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Grassroots Day 2 con't - Hunter College & AA Film Lab
Thursday, Sep 27, 2007 1:02AM / Standard Entry
Our visit to Hunter College in NYC!
Tonight we went to go speak at Hunter College in NYC. We had an amazing time connecting with and meeting all the students. It was kinda cool cause it was our first "Official" stop on our national Grassroots tour. Sung, Julie, Josh and I made it there first. Traffic sucked though. Justin showed up about 15 minutes later because his cab got stuck in all that United Nations meeting traffic.
We played our "making of" documentary and then had a great chat session with the students. It turns out that the Hunter students have been fighting for years to establish an Asian American studies program and make it an official part of their curriculum. We loved their passion and enthusiasm and felt very lucky to have an opportunity to meet them all.
After Hunter we went downtown to 26th street to speak to the Asian American Film Lab. We spent about 2 hours exchanging ideas and thoughts with the NY AA filmmaking community. It was cool to connect and meld minds with fellow filmmakers, actors, and producers. They're a great bunch. And after that, they took us to 32nd street to engage in traditional Korean BBQ. Delicious!
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Grassroots Day 2 - Finding the Dragon & Shopping
Wednesday, Sep 26, 2007 2:38AM / Standard Entry
Sung & I found Bruce Lee in the NYC Subway. We then went to Fairways for groceries and made the very bad decision to walk 31 blocks back to our pad in Hells Kitchen.
Ahh yes, our first real day in NYC. It's beautiful...sunny & 81 degrees. Sung & I decided to go with Julie (our producer) on her nostalgia tour 2007. She took us to her old neighborhood in the upper west side, saw her old apartment, and then we went to Fairway to pick up food to fill our very empty fridge. All this walking and sun really got to Sung and I...we worked out really hard last night and then got up at the crack of dawn to do some sort of stupid Navy SEAL training through the NY alleyways. A very dumb idea indeed, for Sung and I almost collapsed on our walk back home to Hells Kitchen. The grocery bags were heavy. Thank god we had a egg salad sandwich. Sung and I sat in some park and ate while Julie, full of energy, ran around to buy flowers for our apartment. Must go take a nap, for tonight we speak at Hunter college and also the AA Film Lab. -RF
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Grassroots Day 1 - LA to NYC!
Tuesday, Sep 25, 2007 9:34AM / Standard Entry
Today, our Grassroots Tour Begins! We travel from Los Angeles to NYC.
Every journey has a beginning, and ours began with a 4 am wakeup call to meet at Sung's to catch a car to the airport. We were happy and very excited to start our grassroots tour. Unfortunately for us, our driver to the airport was in a rather surly mood and didn't seem to want to join us in joyous celebration (he, instead, decided to reenact "Fast & The Furious" for us in a Toyota Sienna). We hopped a Jet Blue flight from Los Angeles to JFK at the crack of dawn. We were delayed for over an hour in the air because Air Force One was making it's way to NYC for the United Nations summit as well as the president of Iran. Frickin dignitaries...
A Jet Blue's eye view of Manhattan
So we got into Manhattan in the late afternoon and settled into our new home for the next few weeks. Julie, Sung, and I are sharing a super cool flat in Hell's Kitchen. It's a rather pimp pad, even if it does have lime green walls. After settling in, we went to what may be the best Thai meal of our lives (at Yum Yum's btw) and then cruised over to Food Emporium to pick up the essentials...like toilet paper (Sung prefer's Charmin Extra Soft).
Our new pad (with lime green walls) in Hell's Kitchen
If you want great Thai food in Manhattan, try Yum Yum's in Hell's Kitchen. It's awesome and not expensive.
I wanted to get the cheap toilet paper. Sung convinced me otherwise...
Justin's getting in to NYC in about 2 hours. I think we're all going to kick it tonight. We've got a few interviews in the morning and then we're speaking to the students at Hunter college and then going over to the AA Film Lab where we'll be speaking to many of the cool filmmakers and artists in the NYC community. Gnite! -Roger
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LA Comic Book Madness!
Monday, Sep 24, 2007 7:37AM / Standard Entry
What better way to spend your Sunday than at the annual LA Comic Book festival! It was very cool indeed. The festival invited FTG to speak to their peeps and to show our new Theatrical Trailer. There were lots of people there...loads of comic book and anime lovers. They were all very nice indeed and gave all of us FTGers a warm and loving welcome.
Tomorrow Justin, Sung, Julie, and I are leaving to NYC to start our grassroots tour. So it was really great to connect with the entire FTG family one more time before we head on out. Dustin just got back from shooting a movie in China and it was really good to see him too. He was there, Monique, Brian Tee, McCaleb, Joe McQueen, and a whole bunch of other folks. Anyway, it was definitely a lot of fun. I've got to go pack now...a bit confused on how to pack light for a 6 week grassroots tour trip. Check back in about 24 hours. I'll post up our new digs in NYC when we arrive! -Roger
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Past Reflections...Building Into The Future
Sunday, Sep 23, 2007 10:07AM / Standard Entry
It's Saturday night. I'm currently watching the USC game...the Trojans are totally destroying Washington State (I went to neither school).
Justin and I on the BLT Grassroots Tour in 2002. We both look like children.
I'm in a bit of a reflective mood right now. It's been 9 months since Sundance and we've technically been "on the road" and doing our grassroots promotions for FTG that entire time. But in less than 48 hours, Justin, Sung, Julie, & I are flying out to NYC to begin our OFFICIAL Grassroots tour for FTG and our OCT theatrical release. A tour that is going to take us all over the USA...from big cities to small towns. McCaleb, Candi, Tom, Dustin and many of the rest of the crew will be joining us in different cities along the way. Whew! It's been quite busy on our end to get T-shirts printed, posters made, stuff shipped, accommodations booked, coordinating with the many colleges and organizations that have invited us to spend time with them and speak to their communities.
John, Sung, me, and Parry at the BLT Theatrical Premier in LA (2002).
The last time time we did the Grassroots Tour was in 2002 prior to the release of BETTER LUCK TOMORROW. It was such an innocent time. We really didn't know what we were doing. We were just going from college to college, town to town, speaking to anyone and everyone who invited us to hang out. Reflecting back now, 5 years later, I'm just amazed anyone even showed up to these gatherings. It was, to say the least, an unexpected surprise.
Parry, me, Karin, Sung & Jason at Premier Magazine photo shoot in Toronto in 2001. Check out Jason...he looks like he's 13.
So here we are again, about to embark our our Grassroots Tour for FINISHING THE GAME. This time we're a bit older and perhaps a bit wiser (not me...Justin definitely). I'm not really sure what will happen. I'm a bit nervous but definitely looking forward to the journey. For some reason I decided to dig up some photos from 2001/2002 during the whole BETTER LUCK TOMORROW days. Figure I'd just share some with you. : ) Hope to see you on Tour! - Roger
The coolest thing about the world premier of your Own Movie...you get to hang out on the red carpet and just chat. This is Justin, Sung, and myself at the BLT world premier in LA in 2002.
Stats
- Roger Fan is one of the industry’s most interesting and exciting young personalities, redefining the leading man aesthetic through a wide variety of projects as an actor, host, and motivational spea...
- Occupation: Actor , Film/TV Producer
- Gender: Male
- Total visits: 123,186
