Part 1: PREPRODUCTION

Part 2: PRODUCTION

We’re proud to present the teaser trailer to our newest music video project with David Choi!

David is one of our best friends and we’re so glad to be working with him again on a third video. We have a history of music videos with him now, one each year. And each time they get better and better. Let’s take a look at the past videos we’ve done for him

“Won’t Even Start” (2009)

“That Girl” (2010)

July 7th…can’t wait to add to the collection! (We know the release date was originally the 5th. We’re so sorry, but we had to change it to comply with some external factors. Wasn’t our choice. Sorry for the misinformation)

Some teaser photos from the set…

A mere 2.5 weeks ago we began preproduction on our latest music video, “What Does It Take” by Dave Days. Another stressful, but efficiently quick turn around and we’re proud to present to you the Dave Days x Wong Fu collaboration. Enjoy!

We were very excited to make this video for Dave. Not only is he the #1 most subscribed musician on YouTube (that’s right, more than Justin Bieber or the Jonas Bros), but it was also a new style of music that we hadn’t done before. In addition to that we knew that Dave had a huge audience that might not know WFP, so this meant the pressure was on to put our best foot forward to a new group of fans.

One of the biggest challenges of the idea that we decided upon was the fact that we essentially had to coordinate and produce TWO productions. One being an actual theater set, and Two, the music video itself. We had to create a play. This meant sets and costumes and props. Luckily we met a Andy Kim who would be our awesome production designer. He created the stage set from literally a bare stage in just 1.5 days. Also Jae Park who pulled in some really great costumes. With all those pieces coming together, check out the video to see how the actual shoot went.

Behind-the-Scenes Making of “What Does It Take”

Fun Facts:

• Shot in 2 days at the David Henry Hwang Theater in Little Tokyo
• Recognize Jae, our costume designer? She was “Kelly” in our previous short “Too Fast”
• All the extras were found the day before through a Twitter callout. About 60 people in total came through. Thank you so much!!
• Amanda’s costume took inspiration from Baz Luhrmann’s “Romeo and Juliet”. We purposely put her wings upside down to make them point upward.
• The original idea had the evil boyfriend in the play as well, playing an evil king. We decided to remove him from the play to make it more clear.
• Yup, Dave’s signature Miley cardboard cutout makes a cameo, did you see her?
• Take a pause to look at the casting sheet in the beginning, there are some fun references.

Production Photos:
Check out the awesome production photos by Garrick at www.theyshootfilm.com. Thanks Garrick!

Just two weeks after the release of our last music video “Cali, Cali, Cali” for Interscope artist Alyssa Bernal, we’re right back into the indie scene with the release of our newest video, “Name” by the band afterschoolspecial. (one word, lowercase)

A good group of musicians headed by a friend and active community member Dan Matthews, afterschoolspecial is based in San Diego. They’ve grown a lot in their music over the last few years and we’re honored to be the ones to make their first music video off their first full length album, “It’s all in your head”.

Concept: The first decision we made with the band was that the video would not be a performance video. While we did want to show off the band, they wanted a video that had more of a story, rather than shots of them playing and singing. This is why the video has no band set up. This is also why we created the “office supply instruments”. We wanted to show what each member played, without cutting to a performance shot.

Female heroes and secret identities
The song’s topic is very clear. Dan raps about this mysterious, special girl who he knows so much about, yet strangely doesn’t even know her name. We knew that we wanted to make the video revolve around a very strong female lead, thinking that the song and video could be inspiring to young ladies who might watch it. In a broader sense, the song is also showing  that someone could know a lot about a girl on the surface, and still not know anything about who she really is. Often, girls have many layers of emotions and personalities, putting forth a strong face, when really, they are troubled inside. As a guy, I really respect many girls who have been through a lot personally, yet still hold it together on the outside. This is where the idea for a “secret identity” and “super heroine” came about, because we felt many girls have secret identities.

Why an office?
We wanted to bring the idea of a female superhero into everyday life. The initial idea had the video take place at a school, with Dan and the band members caught in detention. They would’ve be playing instruments made of school supplies, and Angela would’ve been saving them from an evil teacher. This would also relate to their name “afterschoolspecial”. But ultimately we decided that we wanted to make the video more “grown up”, so we thought, for someone older, what’s the equivalent of being stuck at school? Being stuck at work.

And so the story of Dan and his bandmate coworkers in the office was finalized. Angela is the mysterious girl that Dan knows little about, and just as they finally get to meet, the evil boss catches them and makes him and his friends all stay after. Just before they get separated, Dan gives Angela the drawing on the paper, which she later reveals as her symbol (like the bat signal for Batman). This is her cue to “transform” and go back to save the band. After an epic stapler war, and a helpful distraction from Paul Dateh, everyone escapes!

Production: The entire video was shot in one day at an office in San Diego. All the actors and extras were friends of the band. The great thing about the video was that it was all in one location, an indoor location. Everything was contained and we literally had this “set” to ourselves. This made shooting go much smoother and more comfortable (no need to worry about external interference)

The fight scene was done with Philip (the boss) and Angela pretending everything. At first we tried to see what it would look like if they really shot the staples. Sadly, the staples only went a few feet, and couldn’t even be seen on camera. So we removed all the staples from the staplers and decided that adding special effects later would look better anyway. The “enhanced” staple guns were done by our friend Eugene Gauran, the same friend who did the photo tornado in the “That Girl” music video. All the paper “explosions” were done just by throwing the paper on top of the actors, but props to Philip for having to really take a hit from the clip board and falling to the ground many takes!

Check out the pictures below to see how it all went down!

For more pics click HERE (link)

We know this video is different from recent music video projects, especially w/ the song genre, but we hope you enjoyed it. Gotta try new things sometimes ya kno?

The shoot was for another music video that we’re releasing in the coming weeks. Our good buddy Dan and his band “afterschoolspecial” asked us to make an mv for their first single off their upcoming debut album. Nov 2nd! The music video and album will be released! Here’s a teaser.

And for those who don’t have patience, you can listen to the song first down here.

Been at work like crazy these days, so a lot of new stuff will be coming your way.

WHAT TOOK SO LONG?
We shot the video in March, the week before we shoot the “That Girl” mv. We released the song and trailer at the end of April. So why’d it take so long to release the video? Yeah we know, we know. The main reason was because of “Funemployed”. At the time we shot the video, we weren’t sure when Funemployed would be released, and we wanted the music video to come out either toward the end of the series, or at the very end. Funemployed kept getting pushed back, and therefore the music video had to as well. Hope it was worth the wait.

The shoot for this video was probably one of the most intense music video shoots we’ve done, primarily because it involved the most people. We’ve never had so many cast members for one music video before, and the locations we were using were much grander and more unique than ever before.

LOCATIONS
We chose “Jason” and “Kyle’s” jobs based on the locations that we found. We didn’t first think, “Hey, Jason should work at a donut shop. Let’s go find a donut shop.” No, it was…”Hey, we got a donut shop, let’s make him work there.”
The donut shop was owned by a friend’s family. California Donuts, in Los Angeles (Koreatown). Go support them if you can! So much delicious. Trying to focus on the shoot with all those donuts right there was tough.

The warehouse was also courtesy of a friend’s family business. Located almost 1 hour away from us, getting all the cast members and dancers out there was a challenge, but everyone was up for it and made it out. This was a GREAT spot for us not only because it was so big and we had it all to ourselves, but also because we had forklifts and shipping crates at our fingertips. It made for a lot of unique shots and sets.

CAST
The other challenging part about making this video was organizing all the cast and dancers. We’ve never brought in this many friends and cameos (David Choi, Kina Grannis, FM, Jeri Lee, Chester See, Chris Dinh) along with other actors, plus a team of dancers. The dancers are from a hip hop team called CADC from UC Irvine. They were friends of Phil’s back in college and haven’t lost a step. It was great to have them be a part of the project. Overall though, directing 20 some people on set was new to us, but resulted in a hilarious, colorful, exciting cast.

PRODUCTION
A lot more can be said about the actual shoots (two long nights), but I think the video behind-the-scenes say it better. If you’re really interested in how WFP work, definitely watch both clips all the way through.

So there you have it. We’re so glad to finally share this project with you. HUGE props and thanks to David Choi who spent countless hours editing the song and making it sound as epic and catchy as it is. And to Kevin Wu for his dedication and giving us a reason to make this song and video. It was an honor to work with him on this.

Pass it on to your friends, request it at your school dances, make it your ringtone, post it on your facebook, play it for your grandma, get everyone to DANCE TO THIS SONG!

Saturday morning 8:00a. Started out with this photo. Preparing the space. Just send the set dresser and a PA to do that. Oh, that’s us too?

Somewhere in the middle, this happened.

A lot of this.

And this.

And 14 hours later, we finally ended with this photo of us with the band (special guest Paul Dateh!) We set out and accomplished the entire music video shoot in one day. Exhausting, but worth it. Feeling even more ambitious to sleep back in my own bed, we drove back up to LA that same night.

I’ll do a recap of the whole shoot later on, but if you don’t have the patience, you can see production photos from the whole day (spoilers) HERE (link). Thanks Brian! Hope these photos intrigued you. Can’t wait to show you what it was all about.

On a side note that I’ll also expand on later…it was our first time shooting in San Diego since our college days, when “Wong Fu Productions” was just starting. The 3 of us and other friends making some lip sync vids and short films. It was strange being back there 4 years since graduation and thinking how not much has changed (still us 3 chugging away at WFP) but, so much has changed at the same time. It was a bit nostalgic, but…that juxtaposition of our present selves and what WFP is right now, being put back in the place where WFP originally started, and working on a project that was similar to the things we began with… strange. In a good way. It all still feels close to me.

*ted wasn’t there because he wanted to stay back in LA to handle other WF business.

THE IDEA
Since the song itself narrates a very clear story, we made a conscious decision not to illustrate the video to song verbatim. Most of the video is a flashback of the couple. The chronology goes something like this:

Present: Noelle is at a cafe remembering / AJ is at the beach remembering
Past: AJ sings to Noelle at the loading dock (we are unsure of their relationship) / They used to go to the beach
Past: Noelle leaves AJ
Present: Noelle leaves cafe / AJ leaves beach / They meet each other / Noelle chooses to let go of AJ
Present: AJ goes to the beach by himself

I’m not sure if that breakdown was totally  necessary but that’s how we saw it. We purposely left it unclear as to how much time had passed. In terms of story, we tried to distance it from the lyrics while still hitting certain points. The song is about not being with the one you want. But we wanted to finish on a positive note. In the end, the feeling is actually of hope and thankfulness rather than bitterness and frustration. Everyone can relate to the lyrics and the video is no different. We all catch ourselves thinking of a certain someone. We find ourselves overwhelmed with emotion and memory when we see them, hear them, touch them. And not every story ends the way we think it will. The question is what you will take away from the experience.

THE CAST
Thanks to AJ, we were able to use friends for the entire cast. Noelle, the female lead, is actually from Hawaii so we flew her out to California for her part. It was definitely a fun atmosphere working with AJ and all his friends. Even the talented JR Aquino has an appearance.

PRODUCTION
We shot this back in February. A week prior we did some location scouting.

Recognize this spot in the video? Here is a pic of the precise momenT it was decided we used it. wows huh?

This video was a two day shoot. Our schedule was dictated by Noelle’s stay in California. And since she was in town for only two days, we had to work quickly.
Day 1
The first day we shot everything at the Hermosa Beach. A beautiful day and a chance to get some fresh air for once! As always we were racing against the sun to knock off all the shots we needed. Thankfully we were able to time everything and finish the closing scene just as the sun was setting.
Day 2
The second day was spent shooting around Los Angeles. We went to the Chinatown area and the Pasadena City Hall. We were on our toes because both areas were wide open in the public and it’d be easy to run into complications with security. In anticipation of possible problems, we had to prep well for these spots. The day before, we went to the loading dock and scoped it out from our car, sting style, to see what the traffic was like and if there were any security guards roaming. I felt like we were secret agent spies on reconnaissance mission. Luckily, on the day of the shoot, we didn’t encounter any problems. Nice. Some workers even came out to watch us shoot!
Finally, we closed the day at a cafe to shoot Noelle. We choose a local tea shop called Cofftea. Since there was really no way to hide, we had to be upfront with the owners and ask before we shot. Thankfully they were suuuuper nice and very interested in the project!

FUN FACTS
- This was the first music video we shot using some new equipment of ours, so we were very anxious, excited, but also apprehensive.
- Noelle and AJ have been friends since middle school!
- Timothy DeLa Ghetto came by the first day of shooting. Him and JR were on the side making a video of their own (Beautiful Girls cover LINK) while we were off working. You can see us in the background of that vid at 2:53, that’s us.
- As much as we WISHED this video was sponsored by Minute Maid…no it was not. It was made from our own pockets, our very shallow pockets. =P
- The City Hall location where they meet at the end was actually a place we shot before, just a different area. “Tech Ruins Romance: Destiny” was shot there, and we took note of the archway at the time thinking to ourselves, “ok, we have to shoot something there someday.”
- We first met AJ in Oct 2009
- The stool Noelle sits on at the loading dock, is the same stool from David Choi’s “Won’t Even Start” music video that we made. Recognize it?
- We had to go bottle shopping for just the right bottle. After going to 3 different places, we ended up just using one Wes already had in his bathroom.

Here’s a look behind-the-scenes! Courtesy of AJ’s flip cam, edited by AJ.

AJ is a really great guy, and an unbelievable talent, so definitely check out his music, subscribe, support. It was awesome shooting this with him and we can’t wait to share it with you all!

AJs Youtube
AJs Myspace

So you might notice that this video is a bit different from our past work. This was intentional. When we were deciding on a song off the Sam’s album we had a lot to choose from. He had a lot of different moods and topics in his music. “Shots and Beer” was about old friends growing up and would have had a great story. “Sunday” was about meeting girls in church, which would have had a really funny video to match. “Dreams” as I’ve written is my favorite because it is the most thoughtful and about family.

STYLE
We ended up choosing “Red Light” because we felt that with all the other songs, we would be making a video that had similar “cute” “aww” emotions and visuals that we’ve had in past videos. We don’t have anything against that, but I guess we just wanted to try something new… and something that was a little more grown up, and a little more cool, maybe even sexy? haha. “Red Light” gave a good soundtrack for a video that could have this look and feeling. So I guess you could say this music video was our attempt to be “grown and sexy” haha. It’s still not as edgy as it could be, but hey, we have middleschoolers watching our stuff apparently. =P

CREW/LOCATIONS
This video was made with no crew. Once again, just wes, ted, and myself behind the scenes with the camera, holding bounce boards and work lights, and running all around yelling directions. Sam did find help through his friends offering locations for us, like the church where the performance shots were done (one of the nicest church settings I’ve ever seen), and the bar and apartment. The apartment we used actually belonged to the one of the bar’s managers, James Rhee, who let us use both. Super nice places.

BUDGET
There was also no budget (minus some parking and some drinks), as you just read, just pulling a lot of favors from friends. I’d say that what we created looks like it cost a lot more than $50, haha. Don’t you think?

CAST
Everyone in the video was a friend of Sam’s. We like making videos w/ friends and not necessarily actors. It’s more fun this way. The main girl in the video… that’s Sam’s girlfriend. =)

Overall this was a really great project. I’m actually very proud of this one and I hope you guys enjoy the quality and intentions behind this video. Please spread it around if you like it, and definitely check out more of Sam’s music. Thanks!