FISHBOWL
Authentically Local, Universally Appealing

SHAYNA ANN AKIKO COLEON

Like a lioness setting her sights on fresh prey, Kayo Hatta stalked up to the open door of a banquet room several weeks ago at the Ala Moana Hotel. Her eyes lit up and her lips relaxed into a warm smile as she scanned the room, which was full of lively students from Wahiawä Intermediate School. According to a sign posted near the door, the kids were celebrating their last hurrah as eighth graders.

Hatta likened this type of grassroots casting to “looking for a needle in a haystack.” She believes that the effort is worth it if the right person is found. “You just have to go through a lot of people before you go, ‘Yeah! This is the one! This is the one!’” Hatta explained earlier in a quiet corner of the hotel’s lobby.

Hurdles—such as finding the perfect cast that can actually speak Pidgin English (she observed that kids today are moving “further and further away” from plantation-day language) or scraping enough funds together—are to be expected while making this short film, she said. But obstacles not withstanding, Hatta has become quite determined, and skillful, at telling unique and interesting stories that “no one else is going to tell.” This is the reason why she, and several other dedicated members of her production crew, are working diligently to put this Hilo-based tale, complete with Pidgin-English dialogue, on big screens and televisions nationwide.

Hatta relishes the true-to-life basis of her film, titled Fishbowl, because it reveals the comical and sometimes painful misadventures of two adolescent friends growing up in Hawai'i. Like so many other preteens, the two main characters, Lovey and Jerry, simply yearn to be accepted by their peers. “It’s the whole thing of feeling like an outsider and not feeling good enough,” Hatta explained. “That is a universal feeling. Then, that whole realization that you are good enough.”

Hatta, who declined to give her age but revealed that she was “born in the Year of the Dog,” said that after reading Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers in 1997, she related to Lovey’s insecurities.

“I identified with a lot of it, even if I left here when I was seven years old,” Hatta said. Her family moved from Oçahu, where her issei father was a minister at the Mö'ili'ili Hongwanji Temple, to Queens, New York. “I was like the Hawai'i girl who spoke pidgin, and no one could understand me, and they were making fun of the way I spoke.”

About a year later Hatta discussed her film idea with Yamanaka. Hatta then completed a script, based on three chapters from the book, in less than a month. “Her dialogue jumps off the page,” Hatta said of Yamanaka’s writing style. “Like a sculptor, I was taking great material and shaping it into another form.”

She added that before the development of Fishbowl, stories about growing up in contemporary Hawai'i were relatively unexplored by filmmakers. “It’s like kids here can see themselves on the screen, and say, ‘Hey, yeah, that’s us. That’s pidgin, and that’s our local life,’” said Hatta, whose father and mother immigrated, respectively, from Kamba, near Kyöto, and from Tökyö. “It’s a very subliminal affirmation. It’s an affirmation of who they are, [because] to see your reflection on the big screen is a really powerful thing.”

Working with a modest budget of under $200,000, Hatta is no stranger to taking a grassroots approach in making successful films. Despite having only a limited amount of money for her 1995 independent film, Picture Bride, she was pleased to see it win the Audience Award for Best Dramatic Film at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival. It was also an Official Selection at Cannes. The film is now a regular part of the education curriculum of local schools and universities.

Hatta wants the same success for Fishbowl. “Eventually, I’m hoping, after this piece is done, somebody will say, ‘Here’s a couple million dollars more. Do the other chapters and make it like a trilogy,’” she said, laughing. Realistically, however, she acknowledged that “it’s really hard to find money in Hawai'i right now.”

Although the film has received funding from the National Asian-American Telecommunications Association, PBS, and several foundations in Hawai'i, she said, “We’re desperately trying to raise more.”

It doesn’t stop there, either. Besides monetary contributions, Hatta said that the project also depends heavily on in-kind donations.

“We need crew housing, so if anybody has an empty vacation house or sublet that they can rent out for a nominal cost,” said Hatta, who temporarily moved from Los Angeles to her mother’s home in McCully. “Or a car that they want to rent out to us at a nominal cost. We need things like that.”

While attempting round two of her grassroots fund-raising efforts in Hawai'i, Hatta said that she is continually inspired by the positive community feedback. “We’ve been getting a lot of supportive email saying ‘Hey, we really appreciate someone telling this story, and we know there’s not much money in it, but we appreciate it,’” Hatta said. “And, I think that’s gratifying. With low-budget film making the only reward you have is that you love the project, you love the story.”

Production will start on August 4, for a ten-day shoot, probably in Waialua, Wahiawä, Waipahu, or Kunia, said Hatta. Although the story is set on the Big Island, Hatta and Fishbowl coproducer Linda Barry decided, after an extremely wet three-day visit to the island, that Hilo’s unpredictable rainfall was a stress factor they could live without. Hatta then chose rural O'ahu because of “the little details that Lois-Ann gave me—like a goat tied to an old tire in the front yard because [Lovey’s] father is a taxidermist.”

Asked if the film’s attention to specific details such as authentic Pidgin-English dialogue and the peculiar island mannerisms of the characters would be a hindrance to attracting a wider audience, Hatta vehemently disagreed.

“Whether you’re doing a film about Hawai'i, or the Appalachian community, or the Aleut community, it doesn’t really have so much to do with whether the people can relate to the details,” Hatta said, shaking her head. “In fact all the little details about the story make it really come to life. I say, ‘the more specific it is, the more universal it becomes.’”

After all, as Hatta reasoned, “The way we come into an experience is in all different colors, shapes, and voices, but it all comes down to the final essence of what we’re trying to say and what we’re trying to express about the human experience.”

If you are interested in making a tax-deductible monetary or in-kind donation to Fishbowl log on to the film’s website at www.fishbowlfilm.com, email fishbowlfilm@yahoo.com, or call (808) 973-1080.

Make checks payable to Hawai'i Community Television and mail to Fishbowl Film, Hawai'i Community Foundation, P.O. Box 61816, Honolulu, Hawai'i 96839.

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