Finally! My First Entry...

Video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=OmJEAubCsE0

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2aVbIHipxc My friend, Patrick Lee and founder of AliveNotDead has been urging me to do my first blog and I'm finally, after months of not getting to it, am getting to it now!  Thanks Patrick for not giving up on me.

For those of you that don't know me, I'm the writer/director and one of the producers of Falling For Grace, a full length feature film.  Yes, I even played Grace.  That's a lot of hats to wear, you might say and I would reply - "Yes, way too many and not recommended."  But when I first started writing the screenplay, I certainly had no intention to do all of the above.  What made me write was the lack of good roles for Asian Americans in the U.S.  I started out in the theater on Broadway and was able to do a lot of great lead roles in regional theater across the country and even internationally.  But once I started to explore t.v. and film, things were very different.  I realized it was because there were no writers writing Asian American roles - there weren't any Asian American writers.  And I realized that the best way to change the landscape of television and film was to start to write.

The story of Falling For Grace was inspired by my random encounters with John F. Kennedy, Jr. in the mid 90's.  For a short period of time, I kept running into him in New York City - at a bank, on the street, at a restaurant and even in a tennis club.  Celebrity sightings are not unusual in Manhattan as people tend to walk a lot.  Some celebrities might even take the subway.  But what was odd was how often I ran into John Jr.  When I finally saw him at the tennis club, I got to observe how people treated him and how he, in turn, was so nice to everyone there.  And the idea popped into my head - would someone like JFK, Jr. ever be with someone from Chinatown?  To me, I wasn't interested in exploring the racial difference but rather to look at class differences.   I was also very interested in writing about Chinatown because I had many friends, like the character, Grace, who grew up in working class conditions that have achieved successes that surpass even their own expectations.  I wanted to also write about them...

From scrīpt to screen, this film has been in the making for 8 years.  I thought getting the movie made was hard, and it was.  Every mistake I could possibly made, I did.  I thought the hard part was over.  Well, NOT TRUE!  Releasing this film without real marketing $$ in the U.S. - far bigger challenge!   We tested the waters in San Francisco and Washington, D.C. and did surprisingly well finishing top 2 or 3 almost every week in each of the theaters.  We even beat Harry Potter at both our theaters.  But what we found was that when my great, loyal team and I would show up to do lots of grassroots marketing, we did great.  But if we leave town, we couldn't keep up the awareness -- and that's where the lack of $$ hurt us.

We then decided to try smaller towns where advertising budgets were not as daunting - Sausalito and Grass Valley, CA  -- Again when we showed up, we did even better - finishing  No. 1 in Sausalito at The Marin Theater for the 2 weeks that we were there, and we were No. 2 only behind Jodie Foster's film - The Brave One - in Grass Valley.  So, we know there is an audience for this very clean, happy feel-good movie.  Yes, I have no shame about that - I was going for the all American feel good romantic comedy.  Hollywood execs had told me that they weren't sure whether a mainstream audience would like this film since it has an Asian American element to it.  Well, the Sausalito audience clearly liked it and they were as mainstream American as you can get.  Won't even think about that any more...

Our next stop - VANCOUVER, CANADA!!!  We were invited to screen at the Vancouver Asian Film Festival that begins on November 1st.  I believe our movie will screen on November 3rd.

AND we are opening at the Tinseltown in Vancouver (a huge multiplex) on Friday, November 9th!  If any of you are from the Vancouver area or know people there - especially folks from Hong Kong (the Chinese family speaks Cantonese in the movie), please alert them and have them buy tickets and support an Asian American film!  I will be at the theater doing Q&As at the theater starting November 9th throughout the entire opening weekend at Tinseltown.   It's usually quite fun for the audience!

Green is the only color that matters in Hollywood.  In order for us to have more clout, the execs need to see GREEN!  And Asians can be included within that color scheme as long as the final color that dominate is GREEN!

Until the next time -- Patrick, I dedicate this first blog to you!  Thanks for not giving up on me.

fay