apv's - THE BRIEF

Journalist and Professor, Mike Chinoy

admin — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 20:13:17 +0000

This podcast produced by Len Ly, APV Summer Intern 2009

Now a visiting professor at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School of Journalism, Mike Chinoy talks with “the brief” about his three decades in broadcast news, explains the origins of his passion for China, and shares his thoughts about the practice of journalism; past, present, and future.

Hong Kong Director, Hei Yan ‘Heiward’ Mak

admin — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 10:04:42 +0000

Her graduation assignment and her first short film, Lovers’ Lover, received the Golden Award in the Open Category of the 12th Hong Kong Independent Short Film & Video Awards (IFVA), The International Young Film Makers Award of 9th International Film Festival Hanover (2007), and the film was an official selection in the 14th Women Make Waves Film Festival in Taiwan.

On this episode of ‘the brief’, we meet 24 year-old writer and director Heiward Mak, whose new film ‘High Noon’ has recently attracted great acclaim. Set in present-day Hong Kong, High Noon follows the lives of seven teenagers as they negotiate the challenges of school, parents, girlfriends and drug use. Mak tells us her motivations for making the film and describes what it’s like to produce a feature at such a young age and as a woman. She also explains some of the key developments of the Hong Kong film industry. Not to be missed!

Special thanks to Will McCallum for helping to write, produce, and edit this episode; as well as Nathan Leung who helped in the filming and translations.

Producer and Co-founder of Schtung Music, Morton Wilson

admin — Mon, 04 May 2009 04:16:00 +0000

This month we speak with Morton Wilson of Schtung Music in Hong Kong. For the last 25 years, Morton has lived in Hong Kong as a working musician, composer and producer. So, we took our crew over to his Kennedy Road studio to see for ourselves where all the cool sounds from Retrochine and Shanghai Divas are made. Morton was kind enough to give us a guided tour of his studio and his career in Hong Kong. We spoke about technology, culture, and what he feels is the reason Canto-Pop music is a limited genre. Find out more about Morton and the work that Schtung is doing in this “Groovy” episode of the Brief from APV.

President, Hong Kong Jazz Association – Peter Lee

admin — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 05:36:28 +0000

In this edition of The Brief, we speak to the President of the Hong Kong Jazz Association, Mr. Peter Lee. A musician himself, Peter grew to love Jazz over time and is now trying to promote it in Hong Kong and Asia. Peter organizes jazz festivals all over Asia and sees wider acceptance of this musical genre in countries like Japan and Korea. Locally in Hong Kong, he believes jazz has a long way to go, mostly due to the lack of musical education in schools. He sighted other countries like Singapore (where musical education is mandatory) as a role-model for Hong Kong education planners. While the Americas and Europe still dominate the jazz-world stage, Peter believes that Asia is not that far behind.

Action Director and Choreographer – Dion Lam

admin — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 07:51:47 +0000

Dion Lam is a text-book example of perseverance in the film industry. Working as a kung-fu action fighter in many Hong Kong films, he spent his time in between takes learning the other aspects of filmmaking. These days he has been working on international films like The Matrix, Doom, Street Fighter, The Red Cliff and Spiderman 2 as an Action Director and Fight Choreographer. We spent a few minutes with Dion and asked him to share his insights and advice for others trying to follow in his foot-steps.