March 27, 2007 by me.

Woo-hoo! I’m happy to report that as of 3:23pm Central Standard Time, we finally entered “Wingmen” into the Chicago Comedy TV Pilot Competition..!

So now all we can do is wait. Don’t know who we’re up against or how many have entered, but the fact that this competition’s given us the chance to show our Asian American brothers as the regular guys they are counts for a lot.

Anyway, we’ll find out soon enough whether this Asian American comedy written to reflect our Midwestern Asian American point-of-view will appeal to families (not to mention the networks).

Gotta go,

Marie

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March 20, 2007 by me.

We finished our shoot last Monday, March 12th at the clothing store and bakery and are in the midst of post-production editing. The time has flown by but we still need to get things done before we can submit this piece in time for the competition. So please keep us in your thoughts and prayers this week…
Thanks to all cast and crew for your hard work, esp. during our long days of intense shoots and fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants improv decisions — your dedication and professionalism was (and is) tremendous!

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March 11, 2007 by me.

Okay, so we’re in the home stretch of shooting now.

We started out on Thursday with the art gallery scene and then moved on to the stairway scene. Day two was mostly shot in Chinatown, first at the restaurant, then outside for a few scenes and then at the firehouse. Day three was a few establishing shots downtown and night shots of Chinatown. Today we’re shooting the apartment scene and moving onto the karaoke place — which may or may not prove a long night.

So yeah, even though we’re a small production, there’s still a bit to take care of re: lights, camera, sound equipment and so on.

Oops, we’re finished with the apartment scenes now. Gotta pack up the craft services (water, trail mix, fruit tray, etc.) to move to the next location…

Blog again later!

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March 5, 2007 by me.

Slowly but surely, we’re locking down our locations. Right now we have the places we need for our big scenes and that’s a major relief since we’re getting down to the wire right now.

And we now have our production crew in place: Director (Jack C. Newell), Director of Photography (Tom Wood), 1st AD/Line Producer (Maiko Tomita), 2nd AD (Seth Miller), Unit Production Manager (Brian Cagle), Gaffer (Mylene Santiano), Sound Technician (Jordan Bundy), Art Department (Ben Bueltmann), Post-Production Editor (Jeff Rostis), and Sound Designer (Michael Slaboch). Plus a few Production Assistants (Seth Farley, Andy Y. Lee) — huzzah!

Meanwhile, here’s the line-up for our cast (and changes in the script have been made to reflect the actual ethnicities of our leading men):

Carl Anderson as Hans

Allan Aquino as Leonard

Jason Chin as Richard

Andrew Lee as Aaron

Steven Yeun as Julian

So now you have the names to go with each of the faces on our website! So stay tuned, because in my next blog, I’ll be filling you in on our supporting characters…

TTYL,

Marie

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March 4, 2007 by me.

Because we haven’t been able to find and lock down all of our hoped-for locations, we’ve had to re-adjust the script and make some cuts. Sad to see them go, but it’s necessary if we’re to produce this on-time. Still retaining the essence of the characters, our viewpoint and our vision. Hoping that people will be kind when they see it — I have nightmares of accidentally offending someone and not knowing what to say should they point me out on it..!

So hopefully if anything does fall through the cracks, people will be forgiving, because I can say that we’re trying to do our best by others…

Anyway, thanks for your continued support of our endeavors. I know I keep writing this, but it’s true. No matter far “Wingmen” may or may not go, we could not have done it without your support and your encouragement!

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March 3, 2007 by me.

Five days until shooting and things are starting to fall into place. Got a few more locations but we’ve lost some too, so we’re trying to fill in the gaps.

Fundraising was great the first week then trickled in the second. So now we’re worried because we have enough to pay for either materials or crew, but not both. All of our crew are recent graduates of film school here (many I believe from Columbia College) with massive student loans of their own, so in order to get the quality shoot for which we are aiming, we do need to pay them even a token amount.

Reason for this is because after the competition, we are hoping to have our show screened here in Chicago and maybe other places as well. To do so means a level of production higher than the let’s-pull-the-camcorder-out-of-the-box-and-shoot-our-show-with–our-family-and-neighbors kind of thing. And that means incorporation fees, permits fees for each outdoor location we want to shoot in the City of Chicago, craft services and meals, tape/cables/ropes/lights — and after all of that, a paycheck for our cast (because we definitely want to pay them something, even if it’s only a token payment, in gratitude for their hard work and commitment to our show)!

Keep in mind we’re working at the beginning professional level and upper rank professional (which would easily require a budget four times more than what we hope to achieve).

So if you can, please help! And give us a chance to show others in this industry a bit of what Asian Americans have been longing to see…

Thanks,

Marie

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