Filmmaker Emily May Jampel and Lucky Fish

Mixed Asian Media - October 3, 2022

By Erica Ito

Hello, Emily! Thank you for meeting with us today. Are you coming to us live from Brooklyn? 

Yeah, I'm working from home, on the border of Gowanus and Park Slope.

Oh, beautiful. Not to dox you on the internet or anything. 

Nah, no one's looking for me.

You were born and raised on O’ahu and studied film and critical theory at NYU. Will you fill in the gaps for me? How did you make it from the Pacific Ocean to the East Coast? 

I was born and raised in Honolulu. My mom's from Hong Kong. My dad is half Japanese, half white. He grew up in Tokyo. They met in college in California and moved to Hawai’i to raise a family, but I was the only one born there. So I never felt like I fit in that much in Hawai’i. Ethnically, everyone's mixed, and that felt very comfortable. But culturally, my family didn’t have deep roots there.

In high school I was kind of like a big dork and just did my homework and went to the mall. I knew I liked English (probably because it was the only class I did okay in), but I didn't see myself as an artist because I couldn't draw. I just knew I liked films and books and things like that. I think I probably watched Annie Hall and Gossip Girl and was like, “Oh my god, I wanna go to New York.” 

It's kind of crazy the way it happened, because I remember being prepared. My mom was freaked out. Even when we toured the colleges and I told her I wanted to go to NYU, she was like, “Emily, why? (a) I don't know if you can get in, and (b) this is such a crazy city! I don’t think you'll do well. You're gonna get trampled. Like, metaphorically and maybe literally.” 

But I remember being really surprised by feeling really comfortable here. It is hard to find your footing, and it's hard to be in New York without knowing what you wanna be doing, but maybe that's the case for anywhere.

Ah yes, that classic Really-Close-With-Your-High-School-English-Teacher to Finally-Feeling-At-Home-in-NYC pipeline. In addition to acting and directing your own projects, you also work as a development executive for the Department of Motion Pictures, right?

Yes! It’s essentially my day job. I help them find projects by reading a lot of scripts and working with filmmakers. It started as a group of Wesleyan film kids helping their friend make a movie. That movie ended up succeeding, so they kept doing it, and then they got nominated for an Oscar. But they basically started out as friends making things.

As someone who works in film development, but is also a filmmaker in their own right (and a bit of a photographer as well!), is there one principle that all of your work seeks to say or is looking to accomplish?

Hmm… it's funny because I always like seeing the throughline in other people’s work, but I feel like it's almost impossible to know — like you only see it after the fact sometimes. I'm curious to see what the through line looks like for other people.

Right. Ten years from now, someone will come up to you and be like, “I love how all of your work says this.” And you'll be like, “Ohhh, yes. That’s what it is.” 

Yeah! I mean, directing is still pretty new for me. I've been working in film for a while, and I've acted in a number of shorts, but Lucky Fish is the first thing I've directed. 

I'm making another short this fall that I wanna shoot in Hawai’i. I think it's fun to make things that I see as really different, but I'm already starting to hear from other people, “Oh, you're making another coming of age short with, like, two Asian kids who just kind of, like, hang out?” And I’m like, “Yeah, I am.” So maybe that’s my thing.

And what a great niche it is. Congratulations by the way on Lucky Fish, your first major project as writer and director! What pushed you to wanna take on both roles in telling this story?

It's very scary, right? I think the way people talk about directing in general… people put directors on a pedestal in the film industry. They think directors are these geniuses who know exactly what they want all the time. It was only after meeting these younger filmmakers on set, who didn't necessarily think they knew all the answers and were just really chill, that I wanted to give it a shot. And if the film was bad, I just wouldn’t show anyone.

Hahaha, absolutely! In your director's statement for Lucky Fish, you say the film was inspired by “memories of these long, never ending dinners. Where adults would gossip and play Mahjong while all the kids would play Game Boy and hang out together by the fish tanks.” I found that imagery to be extremely familiar.

Yes!

Maybe not the Mahjong with my family specifically, but I’m so familiar with sitting at the Chinese restaurant for hours for every birthday, every holiday. It’s such a relatable memory, which made me curious about the lighting in the film.

In the main part of the restaurant, the lighting is very warm and super soft, almost to the point of being slightly blurred, in a way that feels like you're not fully present. Maybe that blurring represents the nostalgia for this childhood space, or maybe it represents the dissociation Maggie, our main character, is feeling. Whereas in the sharper blue glow of the fish tank upstairs in the restaurant (and even like the greener lighting in the bathroom), you can see that Maggie and Celine are fully present there. Will you tell me more about your lighting choices?

Oh my god, I'm so glad you're asking about lighting! That was one of my favorite parts of this film. Yes, you are super perceptive. I don't know if it's because I learned how to direct and write through acting, but how I approach every decision is all through character. Basically everything from, “How are we gonna light this?” to “How will what the character is experiencing come through in the production design?”

So how are we feeling in the restaurant? Kind of bored, detached. Even the sound goes in and out, and you don't really know what everyone's saying. I wanted it to be dissociative. 

In the beginning, it’s very bright. And then it gets a little more intimate, gradually, in the bathroom. I wanted it to be like when you're in the bathroom at prom or something, like a little intimate, and then have it increase and become even more magical and almost surreal, other worldly, as you go into the fish tank room.

Yeah! The lighting really grabbed my attention because usually I would associate a soft blurred lighting with a dream sequence or something that is surreal, but this was very much the opposite. In the dining hall, Maggie isn't fully present. But she is fully present here in this magical place that she's sharing for the first time with this other girl.

Yeah, I think it has a lot to do with that — where they feel most present and comfortable. I wanted it to feel very timeless, even the shot through the fish tank.

I love that shot.

It was one of my favorite ones to film. I wanted us to be with [Maggie and Celine, but I also wanted them to have their own private moment. So I like that we got to witness the scene as though they're in outer space together. Because that's how it feels when you're with someone you have a crush on. It feels timeless and magical. Like you're in your own little universe.

Oh, I giggled so much watching it this morning! I was giggling in my living room, and my roommate came over and sat down to watch it with me. We had the best time. 

Oh, I’m so glad.

Okay. This is my last question. As the two main characters in Lucky Fish are discussing disappointing their Asian parents, Celine says, “I'd rather be selfish than miserable,” which I wrote down and bolded and underlined because I wish some pretty girl taught me this in a bathroom of a Chinese restaurant when I was 17! 

Oh yeah.

Navigating life as a queer Asian American, you have to sometimes separate yourself from your family's expectations, maybe even your family, in order to be happy. If you were to speak to yourself when you were a junior in high school, is this something you’d say?

Yeah, definitely. I mean, it's funny because when people watch it, they're like, “Which character are you? Who do you relate more to?” Obviously Maggie. But I see myself in both. Kind of like my older, New York self talking to my shy, awkward high school self.

But even now, I kind of intellectually know that what Celine is saying is true. At some point, you have to live for yourself and not just other people. But, I mean, easier said than done. I feel like I'm constantly trying to relearn that and remind myself of that.

Absolutely. Would you like to give us a sneak preview of the upcoming short you're working on in Hawai’i?

Yeah! I'm in the process of casting it right now. I’m making it with one of the leads who is in Lucky Fish – Lukita. It's similar. It's two friends hanging out and being very awkward. Lucky Fish is such a New York movie; I shot it in Brooklyn. So I'm very excited to shoot something at home.

Yay. Well, congratulations again on all the success Lucky Fish has been enjoying! We look forward to following more of your work in the future.

Ah, thank you, Erica. That’s so nice.

Born and raised on the east side of O’ahu, Erica learned about improv comedy in 7th grade, and has been a public menace ever since. She holds a BFA in Musical Theatre from the University of Michigan and can be found yelling about coming of age love stories, pop culture, and mythology with her genius co-host/best friend on their podcast Seaweed Brain.

Check it out @SeaweedBrainPodcast. www.ericaito.com