There is a scene featuring Spring Lake in Santa Rosa. In the weeks leading up to the shoot, we went there to scout out locations and were very shocked to find the lake nearly covered in a scum layer of red brown algae. We needed to shoot at this location in 3 weeks. That day,Continue reading “Open The Lake”
Category Archives: Zoe’s Choice
Support from the Restaurant group
Meals were needed to provide for all the cast and crew members during the shoot. We are very grateful for sponsorship from local restaurants. JoJo Sushi, Ippin Udon, Kiraku Sushi, Santa Rosa Asian Eat, all sponsored us by providing delicious meals through the many days of shooting. When we needed to shoot scenes in aContinue reading “Support from the Restaurant group”
A Heart-Breaking Scene
Zoe’s parents already had communication problems; arguments were not uncommon in their marriage. Most recently, they had been arguing about Richard wanting to move to Asia to advance his career. Frustrated with constantly moving, Mandy wanted to stay where they were, close to her sister. One night, their argument escalated to a physical altercation followingContinue reading “A Heart-Breaking Scene”
A Retiree Returns
The sound mixer we worked with last year had returned to France. In the small city of Santa Rosa, it was a challenge to find another professional sound technician. In this situation, we could only turn to God and pray that He would send us another experienced technician to join our production team. One day,Continue reading “A Retiree Returns”
8 Child Actors
Pushing through the discouragement of our loss, we began planning to resume our film. A well-prepared plan is necessary to save time when filming. We also needed to find additional crew members so that we would have greater flexibility when arranging our shooting schedule. These were all major challenges. In order to capture the differentContinue reading “8 Child Actors”
Rising Through Theft
In November of 2021 we were in the middle of moving our ERS office from Rohnert Park back to Santa Rosa. One day, we arrived at our old office and discovered someone had broken into it the previous night. Chief among the items missing were three sets of cameras, one of which had just beenContinue reading “Rising Through Theft”
Film Shooting Has Started in California
The timeline of “Zoe’s Choice” covers 2 decades. It’s been a great challenge for us to find many actors ranging from infants to grandparents, as well as a variety of many locations. We finally came up with the plan to divide the scenes in different shooting phases so that we won’t be too overwhelmed.
Side notes From Filming in Taiwan
Due to the pandemic in America, it was very hard for us to start the production of the film “Zoe’s Choice.” The length of our Taiwan scenes only accounted for 10% of the overall film, so we planned to travel to Taiwan to start this part first. The Taiwanese government required 14 days of quarantine and 7 days of self-isolation, with no public meetings and transportation, before we could actually start working. It added a lot of uncertainty to our trip.
Characters Introduction
Richard Jiang: Thirty-Five years old and immigrated from Taiwan to California. Very smart and intelligent, however has a strange attitude. Doesn’t understand how to communicate with his family, resulting in violent outbreaks. Couldn’t stand the way of working in America, so he left to work in Asia, leaving his family alone in America.
About Producer
Emmanuel Resource Service” previously produced three testimonies: “Rise From the Pit”, “Fly Away from Superstition”, “Quick Fix”, and two short movies: “One More Game” and “Homesick”. And the English TV talk show ‘The Lighthouse” in San Francisco, California.