Dad: Henry Chan
Mom: Hira Ambrosino
Son: Jerry Shea
Girlfriend: Veronica Chanel
Written and Directed by: Daniel Hsia
Producers: Michael Tolfo and Lucy Huang
Co-Producers: Joan Huang and Jimmy Tsai / Cherry Sky Films, LLC
Director of Photography: Jason Inouye
Editor: Rob Kreuzer
Hair/Makeup: Veronica Chanel
Music: Tracy Mills
1st Assistant Director: Lucy Huang
Script Supervisor: Jenni Trang Le
Key Grip: Eugene Yi
Production Assistant: Erin Haggerty
In October of 2003, Visual Communications held a fundraiser for the Linda Mabalot Legacy Fund and invited 30 filmmakers to each submit a 30 second film in which the words "Visual" and "Communications" had to appear. I chose to use this opportunity to write and direct a "commercial" for Visual Communications. The film premiered in Los Angeles on October 25, 2003, and was an immediate hit. In April 2004, "Generation Gap" was transferred to glorious 35mm film and played as the festival trailer for the 2004 Visual Communications Film Festival.
My producers Michael Tolfo and Lucy Huang knew as I did that we needed to focus on casting. Jerry Shea brought a wonderful sense of idealism and innocence to the role of the son, which was absolutely necessary for making sure that the ending packed plenty of surprise. Hira Ambrosino is a wonderful comic actress who was not only beautiful, but very funny as the mother and very enthusiastic about the project at every stage.
Casting the father proved much more difficult, because of the scarcity of Asian American male actors in that age range. After looking through dozens of headshots, a light bulb went off in my head and I called my friend Henry Chan, a television comedy director. Henry was understandably skeptical. "You know I'm not an actor, right?" he asked me. I faxed him the script along with a few rough storyboards, and he called me back a few minutes later and said, "Sounds like fun. Let's do it."
Veronica Chanel, our hair and makeup artist, did a fantastic job of creating the "head stamp" effect on Henry's forehead. Veronica also wound up playing the girlfriend, a part for which we considered a number of different people. In the end, we cast Veronica because of her ability to convey beauty, glamor, and a hint of creepiness in a very short amount of time. Also, we figured that she was going to be on set anyway, so if we used her for two things we'd have one less mouth to feed!
Jason Inouye, the cinematographer, was a pleasure to work with and did a wonderful job of making everybody look great and giving the whole piece a nice, warm look. Rob Kreuzer put in several days of hard work cutting the thirty seconds together, and his hard work paid off: after viewing it probably a hundred times, there isn't a single frame that I'd want to change.
The cast and crew of "Generation Gap" made it one most enjoyable projects I've had the pleasure of working on. And in case you're wondering: No, I never did anything like that to my dad. He's just fine.
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