FILMMAKER MAGAZINE | Fall 1998: PRODUCTION UPDATE

PRODUCTION UPDATE

Think you’ve seen every variation on films about filmmaking? Think again. Steven Ho’s Soundman puts a Travis Bickle behind the mixing board and takes wry pleasure in waiting for the inevitable mayhem to ensue.

Igby Walters has just about had it with hearing directors say, "We’ll fix it in post." He decides that the next time he’s humiliated on a set will be the last. In his off hours, the graceless Igby counters the inner torment he contains at work by posing as a Hollywood power player to a beautiful aspiring violinist who believes him when he says he can get her a coveted audition. When his effort to help her pits him against a tough studio exec, Igby loses his cool for good.

"Igby’s only incidentally a soundman," says Ho, who calls his film an homage to character-driven films of the ’70s like Taxi Driver. "He could be a postal worker or anyone who’s dissatisfied with his life and takes action in ways that have catastrophic consequences."

Ho, 31, was born in Java of Chinese descent and moved to East L.A. as a child. As a teenage karate champ he competed in 250 martial arts events and won the 1989 national title from the North American Sport Karate Association. That led him into acting, originally for Hong Kong director Tsui Hark and later in American films like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles sequels and New Line’s Mortal Kombat; altogether Ho has credits as an actor or stuntman on more than 50 features and TV shows.

In his first attempt to make a film, Ho optioned a Robert Bolt screenplay called Buddha several years back; Ron Fricke (Baraka) was to direct. Though that project never got off the ground it introduced Ho to iconoclastic producer Alton Walpole (Passion in the Desert), who’d worked on Baraka and ultimately produced Soundman. Originally a cinematographer and editor on films like Koyaanisqatsi, Walpole now has a film and video production house in Santa Fe where Soundman was shot last November and December. L.A. character actor Wayne Pere gets his first starring turn as Igby and Sundance ’96 Filmmakers’ Workshop alum Eliane Chappuis plays Juliet, his love interest. Also in Soundman’s cast are William Forsythe and Nick Stahl. Former Guns ’n Roses drummer Matt Sorum contributed to the film’s score. Soundman is 35mm color and premieres in the "Cinema of Tomorrow" section of the Montreal World Film Festival; all rights are available.

Cast: Wayne Pere, Eliane Chappuis, William Forsythe, Nick Stahl, Wes Studi, Danny Trejo, Tamlyn Tomita, John Koyama, Liane Curtis. Crew: Producer, Alton Walpole; Executive Producers, Eliane Chappuis, Franz Wassmer; Screenwriter/ Director, Steven Widi Ho; Cinematographer/Editor, David E. Aubrey; Production Designer, Rosario Provenza; Composers, Matt Sorum, Dany Cordola, Michael Sterns. Contact: Alton Walpole, Mountainair Films, 1270 Calle de Comercio, Suite #4, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505. Tel: (505) 471-9293, Fax: (505) 438-0294.