Category Archives: Finding KUKAN

November 7, 2012 — A Presidential Trivia Quiz

With an his­toric Pres­i­den­tial re-elec­tion just com­plet­ed, we want­ed to treat you to a lit­tle Triv­ia Quiz (cre­at­ed by our Pro­duc­tion Intern Mag­gie Bar­rett and fea­tured as part of our recent “Night in Old Shang­hai” ben­e­fit in Honolulu)

 

Presidential Trivia Slide 1

Close your eyes and try to guess at least 3 before scrolling down.

 

Can you guess at least three things?  They were both from Hawaii is a give away.  Try to think of three oth­er things.  Here’s the sec­ond slide to help you.

Presidential Trivia Slide 2

 

Presidential Trivia Slide 3

Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma grad­u­at­ed from Puna­hou School in 1979. Li Ling-Ai was a 1926 grad­u­ate of Punahou.

 

Regard­ing Answer B:  Ques­tion­ing Pres­i­dent Oba­ma’s Amer­i­can cit­i­zen­ship may be polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed, but for Li Ling-Ai and many oth­er Chi­nese Amer­i­cans it was a part of dai­ly life dur­ing the days of the dis­crim­i­na­to­ry Chi­nese Exclu­sion Laws. Read more about it HERE.

Regard­ing Answer A:  Li Ling-Ai and Rey Scott showed a rough cut of KUKAN to Pres­deint Roo­sevelt at a pri­vate White House Screen­ing late at night on Jan­u­ary 1, 1941 — 5 days before FDR’s famous Four Free­doms Speech, 6 months before KUKAN would open in the­aters and almost a year before the Japan­ese attack on Pearl Har­bor.  To see proof of the White House vis­it, make a tax-deductible pledge to FINDING KUKAN on Kick­starter and view “Back­ers Only” exclu­sive videos and pho­tos from the documentary.

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October 8, 2012 — KUKAN Moves from the ER to the Operating Table

Many of you know by now that my doc­u­men­tary FINDING KUKAN revolves around my dis­cov­ery of the “lost” 1941 Oscar-win­ning col­or film of war-torn Chi­na called KUKAN. Many of you might also be won­der­ing, where in the H… is KUKAN? If it was found, then why can’t we see it? Well when I tracked down the only full copy of the film it had been sit­ting in a Fort Laud­erdale stu­dio for a few decades and then a Geor­gia base­ment for a cou­ple more. Heat and humid­i­ty had done its work.

AMPAS documentary curator Ed Carter opens up the can containing KUKAN for the first time.

AMPAS doc­u­men­tary cura­tor Ed Carter opens up the can con­tain­ing KUKAN for the first time.

 

When AMPAS’s Ed Carter and Joe Lind­ner opened the rusty met­al can that con­tained KUKAN they winced. “Vine­gar,” they both said, wrin­kling their noses. I learned lat­er that that is a sure sign of dete­ri­o­ra­tion. As Joe exam­ined the 2 reels of film that rep­re­sent­ed 90-min­utes of invalu­able col­or footage of Chi­na in 1939 and 1940, he detect­ed both shrink­age and brit­tle­ness (more bad signs of dete­ri­o­ra­tion). Joe said he’d seen films worse off…but not many. Things looked pret­ty grim. If we were in the Emer­gency Room, this would be time for triage.

For­tu­nate­ly a dete­ri­o­rat­ing film takes longer to die than a bleed­ing human. Two years lat­er, KUKAN has been sta­bi­lized but is still in pret­ty bad shape as you can see by the pho­tos I took of it last week at Col­or­lab in Mary­land where AMPAS sent it to have major restora­tion work done.

One of the film cannisters that holds the only known full copy of KUKAN

One of the film can­nis­ters that holds the only known full copy of KUKAN

 

Close up of the shrunken 16mm film that contains some of the first color footage of China.

Close up of the shrunk­en 16mm film that con­tains some of the first col­or footage of China.

Parts of it are so curled that they will nev­er be able to be re-plas­ti­cized (a sort of Botox process for film that hydrates it enough to allow it to lay flat in the scan­ner with­out breaking).

 

The part of KUKAN that can't be salvaged

The worst part of the 2 KUKAN reels was so curled it looked like the plas­tic straws you drink out of.

A par­tial copy of KUKAN that I locat­ed in the Nation­al Archives (NARA) will be used to fill in those parts that are unsal­vage­able. The NARA copy was kept in a tem­per­a­ture con­trolled envi­ron­ment all these years and is in fair­ly good shape. But even that has to go through a frame by frame scan­ning process to pull both image and sound­track from the 16mm strip.

DP Frank Ayala shoots the scanning of a partial copy of KUKAN

DP Frank Ayala shoots the scan­ning of a par­tial copy of KUKAN on the mon­ster machine at Colorlab

 

DP Frank Ayala, 2nd Cam­era Mia Fer­nan­dez and I arrived at Col­or­lab to film the ini­tial frame by frame scan­ning of the NARA print and learned a lot about the care and effort need­ed to bring a film back to life.

 

A.J. Rohner, project head on the KUKAN restoration, threads the NARA print through the scanner.

A.J. Rohn­er, project head on the KUKAN restora­tion, threads the NARA print through the scanner.

 

A.J. Rohn­er, head “sur­geon” on the KUKAN restora­tion process, assured me that “my patient” could be saved despite its hor­rif­ic appear­ance. He gave us a tour of the mon­ster machine that does the scan­ning – an inven­tion of Col­or­lab engi­neer Tom­my Aschenbach.

Threading the NARA partial copy of KUKAN through the scanner

The scan­ner doing all the work is a fas­ci­nat­ing con­trap­tion that blinks and whirs and beeps — just like some­thing out of Startrek.

I was entranced by its gor­geous parts, blink­ing lights and robot­ic move­ments — so much more tan­gi­bly sat­is­fy­ing to see at work than watch­ing the lit­tle gray line creep across your com­put­er screen as your dig­i­tal footage downloads.

 

Frame by frame scan begins on the opening scenes of KUKAN

Frame by frame scan begins on the open­ing scenes of KUKAN

 

Rey Scott in one of the opening scenes of KUKAN

Rey Scott in one of the open­ing scenes of KUKAN

 

I also learned how the sound from the film will be lift­ed from the scan, VISUALLY cor­rect­ed before turn­ing into sound waves and then cleaned and scrubbed to get all the ticks, and hiss­es out. I was sur­prised to learn that those lit­tle hor­i­zon­tal lines on the edge of the film are what make the sound come alive through the pro­jec­tor – a mag­i­cal phe­nom­e­non when you think about it.

Tommy Aschenbach demonstrates the magic involved in restoring sound on a film

Tom­my Aschen­bach demon­strates the mag­ic involved in restor­ing sound on a film

 

Examining color loss on 2 different versions of KUKAN

If you look care­ful­ly you can see the sound stripes on one edge of the film. The top strip is the bad­ly dete­ri­o­rat­ed copy of KUKAN I found. Notice the col­or loss.

From the pho­to below A.J. iden­ti­fied the cam­era Rey Scott was using in Chi­na as a 16mm Bolex.

Publicity photo of Li Ling-Ai and Rey Scott

Pub­lic­i­ty pho­to of Li Ling-Ai and Rey Scott tak­en in 1941

Col­or­lab tech­ni­cian Lau­ra Major just hap­pened to have one in the office that she still shoots with.

Laura Major demonstrates the workings of her 16mm vintage Bolex

Lau­ra Major demon­strates the work­ings of her 16mm vin­tage Bolex

Hold­ing that cam­era in my hands, look­ing through the tiny viewfind­er, and learn­ing that the cam­era could only shoot 100 ft of film at a time (rough­ly 2 min­utes) gave me a much greater appre­ci­a­tion for Rey Scott’s hero­ic accom­plish­ment in film­ing the epic scenes con­tained in KUKAN, espe­cial­ly the 15-minute sequence at the end of the movie that depicts the mas­sive bomb­ing of Chungk­ing and the fiery destruc­tion of the city.

Chinese boy looks into Rey Scott's Bolex on location for KUKAN

Chi­nese boy looks into Rey Scot­t’s Bolex on loca­tion for KUKAN

 

FINDING KUKAN Producer/Director Robin Lung looks through the viewfinder of a 16mm Bolex camera

You can’t believe how tiny every­thing looks through this viewfind­er — no won­der Rey had a hard time focus­ing in places.

I am more deter­mined than ever to reach our $16,000 Kick­starter goal so that we can keep fol­low­ing the mag­i­cal resus­ci­ta­tion of KUKAN and track the amaz­ing sto­ry behind its cre­ation. Please join me on this jour­ney, it’s going to be an incred­i­ble ride!

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October 15, 2012 — FINDING KUKAN Makes it on The Oscar’s Most Wanted Site

What a dif­fer­ence four years makes.  When I first read a men­tion of KUKAN in Li Ling-Ai’s mem­oir LIFE IS FOR A LONG TIME, I looked it up on Wikipedia  only to find that no known copy exist­ed.  Ed Carter, the Acad­e­my Motion Pic­ture Arts and Sci­ences Cura­tor had been search­ing for KUKAN at that point for 6 years.  Now thanks to my dogged attempts to iden­ti­fy a Chi­nese Amer­i­can hero­ine in a vin­tage detec­tive nov­el, KUKAN is now on the Found list on Oscar’s Most Want­ed web­site.  Want to know more of the sto­ry?  Back us on Kick­starter now until Novem­ber 17 to help get the rest of the sto­ry told in FINDING KUKAN.

Screen shot of the the FOUND section of Oscar's Most Wanted website

Screen shot of the the FOUND sec­tion of Oscar’s Most Want­ed web­site that fea­tures KUKAN and FINDING KUKAN.

Have a lost and found trea­sure sto­ry your­self?  Please share.  We’d love to hear it.

 

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October 3, 2012 — Michelle Scott Delivers a Knock Out with her KUKAN SERIES

When I first made con­tact with Rey Scot­t’s grand­daugh­ter Michelle Scott and filled her in a lit­tle about the sto­ry behind KUKAN, she felt a need to trans­fer that sto­ry into paint and shared with me a vision she had for cre­at­ing a whole room of paint­ings ded­i­cat­ed to her grand­fa­ther and KUKAN.  It seemed like a far-fetched dream back then.  So I was more than a lit­tle excit­ed to go to Atlanta to wit­ness the open­ing of Michelle’s solo show — THE KUKAN SERIES.  Michelle had­n’t shared any images of the new work with me, so I was­n’t pre­pared for the visu­al sweep and emo­tion­al pow­er of the work.  It lit­er­al­ly brought me to tears.  Here are a few choice pieces from the show.  WARNING — these pho­tos do not do the pieces jus­tice.  The real pieces have an almost three-dimen­sion­al qual­i­ty that allows the view­er to enter into the scene and expe­ri­ence a lit­tle of  Rey Scott and Li Ling-Ai’s world back in the late 30’s.

Michelle Scott with "Start of a Journey" from the KUKAN Series

Artist Michelle Scott with “Start of a Jour­ney” the exclu­sive pre­mi­um avail­able for a $5,000 Kick­starter pledge (par­tial­ly tax deductible).

 

The 36“X36” piece that Michelle cre­at­ed exclu­sive­ly for our Kick­starter fundrais­ing dri­ve is dis­played right in the front win­dow of 2Rules Fine Art in Mari­et­ta. Casu­al strollers walk­ing down the side­walk can’t help but be pulled in to find out with the imagery is all about.  For close up details of this paint­ing go to our Kick­starter home page.

 

"The Story of Kukan" Mixed Media by Michelle Scott

The Sto­ry of Kukan” 48x84 is the sig­na­ture piece of the show

 

The KUKAN Series con­tains a few gor­geous trib­utes to Li Ling-Ai the Chi­nese Amer­i­can author who was the uncred­it­ed co-pro­duc­er of KUKAN with Rey Scott.

"On a Dream on a Dare - Part 2" Mixed Media by Michelle Scott

On a Dream on a Dare — Part 2” 48x36 fea­tures Rey Scott and Li Ling-Ai

 

The work below con­tains images of Li Ling-Ai from three dif­fer­ent decades and three dif­fer­ent loca­tions (the old Hon­olu­lu Acad­e­my of Art, Bei­jing Chi­na, and New York City)

"Heroine (Miss Li Ling Ai)" Mixed Media by Michelle Scott

Hero­ine (Miss Li Ling Ai)” 60x34 is a gor­geous trib­ute to a remark­able woman

 

There are also fab­u­lous pieces that pro­vide a visu­al mon­tage of the Chi­na wit­nessed through Rey Scot­t’s cam­era.  He took both stills and 16mm col­or movies.  Some of his old cam­eras are on dis­play too with the orig­i­nal stills.

"Chungking Burning" Mixed Media by Michelle Scott

Chungk­ing Burn­ing” 48x25

 

"Rise" Mixed Media from Michelle Scott's KUKAN Series

Rise” 60x34

 

"What about the Children?" Mixed Media by Michelle Scott

What about the chil­dren?” 40x40

Rey Scott trav­eled all the way to Tibet and filmed some of the first col­or footage of prayer rit­u­als there.

Michelle’s take on the orig­i­nal KUKAN lob­by cards for the Unit­ed Artists ver­sion of the film.

 

"Rules of Engagement" Mixed Media by Michelle Scott

Rules of Engage­ment” 24x36

 

"Guerillas" Mixed Media by Michelle Scott

Gueril­las” 24x36

 

"The Miaos Tribe" Mixed Media by Michelle Scott

The Miaos Tribe” 24x36

 

"Burma" Mixed Media by Michelle Scott for the KUKAN Series

Bur­ma” 36x36”

Rey Scott also filmed the famous Bur­ma Road as it was being built.

 

"Shui" Mixed Media by Michelle Scott for the KUKAN Series

Shui”

A reminder of the British influ­ence in Hong Kong which fell to the Japan­ese in 1941.

"Lone Ranger" Mixed Media by Michelle Scott for the KUKAN Series

Lone Ranger” 32x50

 

 

"The Panda Man" Mixed Media by Michelle Scott

The Pan­da Man” 34x60

A whole movie could be made just about the baby giant pan­da bear that Rey Scott brought from Cheng­tu to the Chica­go Zoo. Orig­i­nal­ly chris­tened “Li Ling-Ai” by the for­e­ing jour­nal­ists in Chungk­ing, it was lat­er named Mei Lan when it was iden­ti­fied as a boy pan­da bear.

 

"Portrait of a Lady" and "For Him" Mixed Media by Michelle Scott

Por­trait of a Lady” and “For Him” are the first two pieces that Michelle Scott made in the KUKAN Series

 

There are many more gems in this show. But the emo­tion­al high­light for me was being able to see the first two por­traits of Rey Scott and Li Ling-Ai that Michelle did. I first saw them on her web­site before we even knew each oth­er and before she even knew who Ling-Ai was. This was the first time I was able to see them both in per­son. Since the pieces had been sold to dif­fer­ent col­lec­tors sev­er­al years ago, this was also the first time they were reunit­ed in the same room for quite some time — a sym­bol of hope for me as I con­tin­ue to seek fund­ing to fin­ish FINDING KUKAN.

If you are in the Atlanta area make an effort to see this his­toric show — up only until Octo­ber 26, 2012

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September 25, 2012 — 7 Tips for Nervous Public Speakers

I am about to embark on one of my least favorite occu­pa­tions — Pub­lic Speak­ing.  Although I jumped at the chance to get more expo­sure for my film by pre­sent­ing FINDING KUKAN at sev­er­al upcom­ing events, I am not a nat­ur­al speak­er.  In fact mak­ing any kind of announce­ment to a room full of strangers nor­mal­ly makes me break out in hot flash­es that are NOT menopausal-related.

So I’ve been col­lect­ing pub­lic speak­ing tips from friends and col­leagues.  I thought I’d share some of the best ones here.

Vintage underwear ad.

Could this tip apply out in the gar­den too?

1)  Pic­ture the audi­ence wear­ing just their under­wear (I know this is sup­posed to make you feel less intim­i­dat­ed, but I’m afraid I might just break out laugh­ing and nev­er recover).

Vintage underwear ad

Busi­ness­men man­age to look seri­ous even in their long johns

 

An ad from Miss Fancypants

Miss Fan­cy­pants the retro under­wear mak­er shows that women know how to have more fun, even in their underwear.

 

2)  Prac­tice your speech in front of a mir­ror (could be dan­ger­ous depend­ing on your self-image)

Over­com­ing a neg­a­tive self-image is a part of the battle.

cat looking in mirror

I need to take lessons from my cats.

 

 

 

 

3)  Act like a Diva, you’ll sound bet­ter.  (A hint from my won­der­ful singing instruc­tor Blos­som Lam Hoffman)

Diva cartoon from Dorie Ratzlaff

The tal­ent­ed car­toon­ist Dorie Rat­zlaff illus­trates my Diva problem.

 

4)  Warm up your voice with a Car­ol Bur­nett Tarzan call.  (Anoth­er hint from my singing instructor)


5)  Use lots of visu­als so the audi­ence does­n’t focus too much on you. (But be care­ful of visu­al over­load and the LSD effect).

color block swirl

Visu­al over­load in the brain might look like this.

 

 

6)  Ask for divine inter­ven­tion and just wing it.

light ray in clouds

What I imag­ine Divine Inter­ven­tion might look like. (pho­to by Hei Astrid)

 

7)  Go online and get some prac­ti­cal tips from the pros.

In the next month or two I will prob­a­bly try out most of these.  I’ll report back which ones worked best for me.  What do you do when put in front of a crowd?

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September 15, 2012 — A Fresh Take on Fundraising

Writ­ing grant appli­ca­tions is a lone­ly busi­ness, and receiv­ing rejec­tion let­ters from grant­i­ng foun­da­tions is depress­ing to say the least.  Don’t mis­take me.  Grant monies have been very help­ful to this project.  And since we need more grants to get this film fin­ished, we will con­tin­ue to apply for them and be over­joyed if/when we get them.  How­ev­er, sit­ting back and wiat­ing to hear if some unknown pan­el of judges will deem your project wor­thy of X,Y,Z’s sup­port, can leave a film­mak­er feel­ing pow­er­less and deject­ed.  What to do?

 

Kickstarter Logo

Kick­starter — makes grass­roots fundrais­ing online possible

 

Sev­er­al months ago I decid­ed to take a part of fundrais­ing into my own hands with the help of  KICKSTARTER — an online crowd­sourc­ing plat­form that cre­ative types from first-time inven­tors to vet­er­an film­mak­ers like Char­lie Kauf­man have been using to raise funds for their projects.  The idea is that even with small dona­tions, you can raise a decent chunk of mon­ey if enough peo­ple get behind you.  As some­one who was raised to be inde­pen­dent and stand on my own, it feels uncom­fort­able to ask for help, espe­cial­ly mon­e­tary help.  But as soon as I start­ed telling peo­ple about my plans, Voila! a major shift occured in the ener­gy around my film.  I soon had offers of help from friends, col­leagues and com­plete strangers who got excit­ed about get­ting involved in a cre­ative project and help­ing it come to fruition.  Here are some of the amaz­ing vol­un­teers who’ve joined TEAM KUKAN recently.

Several Members of TEAM KUKAN's Volunteer Corps

Anna Guerin, Deb­bie Buc­ci­grossi, Robin Lung, Pam tong, Mag­gie Bar­rett, and Ter­ry Oli­val at a fundrais­ing sum­mit for FINDING KUKAN

 

There are many more peo­ple not pic­tured who have offered goods, ser­vices and morale sup­port.  Sud­den­ly fundrais­ing does­n’t feel like a lone­ly, depress­ing busi­ness any­more.  It’s still not easy.  It’s been chal­leng­ing, time-con­sum­ing, and stress­ful at times.  It’s also a lit­tle scary.  The way Kick­starter works is  that if you don’t raise ALL of your goal you get NOTHING.  So I expect the Kick­starter cam­paign (sched­uled to run from Sept 29-Nov 17) will run me more than a lit­tle ragged before it’s all through.  I also expect it will be an exhil­i­rat­ing ride that many new friends will join me on.  I hope you’ll be one of them.

 

The Sign Language for the letter K

Sign K to Sup­port KUKAN on KICKSTARTER!

 

Here is a sneak peek at a cou­ple of pre­mi­ums we are offer­ing to our Kick­starter pledgers. 

 

Collectible Full-color Posters for FINDING KUKAN

Col­lectible Full-col­or Posters for FINDING KUKAN are just a cou­ple of our amaz­ing Kick­starter pre­mi­ums.
(Images cour­tesy of Holl­wood Chi­nese Col­lec­tion & Michelle Scott Art)

 

Want to join the effort?  Kick­starter is admin­is­tered through Ama­zon.  If you shop on Ama­zon, donat­ing is easy.  If you’ve nev­er shopped on Ama­zon, con­sid­er set­ting up an account to make the Kick­starter dona­tion process go smooth­ly.  Hate the idea of doing any­thing finan­cial on the inter­net?  Don’t wor­ry, we are giv­ing peo­ple the old-fash­ioned option of putting a check in snail mail too!

 

birds nest in mailbox

We love to find presents in the mail too!

 

So what am I learn­ing on my lat­est fundrais­ing ven­ture?  To FACE MY FEAR, EMBRACE NEW FRIENDS, and HAVE FAITH that things will work out.  Have expe­ri­ence fundrais­ing on Kick­starter?  Please share by commenting.

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September 8, 2012 — Fashion Photos Discovered

Late tonight I am putting off writ­ing a pre­sen­ta­tion for upcom­ing Octo­ber events and brows­ing the won­der­ful pho­tos of Li Ling-Ai that Soft­film blog­ger Duri­an Dave dis­cov­ered in the LIFE pho­to archives.  These are all of a Unit­ed Chi­na Relief Fash­ion show in May 1941 and tak­en by Alfred Eisen­stadt (note KUKAN would pre­miere the fol­low­ing month in NYC — it must have been a heady time for Li Ling-Ai).

Photo of Li Ling-Ai at May 1941 fashion show for United China Relief

Li LIng-Ai mod­els tra­di­tion­al Chi­nese robe at May 1941 fash­ion show for Unit­ed Chi­na Relief.

 

Li Ling-Ai models Chinese gown for United China Relief fundraiser in 1941

Li Ling-Ai was one of the few Chi­nese mod­els at the fash­ion show.

 

Crowd view of the May 1941 fashion show for United China Relief

Crowd view of the fash­ion show helps pin­point the location.

I love see­ing this crowd shot of all the NYC socialites wear­ing their hats.  While view­ing these pho­tos, a bell rang in my head and I remem­bered some of my research at the Colum­bia Rare Book and Man­u­script Library.  A fash­ion show had been held at the Hotel Pierre.  Sure enough, I com­pared a cur­rent pho­to of the pent­house ball­room and the arch­ways are the same.  I got chills remem­ber­ing that I had been to a wed­ding at that same spot back in the 90’s.

Penthouse ballroom at the Hotel Pierre

The 3,500 square-foot dou­ble height ball­room today, pho­to from NYTimes online

 

I had no idea that Li Ling-Ai par­tic­i­pat­ed in the fash­ion show when I took those notes at Colum­bia a cou­ple of years ago.

Publicity photo of Li Ling-Ai, with K.T. Stevens, James Blaine, Lee Ya Ching, and unidentified Chinese woman

Li Ling-Ai, with actress K.T. Stevens, James Blaine, Lee Ya Ching, and uniden­ti­fied Chi­nese woman

Li LIng-Ai is seen here pos­ing with James Blaine, nation­al chair­man of Unit­ed Chi­na Relief and the pres­i­dent of Marine Mid­land Trust.  He was just one of the NYC CEOs that Hen­ry Luce recruit­ed to lead the huge fundrais­ing effort to aid Chi­na pri­or to WWII.

Li Ling-Ai posing for publicity photo at United China Relief fundraiser

Li Ling-Ai pos­ing for pub­lic­i­ty pho­to at Unit­ed Chi­na Relief fundraiser

These pho­tos  bring this 1941 event to life for me in a whole new way.  How­ev­er, LIFE pho­tographs are noto­ri­ous­ly expen­sive to license.  So if I’m going to use them in the doc­u­men­tary, I’m going to have to have a fundrais­er myself.  Speak­ing of which… Be on the look­out for our Kick­starter launch in Octo­ber, and if you’re in Hon­olu­lu on Octo­ber 28, come to our “Night in Old Shang­hai” cock­tail par­ty ben­e­fit where we will pay homage to the efforts of these 1941 fash­ion­ista fundraisers.

Chinese inspired fashion in 1941

Chi­nese inspired fash­ion in 1941

Chinese inspired fashion in 1941

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July 24, 2012 — An Earfull At the Ear Inn

As the weeks wear on and I get clos­er to the dead­line for sub­mit­ting a grant appli­ca­tion to the NEA, I have peri­ods of doubt and won­der if it’s even worth it to try for such a pres­ti­gious thing.  And if I don’t get award­ed a grant what will it mean – that the project is unwor­thy, and I should give up?

Some­times fac­ing a lengthy grant appli­ca­tion makes you want to cut and run.

Glanc­ing through pic­tures I took in May I’m remind­ed that get­ting grants and mak­ing Art are two dif­fer­ent things.  These black and white snaps were tak­en on a hot sum­mer night when I joined my hus­band Paul and our friend Peer at one of NY’s old­est bars – The Ear Inn on Spring Street.

Photo of Paul and Peer at the Ear Inn

Paul and Peer at the Ear Inn

As I ate mus­cles at the bar and lis­tened to old-time jazz, a woman named Kate­ri­na intro­duced her­self.  She had an intrigu­ing accent and was very charming.

Catha­ri­na is half Russ­ian half Greek.

Sev­er­al min­utes lat­er her friend Roland joined her – an artist, he showed her pho­tos of his lat­est work on his Iphone.The strik­ing shad­ows in his imagery prompt­ed me to talk about the ideas for shad­ow play I had in mind for FINDING KUKAN.

Designer and artist Roland Gebhardt

Design­er and artist Roland Gebhardt

For some great use of shad­ows, you should see THE THIRD MAN, said Roland.  He sound­ed like he knew what he was talk­ing about.  When I got home I looked up Roland’s web­site – pho­tos of his per­for­mance pieces made me think of all the pos­si­bil­i­ties before me. The doors to cre­ation opened up a crack.

Image from Roland Gebhardt's Layers

Image from Roland Geb­hardts Performance/Installation “Lay­ers”

As I watched THE THIRD MAN for the first time the doors were thrown wide open.  Every shot was a com­po­si­tion­al gem and fired up ideas in my head for ways to visu­al­ize my own search.

 

Scene from THE THIRD MAN

An ear­ly scene from THE THIRD MAN — shad­ows and a great stair­well — 2 of my favorite things.

I’m hang­ing on to the DVD so I can watch it for the third time – a reward I’m going to give myself after get­ting that grant app fin­ished.  You DO need a lot of mon­ey to make movies, but you DON’T need a lot to enjoy the heck out of them.

Screen shots from THE THIRD MAN

Screen shots from THE THIRD MAN

Thanks to Roland Geb­hardt and the Ear Inn for remind­ing me of why I’m writ­ing grants appli­ca­tions in the first place.

Texting from The Ear Inn

The mys­te­ri­ous guy across the bar must be writ­ing a nov­el on his cell phone.

Whether it’s the bar, the gym, or the beach, we all need to leave the desk once in awhile to get a fresh per­spec­tive.  Where do you go when you need a cre­ative breath of fresh air?

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July 11, 2012 — Cheongsam Dreams


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Li Ling-Ai, the Chi­nese Amer­i­can author who lured me into FINDING KUKAN, was known for always wear­ing a tra­di­tion­al Chi­nese dress known as a cheongsam (or qipao in Mandarin).

Photo of Li Ling-Ai in jade green cheongsam circa 1941

Li Ling-Ai in jade green cheongsam cir­ca 1941

I did­n’t always have an appre­ci­a­tion for the style since I asso­ci­at­ed it with my elder­ly grand­moth­er who lived with us when I was a teenag­er in the 70s.  Her old-fash­ioned Chi­nese ways and insis­tence on wear­ing a Chi­nese dress every­where was a cause of angst and embar­rass­ment to me at a time when appear­ing too eth­nic or Asian was just not the cool thing to do.

Photo of Polly Ching

My grand­moth­er Pol­ly Ching in front of Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty in the 1960s

But my atti­tude has changed over the years along with the fash­ions.  All the rage in the 20’s and 30’s when Chi­nese women were express­ing new­found free­doms, the cheongsam was banned in main­land Chi­na dur­ing the Mao era and lat­er con­sid­ered too old-fash­ioned by Chi­nese women who were going for more mod­ern West­ern looks in the 70s and 80s. Accord­ing to this excel­lent arti­cle by Babette Rad­clyffe-Thomas, sexy Chi­nese movies like IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE have recent­ly inspired a nos­tal­gia for the cheongsam.

movie still from IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE

One of the exquis­ite cheongsams fash­ioned for Mag­gie Che­ung by IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE art direc­tor William Chang

Madon­na, Nicole Kid­man and Kel­ly Pre­ston have all been caught wear­ing the style to glam­orous effect at red car­pet events.

photo of Nicole Kidman in cheongsam

Nicole Kid­man takes on the cheongsam

To hon­or Li LIng-Ai and the revival of the cheongsam (and also divert myself from writ­ing grant appli­ca­tions), I’ve been col­lect­ing cheongsam pho­tos on my Pin­ter­est board.  Here are some of my favorites.
— No con­tent found.
— Check your ID and board name.

Have a favorite cheongsam of your own?  Post in the com­ments or send me a link to your pin and I’ll put it on my board.

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July 8, 2012 — Kickstarter Plans Get Under Way

Well to off­set my ter­ri­ble expe­ri­ence of hav­ing my cam­eras and jew­el­ry ripped off, let’s talk about one of the lucky things that have hap­pened late­ly.  The new FINDING KUKAN teas­er has inspired sev­er­al amaz­ing women to vol­un­teer their tal­ents to help devel­op the film!  All amaz­ing cre­ative pro­fes­sion­als in their own right, Pamela Tong, Mag­no­lia Bar­rett, and Debra Zeleznik recent­ly gath­ered at my house to talk about how to get the film to the next step.  We were guid­ed by the great research vol­un­teer Notre Dame stu­dent Camille Muth did for us.

Robin Lung, Pamela Tong, Magnolia Barrett and Debra Zeleznik hold brainstorming session for FINDING KUKAN.

Robin Lung, Pamela Tong, Mag­no­lia Bar­rett and Debra Zeleznik hold brain­storm­ing ses­sion for FINDING KUKAN.

 

Right now our most imme­di­ate need is to raise fund­ing to com­plete the film.  So we are plan­ning a KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN to begin in OCTOBER.  Why Kick­starter you might ask?

#1.  IT WORKS.  Crowd­fund­ing– it’s what PBS and NPR have been doing for years — the phone in fund dri­ve for­mat where you get a nice lit­tle gift and men­tion on the show for mak­ing your dona­tion at a par­tic­u­lar time.  Kick­starter (admin­is­tered by Ama­zon) is just an online way of doing it and is struc­tured so that inde­pen­dent cre­ative types can have a ready made plat­form to launch their own crowd­fund­ing cam­paigns.  Check out a cou­ple of amaz­ing doc­u­men­tary cam­paigns here and here.

#2. GRANTS ARE GONE.  Well not total­ly.  I’ve been lucky enough to get a cou­ple of small grants in the past and will con­tin­ue to write oner­ous grant appli­ca­tions to try to cap­ture what lit­tle fund­ing is still avail­able to doc­u­men­taries — my Exec­u­tive Pro­duc­er Kim­ber­lee Bass­ford point­ed out that it’s eas­i­er to get into Yale Uni­ver­si­ty than it is to get most major film grants.  Even direc­tors with sev­er­al major PBS doc­u­men­tary series under their belts are find­ing it hard to make films with the tra­di­tion­al fund­ing avail­able in this tight economy.

#3.  IT’S FUN.  To learn more about Kick­starter I’ve donat­ed to a cou­ple of projects myself.  Donat­ing makes you part of a team and gets you emo­tion­al­ly invest­ed in some­one else’s cre­ative project.  It’s ener­giz­ing and inspir­ing to be part of a group effort to cre­ate some­thing of last­ing val­ue.  Plus there are some fun pre­mi­ums you can get for donating.

Robin Lung and Debra Zeleznik discuss Kickstarter premiums

Debra sug­gests a cus­tom-made bracelet made of mah jong tiles as a pos­si­ble pre­mi­um — I LOVE IT!

 

Do you have any expe­ri­ence with Kick­starter or oth­er fundrais­ing efforts?  Can you give us some point­ers on how to run a suc­cess­ful fundrais­ing cam­paign?  Do you have an idea for a great pre­mi­um to give to future donors?  Don’t be shy!  We need all the help we can get.  Please let us hear from you!

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