Web Site Refresh

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This week, we updated the look and feel of the Autumn Gem web site. The original site was blog-centric and was appropriate when we were in production and post-production. With the film complete, we’re switching the web site to focus on the finished product. You can learn about the film, attend one of our upcoming screenings, learn how to support the film or buy the DVD.

Don’t worry, we’ll continue to update the News section with recaps from our tour, press mentions, post-production notes and travel tips.

Let us know what you think about the new site!

Berkeley Screening Recap and Photos

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Autumn Gem at UC Berkeley

It’s been a week since our screening at Rae’s alma mater. Apologies on the delay getting this recap and photo gallery out. We had another great turnout at Berkeley last Thursday. Thanks to AAS 121 (Professor Harvey Dong’s Chinese American History class), Asian American Studies, Asian Pacific American Student Development, Cal Taiji & Cal Wushu for sponsoring and publicizing the event. By our count there were about 130 people in attendance, ranging from students to faculty and to the sister of Tien-Fang Hou, one of the sponsors of our New Jersey screening in October. The crowd didn’t give me too much of a hard time being the Stanford-half of the Autumn Gem team; I’ve never been one to be too into the whole Stanford-Cal rivalry. After all, many of my relatives attended Cal, and I grew up a bear loving fan before becoming a tree hugger.

With the Berkeley screening, we concluded our tour schedule for 2009. Autumn Gem will be back in 2010 on January 9, 2010 at 2:00 pm, at the San Francisco Public Library in Chinatown. We hope our successful 2009 season will be a springboard for a great 2010!

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Stanford University Screening Recap and Photos

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Autumn Gem at Stanford University

With over a month to prepare for our Stanford screening tonight, we made sure we got the word out about the film through as many channels as possible. The Center for East Asian Studies was the co-sponsor for the event, and they helped flyer the campus, email various mailing lists, and list the screening on Stanford’s Events web site. Stefan from the Palo Alto Independent Films Group brought a sizeable contingent from his Meetup group to the showing. Another Meetup group brought a large group of Asian professionals. This week’s article in the Palo Alto Weekly also produced a big draw tonight. By my estimations, there were over 150 people of all ages at tonight’s screening of Autumn Gem. The lower portion of Cubberley was so packed it reminded me when I was a frosh taking Humanities in the very same auditorium! Thanks to everyone who came out to see our film!

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Palo Alto Weekly Article on Autumn Gem

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Autumn Gem in the Palo Alto Weekly

The Palo Alto Weekly has an article on Autumn Gem this week. The writer, Be’eri Moalem, came to our house a few weeks ago following our screening at City College of San Francisco. Back in 2002, I interned for a month as a photographer for the Weekly, photographing dozens of stories.

Tomorrow is our big screening at Stanford University, my alma mater. On Thursday, we head over to Berkeley, from which Rae graduated. We spent part of this evening posting flyers around campus in our final advertising effort. Cubberley seats 500 people, and I’m hoping that we’ll have at least a 100 people at the screening. Come and bring your friends!

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City College Screening Recap and Photos

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We had a couple of firsts at our Autumn Gem screening at City College of San Francisco yesterday. The place was packed, thanks to the combined efforts of the Asian Studies, Asian American Studies, Cinema and Women’s Studies Departments; we had over 90 people in attendance. The second first is one that I’m not all that proud about; we had our first technical mishap during the screening of the film!

Normally, we play the movie off of Rae’s MacBook Pro. Everything was going fine until the midway point in the film when the video completely froze and the audio started repeating! QuickTime X was completely unresponsive and force quitting (command-option-escape) would not work. Fortunately, I had also brought my own MacBook Pro as a backup for this very situation. While Rae answered a few questions from the crowd, I quickly got my MBP set up with the projector and sound system. The rest of the screening went off without any major issues. Phew!

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Packing Recap

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Now that our tour is over, we’ve identified some things we would have changed regarding our packing strategy (see photo to right). We often felt like we were a rock band traveling the country during this tour. Unfortunately, we didn’t have any roadies to help carry our gear! So, because it’s just the two of us, we have to be extra vigilant and ruthless with regards to what we bring with us.

Packing - What We Brought

If you recall from our previous post, Rae carried our clothes and toiletries in her REI Traverse backpack, and I carried all the computers, mobile Internet, camera flash, and power adapters in a Rickshaw Bagworks Medium Commuter Messenger Bag. We took turns dragging around a single Pelican 1510 Carry-On Case that contained 300 DVDs, assorted cables, papers, and my 5D Mark II camera. So, what worked and what didn’t?

For starters, we would try to leave the Pelican at home next time. While ultra-durable and somewhat capacious, it’s also quite heavy and bulky to travel with. When fully loaded, the 1510 tired one’s arm after prolonged periods. Similarly, the Rickshaw bag held a surprising amount of gear, but it too became very heavy to wear over time, even with the critical cross strap (used to distribute the weight more evenly on my body). For the next trip, I think I would try to load everything into my LowePro CompuTrekker AW camera/laptop backpack. I would have to reduce the number of DVDs that we bring with us, but at least 120-140 would fit comfortably along with one computer, my camera, flash, cables, modem and accessories.

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Press and Blog Reviews from East Coast Tour

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Here are a couple of reviews from bloggers who saw Autumn Gem during our recent Midwest/East Coast tour. Enjoy reading them!

If you come across any additional blog or newspaper reviews, send them our way!