“Mister Green,” a new short film written and directed by Greg Pak and starring Tim Kang and Betty Gilpin, will premiere at the SXSW Film Festival in Austin, Texas, as part of the Futurestates short film program on March 14 at 5 pm.
Click here for more details.
Film & TV
FilmHelp interview: Betty Gilpin talks “Mister Green”
Betty Gilpin as Dr. Gloria Holtzer in “Mister Green”
A FilmHelp interview by Greg Pak
As we draw nearer to the premiere of my latest short film “Mister Green” at South By Southwest and the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, I’ll be interviewing a few of the key players for FilmHelp.com. First on the spot is the brilliant Betty Gilpin, who plays Dr. Gloria Holtzer, a scientist with special plans for a jaded government undersecretary for global warming (Tim Kang). Betty was born and raised in New York City and graduated with a theatre degree from Fordham College at Lincoln Center in 2008.
Greg Pak: You came into the audition and just nailed every little nuance in the script. Tell us a bit about the audition process. How did you prepare? And what makes for a good audition process from your point of view?
Betty Gilpin: I had never auditioned for a short before, so I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I guess something as simple as just knowing the lines really well helps me. An acting teacher of mine taught me a trick — when you’re memorizing lines to be careful to recite them monotonously, so you’re not married to a specific way to play the line. Then you won’t feel thrown if the director wants to change it up, and the lines will feel more natural. A bad habit of mine is to over-plan what I’m going to do in a scene, so that trick helps me. Is that what you mean by good audition process? Or do you mean the actual audition? A good audition to me is when everyone in the room — actor, director, casting director, etc. — are all in a good mood and an open, creative place. That’s when everyone does their best work.
“Mister Green” to premiere at the SXSW Film Festival
“Mister Green,” a new short film written and directed by Greg Pak and starring Tim Kang and Betty Gilpin, will have its festival premiere this March at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas.
The 15 minute short will screen in a program of other science fiction shorts funded by the ITVS Futurestates initiative. The entire series will also premiere online in March at Futurestates.tv.
Greg Pak will attend the screening at SXSW — check back soon for exact times and locations.
To see the entire SXSW film slate, visit the official festival website.
2010.03.17 – 03.18 – “Mister Green” at the SFIAAFF
“Mister Green,” a short film written and directed by Greg Pak and starring Tim Kang and Betty Gilpin, will screen as part of the “Futurestates” shorts program at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival. The screening times and locations are:
WED 03/17 17th 6:45pm
Sundance Kabuki 5
THU 03/18 18th 7:15pm
Sundance Kabuki 5
Futurestates is a series of science fiction shorts commissioned by ITVS that explore the near future of the United States. Other Futurestates films in the SFIAAFF program include Amyn Kaderali’s “The Other Side,” Ben Rekhi’s “Fallout,” Tanuj Chopra’s “Pia,” and Tze Chun’s “Silver Sling.”
For more information about the program, click on the “Futurestates” link at the SFIAAFF website.
For more about “Mister Green,” visit www.pakbuzz.com/mister_green.
Greg Pak is AngryAsianMan.com’s Angry Reader of the Week
AngryAsianMan.com has featured Greg Pak as its Angry Reader of the Week! Here’s an excerpt:
I’m in the business of escapist entertainment. But I’d argue that the greatest escapist literature doesn’t just let us avoid our problems; it gives us a safe space to explore new ways to deal with our real world challenges. One of the reasons I’ve been so drawn to the Hulk, for example, is that he’s insanely fun because we can all vicariously enjoy his anger and smashing. But what makes him a truly great character is that his stories almost always explore the price of all that anger and smashing. There’s a process of emotional discovery in those stories that’s incredibly attractive to me as a reader and a writer.
Pakbuzz on Twitter
Pakbuzz is now on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/pakbuzz, bringing you the latest about Greg Pak’s comics and films in 140 characters or less. Please feel free to friend us or follow us or whatever it is you crazy kids do with this thing.
Slant Film Festival needs help
A FilmHelp post by Greg Pak
Just got word that the Slant Film Festival is facing a budget crisis due to arts funding cuts. For the past ten years, Slant has provided audiences in Houston, Texas, their only chance to see many, many Asian American films — including a few of my own.
Click here to donate — and if you have an Asian American film, click here to submit it to this year’s festival (deadline is January 30).
2010.01.27 – Asian American International Film Festival early deadline
A FilmHelp posting by Greg Pak
The Asian American International Film Festival in New York was the very first venue to ever screen one of my films and just might have shown more of my films over the years than any other festival on the planet. So I’m very pleased to pass along info about the latest call for entries for the AAIFF’s 2010 edition this July. Early deadline is January 27; the late deadline is February 24. Click here for the full scoop on how to submit.
Real World News: Yotaro baby simulator!
By Greg Pak
My feature film “Robot Stories” opens with a story called “My Robot Baby,” in which Tamlyn Tomita and James Saito have to take care of a robot baby before they’re allowed to adopt a real one. The world might be catching up. Via Designboom:
yotaro is an interactive robot that portrays a variety of facial expressions, movements and physiological characteristics all natural to babies. the device reacts to the user through a sophisticated emotion-control system that watches and senses what they are doing and provides an accompanying reaction. that baby can do a variety of things that make it much more sophisticated than the standard baby training dolls, like crying real tears on its 2-d face.
See the video below for more.
“Robot Stories” makes Eye On Indies’ Top 20 Films of the Decade
Eye On Indies has named “Robot Stories” one of the top twenty films of the decade. Here’s the blurb:
ROBOT STORIES (2003) four stories by Greg Pak called “science fiction from the heart” that continue to resonate with me since my Literature of the Fantastic course in college. This is an exemplary film by a first time filmmaker for first time filmmakers. Subtle and sublime presentation of human nature in a technological-worshipping society.
Click here for the full list.
Click here to buy the “Robot Stories” DVD from Amazon.com