Ah, hob-nobbing with Hollywood in South Valley. The glitz. The
glamour. The Granada Theater.
Last weekend at downtown Morgan Hill’s first annual Poppy Jasper
Film Festival extravaganza, I schmoozed with local film folks
– directors, actors, producers. I found them just as riveting as
any movie star at Sundance or Cannes.
Ah, hob-nobbing with Hollywood in South Valley. The glitz. The glamour. The Granada Theater.
Last weekend at downtown Morgan Hill’s first annual Poppy Jasper Film Festival extravaganza, I schmoozed with local film folks – directors, actors, producers. I found them just as riveting as any movie star at Sundance or Cannes.
Not that I’ve ever actually chatted “biz” with Redford or Streep or Spielberg at those more established movie-world galas. But on the kick-off night of the Poppy Jasper Film Festival, I did meet two Live Oak High School students who I’m sure will one day be honored with Hollywood’s most prestigious naked-man-with-a-sword statue.
At a festival party at the Morgan Hill Community Center’s ballroom, Fran Lozano, dean of liberal arts and sciences at Gavilan Community College, pointed out to me Billy Wong and Marius Layus. The 17-year-old seniors at Live Oak High School are partners in film-making.
I strolled up to the two up-and-coming directors as they talked “biz.” Would they grace me with a short chat for the newspaper? Both beamed warm smiles.
Layus and Wong are the most delightful movie makers you’ll ever have the pleasure of meeting. They’re friendly, intelligent and extremely passionate about telling stories in a visual-arts medium.
“What’s your movie called?” I asked in the interview.
“‘My Rice: The Beginning,'” Layus said.
“It takes place in the near future. There’s this shortage of rice in China,” Wong explained. “I’m a special agent, and I come to America, and I go to this guy’s house and steal his rice.”
The guy whose rice gets stolen is played by Layus. Two big martial-arts fight scenes highlight the movie – kind of a combo of Jackie Chan and Jet Li films styles, the two young men told me.
With their vibrant enthusiasm for movies, I sensed Wong and Layus are heading for big-time fame and fortune. I made sure both autographed my reporter’s notebook.
The two high school students told me they were inspired to get into filmmaking during ninth grade. A class project required them to make a short video documentary. The experience was life-changing. Film now runs in their blood.
They’ve never taken a film class but are pretty much teaching themselves the tricks of the trade. They study the films of a lot of their favorite directors. Quentin Tarantino (“Pulp Fiction”) and N. Night Shyamalan (“The Sixth Sense”) have influenced their budding talent a lot, they said.
“How ’bout Alfred Hitchcock?” I asked. “He made lots of films in this area. Ever see Vertigo’? That was filmed in San Juan Bautista. Hitchcock made it.”
“I’ve heard of him,” Layus said cautiously.
I told him he’d hear a lot more about “Hitch” in film school. “The Master of Suspense” even inspired Steven Spielberg.
The two teenage filmmakers have created a total of 15 short video movies. They do virtually everything themselves – writing their imaginative scripts, acting, directing, videotaping with a camera borrowed from a friend, set design and putting it all together on their computer editing system.
And the quality of their movies? Well, on Sunday morning at a special showing at the Morgan Hill Playhouse of short movies made by local children, I got the opportunity to watch “My Rice: The Beginning.” Even Spielberg, at age 17, couldn’t have created a more fascinating flick.
It’s got something for everyone: comedy, action-adventure, Chinese martial arts, intrigue, suspense … and a social message about the destruction of the environment by global warming and the heavy social costs due to wide-spread hunger.
Wong and Layus captivated me with a plot that raced. It twisted and turned with clever surprises. I sat riveted as their movie ended with “TO BE CONTINUED …” on the screen. Two enthusiastic thumbs up! I can’t wait to see “My Rice II.”
Wong and Layus proved you don’t need a $200 million film budget – like James Cameron’s “Titanic” reportedly cost – to tell a great story. You can do it simply with youthful passion, imagination and a borrowed videocamera.
Speaking of “Titanic,” the special effects wizard who helped make that epic was the Poppy Jasper Film Festival’s keynote speaker. John Bruno works closely with Hollywood director Cameron in creating his big blockbuster movies. Bruno won an Academy Award for effects in Cameron’s under-the-ocean suspense film “The Abyss.”
Like Wong and Layus, Bruno began his filmmaking journey during his teenage years. He got started as an assistant for syndicated newspaper cartoonists based in Pebble Beach. That gig led to a job as an animator with Walt Disney Studios. From there, he kept honing his skills to finally make movie magic in “Poltergeist,” “True Lies,” “Terminator II” and “Ghostbusters.”
On opening night of the Poppy Jasper festival, I bumped into Bruno at the Granada Theater’s lobby. He shared with me his hilarious story about his special night at the Oscars.
After making their speeches and being led backstage, Bruno and the film’s other two special-effects award recipients swept through a gauntlet of media folk asking countless questions. Finally, in a daze, the three were led through a door into a completely empty lobby. After all the fanfare, they suddenly found themselves alone in a silent hall – locked outside the auditorium.
“How do we get back in?” was their immediate reaction.
Like Bruno, the teenage directors of “My Rice” also know what it’s like to win a film award. At the Sunday afternoon ceremony in Morgan Hill’s Granada Theater, their entertaining flick won the Poppy Jasper’s “Student Award.”
And, like their award-winning “My Rice” movie, that’s only the beginning.
Marius Layus and Billy Wong, I’m telling you now. Get your Academy Award-acceptance speeches ready. You’re gonna win one day, dudes. And when you walk on stage to pick up your Oscars, I and every other film fan in the South Valley will give you two enthusiastic thumbs up.
