May 6, 2010 by me.

Of all the places we scouted for “Bubble Tea & Sympathy,” Bini Bakery — owned by John and Eunice Kim, was the first to give us the go-ahead for shooting one of our scenes on-site.  And in case you were wondering, it’s the as not-yet posted scene with Aaron and Leonard.

Currently at two H-Mart locations (Niles and Naperville), we are still grateful for their helpfulness/cooperation on such relatively short notice and (like all the other businesses that let us shoot at their location) for no charge…

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May 3, 2010 by me.

…slooooowly but surely as the views have been adding up for our three earliest-posted clips from our pilot, the monetization has been happening, too. Can’t say that we’ve made a mint as yet but at least we can say that the money hasn’t stopped coming in (more like pennies at a time rather than dollars but hey, at least we’re not losing out by our endeavors). And incrimentally we’ve been expanding our contact base as well. So hopefully sooner rather than later (!) we’ll be able to dole out some more good news… 

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May 3, 2010 by me.

I wasn’t aware of it until now, but our show (and our efforts) got a nice shoutout on AZNLover.com this past January. And yes, he (or she) was pretty accurate about our clips not being the end-all final product but as an inkling (short of reading the entire teleplay) of the direction we hope to achieve for “Wingmen.” So thanks to the AZNLover for upping the awareness of our proposed series..! 

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March 2, 2010 by me.

Clips from our pilot episode of “Wingmen: Bubble Tea & Sympathy” can still be found on blip.tv, youtube.com and metacafe.com. Just look for the ones featuring our leading Asian-American men. So spread the word and tell your friends.

Thanks!

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February 16, 2010 by me.

…the box office revenues of every Asian and Asian-American film ever produced. Add to that the DVD revenues of these films and the box set of the only Asian-American show as of yet produced for primetime American TV. And add to that the dollar amounts of all these works siphoned off by the piracy market (i.e. bootlegging, mass viral-sharing of clips, etc) , organized or not. How much in total would you think that is? And, most importantly, would you care?

Maybe we should. Because when it’s said that the only color Hollywood respects is green (and legitimate green at that), I believe if we are to have the kinds of stories we have always wanted for ourselves (as well as the kinds of depictions we want others to have of us and that not second-hand), we can’t just open our pocketbooks and support these works, we need to also support them in the way that Hollywood fully recognizes: via legitimate channels. Why?

Because I suspect that the total revenue of these works, had they all been more legitimate, would surely have led by now to more projects (and more varied projects at that) being greenlit for our Asian-American and Asian brothers and sisters in the industry. Think of it. And starting today, together let’s do more to make this happen.

After all, if we are to have more than one or two male Asian-American ‘It’ actors at a time in Hollywood, it’s time more of us took the high road in our purchasing decisions if only to prove to Hollywood what our true self-worth and buying power really is.

Otherwise it won’t be fair to such actors as Russell Wong, Dean Cain, Dante Basco and Garrett Wang (who came to prominence in the ’90s), not to mention Dustin Nguyen (starting from the mid-’80’s)…

That’s it for today. Blog again later!

P.S. Don’t get me wrong. I’m against all forms of piracy, counterfeiting and bootlegging in all industries. But for the purposes of this blog and of our proposed “Wingmen” series, I’m limiting this discussion to Asian-American specific works.

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January 13, 2010 by me.

These last few months, I’ve been ruminating over the comments and feedback we gathered from our focus group last October, and for those of you who showed up, thanks very much! And for those of you who couldn’t make it (but have been wanting to know what we covered), here’s a tidbit or two:

This time out, instead of our focus group being about Asian-American men, we thought we’d get more specific by focusing our attention on the experiences of Asian-American Christian men. Reason one was to gather more insights and opinions to better flesh-out the backstory (and future hoped-for stories) for one of our leads (Richard, the pastor-fireman); reason two was that we wanted more feedback on how men who happen to be Asian-American as well as Christian might see see themselves in a world where (more often than not) they are instantly assumed (i.e. pidgeonholed and/or typecast) to be anything but.

We enumerated first on the qualities of Asian-American men and Asian-American Christian men as desirable husbands and fathers, but unfortunately ran aground (for a number of reasons) with regard to the “hallmarks of a desirable Asian-American Christian boyfriend.” To this effect, it seems that more positive modeling of such a man is still wanting (and yet still very much desired) in pop culture, mass-media Americana — thus we believe there is much work (and much good) that can be accomplished on behalf of these, our Asian-American brothers with such sitcoms as our “Wingmen”…

We hasten to add, not that such men do not exist (because invariably they do!), but so that they receive the validation (and encouragement) by mainstream America that has long been denied them.

Okay, off our soapboxes!

Bye for now,

Marie

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September 21, 2009 by me.

Anyone who can give me insights on how I can cross-post this blog with our parallel account on Blip.tv, please let me know — thanks!

I’ve been trying to cross-post the two for <at least> the last year and a half or so, if <only> to info our Blip.tv viewers about our additional 2 “Wingmen” clips that are exclusive to our website.

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September 19, 2009 by me.

Just a quick note to let you all know that our focus group event finally has a date: Saturday October 3rd (2009) somewhere in Plainfield, Illinois. As soon as I get some extre free time (gotta tackle the lawn in the backyard today), I’ll add in some more details.

Signing off for now,

Marie 

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August 4, 2009 by me.

Looks like our focus group has got the go-ahead and will finally take place in late August or early September. Meanwhile I still need to work out my thoughts re: piracy in the U.S. and throughout the world — still don’t like it, and for a number of reasons…

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July 7, 2009 by me.

Don’t like it — never have. More on this later. I need time to compose my thoughts.

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