Youth Day

October 14. 2008

Hazard Center UltraStar Cinemas

Sponsored by
 YOUTH DAY PROGRAM OBJECTIVES
1.To enhance student interest and knowledge about the media arts

2.To encourage students to use critical thinking, creative writing and language skills

3.To engage students in an exploration of film as a medium of communication.

4.To help students become more visually literate.

AGENDA

9AM                Introduction

9:10                 Reel Voices program (50 minutes)

10:10              Q&A and Discussion

10:20               10 minute  break

10:30               Screening of PING PONG PLAYA by Jessica Yu (90 minutes)

12:05               Discussion

12:20               Lunch

Don’t forget to visit booths of Platt College, American Civil Liberties Union, and Best Buy

Lunch generously provided by Platt College, School of Design

www.platt.edu
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Reel Voices
TRT: 50 min.
A collection of engaging stories, created and directed by local high school
students as part of the a summer digital storytelling internship at the San Diego
Asian Film Foundation.

Dick, Dick & Jane: The Beholder: Beauty
The Modern Through the Eyes of
American Family April Mitchell.  Director: Joska Charles | 9 min.
Director: Mari Jacobson | 5 min. Director: Elle Lipson | 7 min
|Video | 2008 . | Video| 2008
A look into the role of a same-sex An artistic teen with a genetic
couple within a family dynamic. skin condition, deals with how
her appearance affects her self-
image, her art, and her outlook
on beauty.
The Almost Lost Out of Bounds
Generation  Director: Harrison Tong | 9 min.
| Video | 2008
| Video 2008 You see so many Asian teens in
Victims of Sudan’s genocidal war leagues across America, so why is
share their harrowing experience it that in the NBA only Yao Ming
and efforts to keep their culture comes to mind?
alive towards the younger
generation.

A Brighter Future Napua Ilima ‘O Free Matt Wong

Director: Al Pappas | 5 min. Kehaulani
| Video | 2008 Director: Ryan Medel |7min.
A priest champions the struggle | Video | 2008
to bring free education to the The struggles that new and old
poorest of the poor in Tijuana”     wahine competitors undergo to
preserve the Hawaiian tradition of
hula dancing.
Director: Akio Mitsunaga | 9 min.
| Video | 2008 
How conducive is the modern
public school enviornment to
student creativity?  In 2007,
Matt Wong dared to experiment
and learned not to mess with
bureaucracy.

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 REEL VOICES STUDY GUIDE & QUESTIONS

General Questions:
1) How does each film deal with the topic of identity?
2) Share examples of how music and text enhance each film.
3) What are some of the biggest challenges in doing a documentary?
4) How was the story told better in documentary format, rather than narrative format?
5) What was your view of documentary filmmaking before Reel Voices?
Has your perspective changed after watching the program?
6) What makes this medium so powerful?

WRITE NOTES BELOW

Dick Dick and Jane

The Beholder: Beauty Through The Eyes

A Brighter Future

Almost Lost Generation

Napua Lima

Out of Bounds

Free Matt Wong

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 USA | 96 min. | Video
| English & Chinese w/ English
subtitles
| 2007

DIRECTOR: Jessica Yu
PRODUCERS: Anne Clements,
Joan Huang
WRITERS: Jessica Yu, Jimmy Tsai
CAST: Jimmy Tsai, Smith Cho,
Roger Fan, Andrew Vo

PING PONG PLAYA

Christopher “C-Dub” Wang (Jimmy Tsai) dreams of becoming a professional basketball player. Unfortunately, he also
constantly blames his inability to make the NBA on his genetics, struggles to hold down a low-paying job at the mall
and spends most of his free time playing video games and daydreaming of easy money. In short, C-Dub is every Asian
American parent’s worst nightmare. Thankfully for the Wang family, C-Dub’s older brother Michael (Roger Fan) is a doctor
and national ping pong champion, who generates business for his family’s ping pong school and store.

When Michael and Mrs. Wang are both hurt in a car accident,C-Dub is forced to step up and take over teaching duties
at the ping pong school. The stakes are taken even higher when C-Dub must shake off his reputation as a chronic
underachiever and defend his family’s honor by replacing his brother in the national ping pong tournament.

Sharply directed by Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Jessica Yu (“In the Realms of the Unreal”), making her narrative
feature directing debut, PING PONG PLAYA is the rare sports comedy that will have you rolling with laughter, while
effectively tackling important Asian American identity issues.

PRODUCTION NOTES
The origins for the original idea for PING PONG PLAYA essentially came from three different sources: 1) the character,
Christopher “C-dub” Wang, as conceived by Jimmy Tsai in a series of web commercials; 2) the idea of a ping pong comedy by
producer Joan Huang; and 3) director Jessica Yu’s idea to merge the two together. From this kernel of a concept, development
on the script began in late 2005 with Jessica and Jimmy writing together.
Approximately one year later and with the addition of producer Anne Clements, PING PONG PLAYA began rounding into
shape for production. Several months before pre-production was slated to begin, the production team sought out both
training for its actors and consultation on the world of table tennis via a renowned husband-and-wife coaching team with
experience in both the worlds of cinema as well as international table tennis competition.
The production team then focused on finding the other key actors to round out the cast. The search for the child actors,
especially, proved to be a challenging one, as casting notices were put out in the usual places as well as in open calls and
emails targeted towards local area schools and children. Though the first few weeks proved fruitful in finding and narrowing
down choices for many of the adult leads, the same process unfortunately proved less fruitful in producing stellar candidates
in the key roles of the three main child leads. It was only with just under three weeks left before cameras began rolling that,
in a fortuitous coincidence, the production came across undeniable choices for all three child leads.
After the final roles in the cast were filled out in the final week leading up to production, principal photography on PING
PONG PLAYA officially commenced in March of 2007, shooting in various locations in and around Los Angeles, California.
A complete store front (both interiors and exteriors) for Ping Pong Palace, the Wang family store, was erected in Altadena;
a local high school gymnasium in Norwalk stood in for the East Hills tournament location; and the production even
participated in an actual parade in the city of Monterey Park to stage the final scene in the movie.
With filming completed in early May, post production immediately commenced, predominantly at facilities in Burbank,
California. But the production also went truly international with over seventy CGI ping pong shots being created at Bulky
Studios in Taipei, Taiwan.

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ABOUT FILMMAKER JESSICA YU

Jessica Yu is a filmmaker based in Los Angeles. She won the 1997 Academy
Award for Best Documentary Short for BREATHING LESSONS:THE
LIFE AND WORK OF MARK O’BRIEN, an intimate portrait of a
writer who lived for four decades paralyzed by polio and confined to an iron
lung. She has directed multiple documentaries, dramas, and television shows,
including ER. She went to Yale University, where she became a NCAA All
American in fencing and competed on the US National team. She fell into
the film industry after college, when searching for a job that would help pay
for her fencing competitions!

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS FOR PING PONG PLAYA

1) Talk about the multi-cultural casting of this film - how did it make the film work?

2) The main character, C-Dub, is full of contradictions. Can you state any?

3) What kind of stereotypes did C-Dub’s character try to confront humorously?

4) There are very few Asian American women filmmakers in the industry. Did you see this movie as a film
made by a woman?

5) How did the music in the film enhance the experience?

6) Did you feel connected with any characters of the film?