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By Pacific Citizen Staff
Published September 18, 2009
It seems like just yesterday that Philip Wang, Ted Fu and Wesley Chan were running around their University of California, San Diego campus with a video camera shooting “Yellow Fever,” a 2006 short comedic take on interracial dating that took YouTube by storm and launched Wong Fu Productions.
Blink and the men behind Wong Fu Productions are entrepreneurs. Since graduating from UCSD, they’ve built an impressive list of achievements, including a trip to the Cannes Film Festival to rub elbows with Hollywood’s elite.
Philip, Ted and Wesley have succeeded in turning their passion for filmmaking into a thriving career. Along the way, they’ve been breaking down barriers for Asian Pacific Americans in the media one online video at a time. And now, they’re sharing the wealth with other young APAs who have dreams of striking out on their own.
Fresh off of their successful International Secret Agent Concert, Philip, Ted and Wesley tackle questions submitted by you — JACL and APA youth — on topics ranging from filmmaking to identity. It’s everything you wanted to know about Wong Fu Productions. And as always, the trio speaks with one united voice.
— Pacific Citizen Staff
How did the idea for Wong Fu Productions originate, and did you expect it to become as big as it is?
— Tomomi Amakawa, 19, La Jolla, Calif.
WONG FU PRODUCTIONS: We didn't really start Wong Fu Productions with a direct idea or intention in mind. We just started making videos for fun. This was in 2003, before YouTube, so when we finished a short or music video and wanted to share it with friends, we'd send them an actual file to download. This is how our first videos started to get passed around — strictly word of mouth. The fan base just grew very gradually. We never would have expected it'd be like it is now. We're definitely very grateful and a little lucky we started at a good time.
What is the message that you would like to convey through your films?
— Amy Shinzaki, 17, San Diego JACL
WFP: Each video has a different message, but overall, we just want to tell good stories in a good way. There's so many online videos out there, and we hope ours stand out not only because of the stories but also because of the quality. We're always trying to improve and learn more. We also try to have relatively positive themes and messages in our videos. There are so many bad influences out in the media, and we don't necessarily feel like we need to add to it. Haha.
What made you go into filmmaking when the industry is so difficult for APAs to break into? And what specifically about your ancestry influences your filmmaking?
— Michelle Hirose, 24, Venice-Culver JACL
WFP: We didn't really think about how hard the industry would be towards APAs when we started, because truthfully, we didn't know. We weren't exposed to that. Not ’til we got out here and saw and heard from our peers did we really understand the struggle. Luckily for us we have great supporters and fans, so we don't necessarily need to rely on what Hollywood will “give” us. We can take matters into our own hands.
In terms of how our ancestry influences our work, I'd say just the way we were brought up by our immigrant parents in a lifestyle that’s “Asian American,” which is reflected in our characters and the way we write stories. Though we do feel and hope that the emotions or humor we try to depict in our videos cross all racial borders.
What would you say is your greatest accomplishment as a group so far?
— Megan Sadakane, 21, San Diego, Calif.
WFP: We are pretty proud that we were able to make our first feature-length film in our fourth year in college with just the three of us. Afterwards we took it on a 40-university, cross-continental tour. Also, going to the Cannes Film Festival for two of our short films last year was nice. Most recently, we're most proud of our feature on CNN’s “Headline News.” We had fans in Malaysia saying they saw us on TV at the airport.
How is your work on APAs influenced by mainstream pop culture, which is often divided into a black-white dichotomy?
— Jessica Kawamura, 24, Berkeley JACL
WFP: Our work is more influenced by our own lives and experiences than mainstream pop culture. I mean, we can appreciate good stuff that's out there, but we don't really look at it with race in mind. If something is good, beautiful or funny — we see it for what it is — not because it's white or black. In the same way, we hope people can see our work and not focus on the fact that we're Asian so this must be “Asian-y,” but just that we're trying to do good work. We feel this is the best way to represent.
Wong Fu Productions has made several music videos. Are there any particular music video directors who have influenced your style?
— Todd Kushigemachi, 20, South Bay JACL
WFP: I can't say our music video catalogue is very extensive, so our style hasn't really been developed, but usually when we are planning out music videos, we definitely do research and bring up various videos and ask, “How can we do something like that?” Or “Let's make sure we DON'T do this.” Haha. One thing we typically try to do, is always have some sense of story in our videos. We feel like that makes it more memorable and meaningful to the audience. Wes really likes Michel Gondry's music video work. Philip has been a fan of Hype Williams.
Do you guys have day jobs? Do you ever think you'll be making films/music as a full-time gig?
— Jason Yu, 25, Philadelphia, PA
WFP: Wong Fu Productions is our fulltime job. We also have a successful t-shirt brand that we run ourselves (www.areyouaniceguy.com). We're invited to speak and screen our films at universities around the country — over 50 in the past three years — and we're preparing to start our next feature length film. Planning, producing, writing and editing short films and other online content add up to far more than 40 hours a week. It's our lives.
If you could work with any actor or actress for one of your future projects, who would it be and why?
— Stacy Iwata, 22, San Diego JACL
WFP: For some reason we've always thought Natalie Portman was just awesome and would be so fun to work with. But really, we're not even at that point yet to think about which Hollywood actors to use. We're still often using our friends, but that's sometimes the most fun. Recently we've had David Choi, Happyslip, and KevJumba in our projects, who to us, are the A-listers of the online world, so we've been extremely honored to work with them.
Being at the forefront of APA new media, do you plan to build an APA movement around key community issues (i.e. comprehensive immigration reform, access to health, addressing incidents of hate, building inclusion of the LGBT community)?
— Craig Ishii, 24, JACL PSW regional director
WFP: We are fully aware of our influence to the APA community, especially the younger ones. With this in mind we mainly focus on inspiring and fostering their creative sides, and hopefully without even them knowing, we can empower them to do something grand in this world (without being afraid of racial issues).
More than before though, we are highlighting many APA issues that we feel would fit our brand and image. One could say we're not political enough, but at the same time, we're still developing our own identity and opinions about this world, so we’re figuring ourselves out before preaching to others.
How do you think you are representing APAs? Do you think of this while you’re making your films, and if so, what APA issues are you thinking about?
— Kene Kubo, 25, West Los Angeles JACL
WFP: We definitely think about how our work reflects APAs. It's daunting sometimes knowing that our work is on this very public and vulnerable pedestal (or chopping block) and it does affect the content we create. We definitely don't feel as "free" as we did before because we know so many people (with so many different opinions) are watching.
While we may not bring up APA issues in our work, we are not afraid to show that we are Asian. This is an issue in itself that we believe we're tackling head on. We want to show that APAs are just normal people, and shouldn't be stereotyped in the media and should have proper representation. We don't all do martial arts or have accents. We have stories that most everyone can relate to as human beings. We really want to show that our work and voice should and can be seen colorblind. The same way African Americans can now be accepted in the mainstream without a second guess, that's what we hope will someday be the case for APAs.
On the Web:
www.wongfuproductions.com
www.areyouaniceguy.com
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