Jay Hubert: Exploring Asia With a Camera

Recently the University of Hawaii’s monthly magazine Malamalama ran a short article about me entitled “Jay Hubert: Exploring Asia with a camera.”  My friend Jason had wanted to submit some freelance articles to them, and thought I would somehow make a good subject (and up until that point I thought that Jason always exercised exceptionally good judgment!).  I don’t think either of us realized during the ‘interview’ process just how short the article would be, as Jason sent me a handful of questions and I gave lengthy replies.  In the end the article was only a few very short paragraphs, which was more than I actually deserved, but after all of Jason’s hard work (and I’m sure great writing), I felt like maybe it had been a waste of his time (but he can only blame himself for choosing such a boring subject to focus on!).

The article also had some errors, most notably in the first line where it says “Career: Production assistant, director, occasional translator”.  What???  First of all, I’ve never been a production assistant, and as the lowest possible position in the filmmaking hierarchy it’s certainly not something anyone would ever make a career out of (at least I hope they wouldn’t!).  And occasional translator is a bit of a stretch, as I’m rarely hired as just a translator for my film jobs here in China, though I often end up taking on lots of translating duties on co-productions with foreign crew/talent involved.  My primary ‘career’ listing should probably have been cinematographer, followed by director and writer.  But that’s ok…. I got a good chuckle out of seeing my career listed as a production assistant.  Perhaps the editors were trying to give me some advice…?!

Since I enjoyed answering Jason’s original questions, and since they give a bit of insight into what I’m doing over here (and why I’m here) in the Chinese film industry, I figured I would post the original questions and answers here.  Perhaps this will also help erase the stain of the ‘production assistant’ stamp that has been placed on my good name. 8)

Career and additional interesting facts as appropriate to the individual

Filmmaker. Work as director and cinematographer on small-scale projects around Asia, and as behind-the-scene director, still photographer, and camera assistant on major feature films and commercials in China. The most interesting fact related to my career I can think of at the moment is that I served as a body double for Hong Kong actress Karen Mok in a feature film we shot with her last year in Chongqing. It was only for one scene, but it was a shower scene!! Ok, so the door was closed, and we were shooting through semi-opaque glass, and the director of photography wanted someone with really white skin so they would show up through the glass. He started to scan the room and then his eyes stopped on me. I stripped off my clothes (well most of them at any rate), and went and sat on the bench behind the door where Karen’s character was washing the cast on her broken leg. Karen was in the other room resting, and then before we moved onto the next shot the director of photography told her to come open the bathroom door and see who was serving as her body double for the shot. Five minutes later she was still on the ground laughing. And to think all these years that I considered my pale white skin to be a bad thing…

Hobbies

Photography, filmmaking, soccer, ultimate frisbee, snowboarding, writing, learning languages, travel, (Apple) computers, web design, guitar

Travel tips

Learn as much of the local language as possible before and during your trip. And regardless of how much of the local language you speak, talk to people. They are what really make new places interesting.

Family or pets

My family rocks. My Dad is one of the funniest, most lovable guys in the world. And he likes to make things. And fix things. Especially around the house. Which usually makes my mom pretty happy. But she’s generally a very happy person anyway. And very sweet. Oh yeah, and she’s a musical genius. And the hardest worker I’ve ever met. Seriously. The woman never sleeps. I don’t know how she does it. But I’m glad a little bit of it rubbed off on me. My older brother has been one of my best friends for as long as I can remember, and fortunately still lives in Houston, so I get to see him every time I go home. He’s a comedian, lawyer, writer, secret agent, and race car driver on the inside, and on the outside he’s an accountant, husband, and father. My younger sister is only 1 1/2 years younger than me, which means she drove me absolutely crazy growing up and now is one of my closest confidants and dearest friends. She was also the first to make me an uncle, and is now pregnant with her third child. And my little brother followed in my mom’s footsteps and ‘chose’ to be a musical genius, though he’s devoted himself to the experimental music scene in LA and we rarely hear from him anymore. He might have more children than my sister already. And then there is my grandfather, who still has a brilliant sense of humor, sharp wit, and youthful spirit at age 83. He just got remarried three years ago. Go Granddad! And last but certainly not least is the girl I plan to make into the newest addition to the family. Her name is Narenhua, and when God was giving out helpings of adorableness, he put at least ten extra scoops into this girl. She’s brought an immeasurable amount of joy and happiness into my life, and has asked absolutely nothing in return. Well, except that we travel the world together hand in hand and enjoy every second of life to the fullest. I’m down for that.

We have a beautiful white dog back in Texas named Snowball. She rocks, even when she gets her dirty little paws all over my new white pants. Oh wait, I’ve never bought a pair of white pants. But if I did I’d still let Snowball put her dirty little paws all over them. No pets here in Beijing. As much as I’d love to walk an ugly little “rat dog” around like all the old ladies here in Beijing every morning, I’ve decided to save my money instead for an iPhone.

Camera tips

Hmmm. I think the most important thing to remember is that it’s really not the camera that makes the nice pictures, but everyone’s already heard that adage and still spends more time browsing the Internet for information on the newest equipment and looking up all the cool new features instead of browsing through some professional photography books or taking a trip to the museum to check out a nice photo exhibit and learn more about what photography is all about. Of course I know this because I do the same damn thing. DOH!!

As for other tips, I’d say learn the manual features on your camera well and learn how to get the exact shot you want as efficiently as possible. Another important thing is to always invest in good glass (lenses) over investing in an expensive camera. I think it’s hilarious to see people buying $3000 digital cameras nowadays and slapping some cheap $200 zoom lens on it. I’d much rather have a $3000 lens on a $200 camera. Actually, I’d rather just have the $3200.

And most importantly about a camera, just like I tell my uncircumcised Chinese friends over here… you gotta keep it clean.

Favorite movie (and why)

That’s a tough one. I think it would be hard to pinpoint a movie that I’ve enjoyed the most, or that has moved me the most, or that has resonated with my personal perspectives, or made me cry, or made me really want to make out with the girl next to me in the theatre. I think if the question was reworded to what movie best represents the kind of movie I’d like to make, I’d have to say up to this point it would be ‘Babel’. I love strong narrative, stories with power that leave you catching your breath as the credits roll. Or wanting to stand up and scream at the top of your lungs (Hotel Rwanda would deserve special mention in that category). And on top of a powerful narrative, there needs to be depth to the story, it needs to carry a message, it needs to dig deep into our increasingly convoluted social fabric and yank at the threads that are under the surface, the ones that are holding it together but are rarely seen. But at the same time it shouldn’t be too obvious about it. It shouldn’t slap us in the face and say ‘Hey stupid, get with the program.’ And for me, on top of everything else, I appreciate a movie that spreads beyond the borders of just one country and culture and attempts to get at the fundamental similarities that all humans share and that interconnect us in even the most difficult of circumstances. And for those reasons and a number of others, ‘Babel’ would have to be my ‘favorite movie’. Unfortunately, I’ve found very few other movies that meet these rather stringent expectations.

Hero or most influential professor

Another tough one, as I’ve studied at eight universities in five different countries, and I’ve had a number of exceptional teachers along the way. If I had to narrow it down to one individual person, then I’d have to name one of my UH professors. Academy for Creative Media professor Joel Moffett opened up my eyes to a class subject like no teacher has for me in any of the multitude of subjects I’ve studied. That subject happened to be screenwriting, although the window he opened for me extended to more than just the written structure of a film. For me his classes dug into the very essence of filmmaking, uncovering for me the raison d’etre of film itself. And the energy he put into his classes and into his relationships with his students surpassed just about anything I’ve encountered in my many (MANY MANY) years as a professional student. The world desperately needs more teachers like Joel.

Biggest challenge or accomplishment

I’d say the most consistent major challenge I’ve faced my entire adult life is learning to satisfy myself, although it’s taken me many years and a lot of living to come to that realization. I have extremely high expectations for myself (and for the human race in general), and often feel that few of the things I’ve accomplished in life even come close to what I’m capable of doing.

So if you ask me my biggest accomplishment, my natural response would be to tell you I’ve not accomplished anything major in my life. I would tell you that I’ve always fallen short of my goals. Or perhaps since I’m a rather optimistic person, I would say that I still haven’t reached any of my goals yet. That I’m not even close. YET.

Personal motto or mantra

Don’t waste one single moment of your life!

Which was first, love of film, or love of Asia? What drew you to both of them, and what led you to combine the two interests?

Love of Asia. Definitely love of Asia. Film came much later. My fascination with Asia actually began with Japan, and I think even now that is the place that still holds my imagination most captive. I guess the love affair began in about 3rd grade or so, and I can’t say exactly what sparked it. I guess it wasn’t one of those love at first sight things. I think it was a combination of many different factors, the majority of which had to do with the fact that Japan was having a major influence on the US in the 1980s while I was growing up and was constantly in the news and served as the backdrop for many movies and books at the time. More concrete factors would probably boil down to my interest in origami, my fascination with Nintendo Power articles and pictures about Japanese people camping out for three days in Akihabara to get the newest Nintendo game release, and the idea that there was a place out there in the world very different from Humble, Texas (because I didn’t get much exposure to any other foreign countries or cultures as a kid).

As a very young adult I finally went to Japan and spent a year studying and traveling there, and I was in love. With Japan, with Asia, with the world outside Texas and the US, with traveling, with looking from the outside in, with my freedom that I had always been fortunate enough to possess but never knew existed. And fortunately in many of my classes I had a lot of Chinese and Korean classmates that I got on with well and enjoyed chatting with. I was already interested in the rest of Asia, especially East Asia, but still had very limited knowledge of the region. Having had such a fantastic experience in Japan and learning Japanese, I figured why the heck not go off to China and Korea and spend time there and learn their languages also. And from (french) kissing Japan I went to embracing China and spooning Korea. The romance was in full swing. And just like any romance there are still down points where I get a little fed up with Asia, but we have a very solid and healthy relationship that I know is going to go the distance.

As for film, that interest developed much later. It started with photography, but even that interest began as a young adult. As a child I NEVER owned a camera. I NEVER took pictures. I never had any interest at all in photographs or any appreciation for their value as art or just simply as memorabilia. In fact, my first camera was a digital camera that I bought in 1997 (yes, I was an early adopter… I bought Sony’s very first consumer digital camera, the DSC-F1… it had a whopping 4MB of internal memory and shot at a massive resolution of 640×480 pixels!!!) before my first trip to Japan. And as my travels increased, so did the number of pictures I took, as did my interest in photography and desire to get a better camera. So before I went to study in Hong Kong a few years later, I invested in a film SLR camera and a few lenses and spent half my time in Hong Kong with my eye glued to the viewfinder of my camera.

It was about this time that I started watching movies. Yes, I had always watched movies with my family (especially my father) growing up, but had probably never watched a single non-Hollywood film, much less a foreign film with subtitles or an art film with beautiful images and obscure messages. In particular, I remember watching several of Wang Kar Wai’s films (unfortunately on VCD… what a waste…. had only I seen them on the big screen!) while living in Hong Kong and being blown away by the content, the cinematography, and most importantly the fact that there were movies out there that didn’t follow a Hollywood structure or rely on millions of dollars of special effects or millions of dollars of good-looking or funny actors to make a good film. And to be honest, I think that time in Hong Kong was kind of a pivotal point for me, even though it wasn’t until many years later in Hawaii that I finally got to properly try my hand at filmmaking and realize it was indeed what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Oddly enough, I felt at the time (and still do to some extent) that my time in Hong Kong was the least productive and least beneficial and least enjoyable of my life, yet had I not spent that time in Hong Kong there’s a very good chance I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing now. Funny how life works like that.

I think the major appeal of film for me is that it draws on two of my favorite hobbies: photography and writing. I had quite a knack for writing growing up until my engineering studies killed every creative and artistic brain cell in my head. And similarly I think I have a fair share of artistic talent that I never had an outlet for because I quit piano at a young age and was a horrible painter (which to me at the time meant I was never cut out to be an artist of any sort). So when I found photography as a young adult I was ecstatic that I had found a medium that allowed me to release some of my creative energy, even if I didn’t have any proper training in it or any time to really pursue it properly. So once it occurred to me that filmmaking could combine both of these interests, I put 2 and 2 together (and got 3). Similarly, my interest in film began to develop alongside my interest and adventures in Asia, and again I put 2 and 2 together (especially since a number of my favorite films were from Asia). So in both cases, I guess it was just a matter of combining my interests. Now if only I could combine all of my other many interests together so easily!

You’re from the great state of Louisiana (sorry, had to throw that in). How did you first become interested in places as far away as Japan, Korea and China?

I’ve more or less answered this question above, but just for the record I’m from TEXAS and merely had the misfortune of being born out of country… errr, state. It’s just like being born out of the country though… your parents are natives of US but you are born in some godforsaken country like France (for reasons beyond their control). Of course your parents aren’t going to name you Jean-Pierre, stick a little blue beret on your head, and tell you you’re French. God forbid. They are going to name you something intelligent and sexy like Jay and get your ass back to the US as soon as possible so that they can minimize the emotional scarring. That’s basically what happened to me. Only Louisiana is a much scarier place than France.

You seem to be a man with a penchant for developing more than just film. At your undergrad alma mater, your enthusiasm for Asian Studies led you to spend so much time overseas that they named the Study Abroad program after you (if I remember correctly). When you entered UH, did you have your sights set on the same goal–to bring a new dimension to the programs you worked with? Were ACM ((University of Hawaii’s Academy for Creative Media film school) and CCS (Center for Chinese Studies)/Asian Studies involved in any sort of collaborative efforts before you arrived, or is that something you singlehandedly brought about? (Sorry, it sounds like I’m trying to get you elected or something.)

Hehe, wouldn’t that be something if they named the Rice University study abroad program after me!! They actually named a scholarship in my honor, mainly because I worked my ass off for them (study abroad) while I was a student there and continued doing some webpage work and photo contest projects for them unpaid even after graduation. They had plans to offer a new annual study abroad scholarship, and in thanks for my hard work and recognition of the fact that I had studied abroad far more times (four total) than any other Rice student before (and possibly after) me, they decided to name it in my honor. And quite an honor it was!

As for developing collaborations at UH, to be honest I didn’t go to UH with many expectations at all, much less the desire to set up a collaboration between departments. In fact, the Academy for Creative Media still only existed on paper when I started my studies at UH (and I had no idea about it). It didn’t open its doors until my second semester, and of course I jumped on the opportunity to take the first production class and finally try my hand at filmmaking. And I’m certainly glad I did. The Academy for Creative Media was extremely supportive, and I give them all the credit for getting me started on my film career path and helping me develop into someone who would willing to describe himself as a filmmaker. I actually enjoyed my studies at ACM more than my studies in my department and several semesters I spent more time on film projects than on my graduate studies. So when it came time to do my thesis, I thought it would be great to combine my grad studies with my film studies and fortunately had four very supportive professors (Dru Gladney and Cindy Ning at CCS and Tom Brislin and Anne Misawa at ACM) who made it all possible. As for establishing a ‘collaboration’ between the two departments though, I don’t know that they’ve had any follow-up projects, and I really owe most of the credit for making my project possible to the four professors above.

Your film ‘Dao’ was screened at the Hawaii International Film Festival to wide acclaim. Please talk a bit about that movie, and about Hawai’i audiences–do you feel that Hawaii’s multicultural background is the ideal audience for your films, or do you strive for a kind of ‘Asia-based universality’ rather than an ‘Asian focus’ in your work?

Come on, you’re not supposed to ask questions that actually require me to think! Dao was my darkest and what I consider my best film to date (even now two years and several short films later). I had a very happy life in Hawaii, and think perhaps the dark side of Dao came from the fact that I was writing the script for Joel Moffett’s screenwriting class while frantically editing my thesis documentary film. I was deprived of sleep, worried that my thesis film wasn’t going to be academically viable (and that my professors were going to ask me if I’d learned ANYTHING related to my field of study in my 5 semesters at UH), and was spending way more time in my tiny little Hale Manoa dorm room than out in the wholesome Hawaiian sun. And to be honest I wasn’t really planning to shoot the film, as it was my last semester and I knew by the time I defended my thesis and recovered for a week or two I would only have two months left in Hawaii before I was on to my next adventure. I was just writing it for the screenwriting class. And to be honest, the vast majority of the script came from three long nights of writing the day before revisions of the script were due for grading. But then I finished my final draft for the class, and showed it to a friend for the hell of it, and he really liked it. And he said I had to shoot it. And that he would help me (he ended up being my assistant director). And that was it. That night I decided that instead of relaxing and enjoying my last two months in Hawaii like any reasonable person would do, I was going to give up every last free moment of my remaining time in paradise and most of my very limited financial resources to go and make this film. Had I not shown the script to my friend, I really don’t think I would have bothered making the movie.

The story was the culmination of two ideas I had. One was the idea for a young illegal immigrant Chinese girl getting trapped in an abusive relationship while living in Hawaii. Again, I was in a very abusive relationship at the time (with my thesis), so perhaps that’s where the motivation came from. The other idea was to shoot a story out on Mokauea Island, a small island next to Sand Island (near the airport) with only 5 houses on it that was once used by Hawaiian royalty for short-term stays. The island is a mere speck on the map, and I had never met anyone who knew anything about it. Few even knew of its existence. I found the island by doing beach cleanups with a volunteer group from HPU, and ended up getting to know the owner of the house where we ended up shooting (she’s the one that always hosted the volunteer group). So my two ideas slowly started to meld into one, but when it came time to write a script for my screenwriting class I actually had two other ideas, and for my first homework assignment I started writing a script for one of the other ideas. After several hours of putting severe strain on my backspace key, I aborted and started afresh with my Dao story. Within a few hours I had completed my first draft that would serve as the skeleton and a good bit of the flesh for the final script.

I really lucked out recruiting some amazingly talented crew members and actors for the film, and they gave 110% of their energy to the project even though I couldn’t afford to pay them. Had I been a more experienced director, I think the film could have been much better, because I would have been able to more skillfully harness all the talent each of them brought to the table. But for my first time shooting with a proper crew (my previous films I had pretty much been a one-man crew), I was very happy with the experience and the camaraderie we developed. More than anything else about my experience working on the film, the rapport I built with the cast and crew is what I treasure the most.

As for Hawaiian audiences, I would definitely say that they represent a much more ideal audience for my films than a mainland US audience because of Hawaii’s multi-cultural background, but that’s assuming you can GET a Hawaiian audience to watch your film. I noticed a general lack of interest in film in Hawaii, and not just a lack of interest in art film and international film like you see in the mainland. I found that people in Hawaii just don’t watch movies. Sure they go to the megaplexes sometimes on dates or with friends, but try to show a free film on campus at UH and you’re lucky to get a handful of people show up. And as small as the Doris Duke Theater (the Doris What Theater… how many times have I heard that!) is, I’ve not once seen it filled to capacity in my many trips there. So while Hawaiian audiences might be well prepared to embrace the multicultural and Asian-based topics I like to address in my films, they’ll have to develop more of a film culture in general before they’ll become the ideal audience for anyone’s films!

You’ve filmed all over the world. Is there a particular location that you like best from a directorial/cinematographic point of view? How much does location affect the inner narrative of the film?

Ok, I’ve only filmed in East Asia. I’ve only traveled to East and Southeast Asia. But I’m glad I’m a world traveler in your mind!

To be honest, my favorite locations are metropolitan areas, big cities full of hustle and bustle and life. Which is strange because I’m not particularly fond of big cities in terms of my own choice of place to live. And that’s not to say that I don’t enjoy shooting out in the countryside or in quiet, serene environments. But I think it’s the eye candy of the big cities that really appeals to my photographer’s eye. I LOVE lots of rich colors and motion in my films, so that’s another big plus with cities. And from a writing and directing perspective, I think there is a lot more tension and conflict in cities, and those are two elements that can make for great narrative, so I suppose my own stories that I choose to tell will usually be based in large cities. As I get older though, I think I will gradually long to branch out and explore outside cities, to see how the rest of the world lives and show all those people eking out a living in the city what they are missing. But while I’m young and full of plenty of energy, I think big cities will continue to appeal to me the most.

In particular, I think Asian cities appeal to me more than Western cities (this is a big part of my appeal to Asia actually) because of the energy and dynamics here that you just can’t find in the West. To put it as more than a few expats over here have said, ‘this is where it’s at’. And it really is. Asian cities are the total embodiment of that statement. The rate of change, the density of life, and the sheer number of people filling the streets at all hours of the day are all testaments to this. For me, there are just so many more stories to tell here in Asian cities than in Western cities. As for specific cities that I have shot in, I would have to say that Tokyo and Hong Kong are my two favorites, as they are extremely photogenic and are probably the best examples of what it is that appeals to me about Asian cities. If I had to choose between the two, I’d pick Tokyo even though Hong Kong is even more photogenic in my opinion, but merely because the people in Tokyo are much nicer!!

From your experiences working in China and elsewhere, what is the perception of Hawai’i abroad? Have you noticed a heightened awareness of ACM ever since the first generation of filmmakers such as yourself has begun to come into their own?

Hawaii is in the Chinese imagination what it is in the American imagination, the German imagination, and the Indian imagination. It is paradise. Plain and simple. Of course, in the Chinese imagination the US is also a paradise of sorts, but at least with Hawaii there seems to be no political baggage that weighs down its image. I think relations between Hawaii and China will fair very well in the future, and I think the Hawaii government has already been making great strides in ensuring that happens. And I’m extremely happy to see that. Both places are very dear to my heart and I hope that in the future I can help with the construction of the bridge that will span the two (yes, I mean the physical bridge).

As for ACM, they’ve also done an impressive amount of work establishing relationships with Chinese universities, and I think this will pay huge dividends in the near future. While pretty much every student at Beijing Film Academy today still dreams of someday being able to do their grad studies at NYC or USC, I think before too long many of them will add ACM to that list, and I think with all that Hawaii has to offer on top of a great film school, a lot of them will choose the latter. ACM has to set up a graduate program first though!!

If you weren’t making movies, what other line of work could you see yourself doing?

Wow, even though I have a zillion interests, at this point I really can’t picture myself doing anything BUT making movies. I suppose in another life I’d really love to be a pro soccer player or snowboarder, but in this life if filmmaking were not an option I suppose I’d still want to do something with creative media. Perhaps web design. Or maybe be a professional travel photographer. Or be Steve Jobs. Yeah, that’s it. That’s what I would do.

So Jay, what are you working on right now?

Well Jason, that’s a great question. In fact, the best one you’ve asked me all night. Hmmm, let’s see. In the past few months I shot two short films in Korea and served as a jury member at the Jeonju International Film Festival, and currently am getting ready to go work on a major Chinese feature film in the boonies of western China for four months. I’ll be directing and editing the behind-the-scenes documentary of the film (already started on it back in April as we’ve made numerous trips out to the location already for pre-production). It will be a pretty grueling project, as we will be shooting long hours in pretty harsh environments (mainly near to and up in the mountains), but I’m sure it will be a great experience and am really looking forward to it. Then in November I’ll take a week off from the production to go to Bali and photograph the East West Center’s Alumni Conference there. From one extreme to the other. The story of my life, perhaps…

You gonna stay in Beijing?

To be honest, I really wanted to leave this place my first year here while I was studying at the Beijing Film Academy. I will be the first to readily attest that moving from Hawaii to Beijing does NOT make for an easy transition (I’m sure going the other way around would probably be much smoother). But since graduating from BFA last summer, Beijing has really started growing on me and with all the fantastic opportunities that have opened up for me in the film industry here, I’ve decided to stay put for the time being. I’d really like to spend at least a year or two in Korea at some point in the near future, but for now I’m going to stay in Beijing and try to make the most of my time here.