September 25, 2008 by me.

Rolling back the clock to March of 2007…

So after an action-packed 2 1/2 months preparing our submission for the Chicago Comedy TV Pilot Competition, we managed to enter “Wingmen” on the day of the deadline (yeah, things were that tight). We knew the final cut wasn’t everything we’d hoped for (or written) — but considering how much time we’d had to pull everything together, we still felt good about our effort.

So it was a month later that we got the call saying that we made it past the screening committee and had been accepted into the Competition. Very good news, as this made us one of twelve! But before we could start celebrating, we were then told by the organizers that the jury, who were to choose the winner, had promised to judge from only a certain number of pilots (nine, we found out later) and that because “Wingmen” rated in the top tier of the second level of submissions (but not the first), we would be included with the other finalists at the screening in July but unfortunately as a runner-up we would not be sent on to the Jury. So a mixed blessing — but looking back on it still, a blessing nonetheless.

At the time I shared this news with just a few people (as disappointed, embarrassed and a bit depressed, I was now wishing more than ever we could have shot our pilot as originally written) and even in the run-up to the screening, I had hoped that maybe this decision might be overturned — but no.

So in all belated fairness to our team (both cast and crew) who until now have been rather in the dark as to the jury for the 2007 Chicago Comedy TV Pilot Competition, here is the list — along with our sincerest apologies for not sharing this with you earlier (and above all, for our inability to make it all the way down the home stretch):

Brian Banks: Senior Vice President of Comedy Development, CBS Paramount Network Television

Mark Gordon: TV Literary Agent, International Creative Management

Suzanna Makkos: Director of Comedy Development, Fox Broadcasting Company

Mike Marks: Director of Development, Brillstein-Grey Television

Kevin Plunkett: Vice President/Head of Current Comedy Programming, ABC Entertainment

Renate Radford: Vice-President-Comedy, NBC Entertainment

Aaron Rothman: Director of Original Programming and Development, Comedy Central

Tom Whedon: Former TV Show Writer and Producer

Anyway, thanks for all of your hard work. And never give up in your quest for the dream..!

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September 23, 2008 by me.

Looks like our PayPal button got cut off from our website. We did get one donation before this seems to have happened, so to the guy who donated to our cause (and you know who you are) : thanks ever so much!

Meanwhile for those of you who’d still like to donate, my suggestion to you is to check back with our website from time to time. Hopefully we’ll be able to get our PayPal account reconnected — and soon…

Update: Been a few days, but I’ve talked to our webmaster (hi Rob!) and after he checked out the link from his computer, it looks like PayPal is still connected to our site. So if you’re so inclined, please help us out so we can afford to post more clips (or even more ideally, the entire pilot) onto our site. Thank you..!

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September 23, 2008 by me.

Found out last week we’ve been linked to AArisings.com (don’t know when this happened, but thanks y’all!) and given a shout out by the Alpha Asian this past Sunday (apparently right after BetterAsianMan’s podcast). So we thought we’d return the favor and (if you haven’t heard of them just yet) urge to check them out too!

Peace and Goodwill,

Marie

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September 22, 2008 by me.

Okay, this deleted blog is the one of which I’m most upset. Not easy in retrieving the context of this one from memory, but here goes:

Oftentimes the Chinatown (or Koreatown/Little Tokyo/Little Saigon/Gandhi Murgh/Little Manila/ThaiTown, etc.) that we see on the screen, whether big screen or little screen is nothing like the place we know or in which we grew up. Nothing of the schools, churches, banks, real estate agencies, fire or police stations, restaurants — and above all, stories of the friends and families we knew growing up. Oftentimes it is our longing for such stories and our eagerness to see ourselves in some small or large way reflecting back at us, as proof that we matter and that society at large values us for more than just our pocketbooks.

Sure there’s crime in these neighborhoods. But there are honest-law abiding citizens too, with green cards as well as passports and whose aim in life is for their own share of the American (and by extension, Asian-American) dream. Moreover, what we’ve been hearing from others is that so many of us want a balance to the stories that we’ve been getting from mainstream society — for example from pop culture and news and entertainment. Not just the positive along with the negative: we want to be depicted in all of our complexities and nuances — in short, the whole three-dimensional package.

Of course, it’s also our job to help mainstream American catch up to how we already see ourselves. Because it isn’t until we’re finally on the same cultural page that our stories can really truly be what they’re meant to be… a shared community experience. And then blast off from there..!

P.S. My utmost condolences to the Chinese-American Museum of Chicago’s Chinatown for the losses sustained in last Friday’s (Sept. 20th) devastating fire. That so many souvenirs, letters, photos, clothes, etc., had only three years earlier been lovingly donated by the families (and friends!) of its founding members (as well as the loan from other Chinese-American Museums from around the country) constitutes a loss, not just of history but of family memories and remembrances as well…

P.P.S. One more blog to go…

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September 22, 2008 by me.

Got a number of things to write about, not including two blogs we have yet to reconstitute and restore from September. But first of all I want to give a great big shout out to William at BetterAsianMan.com for inviting me to his podcast: it was fun chatting with you yesterday afternoon! I enjoyed myself immensely and I hope you and your listeners learned as much from me as I did from all of you. My props to you for your willingness to help out the shy Asian and Asian-American guys of our acquaintance..!

As for those of you wondering why I’m writing about the podcast after the fact, my aim for this was to preclude any possibility of alerting our hacker(s) to his site and intentionally crashing and/or hijacking his podcast for his or her own self-serving purposes. Paranoid? Maybe. But judging from what happened to us last week, not entirely impossible.

By the way: I’m hoping I didn’t come across the wrong way on the podcast — but if I did, please remember: in light of what we’ve had (and still are having) to go through in order to reconstitute and restore our deleted blogs (from September 2008), I believe (and I’m speaking for all of our cast and crew) we’ve earned that right.

Thanks, and good listening!!!

P.S.  And our thanks to Phil of angryasianman.com for his shout out on his website last June (of 2007) on our behalf! My apologies for waiting this long to acknowledge it: we didn’t want to come across as too ‘crow-y’ or ‘braggy’…   :-}

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September 19, 2008 by me.

A little more info for ya:

The podcast is scheduled for 2 pm Eastern Standard Time…

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September 19, 2008 by me.

Just checked our metacafe.com video clips and our channel views (currently at 1314) are outpacing everything else. Unfortunately, this still means that none of them count toward our Producer Rewards Candidacy, which require at least 20,000 views and a rating of at least 3.0 before any of our videos start to earn any money.

One thing I can say is that we are getting reach, frequency and awareness, and of course, that’s always a good thing. And as of today, the breakdown for “Wingmen - Restaurant Scene” stands at 237 views/2.99 rating; “Wingmen - Underwear Store Scene” is at 559 views/2.50 rating; and our “Wingmen - Karaoke Scene” (only just posted mid-August) is at 116 views/2.29.

We’re guessing that having ‘Underwear’ in the title accounts for the high number of views, not just at metacafe.com but at all of our other posted sites (blip.tv, veoh.com, google.video.com, revver.com, YouTube.com, nelsok.com, facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn — hope I didn’t forget any).

A few more things: last week we submitted our remastered version of “Wingmen: Bubble Tea & Sympathy” to the Chicago Filipino Film Festival and are awaiting their decision.

Meanwhile I have also been jotting down notes for another TV series for possible submission to the 2009 Chicago Comedy TV Pilot Competition. Actually we now have two –  however as we’re still working to break even on “Wingmen,” neither of these can be produced unless we can find some way of coming up with the funds to afford these, as well.

So I guess we’ll see what happens between now and then. And (most important of all) hopefully by then we’ll finally be able to post our entire pilot episode online!

Gotta go. TTYS..!

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September 19, 2008 by me.

While we’re working to retrieve our not-deleted-by-me (i.e. hacked-into) blogs, the following is a bio from the actor who plays Julian, our chemical engineer-turned-gas-station-attendant/parolee:

Steven Yeun hails from the great state of Michigan. More specifically Troy, MI. As a graduate of Kalamazoo College he came to Chicago to pursue his new career. He can be seen around town with the All-Asian American Sketch Troupe, Stir Friday Night! Also you might be able to spot him in a Best Buy commercial or as a lovable meerkat on a Hubba Bubba commercial. He would like to thank his family and friends for their support!

Note: That’s not a typo; that’s how Steve spells his last name. Why? Well, for one thing, his ethnic heritage originates from a different country in Asia than mine. Of course, this would be pretty obvious if we were to write our surnames in their original languages — but as English happens to be the dominant language in this country, thus the use of Roman letters to approximate the pronounciation of our family names.

So now you know the rest of the (my tribute to Paul Harvey)…

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September 18, 2008 by me.

And now for the third of our five-part bio-series on “Wingmen” (remember, we have 5 Asian-American male leads),  from the actor who plays Aaron, our hard-working television anchorman:

“Andrew Lee is a veteran member of the Midwest Premier Asian American Sketch-Comedy/ Improv Troupe Stir-Friday Night (www.stirfridaynight.org). When he’s not performing or working at his day job as a civil engineer, Andrew likes to watch football and drink beer. And when there’s no football to watch, Andrew just drinks beer.”

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September 17, 2008 by me.

This Sunday. To talk about “Wingmen” (the proposed TV series),  Asian-American men, and wingmentheshow.com… I’ll let you know later who’s invited us, where you can hear us, and at what time…

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