Born to Korean parents and raised in Pflugerville, Texas, twenty-three year old Eugene Lee Yang describes his early upbringing as "typical American suburban." But when his mother remarried a Frenchman, Yang began spending his vacations in Paris, France, a place he quickly came to regard as a second home. It should come as no surprise then that when faced with the challenge of incorporating the French New Wave style, Yang, the director of Ma Cite, Mon Histoire, worked especially hard to honor the film movement. As Yang is quick to note, "My stepfather would have killed me if I messed it up!"

EP: The theme for these shorts films was City Stories. What inspires you about Los Angeles?

EY: Wow. It's interesting because since I'm technically a country boy at heart the city is something that has always sort of fascinated me ... it's great that [Project:Involve] is in this particular city because Los Angeles is, I think, the epitome of diversity. You can walk down one street straight from Downtown to the West and you'll pass literally thirty different languages and cultures... it's sort of a perfect marriage between the integrity of the program and the natural appeal of the city.

EP: Ma Cite, Mon Histoire was shot in the Concrete Loft building overlooking MacArthur Park. What informed that choice?

EY: It was very important for me as the director to choose the ideal location for this particular piece... we were attempting a long take [so] one other character that would be important would be the actual space that the protagonists would be travelling through... We were juggling between this location that we settled on and the Universal back lot; they have an exterior, little European set which you can actually see on the tram ride... but the eventual rates that came in were pretty astronomical in terms of our budget. So, we got a good deal with these guys at the Concrete Lofts. It turned out to be exceptionally beautiful and much better than the little Europe version just because the space was smaller and a little more controlled... and once I saw the skyline I was sold just because [at] the opening of the film we have a set of an upscale Parisian apartment that overlooks the Eiffel Tower and the Parisian skyline... I wanted to bring it from that classic 50's French set to a contemporary Los Angeles, Hollywood environment.

EP: What was your biggest challenge on this film?

EY: I tend to be a very controlled person in every aspect of my life... we assembled such an amazing crew of professionals... that I really just took a step back and really examined what it truly meant to be a director... I just slowly, gradually learned that it really is being completely open to ideas and moderating and assembling a sort of collaborative vision to make the most unique possible project. And that was initially very difficult for me... but just being surrounded by such talented individuals it became so much a part of my process that I wouldn't want to make a film any different way.

EP: Ma Cite has the appearance of being shot in one continuous take even though it wasn't. Can you talk a little bit about cheating that effect?

EY: Melissa [Lee, Producer] would keep whispering to me, "Ugh, Eugene this shot is running at like four minutes and we need to cut it down to way less than three." And I said, "You know what? Let's just let it run... " because I had the idea to incorporate in-camera ramps... that would speed up a lot of the parts that did not include dialogue and traveled from Point A to B... cutting within those moments was the most logical... in-camera flashes were the masking effect that we came up with to sort of soften the cut.

EP: Were there any little nods to French New Wave that you incorporated as a director that someone might not notice?

EY: On set I set dressed up in a complete Banana Republic three piece suit just because we had one and we originally were going to dress The Director in it but it didn't seem right, it was going to be like a nod to [a] character in Contempt, the sort of womanizing producer but I ended up wearing it... there were a couple of takes... where you catch myself, my cinematographer and our first AD [Assistant Director] in the reflection of the make-up mirror... I loved it but the take we've actually chosen was for [the actress'] performance and you basically kind of graze half of me... I love the idea of being completely self-reflexive and I throw in a couple of lines in the dialogue kind of like cheekily discussing the ideas of independent film and entertainment.

EP: And the music?

EY: One thing that's inherently French New Wave, and this actually plays into the previous question, is this sort of performance within a performance... [Brigitte] Bardot used to sing her own songs and it would be part of the soundtrack so I had the idea to write an original song and have my composer do the music and my actress luckily could sing. So we recorded an original song... it's called Ma Question, Ma Réponse, it sort of mirrored the title of the film.

EP: What's next for you?

EY: I think it's really just continuing to learn and to grow and I've really just been so opened up by this experience that I'm basically open to any sort of opportunity... I think the impatience of youth is waning, which is wonderful because you can't have everything that you want right now and especially with the [economic] climate in America at this point, I'm just fortunate enough to have made this film at this time. I'm just very grateful for this experience.

--Emily Poenisch

---

Twenty-seven year old Melissa Lee was born in Texas, grew up in Hong Kong and attended boarding school in England. Lee produced not one, but two of the Project:Involve short films: Ma Cite, Mon Histoire and Midnight Riders. Confident, determined and brimming with smarts and savvy, Lee's personality is two hundred proof Type A. If Tracy Flick had heard of Melissa Lee she would have written her letters soliciting advice.

EP: Your bio includes the fact that you worked in investment banking; why would you admit such a thing?

ML: (Laughs) Well, it was the only thing that I did before I went to film school so I have to explain that two years some way.

EP: It's interesting though because obviously you bring a specific business background to your producing.

ML: It's certainly helpful... more than the finance experience, I think just the training and the discipline of going into something as rigorous as investment banking was really what I got out of that experience.

EP: On Ma Cite, Mon Histoire you served as both writer and producer; that's an unusual hybrid. Did the fact that you wrote the film affect the way you produced it?

ML: I think on the creative side it definitely helped me, obviously because the story originated essentially from my head. It helped me to be involved at every single creative step of the way and probably have more authority to do so then if I was coming in just as the producer... it was actually more fulfilling because it was a concept that I originally came up with and then seeing that realized was a different experience for me because I don't typically write at all.

EP: You're one of those left side/right side brain types.

ML: I actually studied comparative literature at Harvard, so I think going to film school and going into producing was my attempt to go more into the creative side of things after being in banking, and actually, I mean we don't have to go into all this history, but I was a biochemistry major and then I was neurobiology and then I only switched to comparative literature...

EP: Well, now you're just boasting.

ML: (Laughs) My point being...I've actually been kind of a late bloomer going into the creative side of things... discovering a passion of film when I was 20, 21 is pretty late compared to a lot of people who are in this industry.

EP: The film did a particularly great job of showcasing the Banana Republic clothes. Is that the business woman side of you at work? Were you thinking about that element even as early as the writing stage?

ML: The reason why I wrote it was, one, because the theme that was chosen was French New Wave and French New Wave is basically the reason that I'm in film because French New Wave cinema was what I fell in love with when I was 20 and that's why I switched degrees, that's why I went to film school, that's why I'm trying to make movies. And then, secondly, you know having the opportunity to work with Vanity Fair and Banana Republic obviously these are supposed to be narrative short films and it's supposed to be all about story but at the same time you can't help that this is an amazing opportunity...the story came first and then it seemed like a really great fit to be able to showcase all the different clothes.

EP: Were there specific French New Wave films that influenced you?

ML: Jean Renoir's The Rules of the Game and Jean-Luc Godard's Contempt. I mean it's pretty obvious from the opening scene that Godard was a huge influence on the film but I hope people see it more as homage than anything else.

EP: This film looks exceptionally rich considering the budget. How did you pull that off?

ML: Basically calling in every favor that I could... I was able to secure amazing donations from other vendors; I mean it wouldn't have been possible without their support. Panavision provided us with a Super 16mm film camera, so we shot Super 16. Kodak supported us on the film stock side of things and Technicolor helped us on the post-production.

EP: How did you wangle all that?

ML: I don't know, because I'm jammy like that!...I think if you put your mind to it, you can do it... it was about pitching the project, pitching who we are, assembling a crew and the more people we had the more of a full package I was able to present to vendors.

EP: How far in advance did you start this process?

ML: Four to eight weeks out. I guess I never finished my answer about my writer/producer role. Practically, it was a nightmare for me because, you know, eight weeks out, six weeks out, probably even four weeks out or two weeks out, we were still adjusting the script... writing is a really difficult thing for me and it doesn't come to me naturally. So it was difficult for me to deal with the practical, logistical side of producing while I was still embroiled in trying to finalize the script.

EP: Why did the script go through so many changes?

ML: I knew what I wanted in my head but it was hard for me to convey on paper and so a lot of it was kind of a writer development process for me... It's three minutes long, it's not a piece that's supposed to go into great depth about anything. It's a fun, up-lifting, inspirational piece that I hope is visually striking but also just kind of celebrates Woman, and all the different layers of it... Often times I got pulled by advice to try to add more depth to the characters, more depth to the narrative... But this was never supposed to be that and finally after like three or four rounds of going from great concept, to OK, to really bad, to worse, I basically said, "I can't do any of this. This is not what I set out to do," and Eugene [Yang, director] was 100% on the same page as I. And we just said, "We're going to go back to the first concept and we're going to develop it from there." And that's what we did and it taught me that basically, it's really great getting other feedback but at the end of the day you have to stick to what your original intention was.

EP: With Midnight Ride, which you also produced, you were dealing with an entirely different animal: the film's shot at night, outside and involves motion shots on public roads.

ML: That was definitely a totally different kind of production... We just had to roll with whatever happened... we got kicked out of the one location, we at one point lost the director because he was on another bicycle and wasn't keeping up with our actors. But to me it's such an L.A. story... people don't think of L.A. as a place where you're anywhere but inside your car... but this is a phenomenon that goes on... I just thought it was a really, really great slice of L.A. to celebrate.

--Emily Poenisch