Today I’m making a change to my blog. Normally today I would be talking about a documentary that I like and how it relates to my film but that’s gonna change. Starting Sunday August 5th through August 13 I start working on another film that I’ve talked about called “Deadly Embrace” as 2nd assistant director. I will continue to post on Friday’s but I’m gonna be posting everyday starting next Monday while working on Deadly Embrace just to give you all updates on what’s going on with the film and my role on the set. I’m also thinking about posting photos and maybe videos on my experience but I haven’t decided yet. Thank you all for your continued support of my blog and my documentary.
This past Tuesday was a special occasion for me. Not only was it my birthday but I turned 30, an accomplishment that I never thought I would reach. I mean I’ve envisioned reaching this milestone in my life but when you actually reach that age it’s still surprising. I doing things in my life now that five or ten years ago I would’ve never imagined. I’m directing a documentary about my life, I’m about to take part in an actual film, and I’m preparing my life after college. There’s also certain things in my life that I now want that I didn’t want five or ten years ago.
I’m at a point in my life now where I want a relationship. I want someone who I love, who understands who I am as a person, and supports me and my goals in life. I’m also at a point where I want to be a success at everything that I do and I truly believe that with my talents I can do that. I’m absolutely happy that I’m 30, I’ve had a lot of ups and downs in my life thus far and I’m looking forward to the next 30 years of my life.
Before I go, I just want to say thank you to everyone who has had a great influence on my life so far. I’ve met so many awesome people who have helped me in my life, who have given me great advice, and who have accepted me as their friend. I have support system from my friends, my family, friends from DePaul
I been working on these questions for this interview session that I plan to do for my film. This to me is the hardest part of my film because it puts me in front of the camera instead of behind the camera and in all honesty I’m scared because I’m putting myself out there for people to get to know the real me. Now, I can’t be scared because this what I wanted to do, this is the point of the film, to show people who I am but in writing these questions I feel that I’m exposing myself way too much. I feel that when I do this session and I start talking to the camera, I might expose my real feelings for people who I really care about and are important to me in my life.
Let me tell you all something a friend of mine once said to me that “you always wanted to say something but you keep it all inside” and that’s true. When it comes to telling people how I feel about them I have a hard time expressing my feelings to others because I fear that it could ruin long-lasting friendships that I’ve made in my life so I keep those feelings to myself. It protects me and the people who I care about from finding out the truth but it’s really not fair to the people I care about and to me because it makes it seem like I’m hiding something and that’s not the case.
I truly love these people who are in my life but it’s just hard for me to not only express my feelings to them but to tell these people who I love them. I don’t know what to expect when I do this interview session but the good thing is that I got good people who are gonna help me through this process because if I didn’t have them, this interview session would be an emotional disaster.
Today has been a real busy day but I quickly wanted you all to check out this excellent documentary called Dreams On Spec (2007). This dcoumentary features screenwriters such as Nora Ephron (who recently passed away), James L. Brooks, Carrie Fisher and many other screenwriters who share their stories on the struggles of turning their scripts into movies.
Though I’m not a screenwriter (yet) I can relate to their struggles especially now that I’m stepping into the film industry myself. I realize that if I want to be a success in the industry I have to work hard. be patient, and don’t take rejection too seriously because you’re gonna be rejected a lot. That’s what I took out of this documentary and I want you all to check it out
For the last few weeks I’ve been shooting some new footage for my film and I’m just having a great time riding around the city and shooting new footage. Everytime I shoot in a different location, it’s a completely different experience from the previous location and I’m loving that aspect of shooting right now.
A couple of weeks ago, I was talking to my special advisor for the film, Camille DeBose and we decided that by Thanksgiving I’ll be done shooting my film. By that time I’ll have plenty of footage that I can edit and use for the film. We also talked about setting up a day where I would do an interview session, where I would answer questions that she and I came up with. I plan to that next month after I’m done working on Deadly Embrace.
After I’m done shooting, I’ll focus more on editing, fundraising, finding music, and finding festivals where I can screen. I don’t have a a particular date where everything will be finished and the film will be completed but whenever that date is I will let you all know.
Thank you all for your continuous support of my blog and my film.
Today I’m focusing on the world of video games, more importantly competitive gaming. Recently gamers from around the world came to Las Vegas to compete in EVO 2012, the primer fighting game tournament in the world and every year it just gets bigger and bigger. One person that competed in this year’s tournament is Mike Ross, one of the top street fighter players in the world and he was the focus of a documentary in 2010 called FOCUS (directed by Steve Hwang).
This documentary looks at Ross’ journey through the fighting game scene, with him competing in various tournaments and his goals for the future. While Ross is very passionate about what he does he realizes that he might not be competing in these tournaments much long due to the fact that in some tournaments for all the practice and time you put into a particular fighting game, you don’t really get a return in the time that you actually invested in.
For example, in one tournament that he won, his prize total was only $73. The only way that you can make real money is competing in much bigger tournaments where the prize money range from $,1000 to $20,000 (Top prize in EVO). I like this documentary because it speaks to me as a gamer and the fact of the matter is that while I still play video games, my real life priorities (working on my film) have gotten in the way me playing video games on a daily basis and in all honesty that’s not a bad thing.
At first, I didn’t know how this documentary correlated with my film but it does. I have really grown up as a person and has a reached a point in my life that maybe 10 years ago I didn’t expect to reach when I was an everyday gamer, but I’m trying to find a balance where I’m still a gamer and have real world priorities. I feel that Mike Ross was dealing with that as well and maybe he has or is still trying to figure out to this day. Please check it out, it’s really awesome.
This week I continue my documentary series with one of my favorite documentary films, Who Killed Vincent Chin? 30 years ago (June 23rd, 1982), Vincent Chin was killed in Highland Park, Michigan close to Detroit by two men, Ronald Ebens and his stepson, Michael Nitz outside of a McDonalds restaurant.
Vincent Chin was killed during a rough time in Detroit, especially in the auto industry when a lot of manufacturing jobs were being lost to Japan and their rising auto industry. In the Detroit area there was hatred towards Japan and Japanese people and unfortunately Vincent Chin was a victim of that hatred and he lost his life.
The sad thing is that Vincent Chin was not Japanese but Chinese and got into an argument with Ebens (a superintendent at Chrysler during that time) at a strip club where Chin was having his bachelor party. Ebens was quoted as saying “It’s because of you little motherfuckers that we’re out of work,” talking about the jobs that were being lost.
Chin left the strip club and Ebens and his stepson searched for Chin and found him at McDonald’s where the duo beat Chin with a baseball bat multiple times leaving him in a coma before he ultimately died. Ebens and Nitz never really served time for the murder, Ebens was originally convicted to 25 years in prison but was overturned.
I watched this film almost two years ago in my Asian representation class at DePaul and this film has been one of my favorites and I was so intrigued by the way the story was told from different perspectives. From looking at the auto industry in Detroit, the incident that took place, and even the perspective of Chin’s family and friends, Ebens family and friends, and how the incident effected the Asian community.
I encourage you all to find this documentary (it’s really hard to find) and check it out because it’s a very good documentary. In the meantime, you can check out another documentary about Vincent Chin called Vincent Who? This one was made in 2009 and directed by Chris Chin (no relation) and looks back the 1982 incident and he even interviews about 80 Asian Americans to see if they ever heard of Vincent Chin.
Justin's Wheelchair Chronicles 