Abe, our intrepid director finally gets to drink.
Well, I’m back from
The Achievers premiere at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival. Wotta weekend.
Flew into Oakland Friday morning and got picked up by this guy.
His name is also David. Very personable guy, that David.
Akie was pretty stoked about the room. Small, but clean and cozy. I hightly recommend the Hotel Carlton if you ever need to stay in SF. Granted, the festival was hooking us up with this one, but I’ve heard that it’s not that expensive regardless.
The other fellas show up. Big Tim, Baldeep, some guy named Bernard, and, eventually, Big Neil.
Greeting them is small, small Akie.
So we’ve all just gotten here and are pretty excited until word comes down that
Abe still has not left Los Angeles yet.
There has apparently been a huge sound mix related disaster and Abe has just dropped an easy grand at a post production house and is frantically trying to create a useable mixdown for tonight’s showing, which is at 7:15pm. There are even rumors that Vince Tsu, who designed the poster and the opening credits for the film, will be driving up the first half of the film and that Abe will drive up the second half of the film hopefully before the first half finishes playing.
Suddenly we are not that excited. We are stressed. In hindsight, we shouldn’t be surprised. This is kinda how everything has been with this film.
This is the “rush” line for people that weren’t able to pre-purchase tickets for the showing.
It is around this time that most of us meet Chi-Hui, the Festival Director. Chi-Hui is a really nice fella. Chi-Hui is quite possibly more stressed than we are. He does not want to cancel a sold-out screening.
That’s fine, because we don’t want to cancel our friggin world premiere.
Here’s Mike G, who wrote the play that The Achievers was based on, catching up with our ol’, happily married college buds, Conan and Lori.
Around this time, Abe’s plane has landed in Oakland and he is now in a taxi. He tells the Jamaican Taxi driver to step on it cause he’s going to be late for the movie. The Jamaican taxi driver tells Abe that he’ll drive fast enough to be safe. Abe explains that:
No, you don’t understand, there is no movie if I don’t get there. I have the movie with me in this bag.Ah. The Jamaican taxi driver now gets it. He steps on it and Abe shows up at the theater 15 minutes before show time.Abe was completely out of cash when he showed up. Chi-Hui had to go to the ATM so that he could pay the taxi driver.
Disaster averted. Abe comes through as usual (and with the usual drama.)
Here are the rest of the pics:
Stand up comedienne, Ali Wong, with Tim and Mike G.
My view from the Q&A, blinding lights and all.
Akie, at the Q&A, saying something witty.
Bruins everywhere!
Me an’ Cindy (Cindy if, for some reason, you are reading this - I totally lost your phone # on Friday night. Please don’t be mad.
The boys. The pretty…pretty boys.
I just like this picture of Baldeep.
We didn’t notice until afterwards, but this picture makes Vince look friggin enormous. It may look as if Monica is laughing, but she’s not. She’s crying. She’s crying because she is scared of Giant Vince.
Abe, the next day, using my powerbook to fix the sound for Sunday night’s screening. He got it done, but for technical reasons, we ended up just using the same tape we did on Friday. Ah well.
This particular pose sums up a large majority of Abe’s existence.
Drinking before Sunday’s screening.
This particular pose sums up a large majority of Akie’s existence.
Monday morning - March 20th.
sssshhh…he needs this…
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