FutureProof Invites Us to Scream Into the Void Together

Mixed Asian Media - August 13, 2024

By Angela Wong Carbone

The team behind FutureProof knows that the future is coming, but how will we react to it as Asian Americans? Director Bradley Tangonan joins forces with producers Justine Sweetman and Tessa Travis to tease out character arcs and themes that illuminate how Asian Americans might navigate new technological frontiers in their new miniseries, FutureProof. The FutureProof team spoke with MAM’s Angela Wong Carbone to discuss the show’s inception, how mixedness aligns with navigating near-future unknowns, and how to make space for diverse voices through equitable, creative communion.

This interview is part of the 5 Filmmakers to Watch series. Check out our interviews with Chelsie Pennello, Emily Jampel, Alexandra Qin, and Maegan Houang!

*THIS INTERVIEW HAS BEEN EDITED FOR CLARITY AND LENGTH.

Angela Wong Carbone: How’d you all meet?

Bradley Tangonan: I met Tessa and Justine doing commercial work. One of the cool things about being a filmmaker in New York is this crossover between independent filmmaking and commercial work.

AWC: Where did the concept for FutureProof come from? 

BT: I’d written Airdrop, this idea that we’re in the future where we have this new technology to communicate sentimental feelings.

Tessa Travis: We all discovered that we’re really into sci-fi. We’re trying to coin this new category of near-futurism sci-fi. 

AWC: Do you think the “near-future sci-fi” vehicle allows us to tell stories about our experience in a different way?

TT: The way we worked on this project, we shared a lot of personal anecdotes and it built this unique mix of experiences. Being Asian American or a mixed person is not a monolith. 

Justine Sweetman: A tagline we’ve been kicking around is, “Screaming into the void together,” which I think encompasses all of our feelings about tech that’s already here. It’s a way to deal with our anxieties. It’s interesting to explore stories through an API lens in the sense of, “How would we — in our personal friend groups — react to things like this?”

BT: The natural response to any new frontier is fear and anxiety. When I think about the Asian American experience, especially the mixed experience, I think it’s inherently adaptable and inventive.

We are often stepping into social spaces as new territory, where the path isn’t clear in terms of how we should behave, or what we should or are expected to do. It dovetails nicely with the Asian American experience and near-future sci-fi, where you have to find a way to navigate fear, anxiety, and excitement in a new territory.

There’s something specifically Asian American about each topic we’re exploring. With Airdrop, we explore how different Asian Americans deal with feelings. Some are more on-the-sleeve, some more repressive. Everyone deals with it differently.

AWC: How did you come to filmmaking as a profession? 

TT: I had always been into the arts and things, so I went to school and I thought, “I’m going to study acting.” Then I took a legit acting class in college, and I was like, “I don’t know how to cry on command. I don’t know if I have tears inside me.” But it opened me up to explore different parts of filmmaking. Ultimately, what I found myself good at is working with creatives by producing.

JS: I came into filmmaking very sideways. I was a makeup artist for a long time, but I always loved filmmaking. I’ve always been a creative person and made weird art projects with friends. That’s baked into my DNA.

Something that I’ve been thinking a lot about is coming into filmmaking through film school versus another route. That is something I grapple with — not feeling like I belong in certain spaces. But as time goes on, especially working on this project with these incredible filmmakers and getting validation, I’ve built a community.

BT: I did a lot of video production in high school and went to a college that didn’t have a film program. I majored in biology, became a researcher, and missed making live-motion videos. I found my way back to a career in video production for money, and [used] that to subsidize doing narrative film.

What’s cool about this project is that we’re trying to approach filmmaking more like a collective rather than a hierarchy! That to me is also uniquely Asian in that we’re not trying to have it driven by one auteur. It’s a group effort that opens up possibilities creatively.

AWC: How did you flesh out the season together? 

BT: Airdrop and Speed Dating were more or less put together. But from there it was like, “What do we do now?” The short form allowed us to iterate our process. It worked like a democracy, figuring out how to get everyone’s voice, but not slow things down. 

JS: At first we had everyone in the writer’s room — all the actors, even our DP. We wrote three new episodes together, the three of us, and then involved a couple of our actors. We sent the rough drafts out for notes and pushed it into a way more sci-fi direction. 

TT: With everyone participating, it became a space for people — including actors — to share personal anecdotes that helped enrich larger storylines.

BT: Having several voices in the writer's room talk about how they think as Asian Americans was a good opportunity to tap into different experiences. The only way to break through stereotypes is through specificity and the best way to have specific characters is to have people who understand that lived experience to be the ones creating a story.

AWC: Since we’re thinking about the future, what do you hope to see as the next step in your career?

TT: We’re hoping to explore our project in the hands of a financier. Filmmaking is never an easy thing. It’s easy because we have like a great group of people. Ultimately, it is coordinating 14 people’s schedules, fighting weather, and all sorts of factors.

We filmed five episodes over the course of eight months. It made us realize that we would love to do more, but it helps to have extra money or someone supporting it so that we can do this more easily.

Oh, and we also need Asian musicians in our collective!

JS: MVP’s hit us up, please.

BT: Being able to have resources to do a full 30-minute pilot episode would really open it up. It’s fun to do these quick shoots, but to really develop character and have a compelling conflict, it helps to have a longer runway.

TT: We want more. 

JS: This will be out there no matter what. The reason we created this on a very shoestring budget is that we want this to be in the world. We had so much fun making it and we have an incredible cast. We would like to scale it up, but it was exciting to do it ourselves. There’s some pride in that, for sure. 

The FutureProof series premiered the first week of May 2024. Watch the first episode, Airdrop, here.

Angela Wong Carbone (she/her) is a decorated actor and writer. Her writing has been recognized by AT&T Hello Lab, Hillman Grad’s mentorship program, The Gotham, Slamdance and others. Raised in New York by an immigrant Chinese mother and Italian American father, Wong Carbone’s personal curiosity toward identity saturates her writing and she has contributed to Eileen Kelly’s Killer and a Sweet Thang and Lulu Gioiello’s Far Near. As an actor, Wong Carbone has starred in NBC’s Chicago Med, AppleTV+’s WeCrashed and IFC Films’ Resurrection. In 2020, she was selected for the 19th annual ABC Talent Showcase. Wong Carbone holds a degree in architecture from Cornell University and makes a mean lasagna.