The Making of My First Feature Film

About five years ago I was getting a mani/pedi at the Olive and June salon in Beverly Hills for the world premiere at SXSW of I Will Make You Mine, my directorial debut. I was heading to Austin in just a few days, where I would celebrate my movie with audiences, my family, and the cast/crew.

My nails were still wet when the texts started pouring in. I asked my manicurist to dig through my purse so I could turn off my phone. And that’s when I saw all the notifications: “So sorry!” “What a bummer.” “UGH.” “😭.”

For many I know, the cancellation of the SXSW film festival was the first large signal that the pandemic was real. I’ve spoken/written publicly a lot about the disenfranchised grief¹ I felt during that time.

One of my first thoughts when SXSW got cancelled: “WTF am I gonna do with all these postcards?!?” I still have so many that I can’t quite toss.

I Will Make You Mine was lucky to have had terrific press (we still have a 100% Rotten Tomato rating) and it has streamed everywhere over the last five years, from Paramount Plus to Peacock (here’s where you can currently watch it). But 2020 was a really strange time to self-promote and I have had to let go of wondering if my movie could’ve gotten more attention/reached a larger audience if it hadn’t been released then.

Q&A for the virtual premiere of IWMYM

My friends

Hilah

Johnson and

Chris Sharpe

² helped out by recording/editing some BTS videos during production. All of the music is composed/performed by two of the stars Goh Nakamura and Yea-Ming Chen. I had grand plans for the shorts to be on the Blu-Ray DVD, but that never happened — so instead, I quietly released them amidst the chaos of Black Lives Matter and Stop Asian Hate. The videos premiered on a YouTube channel I now need to delete, because it gets too much spam. So now they live here³, as one short “making of the movie” doc.

with actress Joy Osmanski and producer Dave Boyle (writer/director of the first two movies in the trilogy — IWMYM is the third)

A lot has happened in the last five years. Almost everybody’s lives have changed and pivoted (Olive and June no longer has ANY salons!⁴) and whether that’s for the better/worse… I’m not going to ponder the meaning of all that. Today, I’m just proud I made a project that still means a lot to me, and am glad I have a space to commemorate and share.

1. A term I learned from career coach/grief specialist

Laverne McKinnon

, which she writes more about here.

2. Check out Hilah’s Substack and Chris’ as well.

3. They’re also on my personal YouTube Channel, if you prefer to watch there.

4. Here’s where I now go to get my nails done, but mostly I paint them at home.