> ABOUT
Welcome to the Asian American Film Lab
Welcome to the Asian American Film Lab [AAFilmLab]
WHO WE ARE:
The Asian American Film Lab is a [501(c)3] non-profit organization, which originally developed as a small New York-based screenwriting workshop series to develop, promote and improve screenplays by Asian Americans. AAFilmLab has since expanded across the globe and includes hundreds of professionals from all aspects of the entertainment industry working together with the common goal of advancing and supporting the inclusion of people of color in the arts, particularly film.
WHAT WE STRIVE TO DO:
Share - Foster a community by sharing our passions and work, and giving back to one another by serving as resources and partners in filmmaking.
Educate - Improve in our thinking and artistic abilities through honest feedback, debate and inspiration.
Create - Generate and support opportunities for Asians to demonstrate their talent and gain experience and visibility in the entertainment industry.
Innovate - Seek out that which is unique and unconventional.
Evolve - Develop and adapt progressively.
OUR PROGRAMS:
“72 Hour Film Shootout”
“Unfinished Works”
“Industry Spotlight” Workshops/Discussions/Panels
“Connections and Social Outreach”
72 Hour Film Shootout
The 72 Hour Film Shootout (“Shootout”) is a nationwide competition organized by AAfilmlab where filmmaking teams have 72 hours to write, shoot, edit and produce short films up to five minutes in length on a common theme. The intention of this competition is to create opportunities for Asian Americans to demonstrate their talent, gain exposure in the entertainment industry and to impact the visibility of Asian American stories and characters in film and television. At least one key production member and a lead actor from each team must be of Asian descent.
Unfinished Works
The Film Lab’s longest running program, “Unfinished Works” constitutes an avenue for filmmakers, screenwriters, and actors to share and workshop their work at any stage of development for honest feedback. The feedback process is carefully structured to provide assistance with drafting, editing, outlining, and more.
Industry Spotlight
“Industry Spotlight” provides an opportunity for guests and industry professionals to teach others, share ideas, and to gain support and exposure by presenting a workshop, participating in a discussion or panel on an industry topic and sharing their experience. “Industry Spotlight” has encompassed everything from a nuts-to-bolts filmmaking workshop by feature film Wedding Palace director Christine Yoo to storyboarding how-to workshops to acting coaches teaching monologue workshops for actors.
Connections and Social Outreach
“Connections” consists of social events designed to encourage networking and collaboration among entertainment professionals of color.
Our team today consists of:
Jennifer Betit-Yen, President - Jennifer Betit Yen is CEO of MyJennyBook.com, providing customized books, eBooks and audio books for children. She has provided voiceover talent for Random House and Reading Rainbow, among others and acted in numerous films and theatrical performances. Jennifer is a graduate of Cornell University and Boston University School of Law.
Peter Chin, 72 Hour Shootout Filmmaking Competition Coordinator - Peter is a graduate of Cornell University. He is a Brooklyn-based filmmaker and attorney.
Jean Goto, Management, Unfinished Works - Jean Goto is a Tisch alum and is at the end of her studies at the Maggie Flanigan Studio. She is a founding member of the theater company, The Anthropologists, and has performed at such venues as The Flea, The Public and HERE Arts Center. She has also starred in multiple award winning short films and is currently a regular actor with Odd Sqodd, a sketch comedy production team.
Ellen Chang, Intern, Industry Spotlight - Ellen Chang is a student at New York University studying Media and Philosophy. She has studied at Beijing Film Academy and has a strong interest in film. Prior to New York City, she also lived in Seattle, Hong Kong and Taipei.
Alex Song, Connections & Social Outreach - Alex Song studied Film and Digital Media at Dongguk University in Seoul, Korea. She is working for the Asian American Film Lab as part of a program called WEST, which means Work, English, Study and Travel. WEST was a part of the Global Leader Training Project created by a memorandum of understanding between the US State Department and the Korean Ministry of Education to promote diplomacy between the two countries. Alex also works for the distribution/acquisition department at Tribeca Film Institute connected with Tribeca Film Festival.
Debbie Ting, Interim Board of Directors - Debbie is an attorney and a writer. She graduated from Cornell University and is the author of A Cornell Carol.
Words from our Presidents
Jennifer Betit Yen, Current President (March 2012-present)
The entertainment world is full of extreme highs and lows. To choose a career in the field of film and television is to choose a daring and risk-filled path. For writers, directors and actors of color, that path is made even more difficult by all-too-common misperceptions that non-white Americans are “the other” and cannot realistically portray contemporary roles. Happily, talented entertainment professionals of color have worked long and hard to destroy these misperceptions, bringing beautiful, multi-faceted stories of Americans of all races to life on the stage and screen, by giving voice to the unheard and by sharing stories that may seem superficially different but hold universal truths. I originally went into law, and still love the law, because it is America’s civic religion—one to which all of our diverse and cosmopolitan citizens can pay homage to. Like the law, entertainment is perhaps another type of civic religion, a connecting thread of stories of love and loss that all of us, as human beings, can relate to and learn from. I am proud to be part of the Asian American Film Lab, a group that promotes and supports the creation and dissemination of these diverse stories. I welcome you to take action, contribute and be a part of the mission to share, encourage and promote diversity in film and television!
Carl Li - (President 2010-February 2012)
Welcome to the Asian American Film Lab [AAFilmLab], a non-profit organization created in 1998 to be a community for people of all walks of life, from filmmakers, directors, music composers, producers, performers, writers, editors, crew members, & production, to those who have nothing to do with film or being Asian save their appreciation, love and support for Asian American Films old, or yet to be made, to collaborate, hone their craft, support eachother, network, and share resources. We also hold general meetings, workshops, readings, screenings and special events such as our Annual International 72 Hour Shootout, and the Film Relay Experiment! My personal motto as current president of the AAFilmLab is “how can this make us better!” Please join us every month as we continue to help eachother improve! :-)
Tana Sarntinoranont (President 2006-07)
Acting and filmmaking can become a very solitary art form. Although there are projects that you work on with other people, the time in between, for better or worse, can be very isolating. To me, the AAFilmLab is for those times when isolation hinders creativity and meeting like minded people with the same heart and drive as you becomes inspirational. Try as we might to inspire ourselves on a day-to-day basis, it becomes more difficult without others. Before I joined this group in 2003, I felt that I could do anything on my own. I even judged those who seemed to need support of others in order to accomplish their goals. I was young(er) and…ok fine, naive. I obviously still strongly believe in independence, but I can’t express my gratitude and debt that I owe this group for what it has given me in terms of friendships, learnings, and honestly my best work as an actor.
Through workshops, screenplay contests, filmmaking contests (www.72hourfilmshootout.com/) and ground breaking filmmaking projects (relay09.tumblr.com/), the AAFilmLab offers opportunities for everyone; actors, directors, writers, editors and more. If you have found us online, then consider coming to one of our events that interest you or subscribe to our Blog or Email list. We are a Not-for-profit organization, all of us volunteers with the single uniting need to create through film. Do you have that need? Dig deep for that answer and get back to me.
Mission Statement 2006
Matte Chi, President AAFilmLab, The Workshop (2005-2006)
While I write this during the sleepy hours of a Sunday afternoon, the Asian American community is silently but unstoppably growing. At this very moment the Asian Americans who are accounted for, form 4% of the population of the United States. We Asian Americans will double our population in breakneck speed mirroring the historic growth of Hispanic-Americans. In a mere 50 years time we will stand on the platform alongside Hispanic Americans and African Americans to rival the majority in the United States (non-Hispanic White Americans will cling to a 50.1% majority).
During this time of unprecedented growth there is an incredible amount of work to do if we want to participate in the grand democratic conversation. As history has proven, physical numbers alone will not inherently provide the means of expression for our beliefs nor will sheer numbers alone provide the social structures necessary to distribute our expression. We must participate and we must commit to participating in the daily conversations of our lives.
And by what means can we converse amongst our peers and to the diminishing majority? As has been said before truthfully and correctly, it is through the Arts where expression will always be found.
I have found within myself and within this generation the incipient need to discover and communicate our ideals, our goals, our desires. Discovery is the most important element here. Though what we’d like to communicate is inchoate and continuously changing, the need to share this knowledge as it is gained has become an incessant drumbeat ever increasing in volume as each day progresses.
What better medium than film to discover and communicate these ideas? What medium can provide a better arena from which to continue the grand conversation taking place among us? Film’s intrinsically collaborative nature provides the testing ground from which to uncover a singular voice, or even better a chorus of voices, we all wish to find. Film provides the comraderie which we as social beings desire and need to survive, to reach that not too distant future when we will have more at stake and more voices that will want hearing. Film with its multidisciplinary breadth is perfectly designed to take advantage of the roles we have traditionally taken in our quest to find happiness through our until now obligatory lives.
Though fifty years may seem too far away, by then as elders, that is exactly the moment when we will need to have a stable, viable outlet of expression. Without expression we will find ourselves living in a world where nothing we say will ever be heard, and nothing we want will ever be given. We have the rest of our lives to work. Take this opportune moment to make that work worthwhile. Find a means to communicate the meaningful. Join us and pick up a camera, learn from experience and share that knowledge. Convince others to do the same, and you’ll find they will need little convincing.
The mission is simple: Create. Create honestly, continuously and share it. Above all Create.
Mission and History
Derek Ting, AAFilmLab President (2003-2005)
Friends, fellow filmmakers and actors, welcome to the Asian American Film Lab. Come here to relax and unwind and find out about the latest activities going on with the Asian American Film Lab. If you need a resource: Actor, director, producer, crew member, take a look at our database. Full Functionality is coming soon.
The Asian American Film Lab is an offshoot of the Asian American Film Collaborative-The workshop, of which I am still the President. For those who don’t know, the workshop is a organization where filmmakers and actors meet frequently to work on their craft. It was formed by talented and committed filmmakers in 1998: Stephen Bai, the first president, Greg Pak, Donna Tsufura, Rea Tajiri, Michael Kang, to to name a few. Many past members and leaders have gone on to do great work and be recognized in the industry.
Being President gave me the opportunity to be inventive and try new ideas to invoke our art. I noticed that organized activities are a great way to motivate filmmakers to tell their stories. For example, with a screenplay contest, writers are forced to meet a deadline and goal. The Film Shootout, currently our largest endeavor, pushes our community to make Asian American films. Now, while having these activities are encouraging, the organizing of these activities takes away from the workshop mission: Sharing work, doing work, honing skills. Thus, I realized that, the workshop could not effectively do both: Manage activities and work on their art.
Consequently, I founded the Asian American Film Lab along with an energetic team: Matte Chi, Mayur Khandewal, Justin Wan, Joyce Yung, Nelson Wang, and Tana Sarntinoranont and other hard working individuals to manage and facilitate activities that foster Asian American Filmmaking.
Together, we will help pursue the dream of getting Asian American Stories prominently told in main stream America. We will help expose Asian American filmmakers and actors to industry execs, promote their stories, and develop their talents. To do this, the AAFilmlab will endeavor to run thrilling competitions, seminars, and other related programs.
Further, it wil be a central place where these story tellers can find the necessary resources to complete their projects. Members will be able to find cast, crew, Directors, producers, DPs, equipment rental discounts, knowledge, and more(All of this is coming very soon to our website).
All are welcome to join the AAfilmlab. The more help, the better, Asian, Non-Asian, Green, Purple, Whatever. We are an organization bent on helping our community, as such, we need our community’s support.
My biggest wish is that we come together as a community and take initiative to get our stories told and our faces seen. May this organization be a vessel to conquer that challenge.
To this I say, again, welcome. Please enjoy.