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Here's an old interview from 1998 about Sunsets. These are excerpts... read the whole thing at the link below.
Sunsets
By Jeremy Richards
Eric Nakamurais one of the founders of Asian-American (and all around cool) magazine GIANT ROBOT, a journal of West coast youth culture that's found a dedicated audience from coast to coast. Teaming up with his cousin, Michael Idemoto, Nakamura has recently made...
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Sunsets
By Jeremy Richards
Eric Nakamurais one of the founders of Asian-American (and all around cool) magazine GIANT ROBOT, a journal of West coast youth culture that's found a dedicated audience from coast to coast. Teaming up with his cousin, Michael Idemoto, Nakamura has recently made...
Here’s an old interview from 1998 about Sunsets. These are excerpts… read the whole thing at the link below. SunsetsBy Jeremy Richards Eric Nakamura is one of the founders of Asian-American (and all around cool) magazine GIANT ROBOT, a journal of West coast youth culture that’s found a dedicated audience from coast to coast. Teaming up with his cousin, Michael Idemoto, Nakamura has recently made the leap from editor to film maker, but the leap from print to film has done nothing to diminish the impact of his work. Eric and Mike spent almost four years working on their first film, “Sunsets”. The directors follow the last summer a group of young friends spend together before they each go their seperate way. The film plays on the dynamics in a group of young men, looking for something to do during a sleepy, hot summer. Although the summer is one in which nothing seems to happen, all of the characters are aware of the impending end to their relationship. Thankfully, there is no spoon-fed, generic focus on the characters various racial and social backgrounds as they pass the summer hanging out on the beach, breaking into cars and spending time together. Instead, Eric and Mike decide to let their characters become entities for themselves, not paper-cut representations of different aspects of society. Flak caught up to the two of them and discussed the arduous process of making an independent film, along with the motivations that lay behind making a movie in the first place. Interview with Eric Nakamura Flak: So what are you guys doing to get your film seen? Eric Nakamura: Well, we were showing it any time we could show it, anytime we could get a screening in some city, we would take it. We just did San Francisco again, a little while ago, and so we just keep pushing it. And we have this distribution with a company called Phaedra. I don’t know if you’ve heard of Takeshi’s Gonin, but he distributed Gonin and some other Japanese movies. It’s still fringe kind of stuff, but it’s a lot bigger. He’s going to start it off for midnight shows in December in LA. Flak: What kind of responses were you getting from people who saw the movie? EN: Oh man…everytime it shows, we get a few people who walk out. They’re expecting, like, “Apocalypse Now,” or something really huge, and then they look it at, and it’s black and white and kind of gritty and there’s some language in it…so they’re like “fuck, we gotta get out of here, forget this” and they just know within the first five minutes that it’s not their kind of film. So there’s that, but then that’s a small minority, and on the whole people really like it. I really get very little criticism on it. Flak: As far as the cars in movie, where did you get them, and how did you get to break them up like that? EN: There were...
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That's me in 97. Or was in 96. I don't remember anymore. The camera with a 9mm lens. I'm sitting in the back of the Mercury Marauder. I think it was a 64. We bought the car to use in the film and drove it all summer. It's almost like a modern Dickens tale or something. Making a film, buying a vintage car, and cruising around Watsonville. A fun summer for sure.
I wish I knew where this was at. It's...
That’s me in 97. Or was in 96. I don’t remember anymore. The camera with a 9mm lens. I’m sitting in the back of the Mercury Marauder. I think it was a 64. We bought the car to use in the film and drove it all summer. It’s almost like a modern Dickens tale or something. Making a film, buying a vintage car, and cruising around Watsonville. A fun summer for sure. I wish I knew where this was at. It’s obviously a movie theater, but it’s empty. That’s Betty Hallock from the LA Times – an old friend of mine from UCLA. That’s Mike Idemoto in the center (co director, actor, etc) and his best friend from way back, Craig Wong (who was also in the film).
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Yeah, it was a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. I made film. That's me with the shorter hair, in the back row, that's my cousin Mike next to me with the shortest hair in 1997. Our film Sunsets played the festival in SF, and I think that's where this shot was taken.
That's Chris Chan Lee on the left. He just came out with Undoing and made Yellow. Justin Lin next to him who made Shopping for...