Writer/director Tze Chun (2008 Project: Involve) is an accomplished filmmaker with numerous shorts under his belt, including the remarkable Windowbreaker, which played the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and was in this year's Project: Involve Filmmakers Showcase.

Wasting no time, this year Tze shot his debut feature The Kids Are Alright, which was developed out of the short Windowbreaker. Film Independent talks with Tze about the film, which recently wrapped principal production. To learn more about Tze's films, go to: http://www.tzechun.com/

Q: Your feature The Kids Are Alright is based on your acclaimed short film,
Windowbreaker. Could you talk about the process of developing the story into a feature length film? How long did it take you, and when did you decide to attempt it?

A: Unlike a lot of short films, Windowbreaker was never intended to be a feature. It wasn't until I moved out to LA last July that I started thinking about expanding it. All in all, it took about a year, since I was finishing drafts of two other screenplays and writing as my day job on ABC's short-lived Cashmere Mafia. It seems crazy looking back on it, but I'd be at Sony writing all day for Cashmere, and at around nine I would go to the Santa Monica Pier, play half-an-hour of ski-ball, then work on my own stuff until midnight or so. I think I just like writing. This last month of production has been the longest that I've gone without opening Final Draft, and I can't wait to get back to it.

Q: Were there specific things on the feature that you wanted to approach differently than you did on Windowbreaker -- either the visual look, the acting style, the overall tone --or did the short really provide the template for what you were doing with the feature?

A: I knew I wanted The Kids Are Alright to be more polished than Windowbreaker, while still retaining the documentary quality of the short. I experimented a lot with the short, and though I didn't know it at the time, it was a good trial run for the feature, to find out what worked and what didn't. Something else I wanted to attempt for the feature was me not having to hold the camera, and the producer not having to hold the boom. Mission accomplished! But seriously, the crew for the feature was more than ten times the size of the crew for Windowbreaker.

Q: Tell us the basics of your shoot: When and where did you shoot, and what format did you shoot on?

A: We shot on HD. The film takes place in Boston, but since the crew is from the NY area, we ended up splitting the shoot between the two places. We also did about eight days in Jersey.

Q: Who was your DP and how did you come to work with him or her? Also, how did you come to work with your producer, Mynette Louie?

A: I saw our DP Chris Teague's short film Thorndike, which he wrote and directed, at the Woodstock Film Festival. I ran up to him after the screening to tell him how amazing the film is. He was in Columbia Grad when I was in undergrad, but we never crossed paths. He's shot three shorts that have showed at Sundance, and this is his first feature. He's a DP, but he thinks like a director, and it was a great experience working with him. I met Mynette during Tribeca last year at a big filmmaker dinner. I did some work on Andrew Bujalski's Mutual Appreciation, which she co-produced, but we didn't meet up during that shoot. I sincerely believe she's the only producer in America that could have put together this movie on our budget.

Q: Were there any particularly challenging aspects to the shoot?

A: There's a saying about independent film: "Quick, Cheap, and Good. You get two of those." And, like a lot of independent films, we were trying to do all three... But, in general the shoot was extremely smooth. We didn't go over schedule on any of our days, the crew got along, and every time we brought the camera out, the rain went away. I feel really lucky.

Q: What is your post schedule?

A: As fast as humanly possible. We've been running hard drives to our editor Anna
Boden (Half Nelson, Sugar) for the last month. Right now she's in New Hampshire editing in an art colony. Before we head back to New York, we're gonna drop off another few hundred gigs, then go on a tax-free shopping spree.

Q: How would you describe the filmic style of The Kids Are Alright?

A: "What if you got Sven Nykvist drunk and pushed him into a room full of Chinese people?" Alternately: "The Brady Bunch meets Death of a Salesman."

Q: Can you talk about casting the film, and also about how you work with
younger actors?

A: We were lucky enough to be able to bring on Susan Shopmaker as our casting
director. We always knew that finding our three main characters would be the hardest part. We went with Cindy Cheung (Lady in the Water) for our mother. She made the character of Elaine real in a way that I'd never imagined. For our kids we cast Michael Chen and Crystal Chiu, two unknowns. Michael and Crystal had previously been cast as featured extras in Transformers 2 (the scene was cut before shooting). I think their parents were happy to have them cast in a movie where they don't get vaporized. As for working with child actors, everyone always says it's going to be a nightmare, but I still think I enjoy working with kids better than most adults. I would say it's mainly about not settling during the audition process. We looked at 250 kids from schools and from open casting calls, and Mynette and I didn't stop until we found two kids that we really fell in love with. There's three-page long dialogue scenes in the script, some of them done in a single take, and we knew that we needed to find kids who could pull it off. Windowbreaker was more improvised -- a lot of time when the kids are talking to each other, it's actually me or the producer off screen asking them questions and guiding them through the scene. I thought I'd be working the same way with the feature, but Crystal and Michael came to set the first day with all their lines memorized. So, we pretty much went word-for-word in the script. Child actors are amazing because they can be so natural, but the trick is to make them comfortable about the material and take the time to explain the scene to them. The best thing about working with kids is that they are constantly making choices that are unexpected and surprising. The main thing I had to keep in mind when I was directing them was to not underestimate their abilities.

Q: Now that you've completed principal photography, is there any advice you would give to a director about to shoot his or her first feature?

A: Make sure you surround yourself with people that you trust, both artistically and personally. When you work on a 14-hour day, there will be at least 60 minutes a day where you will have effectively lost your sh*t. You want people around you who will tell you when you have bad ideas and support you when you have good ones. Also, drink an energy drink immediately after you finish lunch.
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Tze Chun
thecomplications@gmail.com
(646) 258-3444
www.tzechun.com
www.windowbreakermovie.com