INTRODUCTION
Red Doors is the first
feature film by writer-director Georgia Lee. The film follows the Wongs,
a bizarre and dysfunctional Chinese-American family, as they struggle to
communicate and ultimately to understand each other. The film was shot in
Manhattan, New Jersey, a Buddhist monastery in upstate New York, and at
the director’s own childhood home in Connecticut.
BACKGROUND
In December 2003, Georgia Lee was toiling away at
Harvard Business School, where she had enrolled at the insistence of her
parents. She had already worked for a few years at the prestigious New
York management consulting firm McKinsey & Company and was pursuing her
MBA. However, having taken several leaves of absence from her job to make
short films, Georgia knew that her heart truly lay in directing. Thus she
spent her time in finance class secretly watching films on her laptop and
daydreaming about future cinematic endeavors. While visiting her family
during the holidays, Georgia discovered her father painstakingly
transferring old home videos from their fragile VHS state to a digital
format. Fixated by over 100 hours of video spanning more than 15 years
of her family’s history, Georgia was inspired to write a story that would
incorporate some of this documentary footage into a story about a modern
Chinese-American family.
Georgia originally met her producing partners Jane Chen
and Mia Riverton as undergraduates at Harvard. In February 2004, after a
few years of pursuing alternate careers – Georgia and Jane in the business
world at McKinsey, Mia in the studio world at Fox Entertainment– the three
decided to join forces to make Red Doors. Despite their families’
consternation, Jane quit her job, Georgia dropped out of business school,
and Mia put her other projects on hold to move to New York for the May 30th
start date. Georgia laughs as she remembers, “My mother really thought I
had gone mad: I quit my job at McKinsey, dropped out of Harvard, and threw
all my meager savings into this tiny little film. My mother could not
begin to comprehend why I would give up the safe, brightly lit path of
business for the risky world of film. I think she was really quite
ashamed of me – she even stopped taking me to potlucks!” But despite
their parents’ protests the three girls banded together and formed a
production company, Blanc de Chine Entertainment, to make Red Doors
and to create future projects with an Asian-American and/or strong female
focus.
From inception to completion, Red Doors has been
a truly independent film. Despite interest from studios and film
financiers, the producers decided to retain creative control by raising
funds exclusively from friends and family. Mia Riverton explains, “As
this was to be our first feature, we wanted to have the freedom to make it
on our own terms. We believed deeply in the film and didn’t want to wait
around for someone to give us permission.”
CASTING
Because the producers originally viewed their film as a
scrappy independent project, they had planned on simply casting unknown
local talent in and around New York City. Georgia remembers the long
casting sessions in New York, “I think that I had seen every Asian woman
in the city, and I was despairing. I still hadn’t found my Samantha. My
co-producer joked that they were probably all toiling away at investment
banks and didn’t have time to audition!” Fortunately, Georgia’s filmmaker
friend Eric Byler called up one day with a suggestion. Jacqueline Kim,
the star of his breakout indie feature Charlotte Sometimes (for
which she was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award), had gotten a
copy of the Red Doors script and wanted to
read for the role of Samantha. Ms. Kim liked the script so much that she
sent it to her close friend and actress Freda Foh Shen to see if she might
be interested in playing the role of the mother. Freda, in turn, sent the
script to her friend Tzi Ma and insisted that he read it. A veteran
Hollywood actor in such films as The Quiet American, Rush Hour,
and The Ladykillers, Tzi recalls, “Freda said ‘you have to
read this script.’ I told her I don’t do independent films. But she
insisted. So I sat down and read the first page, and then the second, and
started leaning closer and closer in. I thought, “Damn it. I’m going to
do this film after all.’”
They ran into the biggest hurdle in casting Samantha’s
ex-boyfriend, Alex. Mia, who oversaw the casting process, recalls, “It
was incredibly difficult to find a compelling man who could act AND sing
AND play the guitar well.” Casting director Susan Shopmaker suggested
Georgia consider LA actor Rossif Sutherland. Rossif showed up at his LA
audition with a song he had written based on the script. Georgia
remembers meeting him, “It was funny because he had just started taking
guitar lessons only a few months before. But I loved his music and felt
that his essence was perfect for the character.” Over the course of
several weeks of rehearsals with music supervisor Sue Jacobs, Rossif
transformed from a guy hunched over picking at his guitar, to a confident,
sexy rock star.
PRODUCTION
Production was a friends and family affair, with
everything from locations to craft services to wardrobe being donated by
supportive individuals. A highlight of the shoot was the evening of the
potluck scene, when the parents of all three producers as well as various
family friends gathered for a filmed party at the Lee house with cast and
crew, blurring the line between fact and fiction. Jane laughs remembering
the night, “It was the first time Georgia’s, Mia’s and my parents had ever
met. They all looked at each other and asked, ‘where did we go wrong?!”
POST PRODUCTION
In one of several fortunate twists of fate for Red
Doors, Alan Oxman (editor for Todd Solondz and head of The Edit Center
in New York) heard about the small film and asked to see some early
footage. Alan was so impressed by what he saw that he invited the
filmmakers to workshop Red Doors as part of the Final Cut Pro
classes at his editing school,. In fact, Alan’s business partner Youna
Kwak was hired as the editor on Red Doors.
Meanwhile, music supervisor Susan Jacobs (The
Village, Monsoon Wedding, Girlfight) introduced Georgia to
accomplished composer Robert Miller (Why We Fight, 2005 Sundance
Jury Prize Winner). Robert in turn brought on two other seasoned
professionals: sound designer Bill Chesley and sound mixer Tom Jucarone.
In addition, Robert enlisted his coterie of world class musicians from the
Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and other renowned ensembles to record the
score.
PERSONAL FILMMAKING
As Georgia reflects back on her experience making her
first feature film, she recalls some of the best advice she received from
working with Martin Scorsese on Gangs Of New York. “Marty always
encouraged me to write about what I know. And he always stressed how
important it is to keep on working. Work, work, work. Don’t stop. I
remember he was reading a biography of Carol Reed and how he finally lost
his nerve after bad reviews of his films and stopped directing. Marty
said that he hoped that he would never give in to media pressure. I
remember being absolutely shocked that someone of his stature could ever
even think about stopping his work. And I realized then how precious and
fragile creative energy can be.”
This first feature is perhaps Georgia’s most personal
story. She explains, “The home video is interesting to me because I am so
fascinated by the role of memory in our collective experiences. Is what
we remember actually what happened, or is it some amalgam of
storytelling? Is it a new entity that is a blend of objective reality,
subjective storytelling, recreation, and imagination? That’s why Red
Doors is so personal to me. It is a story inspired by the true lives
of my family and friends that has crystallized as part historical reality
and part narrative filmmaking. It is at once a fictionalized version of
my memory and an ode to my real-life family.” |
