. Konrad Ng, a professor of the Academy for Creative Media at UH Manoa. Also participating were Janet Yang, executive producer for the film, Ruth Hsu, an English professor at UH Manoa, and Vilsoni Hereniko, a playwright, filmmaker, and author. They discussed the film, and in particular book to film adaptations. Janet Yang said "Great films begin with great scripts." and I believe that to be true. With the source material of a novel as a base to write a screenplay, you have more character depth and details to flesh out the story. Since filmmakers have a limited amount of time to tell a story (generally no more than 90 minutes), it can sometimes be hard to determine what to keep and what to cut in the editing process.

We had quite a few sold out shows yesterday! The various shorts programs were very popular, particularly since many of the shorts screening were made by local filmmakers. Also notable was the showing of The Home Song Stories, starring Joan Chen. I saw this film, and I thought it was well made. Joan plays a mother of two who moves to Australia by marrying a sailor, whom she soon leaves. She is not a very responsible person, so her children are subjected to many moves, staying with "uncle" after "uncle". The story is being told by her son years later when he is grown up. It's a very dramatic movie, and also deals with the effects of suicidal behavior.