Day 4: The Strawberry Generation

Today starts off with a newspaper interview with "The China Times" -- the first interview I've had with a "pan-blue" newspaper. Needless to say I'm very excited! :) "The China Times" is owned by the Wang Wang Group which has strong ties with mainland China. The journalist Eric Chiu asks a number of questions about my background and what was the motivation behind shooting the film. We have a discussion about Taiwanese-American politics and about Hollywood.

Eventually he asks if I would consider doing a historical epic on China. I tell him that while we're open to any good story, I think there may be others who would be better at that. Formosa Betrayed is about Taiwan and Taiwan's history, which is a subject I feel very comfortable with. I would feel as comfortable doing a historical Chinese epic as I would doing an historical French epic -- and I hasten to add that I speak French fluently (while my Chinese is passable).

Later in the day, we have two back-to-back screenings of Formosa Betrayed to two groups of college and graduate students, as well as a number of influential Taiwanese bloggers. This generation of Taiwanese students is known here as the "Strawberry Generation" (akin to the American Gen Y). The "Strawberry Generation" is the first generation of Taiwanese to grow up in modern day Taiwanese democracy. Most of them were born during or after the early to mid 1980s when Formosa Betrayed is set.

The stereotype of the "Strawberry Generation" is that they are generally quite apathetic when it comes to politics. Many of them are actual unaware of the history of Taiwan and it's development as a democracy. This group of students and bloggers is not stereotypical as many of them are student leaders and are opinion makers among their peers. Moreover, some of them were involved in the "Wild Strawberry" movement which protested against the leaders of mainland China when a number of them came to Taiwan last year to discuss relations between the Republic of China on Taiwan and the People's Republic of China on the mainland.

The question and answer discussion afterwards is quite interesting. A film critic and blogger named Tzara speaks first about his impressions of the film. He compares Formosa Betrayed to movies like The Killing Fields, Hotel Rwanda, and Munich in that the film shines a spotlight on a piece of Taiwanese history for both Westerners and Taiwanese themselves that has never been shown to the world. He says that his one of his grandparents was killed in the 2/28 massacre that is talked about in the film.

We open up the floor and the students and bloggers are very engaged and interested in talking about the motivation behind the film, as well as the political and social message that Formosa Betrayed presents. Both sessions last well beyond their scheduled times, and everyone seems very enthused and interested in helping to promote the film to their peers. I tell them that this film is really aimed at the "Strawberry Generation" and their support is critical in ensuring the film's box office success.

That's it for today. Tomorrow is our first screening outside of Taipei... in Hualien! See you tomorrow...

-Will

Day 3: Crazy Press Day

I spoke too soon about it "being a breeze." Today I wake up at 4 am and realize that my jetlag is catching up with me -- which is problematic since this is going to be my busiest press day -- 5 interviews back-to-back all day long. All I can think is -- pace yourself -- it's going to be a marathon!

First up is the "Happy Radio Network" with host Chia Tek-Khiam. This is what one would call a "deep green" radio station. For those of you not familiar with Taiwanese politics -- the political divide here is associated with two colors -- "blue" and "green." The "pan-blue" side is associated with the Chinese Nationalist Party or Kuomintang (KMT) and is typically considered more "pro-China" in terms of politics and the desire for unification of Taiwan with Mainland China. The "pan-green" side is more associated with the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) which is part of the outgrowth of the democratic movement depicted in Formosa Betrayed and is typically associated more with a strong Taiwanese identity and Taiwan independence.

Mr. Chia and his "Happy Radio Network" station are considered "deep green" -- that is to say his program is typically conducted only in Taiwanese language, not Mandarin Chinese -- and his politics reflect that position as well. He has many questions about the politics of the film, and I remind him that this is not a "pan-green" or "pan-blue" film -- it is an American film, told from a "Hollywood" perspective -- and thus cannot be put into the normal paradigm of Taiwanese politics. He admits that he had a Cambodian friend watch the film and came out of it understanding more about Taiwan's history and political situation. We talked about how The Killing Fields did the same thing for Cambodia as Formosa Betrayed is doing for Taiwan.

Next up is "New Talk Web TV" -- this is my first time doing a Web TV newscast. I'm joined by co-producer Echo Lin as well as one of the actors in the film, Danny Yi-Ho Su. Danny was one of the "happy accidents" that came up during filming. For those of you who have seen Formosa Betrayed, the biggest scene in the film is the Kaohsiung riot scene -- meant to be inspired by the Formosa incident -- a democracy demonstration that happened in Kaohsiung in 1979. Originally we had hired a Thai actor of Chinese descent to be the "protest leader" and lead the crowd which such slogans as "Democracy, Human Rights NOW!!!" However, on the day of shooting, our director Adam Kane wanted the actor to say "Taiwan Independence!" He refused -- saying it was "too controversial." Naturally, we fired him.

But then, we didn't have a "protest leader." And this was our biggest scene in the movie -- there were over 1000 people in the scene. Luckily, Echo had been in touch with a DPP tour group which was in Taiwan at the time. She had met Danny before and asked him if he wanted to be in a movie. Luckily for us, he agreed. Many Taiwanese people say that Danny is the most "authentic" Taiwanese actor in the film -- to which we say, "of course, he's not an actor, he's the real thing!"

Afterwards, there are two back-to-back television interviews for Formosa TV. First up is Formosa English TV -- a daily hour-long news program in English with one of Formosa TV's most popular news host -- Jenny Chang. Although she's never lived in the States, her English is impeccable and we get into an interesting conversation about how movies are funded and the future of Asians and Asian-Americans in Hollywood.

Then comes Chang Ray Ling -- with the show "I Love Movies" -- a weekly TV talk show about movies and the people who make them. Chang Ray Ling is the host and the entire interview is done in Mandarin (my part is translated by Echo). She has already done a piece on Formosa Betrayed with the rocker Freddie LIm which airs tonight.

The final interview is with Super FM 98.5 Radio. It used to be an underground radio station when Taiwan was still under martial law -- but is now the largest pro-Taiwan independence radio station in the country. We have a very sweet host named Momo and she is extremely excited about the release of Formosa Betrayed in Taiwan and encourages her listeners to go see the film.

By this point, although I'm totally exhausted, I decide to push through and meet a friend for dinner. He is kind enough afterwards to drive me to the Shi Men Ding district (Taipei's "Times Square") where there is a huge electronic billboard playing movie trailers. Formosa Betrayed's trailer comes up -- next to gigantic billboards of other Hollywood films. I feel like we've made it :)

Till tomorrow....

-Will

Day 2: It's a breeze...

Today feels like a breeze compared to yesterday. I wake up and check The Liberty Times to see if the article from yesterday has come out -- and sure enough -- there's a front page mention and two articles on the first page of the Entertainment section, with two reasonable pictures of myself and the rest of the film. One thing I'll never understand with Chinese-language newspapers is why they always seem to choose and print the worst pictures of me! :)

First up is The Journalist magazine -- which is akin to our Newsweek or Time magazine -- it's a weekly spotlighting key political and cultural events. The journalist interviewing me asks me questions in Chinese and I respond in English. When I was growing up, my parents only spoke to me in Taiwanese, and I would respond in English. They refused to speak Chinese at home, because they felt it was a language imposed upon them when the KMT came to Taiwan. I learned Mandarin Chinese on my own in graduate school, and only studied for 2-3 years, so I'm pretty limited in my conversation skills.

Next I have a television interview with one of my favorite people in the world -- Dr. Chi-Wei Hsieh -- who has a nightly political talk show on Formosa TV -- similar to Larry King on CNN. I met Dr. Hsieh two years ago, when we were prepping for the Formosa Betrayed shoot. At the time, he was the head of the Government Information Office for the Republic of China on Taiwan -- which meant he was the official government spokesperson for the Chen Shui-Bian administration. Dr. Hsieh is one of the smartest, funniest persons I've ever met and has been an outspoken advocate of the film.

One thing very few people know is that we actually asked Dr. Hsieh to play the role of Minister Kuo (eventually played by actor Tzi Ma) in Formosa Betrayed. We needed someone who was charming and who's English was excellent, and Dr. Hsieh fit the bill. Of course, the major difference was that this character is the spokesperson for the KMT government at that time. And Dr. Hsieh's wife nixed the idea because she didn't want him to play a KMT official in the movie!!! Fair enough. :)

The interview is a lot of fun. Once again, Dr. Hsieh conducts the interview in Chinese and Taiwanese, and I respond in English. Typically it's a live show, but they tape it so they have time to do a written translation of what I'm saying. Dr. Hsieh is great with puns, and during the interview, he says "Young people love to use PowerPoint. But if you don't have the Power, you can't make your Point!" We're told that the segment will air sometime early next week. We'll keep you posted here!

The final interview of the day is with J. Michael Cole of the Taipei Times. I'm pleasantly surprised to find out that he is French Canadian, and we joke around for a bit in French much to the chagrin of the Chinese/Taiwanese speakers in the room who have no idea what we're saying! It turns out Mr. Cole has a very interesting history. He used to work for the Canadian version of the FBI -- but was frustrated by the policies of his government. He met and fell in love with a Taiwanese woman, and they moved to Taiwan. Now, he is the Deputy News Editor for the Taipei Times, which is Taiwan's leading English language daily newspaper.

The Taipei Times has already done some interviews with me about Formosa Betrayed and done some news coverage about the film's release in North America. So Mr. Cole decides he wants to get into some of the more weighty political and philosophical issues that we tackle in the film. It's a fun and wide-ranging interview, different than most of the typical questions I get. We also give him some information that hasn't been made public up to now -- about why we decided to film Formosa Betrayed in Thailand instead of Taiwan. You're going to have to read his story to find out why... and we'll be sure to link it here on the BLOG!

That's it for me today. Only three interviews -- what a breeze! :) Tomorrow we have twice as many interviews, back to back, all day long. Sky Digi tells me their phone has been ringing off the hook all day from people requesting tickets -- and we've sold 3 times as many tickets today than previously!!! Good times! Will see you tomorrow...

-Will

Day 1: The Adventure Begins! (Taipei)

As my airplane is about to land in Taipei, a number of memories rush into my head. I realize it's been two years since I've been to Taiwan -- the last time was when we were shooting Formosa Betrayed. We land early in the morning, so immigration and customs is a breeze. Our Taiwan co-producer Echo Lin picks me up at the airport. Echo is the "secret weapon" behind Formosa Betrayed. I met Echo many moons ago back when we were both working for the Formosa Association for Public Affairs (FAPA), lobbying on Capitol Hill for Taiwanese democracy and self-determination. She worked for FAPA for many years, and later helped found another non-profit, the Formosa Foundation of Los Angeles, which I'm now a board member. Back in 2008, when we were scouting for the film, Echo was our guide through Taiwan and was so helpful we eventually brought her to Thailand to serve as our Taiwanese "eyes and ears" during production. She was so helpful during the shoot, and throughout the post-production period with her contacts in Taiwan and with investors that we made her a co-producer.

I get to the hotel and the entire Sky Digi Entertainment staff is there to meet me. Tiffany Wang is the head of Sky Digi, and she is the primary reason we have distribution in Taiwan. We had a number of Taiwanese distributors who were interested in Formosa Betrayed, but only Tiffany and Sky Digi seemed to "get" the movie and how to market it for Taiwan. We all sit down for a brief pow-wow to discuss what the next two weeks will look like (let's just say that I'm not going to have a lot of free time!).

My first interview is with Brad Tsai of the LIberty Times. The Liberty Times is Taiwan's largest newspaper -- akin to our New York Times. Brad is an entertainment reporter, and we end up have an hour an half long discussion about Formosa Betrayed. He asks a lot of great questions, and he ends up writing TWO articles on the front page of the entertainment section (here are the links: http://www.libertytimes.com.tw/2010/new/jul/29/today-show1.htm and http://www.libertytimes.com.tw/2010/new/jul/29/today-show2.htm).

Next up is a TV interview with one of Taiwan's most popular talk shows -- "Light up Taiwan" (台灣亮起來) -- on San Lih Television (三立電視). It's a weekly talk show and I'm told the host -- Yia-Lin Chen (陳雅琳) -- is like the Oprah Winfrey of Taiwan.

Then there's a surprise interview with Nansen Lin of BBC World Service. This makes me very happy -- I'm an avid NPR and BBC radio listener, so it's a dream to be on this show. He tells me that this particular section of BBC World Service is broadcast to the Greater China region (mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan) and has been broadcasting since World War II. I let him know that we're going to be opening in the UK in late September.

Finally, we go to a dinner with a group of my Taiwan investors, as well as a number of well known Taiwanese public figures -- although sometimes these are the same thing! One of my key investors is a former Taiwan cabinet member -- Li-Pei Wu. Mr. Wu is the "godfather" of Formosa Betrayed since he was the very first person I ever spoke about the project with over 5 years ago. At the time, it was his dream to have a Hollywood film about Taiwan. He helped organize a number of key fundraisers that helped put us over the hump when the time was critical for us to raise financing.

Another key person at the dinner is the rocker Freddy Lim from the Taiwanese heavy metal band CHTHONIC. Freddy is an icon for many younger Taiwanese and is an outspoken advocate of Taiwanese independence. He's also a huge fan of Formosa Betrayed and gives a great speech.

I on the other hand am so jetlagged that by the time I give my speech, I forget what I'm supposed to say (which if any of you know me, almost never happens!). I finally figure out that I'm there to encourage everyone to buy a ton of tickets for opening weekend... then I go back to my hotel and crash instantly on my bed.

Well... that's DAY ONE folks!!!! Hopefully by DAY TWO I'll remember what I'm supposed to say! :) Good night and see you tomorrow...

On my way to Taiwan...

As some of you may know, I am originally from Kansas. My parents came from Kaohsiung, Taiwan to Manhattan, Kansas in the late '60s to study at Kansas State University. Very few people know that within Taiwanese-American circles, K-State is known as the "Military College of Taiwan Independence" because so many Taiwanese intellectuals and dissidents came through there at one point or another to study. You're probably asking -- why Kansas? Like any immigrant community, all it takes is one to establish themselves there -- then others follow. The first of those who came to K-State in the mid-60's was my godfather, Clarence Huang. For those of you who have seen Formosa Betrayed, you may recognize that we named one of our characters after him -- Professor Huang Li-Pei -- who gives our FBI Agent Jake Kelly the background on why his friend Professor Henry Wen was killed.

In any case, I'm at the airport lounge at LAX waiting for my EVA Airways flight to Taiwan, when low and behold I run into someone with a K-State shirt on -- he is a Taiwanese professor from K-State that I grew up with! What a small world! Professor Hseu is a professor of management and is on his way to Taiwan and then China for a conference. He's already seen Formosa Betrayed when it played in Kansas City back in the spring when the film was in American theaters. However, he tells me he will be back in Taiwan on August 5 -- right before our nationwide release in Taiwan on August 6! Good timing... and maybe a sign of things to come? We will see... stay tuned!

Breaking The Rules

The Grand Hotel -- Taipei

First stop on our scout: Taiwan. What our entire movie is about. Not only were we going over to check out if Taiwan could be a viable place to shoot the movie but we also want to get a flavor for the history we're about to be telling.

It's quite a long flight to Taiwan from Los Angeles and when we arrived in Taipei we only had a few hours before we were to start scouting. We had to take advantage of every minute we were there! We first went to the Grand Hotel and had breakfast while fighting our jet lag. The drive up the main road revealed a majestic front that is unparalleled anywhere in the world, and the lobby was magnificent.

The Grand Hotel Lobby


Needless to say, even in my delirium I was blown away! This is truly one of the most breathtaking places you'll ever see. We had considered shooting there for Agent Kelly's hotel if we were going to shoot the picture in Taiwan...a fine choice on where the Taiwanese government would put an honored guest from the United States!

We continued on with our scout and quickly began to realize that because Taiwan had become such a developed and rich country it had continually updated it's infrastructure over the years. Our film was set in 1983; here we were in early 2008 and it looked very different! Streets were wider, buildings had been completely refaced, there was a highway that now ran through the center of Taipei that wasn't there previously...this of course was all very difficult for us as it didn't look anything like it did 25 years ago!

We continued on and went south on the train to Kaohsiung, an important location for our story.


The train ride down from Taipei to Kaohsiung took us through the countryside and farmlands of Taiwan. Not only was it beautiful, but it gave us very good references for a sequence in the movie where Jake and Ming travel via the train.





Kaohsiung, like Taipei, is also a thriving, bustling city in the south of Taiwan. Historically, Kaohsiung has been more in favor of Taiwan's independence. We spend a small portion of the movie there so we wanted to see what it looked like in modern times. Like Taipei, it was also significantly more modern looking than it had been in 1983, when our story takes place. We did see some amazing locations there we hadn't expected to see, like this modern Buddhist Temple. It was so spectacular that we wrote it into our initial production draft of the movie that Brian and Nate were working on back home in Los Angeles.





Jake finds Ming praying inside a temple and joins him.








By now our time was up in Taiwan -- we had a very fruitful journey and were now off to Bangkok, Thailand to scout as a possible shooting location. Just as we were leaving our hotels in Taipei, we received the first production draft of the script from Nate via email. We didn't have time to read it as we were heading off to the airport, so we all broke out our laptops on the plane and read our first draft of Formosa Betrayed while on the way to Thailand!

We have to make this movie NOW!

One minute I'm meeting with producers Dave Cluck and Will Tiao about coming on-board to Direct FORMOSA BETRAYED. The next thing I knew, we were in the Formosa Films office writing out a new outline for the movie!

They had several different writers work on the project previously, and I knew I would need a politically savvy writer to frame the historical context so that we gave enough information but weren't preaching nor giving a civics lesson. I called my friend Nate Goodman who had been my Camera Operator when I was a Cinematographer. Of the many talents Nate possesses (he's also a very talented Director) I felt writing was his most unacknowledged skill. A graduate from Brown University and the graduate film program at UCLA, Nate had been a Camera Assistant and then Camera Operator in the motion picture business for many years before becoming a Cinematographer on "HEROES". I had read more than a few of Nate's screenplays over the years and was impressed -- he had been one of the best undiscovered writers in the business...until now.

Nate would be coming in and teaming with fellow writer Brian Askew, who had been working on the project for several months, to work out the new direction for the script and add the new character of 'Ming'. I had pitched Will the idea for Ming in our first meeting and he had liked the idea -- I felt that we needed to get to know someone from Taiwan more intimately in order for the audience to identify with the country's conflict.

Brian was to write the first pass, incorporating some of the work that had been done in the 3 previous working drafts. Then Nate would take it over, doing another pass that was originally designed to sharpen the political and historical aspects of the movie. After 4-5 days of Brian, Nate, and myself worked out a new outline for the script that we all liked. We presented it to Dave and Will -- they liked it, and only had a few things they wanted to adjust, clarify, or change. Two days later we all agreed. Brian was to start writing immediately; Nate would take over writing approximately 3-4 weeks later and do another pass on the script. Dave and I began discussing schedule -- at this point it was already the end of the first week in February, and the Writer's Strike was still going on (by the way: none of our writers were members of the Writers Guild of America so they were not in violation of any wrongdoing by working on our project. They were considered to be 'non-union'). There were rumblings from another union, this time the Screen Actor's Guild, that they might go on strike themselves on June 30th. This WOULD affect us, as we wanted to use SAG actors in our movie.

I told Dave, "We know the scenes (even though we don't have a completed script), so we know what the locations need to be -- we need to go scout, NOW!". We wanted to fit the shoot in before the potential SAG strike at the end of June and take advantage of the fact that there were actors not working who might want to do a smart independent political thriller. Dave agreed; it was Will who was hesitant. Rightfully so -- he had raised over $5 million dollars to make this movie and he didn't want to spend money unwisely. Once we talked it over Will understood both the opportunity and predicament we were in; lots of great talent available who were not working, and another possible strike looming in the very near future that could make it impossible for us to start shooting if we waited much longer.

Will agreed. So we next did something that goes against the basic rules of the independent filmmaking business -- we started to spend money without a finished script nor any cast in place. We boarded a plane for Asia and started a 2 week scout to both Taiwan and Thailand.

Pre-production had begun!

Stay tuned...
Adam