Thanks!

As of November 7th, the campaign on indiegogo for 'Feathered Thorns' has ended. Thank you to everyone who contributed, you know who you are. Hope to see you on the day of curtain call :-).

Reading in NYC-Pt. 2

Here I am with two beautiful actress' at the NYC Reading for 'Feathered Thorns':

 Yukiko Miyawaki (All my Children, Stalked 2), Shio Muramatsu (Himitsu, Romeo and Juliet)

Script Rehearsal Pt. 2

Another wonderful Script Rehearsal together!

Script Reading in NYC-'Feathered Thorns'

It was a wonderful night at Joria Productions in New York. The cast of 'Feathered Thorns' read the play in front of a well received audience. Afterwards there was a Q &A.

Look out for what's next for this stage play. We're all very excited!

'Feathered' NYC Reading

On December 7th, in New York, stage play- 'Feathered Thorns' will have it's reading in front of a audience. Me and the cast are excited about this. Look out for photos.

Book of Towers 6: Steve Mcqueen

Reading Marshall Terrill's biography was such a thrill. The whole book flows so smoothly, the chapters aren't long and it is meticulously researched. The book covers Steve's troubled childhood, to how he caught the acting bug and went onto television and eventually cinema. What I like about the book is how it covers Steve McQueen's love for car racing and how he treated the people around him-good and bad-and how reconciliation worked in his later life. His later life is a story of redemption. Steve McQueen became a born again christian thanks to a couple of encounters in his life that influenced him.

The book proves to the reader what made Steve McQueen such a icon-and not just during his time but even today how he has effected fashion and how he paved the way for the male actors now as far as one's characteristics on screen.

There are some eye opening sequences in the book that will make you see McQueen in a different light but that's okay because it only makes him more down to earth and that he's only human. There are some funny parts, touching parts and aggravating parts because of his immature behavior. But I must say his life overall is inspiring because when you know where he came from and what he went through to become a millionaire and a international superstar with a capital 'S', then you come to appreciate and understanding him a lot more; especially for the many incredible things he did for people.

It's a long book but it goes quick, matter of fact it was bittersweet to arrive at the end. One of the best biographies I've ever read.

Book of Towers 5: I, Fellini

Charlotte Chandler is an incredible biographer. Reading 'I, Fellini', has been so liberating. Fellini seems to be so open, so blunt, and transparent no matter what he discusses in this revealing biography. It's easily one of the best psychological intrusions about what a director experiences while making films.

'When I am working on a film, that's the time I am bombarded by the greatest number of outside ideas, ideas not for the film on which I am working. That would be natural, to have ideas for the film in which I've involved, but the ideas that come knocking are for other stories, entirely different ones. These ideas are actually competing for energy, actually a synergy of ideas. The creative forces are let loose, but the creative spirits do not know anything about discipline...the important thing is that you have to be open to life. If you are, the possibilities are infinite. It's important to preserve your innocence and your optimism, especially when it's not easy.'   -Fellini

The brilliance of the book is how Charlotte is able to make her subject very relaxed around her. Fellini embodied film; he started out as a cartoonist, met a wonderful woman-Giulietta Masina-who was a excellent actress and they worked together to created award winning films. He received his life achievement award but still struggled to get financing for his films.

There were things he mentioned-like the quote above-that I could really relate to. I was so touched and moved by his relationship with Giulietta. And towards the end of his life it became very rough-physically-and Giulietta remained by his side.

'Giulietta' always worried about me. She made sure my socks matched, wondered if my feet were wet so I wouldn't catch a cold. It's really the countless little things that make or break a marriage. Even when we quarreled, I knew she cared about me. No one else meant so much in my life.'   -Fellini

I began to watch Fellini's films back in college. It's the excellent combination of music and image; his films I found to be light, fun, entertaining but can also be sad and troubling-the incredible sequence in 'La dolce Vita' -when Marcello's character runs into his dad. The end result of their scene was unexpected. The last scene in 'La Strada' is surprisingly uplifting. There are several sequences in '8 1/2' that are monumental-the camera work is brilliant throughout the whole film. The scene in the castle in 'La dolce Vita' is incredibly paced. Fellini talks about improvisation-which many people think he did a lot of on his set-which isn't true. Many thought he just made a lot up on the day of...but Fellini was very well prepared but remained open because you can miss out on something special that wasn't planned.

There so much that I can mentioned that I really enjoyed in the book but it's best you just read it, even if you're not a fan but a cinema lover. And this is not to say that I agreed with everything he said, because I don't but it's his honesty about what it is to be a director-that's what fascinates me. He knew the importance of the responsibility that the director beheld.

'Freedom can be a problem, because being a director of films is a responsibility, and responsibility and freedom are in conflict. The money of the few and the lives of the many are in my hands. Films have such power to influence; that, too, is responsibility.'  -Fellini

Biblical Stage Play in the works!

Closing out this year I will be working on the story of 'Joseph'. It's an incredible story about family, forgiveness, God's faithfulness, betrayal and reconciliation. I will be adapting the powerful biblical story into a stage play.

If you haven't read the story yet, it can be found in Genenis 37-47. These are the chapters that will be covered more or less in the stage play. I am very excited about writing such a play because I believe it will speak to many people who have unforgiveness in them and how it's so important to live and let go. During this journey to writing this play I believe it's going to be a lesson for myself as well.

More to come...

'Feathered' Rehearsal

Yesterday me and the cast read through the play 'Feathered Thorns' together. Everyone is extremely excited; to hear their thoughts and see their reactions is so significant to me as a playwright and director.

  Yuko Kudo (left), Jan Mizushima (second from left), Terry Ann Foster (right), Tobe Oni (far right)

  Jonathan Geraldi (left), Kae Shimizu (right)

  Michael Odofin (left), Jonathan Geraldi (center), Kae Shimizu (right)

Yuko Kudo (center), Jan Mizushima (right)

               

Viktoria Danyliuk (right), Michael Odofin (left)

                           

Cast with me (center)

Campaign for Upcoming Stage Play has been launched!

Hi to all my followers here on my blog, the stage play, 'Feathered Thorns', that I've been working on as of late, now has a campaign on indiegogo. Me and my team are very excited about this new endeavor. We need to raise $20,000. Check out the link below and share with others.  Thanks!


https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/feathered-thorns/x/3010102

On the set of 'Ame Noire'

  Actress/Model Josefine Krebelle (left) and Make up artist Diana Margulies (right) in
  between set ups.

 Diana Margulies (left) does her thing on actress/writer Bruna Berney (right), and yes that's me with                the camera :-).
           

Me setting up a shot with actress Josefine Krebelle.

             
Make up artist Diana Margulies with actress Bruna Berney in between set ups.

             
 Actress/Model Josefine Krebelle.

 Actress Bruna Berney in between set ups.

Directed new powerful drama!

About two weeks ago, I directed a short movie, titled 'Ame Noire'. Its based on a true story.
The script is written by actress/editor/photographer Bruna Berney. It's in post production right now. The story covers the life of a raped victim who's been trying to live a normal life again. The raped victim is played by Bruna Berney. I was the director of photography, make up done by Diana Margulies.

More to come!

New Fan Page coming soon...

Look out for what is to be a page I believe many will get to enjoy-my own personal fan face book page to display my work as a director/writer to the public on facebook. I'm excited about it because many of my family and friends haven't seen the short movies that I have done. There will be photos, short movies, and maybe some samples of writing materials of mine that I haven't filmed. It's exciting times and the I'm looking forward to sharing my work with many more people!

Cast completed!

'Feathered Thorns' is one of the latest projects I've been working on. Happy to announce the Cast is done! Pictures of the wonderful cast will be coming soon. A very cool facebook page will be presented soon for the stage play as well as a campaign page to raise funds for what is to be an incredible stage play.

'Saints' Posters #2 & #3!

             (Above: Poster #2)

             (Above: Poster #3)

Graphic designer for both promo pics: Jason Williams

Indiegogo Campaign-'All the Saints'

Happy to announce the campaign for my new upcoming feature length movie 'All the Saints' has been launched!

Please support & share :-)

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/all-the-saints


Campaign ends on August 30, 2014.

Director's Quote Pt. 3

'To me, when cinematography is at its best, it is very close to the state of dreaming. You know, in any other art you can't create a situation that is as close to dreaming. Think only of the time gap. You can make things as long as you want, exactly as in a dream. You can make things as short as you want, exactly as in a dream. As a director, a creator of the picture, you are like a dreamer. You can make what you want. You can construct everything...'                                  
                                                                                                             -Ingmar Bergman


Cinema should capture life in the forms in which it exists and use images of life itself. It is the most realistic art form in terms of form. The form in which the cinematic shot exists should be a reflection of the forms of real life. The director has only to choose the moments he will capture and to construct a whole out of them.

                                                                           -Andrei Tarkovsky


You make films for people to see. I like my films. I haven't made a film I don't like. I don't sit and watch them all the time - that would be stupid! - but I can watch them and I'm pleased that they're out there. Sure, there are things I'd do differently now, but each film comes out of its own time. I mean, people have done amazing things on my films, on both sides of the camera. So to me, the films themselves are a celebration of filmmaking. I'm positive about it.

                                                                        -Mike Leigh

The progression of the 'Saints'

The feature length movie that I've written since late 2011 titled, 'All the Saints', has gone through some script revisions, and the first poster for the movie has been released, which you can see below. The graphics are done by a good friend of mine, Jason Williams. Aija Terauda is the lead actress, she was Vivienne in my award winning experimental short 'Beautiful Women Wake Up Early'. An IndieGogo campaign will be put up soon, very excited about that!

To keep up with 'All the Saints' go to it's very own blog: http://www.allthesaints-themovie.blogspot.com/

Here is the first released poster...and there will be more to come :-)

Casting 'Ivy'

Since Memorial Day Austrian actress Marlies Bell has been cast for the role of 'Ivy'. After a scheduling conflict with Bruna Berney, I had to look for another bold actress to play this dramatic role. Marlies emailed me a wonderful audition video...it wasn't too long after I saw that video that I gave her the role. She is a dancer, singer, and an incredible actress whom I am looking forward to working with in 'I am the Beauty of this World'. She's a student at Lee Strasberg in NYC.

Cast for 'Feathered Thorns'

The stage play 'Feathered Thorns' is continuing to move forward. Jan Mizushima has been cast as 'Xiu', the tough loving mother to a very gifted daughter whom she has trouble letting go of. Jan will also be co-producing the stage play with Keith D. Bracker.

Curtain opens for 'Feathered Thorns' in March 2015.

All is a stage...

'Feathered Thorns' , a feature length movie I directed in 2008, which is unfinished as of now, has been adapted into a stage play by me. I wrote it and will be directing it. I have a producer/actress , Jan Mizushima, attached to the project already. I'm hoping to have the play up and running by the end of this year or early next year.

More to come...

'I am the Beauty of this World' Update...

As of now Production had to be postponed for the feature length movie 'I am the Beauty of this World'.

Finances, casting and location scouting still have to be set in place before cameras roll. Samanta Castilho has pulled out of the project (reasons not necessary to mention) and the journey has already begun to replace her. Great news though, Ivy has been cast! The actress and her info will be posted up on this blog soon. 

In the meantime, 'Part 1: Happiness is You' will be submitted to various film festivals. I'm believing great things to come out of this. 

Thoughts on '12 Years...'

It was about a week ago since I watched ’12 Years a Slave’ for the first time (I’ve seen it twice), sometime during the day the scene when Solomon finally is rescued from Epps plantation, came to the forefront of my mind and I thought about Solomon looking back at Patsy, contrary to the reaction when the male slave is taken back by his slave owner and Solomon calls out to him but the man doesn’t even look back at Solomon. The male slave was just happy to be taken back with his slave owner. Solomon will never see Patsy again, he gets to leave behind those who still have to stay and suffer the pain and loss and rape and beatings and hangings on that plantation. I was deeply moved by this.  It’s said that whippings were heard from sun up to sun down on the Epps plantation. Solomon rides off in the carriage with mixed emotions I would think. Just that scene alone registers deeply in my conscious. I was always struck by that close up of Solomon. I wanted McQueen to keep that particular shot of Solomon a little bit longer on screen, but that’s okay, because the decisions made between him and his editor, Joe Walker, was incredible. The wide shot of Solomon hanging, it lingers on screen like a nightmarish painting. The beautiful trees over his head, and the mental state the slaves were in because as several saw Solomon hanging there none didn’t do anything about it because they would have been hung as well.

Where does one start to describe the total impact this film has on a viewer like myself? It’s not easy to make a good film and it’s almost impossible to make a great film. Since I’m a movie director as well, I know firsthand what it takes. However, with every film there’s going to be some that will love it and some that will not love it. For me this movie affected me in different ways. But what I admire about it, is that its fearless filmmaking in top form. I love when works of art is made with no fear; I get the sense that this movie was made that way by McQueen and his team.

I can write pages about the wonderful technical things about the movie that just blends so brilliantly throughout the movie. But with all of that, the faces is what lingers, the look in Patsy’s eyes as she looks up at Solomon as two black women tend to her deep bloody scars on her fragile back. The look she gives, with knowing the favor she asked from Solomon earlier in their encounter, it made me more aware of the psychology of the people back in those times. Just the exchange of looks between Patsy and Solomon says more than any words could say. The scene begins and ends with no words. It’s all told visually with performances that you can’t really make come to life on screen, you have to allow it too.

Mistress Shaw is a person I can’t recall seeing on the big screen before. A black woman owning slaves, a mistress to a slave owner, is only mentioned very briefly in Solomon’s autobiography, but Mcqueen suggested to the Oscar winning screenwriter, John Ridley, to expand Mistress Shaw’s presence in the story and rightly so. Nothing really seemed forced in the movie, McQueen wanted to serve this true story with respect.

Another thing that struck me was how McQueen and Sean Bobbitt decided to shoot the film. The story was shot like a nightmare, I felt as if I was literally watching a man live through a nightmare. It’s that kind of nightmare that just won’t end. And within this nightmare you find yourself watching people that aren’t as bad as you thought they would be. The camera directs the viewers eyes so plainly but complex at the same time, that it seems seamless and uninterrupted by nonsense. It seemed like  every shot was thought out carefully but not to the point where it felt artificial, far from that, but it felt like a masterstroke every time there was a cut, it went directly to something that needed to be seen in order to tell the story honestly.  

So too capture this nightmare, because slavery is a nightmare, there’s no other way to describe it, and this movie shows it that way without any shame, the timing, the pacing, is impeccable. The lighting without a doubt brings the atmosphere, that was charged with tension, to new heights.  

In addition to that, within this nightmare I find myself astonished by the beauty of this place. Louisiana. Because evil doesn’t see beauty, it can happen anywhere. The Louisiana soil seems to be soaked with tears and blood from those that suffered on those grounds. But like Solomon, they fought to live, not just survived but live with dignity, and learned not to deny their self worth and love for their family. In this case Solomon has a wife, a son and a daughter. A lovely family, a nice house to live in, food, nice clothes, things going well for this well respected violinist, but all of this is stripped away from him in a short matter of time. This transition from Solomon at the table drinking unknowingly with is abductors, to him waking up in the dark, chained, is a devastating look into what it possibly felt like to be living one way and then suddenly finding oneself in a dark hole with a city not too far away. But Solomon’s deep heartfelt cry isn’t heard. And I just thought of it now, pertaining to this scene, when Solomon screams for help from the barred bottom floor room, and the camera goes up and up and reveals what lies above and in the distance is a city full of people going about their business and not seeing or hearing the atrocities going on not too far from them, can’t help but think isn’t that what’s going on now? There are many horrific things people are doing to each other but it’s being ignored.

The mind games that the slave owners used against the slaves was written so well in this movie; and how Solomon goes on living above such ignorance and fear on behalf of his owners. Solomon denying his effort to writing letters to his family to Epps is a wonderful scene and this shows that lighting can be simple. The light from the lantern is the scenes main source of light and the way that serpent kind of man, Epps, tries to get Solomon to confess, is very interesting to see how Solomon is going to get himself out of this situation. And the following scene, him burning the letter, as if this was his only hope, but instead it burns up in the night is what makes the following scene so prominent and affective because we’re devastated with Solomon as well. Just watching Chiwetel in this movie is a revelation to how affective a performance can be, even though I forget it’s a performance, it’s to me a man with such weight of light inside him and it’s trying to be crushed by life’s circumstances, but he will not give up or allow these men and women (Epps wife especially) to make him fall into despair. 

Another thing the movie shows that is rare in a movie like this and how a slave must of felt after returning back home to their family and the possible guilt one must of felt for being away from the family for so long. For Solomon it was twelve years not seeing his children grow older, sharing tender moments with his wife, eating at the table with them, going shopping with them and seeing his first grandchild being born; to not be able to do these things, Solomon felt like he needed to apologize, possibly something many may have felt who were held captive. So when Solomon is told there’s nothing to forgive, it’s a form of releasing every person who has gone through that pain, that they no longer should feel like they owe anybody anything because it wasn’t and still isn’t any of their faults. If a viewer tries to hold themselves together while witnessing that last scene they’re doing themselves a disservice, because when you just let go and allow this movie to get deep inside you you’ll find that it’s okay to reflect and see what things were like, what our ancestors faced (and the greater devastation of this is that this isn’t half of what they went through), to allow us to live and talk about it now.

Book of Towers 4: Hitchcock

Charlotte Chandler could be one of the best biographical writers I've ever read. I read her book on Orson Welles; splendid book. And her bio book she wrote on the one and only, the late suspense master himself: Alfred Hitchcock, was released in 2005, is a incredible book with so much insight into the mind of one of the best film directors that has ever lived.

The book opens with a wonderful prologue and it never gets boring. The book has direct quotes from Hitchcock himself  which I love. You get a great sense of his humor and his intellect on how to make movies and how he worked with his actors, some think the lack thereof, because he never liked explaining to actors the motivation behind the scenes and their characters. He has said what's in the script is the motivation, all he needs to do is tell the actors when they are doing something wrong.

The address' the famous statement that Hitchcock supposedly said all actors are cattle. Hitchcock corrects and says that he said: 'Actors should be treated like cattle'. He said it was meant to be a joke but people took it otherwise.

He talks about wanting to work with Audrey Hepburn, he talks about envying Billy Wilder, who has worked with Audrey before. We find out where him and Alma like to eat and what he eats, he discusses his weight as well.

There's an amazing part when he talks about how his movies are looked at by people all over the world and how they are all effecting by them. 'Emotions are universal and art is emotion. Therefore, putting film together and making it have an effect on an audience is for me the main function of film. Otherwise, it is just a record of events.'

He talks about his fears, about him and Alma and how important of a role she plays in his life. Alma said about Hitchcock: 'In all the years we've been together, my husband has never bored me. There aren't many wives who can say that.'

And we, the audience who love his movies over all these years, can say something similar, as a filmmaker, he has never bored us. Cheers to Hitchcock and his films.

Title of the book: 'It's only a Movie: Alfred Hitchcock, a personal biography'.