Seeking Completion Funds for the Screening Room

I have launched fundraising for my film, "The Screening Room" through Kickstarter. I am inviting everyone who is interested in seeing this film come to its final conclusion to be generous. Independent film begins with you, the viewing public, our friends and supporters.

I look forward to bringing this film to HIFF by next year.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tlyoung/the-screening-room

And to sweeten the deal, this blogspot will not be following the day to day actions of the film's promotions. Only Kickstarter will have exclusive content including photos from the publicity tour.

Special Appearance by Jesus Christ

Actor Joshua Raphael portrays Jesus Christ in this film.

Separating fact from fiction

Because I felt this Kelly Deerdale blog was so important, I thought I'd reprint it here in an edited form.

"Stories are meant to grow and develop and leave the original source behind. Jokes aside, I can see that Kelly Deerdale, as a character and as a person, was growing, learning, developing, becoming the stable adult that she would become, and having a naturist background would only help her, not hinder her.

"But of course, this is an assumption. Maybe she isn't happily married, as my film states in the final caption. Very few people are, but I have a good instinct when it comes to people. I believe she ended up more stable and more mentally, physically and sexually healthier than I ever did.

"It's why I made the film in the first place, and the only reason to make a nudist film, because when you look at yourself naked, you better be prepared for what you might see."

Naturists as healthy beings

Copied from a prior blog by Ken Freehiker:

Reintroduce a Healthy Naturist Revolution

Healthy eating and exercise, along with mental and spiritual health,
were essential to early naturist practice. What happened? It’s as if
when people took off their clothes they forgot why. Originally, it was
for physical and mental health. It’s time to bring healthy living back
to naturism.

It’s wrong that naturists just laze around a pool or on a beach in the
sun to the exclusion of swimming and freehiking and nude gardening and
similar healthy activities. Naturism is not just sunbathing – far from
it.

It’s wrong that naturists eat such unhealthy foods. A restaurant at a
resort should serve much more than burgers and fries and sugar-crammed
sodas. Naturists are healthy eaters.

It’s wrong that naturists gather together to drink and smoke as if
getting naked somehow encourages these obviously unhealthy practices.
On the contrary, naturism discourages these nasty habits.

It's wrong that naturists neglect mental and spiritual stimulation,
and hide from others. Demonstrating that they are different, not
"sheeple", by stepping outside the constraints of society and culture,
and rejecting the negative effects of "textilism" and sexual
perversion, naturists should be seekers after all truth and leaders
and teachers and missionaries, not fearful mental pigmies.

Perhaps “nudists” are okay with an unhealthy lifestyle, but not
“naturists”. By definition, naturists are physically active, eat
healthy food, avoid unhealthy habits, seek mental and spiritual
advancement, and encourage others to understand so they also live in
true health. It’s time for everyone to become "true" naturists.

In this regard, here’s an article by Dr. Mercola about sugar, one of
my pet peeves since being diagnosed with diabetes, that I found a very
informative resource:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/01/26/Sugar-M...

Can any of my readers suggest similar resources?

It’s past time to reintroduce a naturist revolution in how people
live!
-------------------------

American Nudist: Behind the Scenes

Pre-production has begun for a concurrent film, "Real American Nudist" while Screening Room is nearing post.

CREATING A CHARACTER

Usually when a writer creates a character, he bases it on someone from his life. Usually someone who has had a major impact on him or her.

I did something totally different for American Nudist, something I never thought I'd do.

When I was in 26, a girl I'll call "Jenny" here stood me up on Valentine's day. It left me traumatized, emotionally devastated and scarred for the rest of my life. I never truly recovered.

Jenny inspired no less than 12 "F*ck You Bitch" poems, one of which got me temporarily banned from Borders.

The experience inspired an award winning play and I even incorporated it into my sci-fi novel.

But enough was enough.

I was instructed to create a past love affair for my main character, Taylor Kong. But no woman from my past had any real impact on me. Especially from Hawaii, which I used to call the hotbed of celibacy.

So what did I do? I asked myself, What if Jenny didn't stand me up? What if we had met that night and we had this wild, animalistic love affair which inspired me to create more positive plays and films. What if loving her gave me more insight to love and relationships right then and there? Instead of waiting years to find out what I'd been doing wrong, and not being able to do anything about it.

What if Jenny were my muse?

So a character was born. This Jenny Chan is nothing like any local girl I've ever met. She's smart, insightful, very spiritual and mature. She knows herself and can see through the hypocrisies of the naturist lifestyle, when Taylor himself could not.

She even gets to the front door of the nudist party before she bails, not because she doesn't believe in it, but because she sees naturism as a young person's game, and when she doesn't get that, she makes her opinion known.

She inspires Taylor, though she hurts him at the same time. But one lesson Taylor will never learn as I had, 'tis better to love and lost than to never have loved at all.'

The real "Jenny" never taught me anything except how to hate. To be honest, she was an immature slut and I wasted years envying her for her sexual prowess. The fictional Jenny forced me to recreate myself in a way that the real Jenny did not.

The real "Jenny" admitted she didn't believe in love. The fictional Jenny understands and can only give love, but not irrationally.

The real "Jenny" and every other girl from my hometown will probably never read this. That's just as well. I don't want to pay her any royalties, but then again, she didn't create the character.

I did.

And I credit those who create something that is timeless and beautiful, not those who try to destroy it.

No Nudity in Manoa Valley Theater's production of "Hair"

This is reprinted from their Audition notice:

nudity: The script does not stipulate the use of nudity and the MVT production will be produced without nudity. Nudity is not integral to the "telling of the story" in Hair.

I come from Hawaii, and I feel ashamed for this. Lack of the nude scene in Hair is an insult to the original artists and though I've been told by at least one director that Hair has nothing to do with the nudist movement, I agree in part. Act One where the nude scene is placed is not consistent with the nudist ideals.

Act Two however, particularly within the context of the song, "Walking in Space" is very consistent, and though I do not credit the hippies with anything related to nudism, I remind them of this lyric:

"How dare they try to end this beauty. How dare they try to end this beauty."

This is all I will say on the matter. I have lost all faith in the artists in Hawaii at this point. Quite frankly their conservative mindset has, then and now, made me sick to my stomach.

The Naked Mile

Truth to tell, American Pie: The Naked Mile is not a nudist film, nor does it pretend to be. Still, the Naked Mile is considered a real nudist event, so I thought I say a few words about this movie here.

It's a very cliched movie with forced gross out humor, but the one thing I noticed was how natural the Naked Mile scenes were. College kids having fun, despite the script trying (and failing) to "sex it up."

There was only one guy with a keg of beer. The stripping scenes were matter-of-fact and the sexiness of it wasn't very natural.



Oddly enough, it was the underwear dance party that had any sex appeal at all in the whole film.

But in the spirit of nudism, the fifty-something extras did a great job in capturing this event. Some of them, from what I gather in the bts documenatary went totally nude. Most of the men wore socks and at least one girl wore pasties. All three main college girls (the female leads) went topless, which is something I have yet to film. So kudos to them.

I've included some pics. Again, I do not own these photos and if requested, I will remove them. I will put together an article about the real Naked Mile in my next blog