Inner Monologue

(Its kind of funny to read what I was thinking back during 2006, which is a little less then 5 years ago. We all have desires to become famous to a certain degree and I've always thought up of words to say during a national interview. The closest I got since 2006 was being interviewed by an NYU student for his experimental film class. He found me through the internet and asked questions about my work at Barnes and Noble in Union Square. I was quite flattered because NYU was one of the schools I would have loved to go to but couldn't get in and here I was being interviewed for an NYU class project.)

Interview with BO LEE by BO LEE

Bo: So thank you for sitting down with me to have this interview.

BO: No problem at all. Actually, this interview feels very comfortable.

Bo: Maybe it's because every thing is an inner monologue?

BO: Maybe, but yeah..

Bo: So how did it all start for you? When did you feel like, yes, I've made it?

BO: You never really start or end do you? I guess when you're born and when you die but other than those two points, I can't really say. I can't say even if I've actually started or not based on your point of view of "Starting."

I guess when I first met my wife maybe. Or maybe when I first got the call from a curator asking me to exhibit my work. It was for a gallery in Helsinki and didn't think much of it. Then during that year, I started to get more and more calls about shows and exhibits. Before then, I've always wanted to be a narrative, feature filmmaker, which I'm still hoping to accomplish, but not in the context that I initially envisioned. I took a year off from a post production house to work on these three scripts that I'd been conceptualizing for two years before and when I had actually finished these scripts I'd been bogged down with other work, mostly freelancing stuff that I took my thoughts away from these three scripts. When it was time for me to go back into these scripts to actually do something with them, I had seen some ridiculous, outlandish films like "El Topo," and "Begotten," that really interested me and made me think of the narrative form in a slightly different way. So when I went back to my scripts, I didn't feel the passion for the stories any more. Before, I had thought, I was the only one who should make these scripts come to life but now, I couldn't care less about them. It's like having these three kids and you love them to death, but at a certain point, you just have to let go and make new kids. No?

Bo: So what are you developing or working on now?

BO: Well, I started on a five part series on the "CYCLE OF MAN" is what I'm calling it now. The first part is done, its a series of short one minute vignettes that go through the cycle of life and rebirth and all that stuff. The first one is called: "Deconstruction of a Man." And the second one will be called "The Birth of a Man."

I'm also putting together a collection of screen tests in part like the Andy Warhol screen tests. That'll be like a side-long term thing. I initially wanted to have a collection of all my friends and family and people I basically know. And now it's become more of a study on human behavior.

I'm also in prepro of a documentary that I want to do about the store that my family runs down in Philadelphia.

Bo: What's so special about the store that they have? What kind of a store is it?

BO: Well it's called "Ah's Garage Sale." and it's basically a thrift shop. It's open 7 days a week but I want to be more of a story on life down in rural pennsylvania, how the people live, the back story to how the concept of the store was developed and how it came about happening. The immigrant society particularly the Korean immigrant society. SO a lot of issues that's we're going to aim for but I'm sure a lot of it has to be narrowed down a lot more.

Bo: Speaking of Korea, I know you were there not too long ago, do you ever want to go back?

BO: Actually my wife and I were considering moving out there in a couple of years for a year or two to be with her side of the family since all her relatives are there. Then I began to think of things that I could do while I'm out there and the only thing I could think of was making a film, so yes I do want to go back and work on a film there. Nothing is set in stone and I don't have the slightest idea on the story that I want to do but like they say "LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION" and I already have that.

Bo: I know we just talked about stepping away from the traditional sense of filmmaking much endue to Alejandro Jodorwosky and Elias Merhige's films and I'm not sure about Elias Merhige but Alejandro was a man with a whole lot of different trades. He was even a puppeteer before becoming a filmmaker.

BO: Yes, and I think that's the most wonderful part of life, experiencing everything there is to take in. The producer at the post house I used to work at gave me this advice about changing jobs every five to seven years to get all there is in life. I love everything and my interest lies in almost everything. I want to be a designer, a furniture maker, a store owner, a glass blower there are so many things that I haven't seen or experienced, it'll be a pity to waste it all behind a lens of a camera. I mean, I love filmmaking, photography in the artist sense, but art is frivolous without life. And in life, you need experiences. I would much love to run a ice cream shop in italy or be a surfer in Brazil. Something that I couldn't picture myself doing just because I don't like being in a situation where I'm so comfortable. During my year off from Post Production, I worked as a flea market vendor every saturday for six months. Wake up at five am, drive to hell's kitchen, unload my van, and sit outside until five pm. The atmosphere and the feeling you get can't really be described in words, it's something that you have to experience for yourself. The best writers in the world can't describe to the dot how they felt when they first made love. It's just something you have to do for yourself.

Bo: Not to get away from our topic but I notice your necklace with two charms dangling from it. Do they bear any significance?

BO: Well the cross is kind of obvious. During childhood, I went to church every Sunday and did the whole "Christian" thing. After moving to New York, I remember first reading Nietzche's "morality of genelogy" and thinking, man---- I didn't really know what to think. I went through a period of struggle trying to figure out "What it all meant" and blah blah blah, and the conclusion I got was that we're all human. We can only know so little. So I'm an "agnostic" per say but I find that believing in something other than yourself can release a lot of your burdens and stress. It's weird and strange but I consider myself a Christian, who doesn't believe in the church nor a definite answer to the mysteries of afterlife. I'm an agnostic, universalist, a Christian wrapped up in one. I don't want to pick and choose the parts of a religion I feel fits but I'm actually conflicting with myself but I don't think Contradiction is necessarily "wrong?"

The other charm I got when I first went to korea, it was a rough time family wise. My parents were living separately, we had just lost our home, my mother had to start working for the first time in so many years, I was about to graduate college and my brother had failed out of school and moved back home. It was a lot of things to consider and I realized that if our family can get through this, we can get through anything together so I had bought a similar charm for my mother, father and brother but I think I'm the only one who actually wears it anymore or even has it around.

INTERVIEW PART 2 (To be continued)