cineSOURCE magazine

Wilson Wu: Hardest Working Man in Film
by Doniphan Blair

One of the hardest working people in N. Cal film, Wilson Wu finds the location, is the first one there on shoot day, and then locks the door at the end. photo: Max Malkin

Born in Los Angeles, Wilson Wu is in point of fact a country boy, raised on a dairy farm in Southern Oregon. But his Hollywood roots didn't simply lay down and die. Indeed, his father named him after an actor friend, Terry Wilson, who played Bill Hawks in the television series, "Wagon Train", (1957-1965) and that stood him in good stead when family returned south when Wilson was 12.

Back in the City of Angels, Wu attended Marshall High School, where "Grease" was filmed in 1977. He went on to take a Bachelors in Economics from UC Berkeley, which triggered his long love affair with the East Bay.

"I thought I wanted to be a lawyer," Wu told me, "But I took a film appreciation class and watched films like 'King Kong' [1933] and 'Citizen Kane' [1941]—at the Berkeley Film Archive!—and I got hooked."

He became a "John Ford freak," due to his rural background. One of his favorite films is "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" (1962) but he also adores Akira Kurosawa. "Ikiru" ("To Live", 1952) is his favorite Kurosawa.

"I love films about people trying to figure out how to live their lives with dignity and honor," adding with a smile, "Despite the fact that we all fall in love with someone!"

So he decided to try his hand as a Production Assistant around the Bay. But after a couple of years of schlepping boxes, he asked himself: "What job—if I want to live in Nor Cal and work in film—what job will keep rice on the table?"

"The film companies are not filming here because we have world-class stages, or better production vendors or production people up here. They are here for one simple reason... LOCATION. Ergo, the Location Scout/Manager must be the most steadily employed person on the local crew—providing you are good at it, of course! I have found this original wisdom to be a profound truth when it comes to the film business in Northern California."

Wu is also the creator of a couple of shorts. His first, "You Not Chinese!" (1994), featured the characters of Charley Chan, Dr. Fu Manchu, and the lab assistant "Sam" from the television show "Quincy". Set in a midwestern diner, it concerns a young Chinese dude who earns invective from a "reverse-bigoted" Chinese waiter because he is dating a white girl, doesn't speak Chinese, and can't use chopsticks.

"It was all about American stereotypes of Asian men in American movies and television," noted Wu.

He tried to follow that up with "Hiro and Company" about a Japanese hair dresser and his four beautiful Asian women employees. Essentially a pilot for a sitcom, it was a bawdy comedy about "rice fevered" white guys, Korean-American and African-American race relations, and Asian wannabe gangsters. "Pretty crazy stuff that today seems sort of dated," Wu admitted.

Despite his busy schedule, CineSource was able to get through to Wu and do a rather extensive and wide-ranging interview over the course of a few phone calls.

With a massive computerized jib, on location in Rockridge, location manager supreme: Wilson Wu. photo: courtesy W. Wu

CineSource: What do you think the loss of Ami Zins and the halving of the Film Commission. Has it affected shooting in Oakland?

Wilson Wu: Sure, we should have a film office. Sure, we should have someone trying to attract business to Oakland. But, overall, I don't think it has changed things. I still get permits; the police are still as helpful as ever; I still bring my cleints to Oakland whenever I can. I know what a treasure trove it is for locations. It represents all of Middle America.

We shot the Chrysler commercial with Clint Eastwood in the beginning of the year. Many people thought it was shot in Detroit but [a lot of it] was shot in Oakland. I scouted it.

Clint [Eastwood] is from Oakland; did he push to get it here?

I really don't know the uptick of why they ended up shooting it in Oakland. Originally, he was going to do [the shot of] coming down onto the football field at the Coliseum but then something happened and they ended shooting him in LA. It is the most controversial and talked about commercial of the last 30 years and it did skyrocket Chrysler's sales, apparently.

Is that a fact! That says something about it but also the state of advertising, I am afraid.

Yeah.

Mostly you are working elsewhere these days?

If I do one commercial a month in Oakland, that is pretty good. I have been averaging that. I did a Cisco Systems corporate video for a day, recently.

Jumping back to the Chrysler ad: If you were trying to sell Oakland, what would be your closer?

For some reason, advertisers are trying to appeal to the blue collar of America now. Oakland has an awful lot of houses built around the shipbuilding era and that reminds advertisers of the blue collar era. It is fitting their profile now.

In a sense, Oakland has it all. We've got the burners [Burning Man afficionados], blacks, and blue collar—

Yeah. And it's easy shooting. The Volkswagon ad [we just did] was all about shopping. Because of the cooperation of the Oakland Police Department, the client, Volkswagon, remembered the previous year when we shot here and they specifically wanted to bring the shoot to Oakland because of the OPD.

Although this part of the famous Chrysler Super Bowl was shot in LA, most of it was filmed in Oakland due to the city's deluxe blue collar city scapes. photo: courtesy Chrysler

They felt that the Oakland Police department is one of the best in country for filming. They help us out, they know what to do. They based a whole [ad] campaign around how the police cooperation was so great. They needed an area to shoot that had to do with shopping. Of course, you can do that any where in the country.

Originally, they were going to shoot it in Seattle but there was too much trouble shooting in Seattle last time and they had a great experience here the year before. So they decided to shoot it again in Oakland.

Is there someone in the police department who greases those wheels a little?

You know, it is just the whole police department. They find it a great activity, a break from the normal stuff.

So there is no resentment or anything for film trucks blocking the street? And it is only like $12 bucks a day or something to rent a parking place?

Oakland is not San Francisco where they think they have territorial rights, they own the street, that kind of stuff. In Oakland, the residents are just interested in getting on with business.

There is always some one who is disgruntled about something but you know what? That is going to be anywhere you go in the universe. In Oakland, when it says 'No Parking' [because of a film shoot], people don't park there. They know the police are just going to give you a ticket and tow you away. As we say, 'They take no prisoners in Oakland.'

In San Francisco, they will park in a film shoot, tear you sign down, and nothing will happen, because everyone is afraid they will get sued or they know the mayor or someone knows someone. But in Oakland they say 'OK, no parking, we won't park here.' Its amazing, night and day.

If you go to San Francisco, even if you post the no parking signs, warn everybody and leaflet the area, they are still going to park their cars there because they are 'entitled to,' OK? Oakland people don't feel that way.

So you feel the entitlement culture of San Francisco, for which it is so famous, also interferes with the filmmaking, whereas the work-a-day, they're-going-to-tow-your-ass-away Oakland, makes for an efficient filmmaking culture?

It is easier to film in Oakland by far. If Oakland had the same scenics as San Francisco and still had the same ease of filmming, we would be having multimillion dollar features in Oakland all the time. In San Francisco there is so much red tape and so-and-so who is afraid of so-and-so who is afraid of so-and-so.

I just had an experience on a recent project, over last weekend [in San Francisco], where one person complained. Because they are on record as complaining, it is a major major deal. They happened to live in a mixed use building and they were woken up early by a film shoot. We didn't know there was a mixed use building down there in the financial district.

Another Wu scouted shoot, this time in the classic Oakland neighborhood of Temescal. photo: courtesy W. Wu

In Oakland, if someone called that in they would say, 'Don't PG&E trucks come in before seven, doesn't the garbage come through, so why are the film people so special? Take a hike!' But in San Francisco, they will come after the film companies: you can't do this, you have to apologize.

I am amazed that Woody Allen is coming to shoot a major feature in San Francisco because they have such rediculous policies.

Really? So even with the new Film Commission and the new advocacy for film, it is as bad as ever?

It really is. They haven't really changed. The only thing they have changed is the head of the office is nicer, more encouraging to the film community.

In comparison to the previous director?

Yes. She was bad for business and she cost us a lot of money. Her attitude was basically, 'No.'

No one remembers Robin Eickman. There is an award named after her by the state. Robin Eickman was San Francisco's first official film director. [from 1980 until her death in 1998, she lured more than 100 feature films, including "Mrs. Doubtfire," "Basic Instinct," "Escape from Alcatraz," and the television series "Nash Bridges," and "Tales of the City". Read more']

Eickman had a way of balancing both the citizen's needs versus the film company's needs and she choose no sides. She always said, 'It can always be worked out in a compromise. You can do this and inconvenience people but we will work something out.'

Well, the [SF] Film Office is not about that. It is about 'I don't want a complaint, I don't want to have to deal with an angry citizen because I am afraid to loose my job.' That kind of attitude leaves the filmmaker in the lurch. It makes them feel, 'So who do we complain to?'

I am going to rally my own campaign to get this changed. It has cost our film community millions of dollars. People don't know the inside story. The general consensus among Hollywood production companies is that San Francisco is a difficult place for film.

It costs us not only millions of dollars in filming revenue but millions of tourist dollars because we are not exporting beautiful photos of this wonderful place that we live—all those Chinese and Japanese and German tourists who see us on the internet and decide to take their next vacation here. I don't know the total is but it is a hell of lot more then you and I make, OK?

That issue is something I find very troubling. There is a bureaucrat in San Francisco who sits behind the scenes stamping papers on street closures, who has been doing this for twenty some odd years. No one knows who she is but I do because I have been a location manager for twenty years. She has cost The City millions of dollars in filming.

Last year, she got me in a conference call with the Film Office director and said to both of us, and I quote, 'Well, personally, I don't think filming is an activity The City should allow or endorse anyway, but that is just my view.'

[laughs] This is a person who has the power to approve the lane and street closures in San Francisco, OK? If you have the ability to do that, and say 'No' to everything, which she will do, because she doesn't belleive in what we do, that means that you have cost The City millions of dollars over the years. And I believe the previous film commissioner also adopted that attitude of 'No, you can't do this, you can't!' And she was fired because of that.

But this petty bureaucrat can not be fired. She can hide behind her position, direct policy and show up at film openings and eat our hors d'oeuvres and drink our wine and yet behind the scenes say, 'I don't think The City should support this activity anyway.' [laughs]

We need to eliminate people like that, get them out of these positions, and start over with the people who understand the value of what we do.

With the Woody Allen movie coming, I think this is an opportunity for us to demonstrate, on a large scale, that we are a film friendly community, that we want these projects, OK? I don't believe, given the current way of handling things in The City, we are going to be able to pull it off in a friendly manner.

The other thing is this, if Woody Allen is able to pull off certain things that commercials can't do—what is wrong with that picture? Because he is a feature and Woody Allen, he is going to be able to get to the financial district earlier then the rest of us? Why don't we have a policy that is fair for everyone and advocates for film, and tries to help it happen?

I am going to start to talking to film commissioner and I have a way of getting to the mayor of SF. I am going to start rattling the cage. I am not afraid of getting fired. I don't work for any one person, I am freelance. I am not afraid of them and I am not afraid of saying, 'Listen, you are standing in the way of our business. You need to correct your policies or be replaced.'

I said that about the previous film commissioner and she was replaced. Someone in the city administration asked me my opinion, because I film more than anyone else, and I told them.

It sounds like your an activist on this and we do like to cover scandal.

In the future I am going to start to unearth this San Francisco thing because I think it is in all of our interest to encourage the business as opposed to just tolerate it. Everyone else is afraid they are not going to give me a permit. They don't have that kind of power at the Film Office—they have to give you a permit because that is what they are supposed to do. I am allowed to have my opinion of the kind of job they do and I think they do a shitty job.

In Oakland it all ties together? Edgy, multicultural, Middle America?

A few years ago, I made a short film, and I shot it in Oakland, and someone asked me 'Why Oakland?' And I said, and I still believe this to this day, the cliché-ed Rodney King quote, 'Can't we all get along?' That is the hope for the melting pot concept of America: Can all these different races of people get along and govern themselves. If it can't happen in Oakland, California, then the experiment is a failure and it is not going to happen anywhere.

If Oakland fails, if it continues to drive down into this abyss of crime, and schools that are bankrupt, and a place that nobody wants to got to locate their corporation, if it continues to go in that direction, then this country is a failure. Oakland is the example.

That is my feeling. Oakland is a mircorcosm of the United States of America and the hope or failures of our country. Frankly, President Obama and everyone in this country should be looking at Oakland and whether it floats and revives itself or whether it fails.

For instance, the African American security business that we all use in the production business, they are doing the security because I got them into doing it. I saw that they needed an opportunity and that we needed color in our business, some minorities. If I were you, I would interview Tim Overall. He is a former Oakland police officer, a pastor in a church. Our shoots are staffed mostly by his parishioners.

You almost sound like a politician.

I don't mean to be. I just do a lot of this and, when you work all the time, you run into these problems. If I don't have a way to solve them, my clients are going to stop calling me. I have got to solve these problems and I talk to a lot of people about these things. A lot of people in my business are afraid, OK?

If you don't draw a line in the sand and stand up and say something, if you let others take care of things, that is the state of the world. It is like [Bernie] Madoff, you let people get away with it.

I think you have a talent for verbalizing and analyzing this stuff, as successful as you are in your current career, you may want to consider a change. Getting back to your understanding of Oakland, what would be your recommendation for the city?

I have met Jean Quan, I have met her husband, [although] I didn't know a whole lot about them. I meet mayors occasionally, like the mayor of Livermore—I shot in his back yard. So now Oakland actually has an honest politician—as honest as a politician can be. She actually wants to try to do the right thing. But I don't know, in the world of politics, if that is effective. She means to do well. She is paying off a second mortgage that she took out to finance her campaign, OK?

Now she walked into a quagmire. But at least she is accountable as opposed to a mayor who didn't even exist and was never there [the last one, Ron Dellums]. But because the media and the Occupy Movement control so much I don't know that the residents will be able to hear the true issues involved rather then the negative PR she gets from all this stuff.

If we put in someone else, a professional politician, would we be better off? The most effective, I guess, is the person who has the most money behind them, the most backfield going. Jean is not that person.

If you ask me what I want for the city of Oakland, it is for the citzens to look past what the media says and look at what we have had a mayors and administrations. We need some honesty, and I think we have it but we also need to support that honesty and actually look at a lot of the stuff in the media you don't know where that comes from.

She is a hard worker she is willing to out on the street and listen to people and she is better then what we have had.

So you think the snafu with Occupy Oakland was just part of the normal insanity of Oakland?

I think Occuppy Oakland is summed up in this. There was a news article that the Occupy was cabled $20,000 to continue the movement and they opened an account at Wells Fargo with it, OK? Now id you are Occupy Oakland and you are the 99% and you open a bank account at Wells Fargo and it somehow got out to the press I think that undermines your credibility.

Think of it this way, if I wanted Quan out as mayor, would I finance the Occupy movement, I sure would, to hire professional rabble rousers. Meanwhile, it sucks all the attention from the real problems of Oakland and it doesn't give her a chance to work on them. Instead, she has to deal with the media storm and campers at city hall.

I have lived in Brazil and Oakland reminds me of Brazil, you have these intense neighborhoods and it seems like they are all controlled by mafias of one sort or the other. On the other hand, it is not that bad. In fact, it is amazing how nice it is and those two Oaklands live side-by-side.

Like I said, it truly represents America. I am all about encouraging business in the area. I think when times are hard, we all need to realize we are an area: San Francisco, Oakland, Tri-Valley, Napa, we are a package of locations. If the biggest part of that package, San Francisco, has policies that discourages film, that will cost all the cities money. The [production] may be based in San Francisco but they still have to go to Alameda to get a neighborhood or the vineyards.

Everyone looses if San Francisco doesn't get the projects.

Posted on Apr 26, 2012 - 03:06 AM