AMONG B-BOYS: Return of the B-Boy Episode III

B-Boy Sukie gets a follow up interview

B-Boy Sukie gets a follow up interview

It seems that the beginnings of my filmmaking/multimedia production career are thus based on gut feelings. And I am constantly riding through so many feelings that sometimes it’s like I have the biggest gut in the world. I’m talking Jabba the Hutt big. Lately my gut feeling’s been a little stressed, I been trying to find a job for money (believe it or not, Among B-Boys isn’t making me money at the moment), been talking to a career counselor at community college… so that’s been stressful, and I been trying to do my taxes to boot! I have a gut feeling I need to drop a class to free up time. But when you get that gut feeling and it not only turns out to be correct, but it also works out, it can’t be any better.

After our day of shooting at the Hmong New Year festival, R.J. (my cinematographer) and I felt like we got just about everything we could there. Got some great shots, interviews, created a great scene. There wasn’t much we could do anymore, so we decided to get home. We felt like it was a solid day of shooting, not necessarily a knockout day, but we were happy. Most of all, we were tired and couldn’t think of any objectives we didn’t meet.

Now the evening that I got back home my mind couldn’t get past the what I needed for the film. I felt like we got everything we could and more, especially because we made a few breakthroughs that we had never made before! I debated in my head… should we have just stayed to see what we could get, what might pop up? Because I couldn’t justify it, didn’t have a reason to be out there again, I went to sleep that night expecting to review what I had the next day.

*** Inspiration Strikes Back! ***

Funny thing is, I believe while I was sleeping, I my mind was working out everything and those wheels were turning. The next morning I was sort of in a groggy, half asleep mode with my mind thinking about what I needed for the film, and it just came to me! It comes to prove that inspiration and even good work can come at any time. Upon waking up, I immediately wrote down my ideas, questions to ask, and made a plan. That afternoon I promptly made a pickup of the camera and was on my way to conduct a follow up interview with one of my main subjects, Shoua Lee aka B-Boy Sukie, before he headed back home to Tulsa, Oklahoma. It was very impulsive, spur of the moment move, but I figured if I didn’t get what I needed, what’s the worst that happens? I spend some money on gas, and I am down and afternoon. But if I don’t go and then realize that there is something lacking in my content and story, or I needed that extra interview to help bridge segments, then it’ll cost me a lot more to go back to Oklahoma on my no budget, than to go to Merced. If only to ensure that I had piece of mind, I went… and it turned out that I made some new breakthroughs that I hadn’t made before! go figure.