Born in Taiwan, Barney Cheng arrived in America with his family in 1983. He graduated Stanford, attended Oxford University in England and was, in short, an overachiever whose choice of studies (he majored in political science) hardly broadcast his creative ambitions. No wonder his poor mother was beside herself when Cheng announced post-graduation that he was off to New York to try his hand at acting. But dear old mom need not have worried and no less a filmmaker than Woody Allen finally put her fears to rest: Allen cast her son in 2002's Hollywood Ending, a role that won him raves. Cheng is now a quadruple threat (he acts, writes, directs and produces), and with the film Steps, Cheng delivers one of the more complex narratives among the shorts.

EP: Were your parents supportive of your decision to go into a creative field?

BC: [When] I moved to New York immediately after college graduation to act, my mom was shocked... she sort of expected me to be a lawyer or something professional... But then I did a movie with Woody Allen, I co-starred with him in Hollywood Ending, and my part was substantial enough that people noticed... from then on my mom was supportive (laughs).

EP: You received raves for Hollywood Ending and you travelled to Cannes to promote the film with Woody. I think a lot of people who experienced that might have sniffed at turning their hand back to the nitty-gritty of short films. What informed your choice?

BC: I think I was inspired by working with Woody. I sort of looked at his career and what he did. ... I was really inspired by how he pretty much creates his own projects...so I moved to L.A. and realized I really wanted to start creating my own projects, so I actually got a degree from UCLA screenwriting.

EP: Let's talk about the casting in Steps. Tell me about the young girl Kiara Muhammed.

BC: Oh she's amazing... when we were auditioning all these little kids came in and read and I looked at my producer and I go, "Oh my God, the script is too sophisticated for the kids. They don't understand it." So I was kind of worried, but she had that grounded quality about her... she totally got it.

EP: Are you tougher on the actors because you come from that background, or easier on them because you understand the challenges they face?

BC: I don't think I'm tougher or easier, I think I know how to cast because I go through that process everyday almost... .It's like shopping, you kind of know what you want but you can't really describe it but then when you're in the department store you're like, "Oh, that's it. That's exactly what I'm looking for." I don't think I'm tough... actors understand me because I'm an actor so I speak their language. But I don't direct much and I learned that from Woody... he makes a couple of adjustments but he just lets the actors do it and he trusts the actors and I learned that from him.

EP: Do you prefer being behind the camera or in front of it?

BC: I prefer both but not simultaneously. You know Woody does both, he acts, he directs. I love writing, I love directing, and I love acting, but just one hat at a time.

EP: Did Project:Involve assign you this particular script or did you have a say in the film you worked on?

BC: We read all the submissions and that was the only one that resonated... I'm a very upbeat kind of person and I feel like Steps is about the everyday miracle that happens in a city.

EP: How did you go about incorporating the French New Wave style?

BC: The French New Wave didn't really have the kind of production values that we have nowadays. They shot a lot of stuff and had to piece everything together... they sort of had to do the best they [could] and a lot of jump cuts were a result of not having enough coverage... that's exactly what happened to us. I mean, we only had three days to shoot and because we were dealing with kids we could only shoot a certain number of hours so we really had to move very quickly. So even though we shot all the stuff that we needed when I started editing I realized, "Oh my God, I should have got that... and oh God, this doesn't fit." So we sort of pieced everything together like a French New Wave filmmaker would have done then.

EP: At its heart, Project:Involve is a program that promotes diversity. Have you faced any challenges on that front?

BC: I think the world's definitely changing. I mean from an actor's perspective, way back in the 90's it was really difficult but now I feel like every time I go to auditions you see all color, all ethnicities. If a role calls for a doctor or an intern or a lawyer, you will see a spectrum of people... I do get roles that are specifically for Asian American or Asian or Chinese but a lot of roles I go out for are just any ethnicity. As a director... when I do my casting I see everybody and really we just pick the best actor. I mean for Steps, we saw Asian American, we saw African American, we saw everybody for the leading lady as well as the little kid and, you know, those two people were the best of all the actors that came in.

--Emily Poenisch

---

It was a circuitous route that led Ligiah Villalobos to her rightful calling as a writer. For a decade she scaled Hollywood's executive ranks holding positions including Director of Programming for Buena Vista Productions, (she oversaw all television production in Latin America), Director of Current Programming for the WB network and Vice President of Creative Affairs for Esparza/Katz Productions. During that period she also oversaw Walt Disney's prestigious Writers Fellowship Program and Director's Training Program. Villalobos charmingly refers to herself as a "baby writer," but in short order she has accrued a string of credits including staff writer on the NBC show ED and Head Writer on the Nick Jr. series Go, Diego! Go!. She also wrote and executive produced Under the Same Moon and co-produced Dancing in September. Currently, Villalobos is developing a trio of projects: a biopic, a historical seven hour mini-series, and Diego Ascending for Salma Hayek's company Ventanazul. Despite that dizzying work schedule, Villalobos has somehow found the time to mentor time and time again: this year she took on her fifth Project:Involve fellow.

EP: Why is it important that successful people make the time to help those coming up?

LV: Because so many don't. Really, the bottom line is... 99% of the people that have a great deal of success do not do it. And out of the people who are actually really successful, there's even a lesser amount who [are] women, or a person of color. So the ability for someone who is Latino or African American or Asian or whatever they may be, to actually meet someone like them or someone who has been able to have any kind of success, I'm not just talking about, you know, major, major success I'm just talking about being able to make a living... there are so few of us in the industry who actually have had that privilege that I see it as an obligation.

EP: Do you find that you benefit from mentoring these young people?

LV: Absolutely. Good talent is good talent and I get really turned on by good talent... And I love what the new community of filmmakers are thinking about... there was no YouTube when I first started volunteering, there weren't any cameras that people could actually afford... [now] there's all of these different [ways] you can get your stuff out there and so having the ability to talk to these new filmmakers... opens up your mind.

EP: Did you have a mentor?

LV: There were actually two people who were very vital to me and it was because I actually didn't know that I could write until about nine years ago so I didn't come into the writing process until very, very late. I was an executive for the Walt Disney Company... and for one year I became the person in charge of their writing fellowship program and their directors training program so it was really the first time that I was dealing directly on a weekly basis with filmmakers and writers... .there was a writer [Don Scott] there who said to me, "You know you should be a writer, you shouldn't be an executive." I actually thought [he was] crazy because I had never written anything in my life.

EP: And the other mentor?

LV: The other person who has been really, really important in my life in terms of my writing career is Reggie Bythewood (Dancing in September, Notorious) and Reggie had actually come through the writing fellowship program years before I ran it, but I contacted him as a success story for him to come and talk to the new fellows... he was actually the one we who told me... "You have to quit your job and you have to figure out if the writing is the thing you're going to be doing because I think it's what you should be doing." He also gave me a $1,500 camera and told me, "I think you should be a director too so use the camera and go practice."

EP: Los Angeles is thought of as such a liberal and progressive town and yet its core creative industry still needs diversity programs. Why do you think that is?

LV: Well, I actually have a theory [that] comes from having lived in New York... the most striking difference that I saw [is that as compared to L.A.,] New York [has] a subway system [where] you are forced to interact with all kinds of people... different races or different social economic levels... In Los Angeles... because you spend all day in traffic by yourself in cars, you really don't have to go outside of your environment. And unfortunately, where most of the jobs are, and where most of the industry is, it's in Los Angeles... you know I was the only Latino working at Disney when I was working there, I was the only Latina when I was at the WB in the development department. We had an African American there and we had a Latina in the programming department but it's like them being forced to look at someone that looks like me I think made a difference.

EP: And yet diversity is also about the health and wealth of storytelling, which is good business.

LV:I can only speak for my community, which is Latino, you know, there are 40 million of us in this country: that is more than the entire population of Canada. We are lucky if we get a Latino themed movie made by a studio every three to five years so you have all of these studios that are missing an opportunity to reach an audience that is 40 million strong. We now have more Latinos living in this country than African Americans but the studios have figured out how to market [to] African Americans and they're still very much in the early stages of [figuring] out how to market to a community that is as diverse as Latinos... So I think that part of the reason why these programs are important and part of the reason why it is important for them to see someone like me or to talk to someone like me, is for them not to get discouraged because if you look at the numbers, and you look at, how many Latino series, or how many shows are on the air that have a Latino lead... I mean, we've got Ugly Betty!...At the end of the day it's really all about money too, and you cannot ignore 40 million people for ever, you just can't.

--Emily Poenisch

---

Seung Hyun Yoo, aka Shy, arrived in America from South Korea as a foreign student in 1997. She was twenty-five years old, on her own, and she never left. Her family thought she was "crazy" for making the leap: in Korea she had enjoyed a successful career as a program director and producer for an educational cable channel. But Shy, as almost everyone calls her, never looked back; she redirected her considerable talents to both her work at the California Institute of the Arts (she's currently a post-production supervisor), and to the making of documentaries. As a Project:Involve fellow, Shy edited not one but two of the short films: Market Price and Steps.

EP: What did your parents think of your choice to go to America and pursue filmmaking?

S: From the Asian parent's point of view, a girl who went to a good school and became a producer making educational programs, [this] was a good job... so they were shocked at first but in general my parents are very progressive and they're very supportive so they were like, "OK if that's what you really want to do, you should go and do it."

EP: The theme for this project was City Stories. You've previously worked on two documentaries which focused on Los Angeles stories: Daughters of the Cloth, which focused on a Korean immigrant family and the garment industry; and Los Angeles Plays itself, which looked at the city's representation in film. Can you talk about your relationship with the city?

S: When I came to the States, Los Angeles became my second home town so it grew inside of me... your [first] home town... it was just there, so you're not really studying [it] because it's part of your skin. But the second home town, every day you have to adjust yourself to the city, so it always gives me different perspectives and also the desire that I want to go explore... one side of me is like I want to be a part of this town, but the other side of me is I want to be an observer... it's an ambivalent relationship.

EP: There are almost forty fellows in Project:Involve and only two female editors. What do you think is behind that small number?

S: Well, I mean, when people look at the movies they just see this image... Not many people really look at the behind-the-scenes to see how these images are put together. So, I think a lot of people have more desire to make their own stories and overall are just, like, "Oh, I want to make movies," but [are] not really going for this technically driven post-production part.

EP: Do you think women have to work harder to prove themselves in the technical fields?

S: I can't say that. It's not always applicable that way. If I go out to these tech conferences, it's really hard to find a woman who is a technician but that's not always the same [with] editors.

EP: Your Project:Involve mentor is Frieda Lee Mock who is the Chair of the Documentary Executive Committee and Governor of the Documentary Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. What's it like to suddenly have her ear as a young filmmaker?

S: She had this very motherly energy so I wasn't that intimidated... She made me very comfortable. I asked her about [my] career, how I can move up and grow as an editor, she's like, "OK, let's look around. I have some friends...,"she was very practical. She wanted to see my resume and she gave me very practical, specific advice, like, you need to cut it down to one page and let's change the order... she was very detailed. And then the other thing is, when we met the first time, she invited me to her office... she just let me watch her cutting with her editor... that's really rare in this industry. I was actually kind of moved by the fact that she invited me to watch.

EP: You edited Steps and Market Price. Can you talk about the differences in working on those two projects?

S: Market Price is a very dialogue driven story so when we cut the very first rough cut it was over five minutes so both the director and I were panicked [about] how can we cut the dialogue down to under three minutes, and [how] is it going to work when we cut the dialogue out. So that was the biggest challenge for us: how can we make this dialogue driven story very condensed within three minutes. Steps is very open material so for me it was enjoyable in the sense that I can play with any shot... [in] one rough cut I can drag Scene One to Scene Five, and then Scene Three can be Scene Two the next day, but every time I do these changes you can still make the story. It was more experimental.

EP: Peter Chen, the director of Market Price, spoke incredibly highly of you. How important is it for you as an editor to have a good connection with your director?

S: Essential. Really, without a stable, good relationship with the director, the editor cannot perform... if you don't like your director, if you cannot trust your director [the] project is not going to be great at the end. You have to be on the same page for any decision with your director; either the director is good at persuading you or the editor must sell or be able to persuade the director to make cuts, which means you have to really respect each other. If somebody just dominates the other person, it's not going to happen that way.

EP: People often think of editing as a solitary existence. How do you see it?

S: In your editing room, it's a battle field; you are having endless battles with your footage whether that's five hundred hours of documentary or three hours of narrative footage. [With] every single cut you have to have a reason to have these two shots matching together so even though you're in this one small room without any windows, an editor is battling every moment to grab the best out of it.

--Emily Poenisch