Filmmaking discussion and Crips origins segment

Will you please have sex with me? At Skid Row Studios? At Skid Row Studios. Maybe. Okay. Welcome to the Coon Round Report. Coming at you live from Skid Row Studios. May the peace and blessings of a life-giving creative spirit be upon you and upon your family. My name is Melvin Ishmael Johnson, and I'm in the studio with my co-host, Earlene Anthony. This week, we will be talking about independent filmmaking with three members of the SAG short film, The Lesson. And also, in our Gangs Are People 2 section with Lee Shaw, we'll be talking about the origins of the Crips. Right now, we have on us on the phone. On the line, Judy Bowman. She is the co-producer of one of our upcoming veterans, upcoming section called The Veterans Corner. Judy is the development director for the Roby Theater Company. Judy, how you doing? I'm good, Melvin. How are you? Oh, just fine. Now, Judy, can you tell us about the project that you're working on? I know we're looking forward to your section on The Veterans Corner. We're working on the book Bloods by Wallace Terry. But we talked about a couple other things today. Can you tell us a little about it? Sure, Melvin. And I just wanted to thank you again for the opportunity to talk with you and Earlene and all your listeners. The project that we have in mind right now is to talk to activists and artists in Skid Row. And as we talk with them, train some volunteers to interview them. And I want to thank you for the opportunity to talk to those people, those people that have used art to make statements over the last 30, 40, however many years. The whole purpose of that is to show the art that's been done, show the ways that people in Skid Row have used art over these last several decades to make their statements wider known. Okay. Hey, we're looking forward to that. I hope you have a great day. I hope we have a chance to get into that soon. Also, can you touch a little on the section that you would be co-producing weekly on the show, the Veterans Corner? Well, sure. I look forward to sharing the essays, the 20 essays in the book that you mentioned by Wallace Terry. Those essays happened after several years of interviews. Wallace Terry was a black man. He was the first black man to be interviewed. He was the first black man to be a foreign correspondent for a major TV network or media person. He actually represented Time over in Vietnam. And he got to meet these black men in all branches of the service, the Navy, Marines, Army and Air Force. And he had hours and hours worth of tape when he came back. And whittled the tape down, transcribed it. And he was a great person. He was a great person. He was a great person. He was a great person. And he transcribed the stories and whittled it down to these 20 essays that form a book that, still in all, tells a story, especially the story of a black man in the Vietnam War. Okay, we're looking forward to that. Now, for those who want to get in touch with you about being part of the Skid Row Artist Project, what's the information for? Sure, anybody that would like to volunteer to work with us on that, or to nominate an an artist, call 626-703-1230, 626-703-1230, or they could email me. I'll say it and then I'll spell it. It's nomortimetowriteatgmail.com, so it's N-O-M-O-T-I-M-E, the number two, and the word write, W-R-I-T-E, at gmail.com, nomortimetowriteatgmail.com. Okay, Judy, we're looking forward to that. I'm looking forward to talking to you soon, and thank you very much for calling in. And, hey, we're looking forward to getting you in the studio so we can get this Veterans Corners rolling. All right. I look forward to that, too. Thanks again. Bye-bye. Thank you, Judy. Bye, Judy. Bye. Bye. Okay, Judy Bowman, she is the Development Director for the Roe v. Theatre Company. Located in the downtown Los Angeles area at the Los Angeles Theatre Center. Now, I am delighted to have with us in the studio three members of the production team of the SAG short film, The Lesson. The producer, Lydia Marion, the director and the writer, Chin Nee, and the assistant director, Andrew Chee. Lydia, Chin, and Andrew, welcome to the Coon Round Report. Thank you so much for having us. First of all, can you tell us a little about yourself and how did you get off into filmmaking? Let's start with you, Lydia. Well, I started acting in 2000, and I always wanted to study, so I did two masters, one in the arts and one in sciences, and I focused on, I wrote my thesis on generating revenue through mathematical-related intellectual property. So, basically, what I did is I looked at, in 2006, you have the digital millennium. I was in the business of doing a research on the digital millennium act, which made it possible for people to patent math. So, what's happening in the economy where people can patent math, and then as I did research, a lot of the math wasn't owned by the mathematicians. It was owned by other companies. So, what's going to happen in a society where money is not given to the inventors of the intellectual property, and that's why we had intellectual property. So, being an actor and having an interest in math. So, when I came across this story, I was hooked. Tell me again, what was your thesis, your doctoral thesis? My thesis for my masters was generating revenue through mathematical-related intellectual property. Interesting. Beautiful. I see a book behind that. Okay, so, how about you, Andrew? For me, it started when I was a kid because I liked to write stories as a kid. I didn't get into film. I was a kid, but I wrote short stories and attempted novels. And as I grew up, I started learning how to draw and sketching and still art and photography. And then when I got older to around college here, I started finding about film, which is a combination of both writing and still photography and art. So, I thought because I like to tell stories by writing, maybe I could try it with film, which is more of a visual appeal. Which has more of a visual appeal to it. So, you're looking towards a career in feature film? Yeah, I'm hoping to do feature. I'm hoping to be able to keep the story. Independent short film has the ability to tell a story, whereas feature tends to focus more on story, but also depending on this genre, action, comedy. But in an independent short film, you tend to really focus down on one type of main idea. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm hoping in features, I'm able to do the same thing and try to keep it to one main idea, but have it be a feature. So, the story is much more complex and dynamic that you can... Okay. How about you, Tian? Right now, I'm a film-making student in NYFA, which is New York Film Academy. And I was majoring in digital media art, which is more about post-production back in Beijing, China. Yeah. So, about this story, this film is my year one film. So, my father is a math professor in a university. So, I wanna maybe write something about him. So, I came up with this story. He's a prototype for this film. Is he exactly like this particular character? Not really, but based on him. Based on him. Yeah, because I heard it was a great actor that's performing this particular role. A person... Now, what is a SAG short film? Well, SAG is a Screen Actors Guild. So, it was actually really wonderful to work with SAG. As a producer on this film, they basically give you regulations to work by, so making sure that the actors are fed at certain hours. So, it's not really that hard to follow SAG guidelines. And even if you're not a SAG film, it's good to look at the regulations because basically, it's like teach the people you work with, work with people and show some respect. Because that's basically, if you follow all the regulations, it's basically what it boils down to. Don't overwork the people and treat them with respect. Yeah. Don't overwork the people and feed them. They're hungry, you know. So, you can go online and SAG works a lot with low budget films. And when you work with children, it gets harder, but we didn't in this particular case. We were thinking about it, but then we had to have a teacher and we actually found some great actors that were a little older to play younger. So, that solved that for us. Okay. Is it a major difference between the SAG for the feature film and the SAG for the film? Well, financially, it changes because if you're a big production, if you're a low budget film, SAG has a lot of things. And if you're a student film or a SAG short film, indie films, they pull a lot of plugs so you can pay people in deferred pay. So, that means you pay them after you sell the film. So, now with this economy, SAG makes it possible for filmmakers that don't have to pay for the film. So, they can sell it to filmmakers that don't have that big of a budget to pay everybody up front to get their film made and then sell it and then pay the people that worked on it. Oh, okay. Wonderful. Okay, now tell us a little about the film, The Lesson. Can you tell us about the film? Yeah. The Lesson is a period piece which takes place in World War II, China. And it's about a Chinese mathematician cannot cope with the reality of the war. And he finds his escape in his teaching. And this was a prototype was your father, etc. Was any personal experience that your father went through some of that as a mathematician? My father, well, he's very into his own math world. Yeah. So, yeah, I, but I'm not interested in math. But so, I always wonder why he's so, you know, math is so important. Yeah. I don't know why math is so, so attractive to him. So that's why I want to. Well, what subject was he teaching? He teaches in university, so I don't really know. I don't really know what he's talking about. Okay. Now, is this your first script? Your first script? Have you written any early short scripts or anything? No, it's, it's pretty much the, you know, the first script. Pretty much the second big project I wrote. Now, what is the plan for Lesson? Can you tell us the, what plan you guys have for it? Yeah. Well, right now we're, we just started the post-production phase. So, that means we are, we're going to edit. We started, we started the editing process and then sound design. We have a wonderful composer that's actually playing in Ohio, I think. He's playing right now in two different states. He's really famous from playing in the United States. He's really famous from playing these classical Chinese instruments. So, it's really great that we have him on board and he's actually already like thinking and working on the score. He sent us a sample. So, so that's great. So, when we're done with the editing process, we can put his side in. But then we're concerning the film festivals, when we're done with the film, we'll try to submit it to as many film festivals as possible. But, you know, you have to be lucky to get selected. Yes. Yes. Okay. Now, what is the impact of the internet on the independent filmmaking? Well, I think since I grew up with the internet pretty much, I've kind of seen it go from 56k slow to cable now. And the internet has made communication with people in general much, much easier. People who don't even know each other can communicate on websites or any other type of services on the internet. And anyone with common goals easily find each other. So, someone puts up a website, say for a short film, and then everyone who's interested goes to that site and then they communicate. The community can talk to each other and pass ideas between everyone and everyone kind of grows together. Whereas before, someone, a bunch, a community in one city, say New York, can only communicate really with other like minds in New York. They can't really communicate with China. They can't communicate with France. They can't communicate with Russia, Europe, because the time zone difference and there's no way to communicate with them by any other way besides phone. The internet now has allowed us to talk with people, email, or even in real time, other people in other countries, even in different languages to a certain extent. And that communication is able to bring, especially in these low-judge films where it takes a bunch of people together to be able to fund a big project. And that's what help does the most. And also for filmmakers out there, basically you can reach your audience directly. So, if you have a project that has a specific story that you know will appeal to other people, with Facebook and with all these different outlets out there, you can reach people that are interested in the same goal. And if you post something today, tomorrow you might have a crew of six people that are passionate about the same project. And next week you might be starting meetings and working on actually making it happen. It's just, yeah, what you said, the communication is now so much easier. And with crowdfunding, you have Indiegogo, Kickstarter, and now they're popping up all over the world. You can actually start basically pre-selling your film. You say, like, okay, if you give us $10, we give you a digital download of our film. And if you have enough people wanting to put those $10 in, you can actually start paying some of the people that worked on the film. Yeah, especially because it's a matter of cost when it comes down to film. And if you have one person funding $20 million, that's one person funding $20 million. You can get the same amount of money with 20 million people all funding $1. And when you have the communication services like the internet, you can get the same amount of money with 20 million people all funding $1. And it's very much easier to get in touch with other people with similar interests. And yes, $1, $10, people are willing to submit that to see a good film, able to get off the ground. Whereas before, finding $20 million from one person may not be exactly feasible for some. But now with the internet, it makes it so much more possible. Now, how about the aspect of, it's a lot of little web series that you see on the internet. How about that? All the web episodes? Yeah. Can you comment on that? Web episodes, well, I haven't personally made any of them. I watch several of them. And the appeal I can find out about it is that it's much easier to produce. It's, you know, you make it in the studio or wherever, and then you don't have to find a distributor. It's simply a matter of uploading it to YouTube or whichever, or email, any other streaming site online. And instantly now, you can distribute to the entire world. Because anyone, any country with access to YouTube or any other streaming site, you can now see whatever you want to show them. Whereas before, you had to go through distribution companies, film distribution companies, and then you have to make it the physical DVD or film, depending on what your media is, which gets expensive. And then you have to send it to theaters to play it. Now, everything is digital online. And web episodes appeals to that. Any possibilities like that for a piece like The Lesson? Well, the problem is with The Lesson, it's a period piece. So we actually put a lot of, you know, time and effort in actually completely building the set from scratch. And we had some great people working with us. Eric, he put in a lot of effort to actually build the set. And he hardly had any time or materials to work with, but he did a wonderful job. So the thing is for The Lesson, because we tried to make it as authentic as possible, for us, it probably isn't cost effective to make a whole webisode out of it. But for filmmakers out there, if you have a good story and you want to test out if it works, you know, there's a large audience of YouTube watchers out there. If you get a lot of hits, you know, you've got potential because you've got an audience. And if you make films and people are not watching it or clicking on it, then, you know, it doesn't resonate. So the next one, you just change. And it's a good way to do it. It's a good way to test out if your material resonates with your audience. And if you get lots of hits, you know, a million, two million bits, you know, big companies notice that. And then that helps, you know, low budget filmmakers like us or even just small people who want to make webisodes get noticed. Now, with set construction, was that the largest part of the budget? Or The Lesson? Yeah, the set budget was the largest we had because that was basically the world, the story. Without the set, there's no world. So we had to make it as authentic looking as possible. So we spent most of our effort there. The other effort was finding the right cast for it to make it believable that these people would exist in this world. You mean the budget financially? Yeah. So, yeah, what we did is basically we spread our resources as much as possible. So we tried to avoid putting too much upfront costs in, which we were able to do up to a point. But the location is also, you know, major expense materials. We had to get the costumes. So everything together, it wasn't that one thing was our main goal. It was just accumulation of all the different things to make it what it is right now. Okay. Let's talk about the process. Let's talk about the step-by-step process where we can get some comments from it. Let's start with you just received the script of Less. Let's go about it step-by-step, your process from the script, you know, like audition, table session, shooting, editing, all the way through. First of all, well, we started basically pre-production. It's like we read through the script. We went through every single thing we needed. You know, from casting. To props. And worked on like what is our budget going to be for this. And throughout, we went through every single thing we needed. So that was kind of pre-production. Making sure everything goes planned. Finding the cheapest location. Getting people to get, you know, love the story. And maybe giving us good deals. The Vortex actually gave us a really great deal. You know, they really liked the story. And they were really nice wanting to help us out making this film possible. Yeah. And a good shout out for Jeff Parker. Yeah, it was wonderful. And they were all wonderful. So that's one part. And then when the production starts, you're probably best set at starting on the production from a day-to-day. Yeah. Well, as the assistant director, most of my job is in the production stage. But a lot of it also does come in the pre-production stage since the three key figures, the director, the assistant director, and the director of photography, we basically sat down and we discussed the type of director would tell us the story and the type of shots, the angles that she wants to use to capture the story. The director of photography would think about how he would light it, how to best express the mood for each shot. And then as the assistant director, I would be putting all of these in a list form. And then I would just see, do we have the time to shoot all of these material in the, a lot of budget and everything, combining budget, time allowed. We can't work 24 hours a day for five days. So we have to plan all these things out. Otherwise, you fall behind schedule, then quality may drop. So in the pre-production stage, I was there taking, trying to keep, trying to time all the material together so that we can get all the shots in the time we are allowed. Then when production stage comes around, we already have all the plans set. So it's just a matter of executing the plan. Yeah. And having, you know, having a good pre-production stage is definitely important. Without the proper plan going into production stage, you tend to make it up on the spot and that costs time. It's better when everything is planned beforehand so everyone knows what they're doing on the day of production. Is that when the shooting script is developed also? In the pre-production stage? Yes. The shooting script is usually solidified before. So the writer, in this case the director as well, should be able to do that. And then when the script is done, she begins coming up with the shots that she wants to tell the story with. Okay. Now let's go from that stage to what's next? The casting? After? Well, I mean, because I kind of took over part of the casting process because, but we did it together. So it was going on at the same time. Yeah, because we had like, even though two, three months looks like a lot of time, it was still a lot of, you know, work to make everything happen just because it was a period piece. You know, we had to, we actually had costumes shipped in from China because we couldn't find them as authentic over here. So we did the casting process, but I have personally done martial arts for years. And, and so we asked around. And we asked around for some martial arts trainers because a lot of them are Asian, you know, so the chances of them knowing some, you know, Mandarin speaking actors. So even though we did a casting process through the normal way, putting it online, putting it on LA, LA casting and all the websites, we actually ended up finding, you know, some great people through, you know, thinking about, okay, who do you know? And if, you know, who do you know that will know people like this, you know? Because we had somebody in mind we wanted. Mm-hmm. And then just finding creative solutions to try and find that person. Mm-hmm. Now how about the great theater company, the East West Players, which is a theater company in downtown, some of the probably the greatest actors, Asian actors. Did you touch base with the East West Players also? We wrote to, I'm not sure if we wrote them directly, but we did contact Luciana is another producer. She couldn't be here tonight, but she contacted a lot of Asian communities and they forwarded out a lot of information to a lot of their members. Mm-hmm. But we- And how was the response? Well, some people responded, but actually the greatest help was through Jack, right? Yes. Jack Huang. He is the martial arts director. He is the martial arts trainer in our school. And I asked him for help and he actually, he's a friend of Raymond Ma, who is the actor, main actor. Mm-hmm. So- The lead actor. Mm-hmm. The lead actor. Mm-hmm. And we gave him a phone call and he said yes, just immediately. Mm-hmm. Okay. Let's go to the next step. Okay. You've cast, et cetera, like that, all your pre-production work. Now you're ready for your first rehearsal, your first table session. What is that like? When is the first time you get all of the cast members for the lesson together? Well- Is this the first time you give them the script or you give them the script when you cast? Well, we send people the script or parts of the script even before they came into audition. I always like, personally, because I'm an actor, I like people to come in knowing as much as they want. Knowing as much as they can about the part. Because I feel if people come into audition, you know, they're an actor, they're spending their time on coming to see you. I just want to give them enough background about the character so that they know what they're coming in for. So a lot of the other parts, like the Japanese soldiers and a lot of the other characters that did came in through LA casting and those. A lot of the people, they showed up. They showed up knowing exactly, you know, what we wanted. And that's, you know, to avoid not wasting their time and our time. So they did know a lot about the story before they came in. There might be a few exceptions that weren't, but most people did. And the first rehearsal, table session rehearsal, the first rehearsal, what's that like? I mean, first time you get the cast together. I rehearse with the lead. I did the lead actor once only in Chinese because the other two, the students, the other two actors, they don't speak Chinese. So so I rehearse with him in Mandarin and go through the script. The made some adjustment based on acting and and then we did the dressing rehearsal. Right. Yeah. So, yeah, we had it. We had a couple of rehearsals. But to be honest, we we work mainly with people personally, like like you just said, because this project is besides being a period piece. You know, everybody speaks Mandarin. I mean, I might know a few words, but so it was mainly the director actually working really close with the with the directors and then making sure that the actors that don't speak Mandarin, that they know exactly what's going on. Because. You know, they have to respond to to the lesson. Now, would it be such a subtitle or. Yes, there will be subtitles. And we had an English version of the script as well as a Chinese one. And we got a lot of people to work on the set that actually spoke Mandarin. Speak Mandarin. So to make it just easier. Now tell us about the first day of shooting. How is that? When. When. When. When. When. When. When. When. When. When. When. When. When. When. When. When. When. When. When. When. the first shooting day? The very first day of shooting. Well, the first day is usually the most chaotic. I try to make it as less chaotic as possible. You know, it's the first day. Not everybody knows where the location is, though there's a map and everything. It's as easy as possible, but people still somehow get lost, even with GPS. But, yeah, the first day was, you know, we had parking set up. We had the studio location set. And everyone showed up. And when everyone showed up, we entered the studio. I basically had to start getting everyone going because I was the assistant director. If I don't say anything, no one does anything. They just sit around and eat breakfast all day. So, you know, so the first day was, you know, food was laid out. But first thing was we loaded all the equipment into the studio. So we had the equipment trucks and the art truck as well with the set already there. And I had to coordinate two teams, one to move the set in and one to bring the equipment in. And then when they're in, they have to put the, they put all the stage, all the equipment in one area. They start building the set immediately. And those that aren't as needed, perhaps like if you've loaded the equipment, they can grab a little bagel, some orange juice, and then come back. Okay. Now, how many shooting days did you have? We had six. Six shooting days. Okay. Now, you just finished the product. You got it in the can. Let's talk about the editing process. Can you, can we talk about that for a while? Editing now, I'm doing the rough cut. So after the rough cut, I'll lock down the cut, like the final cut. And then we'll add visual effects and then sound effects and music. And graphics, all of that. Graphics. Titles. Subtitles. And music. And then, yeah, that's it. Where are we at in the process now? You know, how long do you think it would take before the lesson is out there? I'll say one and a half months. Okay. Yeah. And also, because it's a period piece, you know, we say we shot for like six days, but the thing is you have to realize that for like two weeks before that or like one full week, you know, day in, day out, people are actually building the set. So for us, it feels like longer than just six days. For the actors, it was just a few days working on set. But, you know, for us working on it for a couple of months beforehand, you know, it wasn't just the six days of shooting. It was just, you know, the thing we were planned for. And now with the post-production, you know, so the shooting days, you know, is the shooting days. But the amount of work, even though the first day of shooting actually went pretty smooth, it was pretty smooth. Like you got everything in the can mainly. But it was also, it's the first day you learn to work with people you haven't worked with. And so it's basically the most exciting day because you get to learn so many new people and faces. Okay. Let's take a break for our community calendar and then we'll come back with our Games of People section and also we'll be coming back for some closing comments and thoughts. Thank you. Thank you.. Every Tuesday from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Melvin Ishmael Johnson is teaching a Veterans Community Workshop. The class is limited to 15 participants. If you're interested, please contact him as soon as possible. He's currently working on a stage play, Surviving the Nickel. And the workshop participants will be performing this play on August the 26th. And we'll have more information on the upcoming performance. The workshop location is the Vortex 2341 East Olympic Boulevard. This is at the corner of Santa Fe and Olympic. And if you're traveling by the Metro bus, take the number 60 and number 66, and it stops right at the corner. For more information, you can give a call at 323-850-4436. Also... Also, Sunday, July 22nd at 3 p.m., Drum and Stage Coon Run is presenting the musical performance of Art Walk Jamal. He plays the Memphis and Chicago style blues, and he's a resident of our community. The location of the exchange is 114 West 5th Street, Los Angeles. Parking is available at Joe's Auto Park, 530 South. For more information on this event, you can call 323-850-4436. This is a free event, and all are welcome to attend. And if you have a community event that you would like announced on our show, just send the information to DramaStage1 at yahoo.com. Attention, Earlene Anthony. And once again, our call-in number for the show is 800-893-9000. That's 888-9562. Now, back to our host. Thank you, Earlene Anthony. We're back with the Coon Run Report. Today in our Gangs Are People 2 section, we're going to talk about the origins of the Crips with Lee Shaw, one of the co-producers of this segment. He's an actor and community activist, and also the stage manager for DramaStage Coon Run. Lee, welcome to the Coon Run Report. Thank you for having me. Lee, I'd like to read from the Wikipedia about the origins of the Crips. It says, The Crips are primary but not exclusively an African-American gang. They were founded in Los Angeles, California in 1969, mainly by Raymond Washington and Stanley Williams. What was once a single alliance between two autonomous gangs, is now a loosely connected network of individual sets, often engaged in open warfare with one another. The Crips are one of the largest and most violent associations of street gangs in the United States, with an estimated 30,000 to 35,000 members. The gang is known to be involved in murders, robberies, and drug dealing, among other criminal pursuits. The gang is known for its gang members' use of the color blue in their clothing. However, this practice has been weighing down due to police crackdown on gang members. Crips are publicly known to have an intense and bitter rivalry with the Bloods, and lesser feuds with some Chicano gangs. Crips have been documented in the U.S. military, found in bases also in the United States, and abroad. Stanley Tukey Williams met Raymond Lee Washington in 1969, and the two decided to unite their local gang members from the west and east side of south central Los Angeles in order to battle neighboring street gangs. Most of the members were 17 years old. Williams discounted the sometimes cited founding date of 1969, and in his memoirs, Blue Rage, Black Redemption. Lee, can you comment on that? My first introduction, as far as I know, was in 1971. I was raised up on the east side, so I really didn't get to meet Tukey until 1979. But there was another person in his book, Blue Rage, Black Redemption, that he referred to as Black Johnny. I didn't know him as Black Johnny. The initials were right, but it was a different name. I won't even go into that. Okay. Then what made it real bad for them is that, and I don't believe that would even have been a blood. You know what I'm saying? If it hadn't been for one thing that they did, that they was doing, that was actually, that put an offensive thing up with the other group, and that was robbery. You know, back then, there wasn't a lot of money. Right. There was a lot of money. But they was like just taking things from people. You know what I'm saying? This is what it all amount to. It was just taking another coach, taking a little money you had. And so, and this Black Johnny, he used to go up to Jefferson High School, and they actually shoot the school up. You know what I'm saying? And the brothers that was in that area got tired of that right there, and getting shot at, chased down. You know, so they brought a rival thing in. Right. And they didn't go by the bloods, but it was, so it was acy-ducy and other little things. And that started it right there. It started from that particular point, and it just rose. Now, can you discuss the economic condition and violence where gangs reside? You know, the relationship between the economic conditions and the community. Because of the Highway to Violence, and I say hoods, right, because there's many of them. Like you say sets. You know, you're talking about one hood right across the street from another, you know. So I just used the word hoods. And that, because of the violence, the manufacturing developers are afraid to come in. You know, we can look at one of the biggest retail giants, Walmart. They're not even crazy enough to go down there, because it wouldn't make any, you know, I would hate to close my store at 12 o'clock at night and come back at 6 to open it up, and there ain't nothing in it. Yeah. And because of that right there, it causes, there's no economic growth. And that causes the Highway to Violence and crime. And drug sales. Because people are going to do whatever it takes to survive. And that's one of the key things. In the hoods, people are not living. They are surviving. Mm-hmm. That's all they're doing is surviving. It's like just like being in a little spot with the hoods. With five cookies laying down there. And we all, there's millions of ants. And we all want to get to survive. Same. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And so they don't, you know, there's some things that could be done to change that. You know, but are the people willing to do that? Mm-hmm. So there's a paradox in a relationship between the economic conditions in the community. Yeah. And the amount of violence, drugs, et cetera. Yeah. And the amount of violence of the fear of companies and business coming into the community to set up and provide jobs. Yeah. Et cetera like that. Okay. Now what can we do about this? What do you, just for a minute, talk about that. What can we do to, do we start with the economic conditions like something that they had in the 80s when they came over to see the program to train youngsters or something? To create jobs? If I was going to orchestrate something, I would have to deal with their mind first. The first thing, and I believe this to be true, and people do it and they don't realize they'd be doing it. I don't use the word neighborhood and community in the same sentence because they are not the same things. Right? So what I would have to do is to convince these people to stop with this neighborhood thing and become a community. And make each one, not to change the name of where they had, what they had before, don't change your name, but make you responsible for what goes on in that little small community of yours. And make the community raise it up. So what's the major difference that you see between a community and a neighborhood? Well, hood. Okay. Shortly. This is short. We take the words apart. Right. Nay is something that causes a lot of trouble. Right. And it's something that makes you uncomfortable. It makes you uncomfortable. It's when you hear that horse going, that old funny sound he makes. And it's the boring type thing. It's constant. Right? And a hood is something that covers something. You know, when they used to do the electric chair, they put a hood on a man's face so you wouldn't see the hideousness of the shock. Right? So you were closed into a little old hood. Right? Mm-hmm. And your neighbor or one next to you, you can't get out of the hood. Right? So you would barely come. You would rarely come outside. You know what? I remember- Or know who the neighbor is. Yeah. You may not even know his name. Right? You come outside to go to work in the morning, you say, hey. You get in your car and you leave. Come back in, hey. You know, there's no interaction between you. Mm-hmm. Right? But in the community, there's interaction. Because we are going, root word, common, to commune. Right? Mm-hmm. It's a community. And the similar- So we are a whole community. We are striving for the same thing. Mm-hmm. And we are striving for the same thing. Mm-hmm. And we are striving for the same thing. Mm-hmm. Right? Similar vested interests. Yeah. Mm-hmm. See? So you have to deal with that first. Mm-hmm. Because once you deal with the major, that's the major problem right there. You know what I'm saying? It can- Because if I can make a community, if we can start a community, then we can raise the community. Right? We can set a standard for this right here where the children will follow the same standard and push it up. Mm-hmm. Right? Then people will come in. Because if I could have 12 square blocks of LA and made it a community, I'd be able to get the stores I need in there. I can get the stores I need in there. You can come in. Yeah. Come in. Come in. Provide the job. Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Lee. Now next week we will continue our discussion about the economic relationship to violence in our community. So thank you, Lee. Thank you. Now, okay, let's get some closing comments from our guests. Can you tell the audience about where they can expect or when to see the- The short film, The Lesson. Well, right now you can go to, we have a Facebook fan page. It's The Lesson, The Short, because it's a short film. We also still have our casting email that's open. It's thelessoncasting at gmail.com. So if you want to contact us directly, you can still contact us through there. But yeah, we have a Facebook fan page, so everything will be updated on there. Wonderful. Okay. Now, Lydia, can you tell us about some of your upcoming projects? And I hear that you're playing the role of Conrad in Shakespeare's play Much to Do About Nothing. Can you talk a little about that? Yeah. I'm rehearsing for it. We'll be rehearsing for the next six weeks, and then it opens at the Knightsbridge Theatre, which is very close to where we are right now. It's on Riverside Drive and the 5. And how about you, Andrew? What projects do you have? Yeah. What do you have coming up? Well, I have my thesis project coming up for my master's program in film. And I have a goal for it. I'm trying to... Well, I have... My favorite films and movies always are worlds that are slightly different than now. So you can see a guy walking down the street and suddenly he just jumps 20 feet in the air. It seems like our normal world, but a little bit different. Like science fiction? Yeah. I mean, science fiction, fantasy, though. It's a similar world to ours. I grew up reading Star Wars. I grew up reading Dragonlance. And then I explored more books like Game of Thrones and Song of Fire and Ice. Just different kinds of books. I like going into other worlds when I read or when I watch movies. It's an escapism tool also, but it's also fun. It's fun to go into these other worlds. Not saying that these worlds don't exist now. Maybe they do, of course. But otherwise, the only way I can really experience them is in books and in movies. And I think that's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to do that. I'm trying to do that. I want other people to experience that same fascination I have with other fun worlds. So I'm hoping that the future I'm coming up to right now, hopefully we'll get that across. People will hopefully enjoy the world I create. Mm-hmm. And your thesis, it's going to be on dealing with what? Your thesis? The subject matter of it? Yeah. Not exactly sure yet. Still in the writing process. Okay. Maybe another year to write it. Yeah. It looks interesting. GM, how about you? How about you with future projects? I'll shoot my thesis about next year, right? Next year or two. So yeah, I'll try to make a feature too. And yeah, I'm still coming up with a script too now. Do you plan to write most of your own films? Yeah, I'll try to. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I'll definitely try to write mine as well. Okay. I like writing my world. No one else really knows my mind but me. Let's talk about some of the major challenges of being an independent filmmaker, especially a young independent filmmaker. Well, sorry. Well, I'm shooting, I'm working as an actor for a feature film actually right now. That's Chances and I was talking with my mom the other day because you read in the tabloids, like how great it is to be an actor and you get your own trailer and all that sort of stuff. And every time my mom reads it, she basically falls off her chair laughing. Because when she hears my stories, one day I'm sleeping in this trailer that looks like the floor could fall out maybe, depending on which shoot it is or what. Last few shoots I got lucky. But sometimes you sleep with your hair next to a door and your hair gets slammed in between the door and somebody pulls it. Yeah. So filmmaking is really funny. But basically it's like we have a passion for storytelling and storytelling is the oldest profession on this planet. You know, we've been doing it for tens and tens of thousands of years, you know, and it's a way to communicate and the Internet has made it possible now to communicate, you know, over large distances. And it's just an amazing, amazing process. So what are your love documentary films? Or you want to create your own world? Or you want to create a world with a feature film or a short animation project? There's so much opportunity out there because the cost of cameras is getting lower and you can distribute online and, you know, there's all these opportunities. So basically we can all be our new Charlie Chaplin starting our own, you know, web series if you wanted to. Mm hmm. Yeah. How about some more of the major challenges that you find being a young filmmaker? As a young filmmaker? Um. I would say there's, I mean, there's challenges because it's you're young and you're not as experienced. But I find the advantage of being young is you have much more, well, your mind is much more open to be able to tell as many stories as you feel to fit your mind. Hasn't really set, is not really set in stone. And I kind of hope I, my mind never gets set in stone. Mm hmm. I hope I don't follow a trend or I don't create one success and then be forced to do that same success four or five, six times over. Mm hmm. And also probably the challenges is, I mean, filmmaking is a, you know, it's a, it's a very unique industry and a lot of it revolves around, it is an entertainment business as well. It's all about getting people to experience your world just as much as you experience it. And, you know, I hope that it doesn't, the challenges of particularly finance, since it does sometimes come down to money in the end. Mm hmm. And I'm hoping that those things never, don't ever block the creative process. Mm hmm. And that's one thing I'm glad about how technology is making more accessible to young filmmakers now. Cameras are cheaper, equipment is cheaper. You know, distribution is more readily available, like the internet. So now everyone who has, everyone has a story to tell and that creativeness is no longer blocked by equipment or money. Mm hmm. So it's more readily available to everyone. Mm hmm. How about you, Tian, some of the major challenges in a young filmmaker, especially a writer and director? For me, it's just to have great people on board because sometimes you will meet some unreliable people. And yeah, this time I was very lucky to have many people. Many talented people work with me, but still like budget wise and crew wise. That's what I'm, yeah. Now for a director, do you have to have a good eye for sight lines and all of that kind of stuff or being able to create on the spot something that you see? Mm hmm. Yeah. But. Yeah. I don't know. Can you repeat, can you rephrase the question? Well, you know, being a good director, you have to have a good sight line, good eye, like someone like a good cameraman that takes a good feeling for that. Definitely come up with stuff on the spot. You have a script and everything is set, but it doesn't mean that you have to follow it. Specifically, creativeness is not set in stone. It just kind of happens and you have a plan beforehand. But, you know, if something catches your eye or you have a brilliant idea, you can just change it and do it. It's one of the brilliant things about filmmaking. But Chana is a great fish, you know, many times on set, she's like, no, I don't like it. It has to be changed. So she knows exactly what she wants. So I don't know if you know a specific example, if you saw something that happened on the set that you were like, you know, keep this in or. It's more about how the, it's more about light that because my, the DP, you know, I'm not sure if you've seen it, but I've seen it in the movie. I've seen it in the movie. I've seen it in the movie. I've seen it in the movie. I've seen it in the movie. I've seen it in the movie. I've seen it in the movie. But the DP, he really likes to make everything dark. So we had some argument about the lighting. Which of course was all in Mandarin. But yeah, that was one of the last shots that I think you were actually a witness of that one. it was a dolly shot that was in a circular dolly and that had a really complicated pan and i think you know your your vision was really important making that scene happen and um yeah i don't know if you want to say something about that particular shot in the church uh in the church yeah in the church is because we had um some we don't have too many extras too many uh background actors so about we but about that shot we try to um make um because it's the fantasy scene so the teacher is in his fantasy he's teaching in a in a lecture hall and with a lot of people thousands of you know hundreds of students there but we only got 20 about 20 24 26 yeah about 30 people so we have to cheat we have to cheat the camera okay now how about um we've talked about features and small how about the approach to the small screen television anything like that do you see uh like television series yeah tell it was television series or breaking into that time into that market also i know i def well i think it's definitely some area of thinking i mean lately i feel the trend of filmmaking and movies in general is starting to lean towards tv series you have a lot more it's not that it's filmmaking and movies are bad everyone still loves going to theaters and watching a movie i still love going to a theater and sitting down watching a movie but with tv now especially like seriously maybe breaking bad or even those long series like lost they get you they will get a lot of attention and they're going to be like oh my god i'm going to be able to go away forever and go away forever and go away forever and go away forever and go away forever and go away forever and go away forever and go away forever and go away forever and go away forever and go away forever and go away forever and go away forever and go away forever and go away forever forever and go away forever and go away forever and go away forever and go away forever and go away forever forever and go away forever and go away forever and go away forever and go away forever and go away see more and more creative stories come out of television. There's still a lot in movies, but the TV television episodes are much easier to produce and create. And then the avenue of cable TV also to create opportunity. Well, I know like in the different channels like in Europe, they sometimes actually have like special sections for independent films, which is great. But, you know, like television programs and pilots, you know, people actually are now, some people that work on our production, Hidetoshi is actually shooting a web series that he's trying to pitch as a pilot. So a lot of people right now are shooting web series and then turning that into pilots that they sell, that they're trying to pitch. Because if they get enough traffic and enough people to click on their channel, you know, that shows that the audience is willing to spend their time watching it. And so, you know, if you do want to do, independent television, I know that there are a few projects that are being shot that's independent television, but they're really high budget still. And they're mainly shooting in Europe and they're flying part of the cast over. And different countries have different incentives. So if you have a production, but these budgets are, you know, like up there. So, you know, and then depending on the country you go, you know, some countries they give you 25% back if you hire local people. Hmm. So, you know, if you invest enough in a film, that's why some of the productions are leaving Los Angeles or California because, you know, like they're shooting a lot of movies in Iceland right now. And, you know, why is that? You know, because there are a lot of incentives. So, and the same is like, you know, finding a location. You know, you're probably going to shoot where whoever gives you the cheapest deal, you know. And now it's just not, you know, the neighborhood anymore. It's what... Or a community. It's what country. What country gives you the best deal? And that's where you're going to shoot. So whether it's the Bahamas, Iceland, or, you know, L.A., it boils down to money. Okay. All right. Thank you, Lydia, Andrew, Chin. I would like to extend a special thank to our in-studio guests, Lydia Marion, Chin Nee, Andrew Chee, Lee Shaw, and the rest of the cast. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And my co-host, Earlene Anthony. Please check out our past show of the Coombram Reports on iTunes, Facebook, Twitter, skidrow.la, and dramastage-coombram.org. Thank you for tuning in to the Coombram Report. And from your host, Melvin Ishmael Johnson, may the peace and blessings of the life-giving creative spirit be upon you and upon your family. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Great job. Cool. Good. We're going to take... Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.