One-on-One with White on Rice director Dave Boyle

With his new film White on Rice opening in Southern California theaters as we speak, Dave Boyle is currently a very happy man. In the coming weeks, the film will spread to San Jose, Denver and Hawaii with a few film festival appearances sprinkled in between. I talked to the writer/director on the eve of his second feature's theatrical release to pick his brain about such things as Japanese culture, his production company and how things changed for him this time around.

AF: With White on Rice being your second feature, was the overall film making process a bit easier this time around or did the usual difficulties arise when shooting mostly on location?

DB: Some aspects were a little bit easier the second time around.  Some things just got harder.  I think I was more sure of myself in knowing how to get what I wanted, and knowing how to work with actors and my behind-the-camera collaborators. At the same time, this was a bigger production, with a much more demanding script, schedule and scope--- so the usual problems did pop up.  Shooting on location is easier if you're a either a "no-budget" film----since you can kind of fly under the radar, or if you're a giant budget film that can afford to just pay problems to go away----when you fall into just the "low budget" category it's really easy to run into locations problems. We lost a lot of our original locations, and sometimes I was seeing the replacements for the first time on the morning of shooting there.  I think paradoxically, this turned out to be a good thing for the film.  It meant that I couldn't rely on planning or storyboarding too much and I found that my cinematographer Bill Otto and I really liked shooting from the hip.My first movie was shot on DV, but this time around I was able to shoot on film, which was an aspect of production that I really enjoyed.  Even films shot on film are usually finished digitally with a digital intermediate (DI), but we did ours old school---taking it to the negative cutter and finishing the color photo-chemically.  You save a lot of money doing things the old way, and I really enjoyed the process.

AF: Japanese actor Hiroshi Watanabe embodies the starring role in White on Rice. How did the casting decision come about?

DB: Hiroshi was the very first guy cast.  He played a small role in Big Dreams Little Tokyo and even from the very first time I met him at an open casting call I thought there was something very special about him.  He totally stole the scene from me in Big Dreams and once production wrapped I started thinking about using him for the crazy story I had come up with---which eventually became White on Rice.  At the same time, he was cast as one of the leads in Clint Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima and I thought he really knocked that one out of the park.

AF: The film just opened  in Southern California theaters this weekend. How were you able to get a theatrical distribution (outside of the film festival circuit) with White on Rice?

DB: From the very beginning, I wanted White on Rice to be a theatrical experience and having been around the block once, I knew it would take a lot of effort on my part to make it happen.  Festivals are great, but I think they are most effective when used as "sneak previews" for an upcoming theatrical release.  When CAAM (the Center for Asian American Media) called about screening it at their San Francisco festival, I scrambled to get it ready on time because I knew it would be the perfect place to start finding an audience for this movie.I had planned on distributing it myself, but along the way I found some partners to help out.  A NY based distributor called Variance Films and a producer's rep named Nguyen Tran both happened to see the film at the same time, and both had coincidentally worked together on the very successful theatrical release of Journey From the Fall a few years back.  They joined forces with my production company Tiger Industry Films and we are collaborating together to bring it to theaters.The White on Rice release has really found a life of it's own; some of the larger multiplex chains are rolling the dice and booking it, so if you see it coming to a theater near you, give it a shot on opening weekend.  I think you'll have a great time.

AF: Your love of the Japanese language and the country's culture shines through in your first two features. Will Japan in some form or another always stay prevalent in your films?

DB: I don't know.  Filmmaking as a job for me is really about working with people you like to be around.  For this film, I really wanted to make a Hiroshi Watanabe vehicle---and as a result, the movie became a sort of Japanese-American comedy.In most of the interviews I do to promote this film, the first thing people ask is "what's the deal with the white guy making these Japanese movies?"  Everyone's curiosity is warranted I guess, but in my head I never saw anything strange about it!  The old axiom to "write what you know" isn't always very interesting to me.  I'd much rather make films about people from different backgrounds than myself.

AF: Tell me about Tiger Industry Films, the company you co-founder with White on Rice producer Michael Lerman.

DB: Mike and I founded Tiger Industry Films a few years back when we met while Big Dreams Little Tokyo was on the festival circuit.  It is a production company, an artistic collective, and now a distribution company with the release of White on Rice.Since beginning, we've added two more members: Paul Cannon and Alex Cannon who co-directed Natural Causes with Mike.  Our basic purpose is to help each other get our work made and seen.  We all have different sensibilities, but the same commitment to our own work and to each other.

AF: Did you have a hand in his film Natural Causes?

I was an "executive producer" on it, which is always a very loose term.  I just provided support when needed in pre and post-production, and supervised some of the post stuff.Likewise, Mike was a co-producer on White on Rice and did a lot of the pre-production supervision like casting.  He also introduced me to my co-writer Joel Clark. That's the basic vision of how we Tigers want to continue:  just keep providing support when needed on each others' projects in each stage of production and distribution.  It's a crazy business and it's nice to have a group of people backing you up.

AF: Something that I am sure is on the minds of a lot of readers here at Twitch is how did you end up getting Bruce Campbell involved in the dubbing of the film within the film Ambush at Blood-Trail Gate?

DB: I thought it would be a lot of fun to get someone well known to lend their voice to that scene and Bruce Campbell was one of the first people we thought of (I'm a big fan).  We called his agent, and lo and behold he had some time free.  My producer Duane Andersen and I drove out to meet him at a sound studio in Oregon, and he recorded the whole thing in about 10 minutes.  He's truly a professional and a very nice guy.  He even signed a Bubba Ho-Tep DVD for me to give to my dad.
 
AF: What can we expect next from writer/director David Boyle?

DB: I'm working on a few different scripts in various stages (Net Cats, Space Cadet, Brett Hollywood: MILF Mania) and Joel has been working on a new script that I am really excited about, but I think the next six months will be occupied with promoting White on Rice full time. I also have been working as an editor so I'll be looking for another cut job soon.