Venerable Pannavati of My Place offering a teaching
As a video maker I've created fundraising and promotional videos for a variety of nonprofit and corporate clients. I love the challenge of finding a direct, yet artistic, way to communicate the message and connect this with an audience to sustain, support and advance the mission of an organization.
CURRENT WORK
Insight Garden Program
Director/Camera/Editor
A short video highlighting the work of the transformative Insight Garden Program working with inmates at San Quentin, and other prisons around California and the United States, to create gardens inside the barbed wire and concrete walls, not only creating an oasis of nature in a harsh environment, but giving participants tools for gardening as well as skills to tend to their own lives.
CROWDFUNDING
Walrus
Editor
This is a cute little Indiegogo video for a local upcycling vintage goods store right down the street in Temescal. It's always fun to support a local business that finds creative ways of recycling furniture, a cool way to do something good for the environment.
CORPORATE
China Live
Editor
A short promotional piece giving an early sneak peek at the upcoming China Live food destination complex under construction in San Francisco’s Chinatown.
China Chocolate
Director (with Jim Choi), Editor
A short piece highlighting David Lei’s foray into bringing high-end chocolate to China in partnership with Joseph Schmidt.
NONPROFIT
CAAMFEAST Awards
Segment Editor
A series of three video segments created for the 2016 CAAMFeast Awards each offering a short piece on the three Asian American food pioneers and honorees: Cecilia Chiang (appearing with Alice Walker of Chez Panisse in a segment directed by Wayne Wang), George Chen and Brandon Jew.
My Place Gluten-Free Bakery
Producer (with Meena Srinivasan), Director, Cinematographer, Editor
A promotional video and fundraising piece for the My Place, Gluten-Free Baking Training Program for homeless and at-risk youth in Hendersonville, North Carolina, founded and led by African-American Buddhist nun, Venerable Pannaavti (see Touching the Untouchable). Most of these kids have been in and out of jail, on and off the streets since they were young. My Place offers them a work environment to start fresh with a new opportunity at life, while making Gluten-Free baking products for much of the area. A special leader, for wonderful kids who never had a chance. Flipping the white/black script of who helps who.
KULUNGILE
Director, Camera, Editor
A fundraising video for a nonprofit organization founded and run by Dalai Lama Humanitarian Award Winner Sister Abegail Ntleko. Kulungile is a home for AIDS orphans in Kwazulu-Natal whose parents and families died in the terrible AIDS epidemic that has swept across much of South Africa. I travelled to South Africa to do a retreat and an Ubuntu tour across the country, part educational part holiday. But I’d met Sister Abegail in San Francisco where she came to receive her humanitarian award, and vowed to go visit her one day. I showed up with nothing but my little Flip camera because I was traveling light, but when they said they desperately needed to raise money for a new, safe home for the two dozen kids sharing a shack and a bathroom, I went to work with what I had, filming some of the kids introducing their amazing selves and directly making the appeal.
While technically speaking this is perhaps the crudest piece I’ve done due to gear limitations, it is easily the most impactful. This video spearheaded a campaign that raised nearly $55,000 for them, which was enough for them to move out of their shack and into a spacious new home with beds for the kids to sleep on and space for them to play outside. It just goes to show that it’s not the equipment that matters so much, it’s the heart.
GALA: CAAM 30th Anniversary
Director, Editor
A short documentation of a special gala, hosted by Roger Fan and Tamlyn Tomita, celebrating the 30th Anniversary of the Center for Asian American Media.
ASIAN CHEFS ASSOCIATION AT GLIDE MEMORIAL CHURCH
Director (with Jim Choi), Editor, Additional Camera
The Asian Chef's Association presented its yearly holiday meal, a philanthropic event, serving the Glide Memorial Church community, on the birthday of its founder, Reverend Cecil Williams. Under the leadership of Rev. Williams and his wife Janice Sakamoto, Glide has been serving the homeless and under privileged in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco for over 40 years. Featured on PBS online.
COMMUNITY EDUCATION SERVICES
Director/Camera/Editor (all with Jim Choi)
An educational promotional and fundraising piece used for Community Education Services, a Chinatown-based series of educational centers and learning programs.