 The
Chinese say there is an old man under the moon, sometimes known
as the god of love, who has a book and writes down the names of
people who are meant to be together. He then takes his red thread
and ties one end on the ankle of one baby, and the other around
the ankle of the other baby. They may grow up separate, but the
string draws them closer and closer together until they finally
meet.
This Chinese oral tradition was the source of inspiration for
filmmaker Cynthia Liu’s debut Red
Thread. Recently entered into the Visual Communications
Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film and Video Festival*, the short
film is a boy meets girl romantic comedy. Cynthia Liu chose the
genre because of everyone’s permanent interest in relationships
and love, a universal theme. As an aspiring writer and filmmaker,
she discovered that she needed to have reels or footage of some
sort to show her ability to direct and realizing her script. That’s
where Red Thread comes in, perfect as a short, to showcase her
talent, especially in writing.
Cynthia started out writing poetry at Berkeley, where she completed
her graduate studies in English. Discovering that poetry was not
her strongest suit, she switched to short stories, and eventually
added screenwriting to her resume. (?) As a writer who grew up
loving movies as much as she loved books, it was no surprise that
she took on screenwriting. However, as if the writing process
wasn’t already painful enough, she had no prior screenwriting
experience: “It was SO painful!” she laments. But
as Maxine Hong Kingston told her, “Pleasure perfects the
work.” As a writer, Cynthia says, “You’re giving
yourself homework everyday for the rest of your life and you need
to realize that…it’s so painful…it never stops
being painful, but you get better and it’s satisfying.”
With
her strong writing abilities, Cynthia did extremely well on her
first screenplay, which won a contest sponsored by the Coalition
of Asians in Entertainment. She knew how incredible it was that
she won, and how lucky she was to meet so many seasoned professionals
in the Asian sector of the industry, like the Joy Luck Club’s
Janet Yang; she has kept in touch with all of them.
In fact, she assembled her stellar cast through auditions by contacting
Lodestone Theatre Ensemble, East West Players, and Visual Communications
(VC). Through Eddie Mui, lead of Red Thread, she found her equally
talented crew, which included editors who have worked on large
commercial films like Crazy Beautiful and Jerry Maguire. Cynthia
is extremely satisfied with her romantic comedy that features
all Asian American talent. Although she does not always write
strictly Asian American roles, she acknowledges the underrepresentation
of Asians in the media, especially males.
For her next project, Cynthia wants to do another short on film:
this time ten minutes, as opposed to the twenty-five minute long
Red Thread shot on digital video. She hopes to make a film with
as little dialogue as possible, using mostly visual storytelling,
like a silent film. Cynthia never seems to run out of ideas—she
says with a million and one ideas, you can never run out of inspiration:
“What’s hard is having enough energy to execute them
all.” For the inspiration-impaired, she suggests writing
everyday, even if it’s just three paragraphs. With the rise
of digital video, Cynthia encourages budding filmmakers to experiment
and shoot footage as frequently as possible, especially since
digital video is such a forgiving medium.
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