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MillimeterDream Job: Homecoming
Sep 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Kristinha M. Anding
For generations of Asian-American filmmakers, Los Angeles' Visual Communications is where it all began.
Digital Histories students learn to use Apple Final Cut Pro editing systems.
Photo: Steven Liang.
Leslie Ito ventured out into the world of arts management, working with organizations as renowned as the Forbes Foundation, but she eventually found her way back to where she got her start: Los Angeles' Visual Communications (VC), a nonprofit that provides services, promotion, and support to Southern California's Asian-American filmmaking population.
“I think homecoming is a big theme — many people got their start here,” says Ito, now the executive director of VC. “We are an incubator for talent on all different levels within the independent arts scene and Asian-American community here in Los Angeles. We like to take emerging folks under our wing, nurture their skills, and give them exposure they wouldn't normally receive out in the mainstream.”
Founded in 1970 as a film collective by a group of activists, filmmakers, students, and educators, VC has since expanded to include preservation efforts, a film festival, and several outreach programs. All pieces created through VC's programs are shown at the organization's annual film festival, and some have gone on to receive broader recognition. One piece, Visas and Virtue, produced by Chris Tashima, a participant in VC's fiscal sponsorship program for independent filmmakers, went on to win the Academy Award for best live-action short film in 1997.
Another primary program is Armed With a Camera, an initiative supporting the next generation of Asian-American filmmakers. Ito says VC strives not only to provide emerging artists with access to cameras and other gear — including Sony DSR-PD150s, Canon GL1s, Canon ZR90s, and Apple Final Cut Pro editing systems — but also to help foster a network of both peers and Asian-American media pioneers. “Many of these filmmakers have just finished their MFA program and are thrown into the world with no school structure or methods of peer critique; it becomes hard to navigate the world and continue to make work,” Ito says. “We help provide that context.”
But Ito speaks most fondly of the Digital Histories program, through which VC trains Asian-American senior citizens in camera and editing techniques at the Diskovery Center in Los Angeles' Little Tokyo district. “Seniors usually aren't being given the chance to explore and learn the technology that's out there,” Ito says. “They have some really important stories to tell that are traditionally told for them, but in this case, they are empowered to tell these stories for themselves.”
For more information about VC, visit www.vconline.org.
