WAIT FOR ME

DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT

This was shot way back in 2009, with additional shooting throughout 2010, and then briefly released online in early 2011. I think the roughcut of this short film was the very first time I submitted anything to a film festival, for which it won an "Award of Merit" or something. I can't remember exactly why I took it down after having released it for a short time, but I do remember why I wasn't completely satisfied with it.

This was a very important time in my filmmaking journey. Up until this point, we'd only been doing action-comedy, Jackie Chan-style stuff. And we were good at it. But this film was our very first attempt to do something completely outside of our comfort zones. My friends at the time would always say that we weren't actors, so therefore we shouldn't even try. That's why we did nothing but goofy, but well-made shit. With this film, I found the direction that Rising Tiger would eventually take on as our trademark. I stepped out of my comfort zone and moved towards more serious narrative-driven action. There wouldn't be a Black Scar Blues (2017), a Silverback (2020), or The Brokenhearted (2024) without Wait For Me (2025). 

We shot this on a Canon HV20. Wasn't even true HD. Yeah, the film was always meant to have a very gritty and dirty look to it. But when revisiting it, I really had to sort of lean into that 70's grindhouse look just to make up for the lack of resolution, clarity, and technical cleanliness of the original footage. It's a crazy time we live in. Some of the tools that we have now, if they were available 10, 15 years ago, I don't think I'd be writing about my work on some Google Sites website. Instead, I'd probably be doing bigger things. Now, most may argue against these tools, saying that using them is "cheating" and "it isn't real art". But with those tools, I was able to revisit this project from more than 15 years ago and fulfill my vision the way it was meant to be. If that's cheating or not real art, then it's what it is.

STILLS