Tuesday I traveled to Woodside, Queens, to shoot another short film in short order – all in an afternoon’s work. The director liked that I’d regrown my beard for the short film I’d just done, so the facial follicles are sticking around a little longer…

Above I’m with my scene partner Xiaoxiao Sun and our director Tokio Sasaki. Nobuko Okamoto, seen below with Xiaoxiao and myself, was the “crew”. Except for some hallway shots, the whole film takes place in a small room, where two men have a very fraught, enigmatic conversation.

The film is actually an assignment for a Sundance Institute on-line film class. Tokyo was given a 1 1/2 page script where two non-gendered characters (Blair and Jesse) have a tense but allusive conversation. It is up to every class participant to create a back story for the characters and subtext for the dialog, and then direct the actors and film them in a way that makes narrative, cinematic sense of the scene.

Tokyo created a back story of an older American having an affair with a younger Asian immigrant, ensnaring him in ever-complicating layers of deceit and secrets; and love. He filmed each of us mostly in tight close-ups.

The full length version of Tokyo’s story could make for quite the twisted, haunting love story. I hope he gets to make it some day.

My whole performance I got to sit in this comfy chair. That was the easy part. The shifting dramatic beats over enigmatic dialog were more of a tricky dance, but fun to do.