It’s A Wrap!

Well the camera rolled and cut on the final substantive filmed interview for the documentary on Monday 15th October talkin to the actor/director David Yip brought (for the most part) the filming on the documentary to a close. Fitting really as my first professional acting job was starring along side David in the film Ping Pong.

Apart from perhaps some context shots and a few “location” shots the filming part of the documentary is now complete

I now go on to the full edit. 

It has been a steep learning curve and not without substantial challenges some positive and some unfortunately negative

But thankfully with the support of my family, close friends and you who have so generously given of your time and your thoughts I literally made it.

If anyone would have told me back in 2010 that I would end up making an independent documentary I would have told them that they were insane or that they were taking the */?~@!!

But here I am two years on, film in the can and onto the edit

 

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Adoption, Adoption, Adoption!

It’s in the news, even the PM is making statements about it!

But Adoption is a subject that is never far from the societal surface. It engenders great passion, extreme emotions and polarises viewpoints

Yesterday I interviewed the wonderful Anthony Lau. A young, dynamic, erudite, supremely confident yet never cocky or arrogant British Born Chinese. Gently spoken with gloriously correct English (something that I begin to miss and appreciate more and more as I get older!) Anthony is currently the Assistant Director on Bingo now playing at the Young Vic.

It’s clear to me even if it isn’t to Michael Gove, David Cameron or a raft of Adoption savvy experts.
Identity is key –  whether your adopted or not adopted.

Anthony Lau is a rare human being. He is supremely confident in who he is where he has come from and in some senses where is is going. He sees himself as a citizen of the world. Proud of his Chinese ancestry, proud of his liberal “English” upbringing. As comfortable with Yum cha as he is with a twelve course high table traditional English banquet. As at home with Wong Wing-sze as he is with William Shakespeare

Anthony questions why an allegiance to one part of his heritage should take precedence over the other part. For Anthony he is what he is, he is comfortable with the duality, the differences and the similarities in the end we’re all just people, just human beings. Good for him. I wish that more people, especially people in positions of power thought in the same way as Anthony.

But what happens when one half of the equation has been redacted out? What happens if half of who you are supposed to be has been torn away from you? Is it any wonder that many adoptees spend a love time searching, grasping sometimes at straws trying to find the missing jigsaw pieces.

Whether you are dual nationality, hyphenated ethnicity, of mixed cultures, races and heritage’s identity matters it defines, it shapes, it underpins it is an emotional and psychological skeleton which helps you to hang, you, your personality, your essence in place it give you structure, shape, belonging and a definition space

Without it I think you are very much lost, never complete, never whole always the “other” 

Nee Hao!

How cool is that we made it onto Nee Hao’s website

Actress Lucy Sheen to make documentary about being an adopted HK baby in UK

2 hours ago

Lucy Sheen is an actor, writer, and hopefully soon to be film director and producer with your help. She wishes to make a documentary about adopted Hong Kong babies in the UK. During the late 50s and early 60s, one hundred Hong Kong babies were adopted to mainly English families. The first organised group of trans-racially adopted children. Lucy was one of those babies

Donations Already Received

WOW

THANK YOU 

We’ve already received donatioins on our IndieGoGo! fuhnding campaign

I’m gobsmacked and over the moon

Please just keep donating even if you can only afford one pound or one dollar

As they say every little helps

 

Thank you 🙂

Lights, Camera, Action

Our first day of filming on the documentary. 

Today we will be interviewing Jennifer Tan

Hi, I’m Jennifer Tan. I’m British, but I’m a bit Chinese; a Northerner but I live in London; an Actor with a background in technology. Confused? I’m not. I take all these brilliantly diverse things and use them to inform my work. To be a good actor you need to be interested and interesting –I’m certainly both of these things.

This will be interesting….

Would Be Very Interested…

So last week Thursday I met with an award winning documentary production company. Once again I found myself a bag of nerves. This time the nerves did what they were supposed to do or purport to do which is an andrenaline sized 11 up the backside. Making my pitch half decent.

After a weekend of pure hell biting non existent nails and worrying stupidly over minor concerns. I got the email I was hoping , “would be very interested in doing more with you on your story, and the other members of the Chinese adoption study.”

Huge sigh of relief. Then another response to my email. Yes they were interested but only with me being a participant. Not the news that I had wanted to hear. Bitterly disappointed, but c’est la vie.

Huge sigh.

Even though we only got so far. I somehow feel vindicated. As a professional, as  HK Adoptee, as a British-Chinese citizen. As a human being.

There were looking back it obvious reasons why I, we failed, but these can be addressed and will be addressed.It has given me new impetus to re-evaluate our independent documentary. To take on board that there is another very big player on the scene. So I have to cut our cloth accordinly and shape a slightly different tale/

Will it suddenly change my life – no. Will it have an impact. I do hope so. Will the documentary if it gets commissioned put the cat amongst some pigeons, I suspect it will.

Lucy Sheen actor/writer and HK adoptee 

Meeting with an award winning documentary production company

Yesterday I had a very important meeting with an established, award winning documentary production company.

Now I’ve never had a meeting like that before. So I was more than a little nervous. Which wasn’t helped when the demo DVD that I’d brought along I couldn’t find, initially.

I needn’t have been nervous. The person I was meeting (Head of Factual Formats). was an engaging, and very personable individual. The meeting went on for over an hour. So it went very, very, very well. There is much that I have to discuss with my writing partner and the Director. In fact too much. I still can’t quite believe how I ended up sitting opposite the Head of Factual Formats pitching the idea of The Forgotten Adoptees. And to an award winning documentary production company.

But I’ll take anything that’s offered lol.

So it will be a weekend of deep thought 

 

Lucy Sheen Actor/Writer & Producer

A Documentary – Easy-peasy!

Eighteen months ago – I was down, out, forgotten and discarded. Feeling my age and feeling  useless.

But here I am, now producing and “writing” an independent documentary along with Claire Martin. But it’s not just any documentary, it’s a documentary about being trans-racially adopted. Being an abandoned Hong Kong baby. Being British-Chinese.

Don’t let anyone fool you, making a documentary isn’t  just point and film. Though I guess you could do it like that. As with any creative venture there is so much more that goes on behind the scenes than in front of the camera. Learning to do the admin for any film project could be a daunting task. But I’m really grateful that my time as a Senior  Project Manager has given me the ideal transferrable skills in back office administration. Plus I’d like to think that I have a modicum of common sense, along with thirty years of professional experience in front of the camera and on stage.

So we have been filming on and off since June of this year. When I decided to set up this blog, the Facebook page and the Twitter for our documentary I didn’t really think about what we had achieved as individuals and as writing partners. But it’s massive. Yes we have to finish making the documentary and yes we have to then sell the documentary. Making the thing is the easy bit. But it’s spawned new friendships and has been the inspiration for my one woman play. Claire has a feature film brewing in the back of her brain which we will work on together and it has give both myself and Claire a sense of context something that I think both of us were searching for before.

So keep tuned in to see how we progress on the documentary. We will shortly be launching a sponsorship drive. Keep your eyes peeled

Happy Friday to one and all

Lucy