Art Umezu’s office is stacked with boxes. Boxes full of Kauai Kookies, Kauai Coffee, Kauai key chains, luggage tags and lanyards. “I’m planning on pounding the pavement,” Umezu said. Umezu, who is nicknamed “Mr. Swag” or “Da Comish,” will be
Art Umezu’s office is stacked with boxes. Boxes full of Kauai Kookies, Kauai Coffee, Kauai key chains, luggage tags and lanyards.
“I’m planning on pounding the pavement,” Umezu said.
Umezu, who is nicknamed “Mr. Swag” or “Da Comish,” will be spending June 27 to 29 in Los Angeles in an effort to entice producers and directors to film on Kauai.
Umezu is Kauai’s full-time Film Commissioner, and his job duties range from fielding phone calls from a Japanese executive inquiring about the cost of a magazine fashion shoot, to delivering a single lavender rose to Hollywood director James Cameron at his hotel (The rose turned out to be a Valentine’s Day gift for Cameron’s wife when the couple were on island during the filming of “Avatar”).
And while Kauai has experienced a flurry of film activity in recent years (Umezu can’t comprehend how he made it out of the first six months of 2010 alive, when the cast and crew “Pirates of the Caribbean,” “The Descendants,” “Soul Surfer” and “Just Go With It” were on island), he understands that every project counts.
This year, Umezu has entertained a Japanese wedding planning company looking to film a reality television show; an overseas best-selling author who wants to shoot a feature film; and an independent film crew based in Seattle.
“I have so many different people coming from different angles, but I put my heart into every little thing, down to the smallest detail,” Umezu said from behind his desk, which is stacked with glossy print magazines.
He points to a Japanese fashion magazine, “Dazzle,” which features an eight-page spread of Kauai. He then picks up the cover of Ala Moana magazine, which features a former Island School student as its cover model —explaining he asked her to be the poster girl for Kauai when he took office (for the second time) in 2006. Umezu served as Kauai’s film liaison from 1986 to 1988.
Besides his upcoming trip to Los Angeles, Umezu is particularly excited about a recent meeting with Hollywood’s undisputed king of B-films, Roger Corman.
“Look who has been to Kauai. Paramount, Universal, Sony, Disney, Dreamworks, Warner Brothers, Fox, Columbia — they’ve all been here,” Umezu said. “But the one that stands out to me is Roger Corman, he has been here before anyone. He filmed Coco Palms before it was iconic.”
He is the man responsible for producing such thrillers as “Piranhaconda,” “Dinocroc vs. Supergator” and “Supergator” — all filmed on Kauai.
“One of his first films was ‘She Gods of Shark Reef,’ a cult classic, and it was filmed on Kauai,” Umezu said.
Umezu pointed out the film — which was released in 1958 — sparked a five-plus decade career that has repeatedly used Kauai as its backdrop.
That set a precedent for Hollywood, attracting such heavyweights as Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Jerry Bruckheimer, in addition to entertainers such as Richard Chamberlain, Charlton Heston, Dustin Hoffman, Harrison Ford, Ben Stiller and Robert Downey Jr.
“It’s not the number of films, but the quality of the productions that have been here and coming back to visit.”
On Monday, the state announced an enhanced tax credit from 15 to 20 percent for Honolulu county, and 20 to 25 percent for neighbor island counties, including Kauai. The new law is expected to increase the state’s film industry, and lure more productions to the islands.
“We are based out of the economic development officer,” Umezu said. “We are really trying to accommodate film tourism — which is reality shows and documentary type, that feature Kauai the way it is.”
So, what’s in store for Kauai’s busiest film commissioner when he’s not hunkered down answering phone calls and emails from “the film dungeon?”
A flurry of film activity.
What is the annual AFCI, and what will you be doing there?
AFCI stands for Association of Film Commissioners International. What it is, every year film commissioners from around the whole world gather at this one location at the Los Angeles Convention Center. It’s June 27 to 29 — one day of prepping and two days of “pounding the pavement,” I call it. … The reason why the timing is perfect, is because on Monday, I got an email from the state to say they announced an increase on a tax incentive from 20 to 25 percent. The credit originally kicked in 2006 under the (Linda) Lingle administration, it passed on July 1. Then — boom — five months later, the biggest budget production to come to Kauai signed to produce this film — “Tropic Thunder.”
Is it hard to convince production companies to come to Kauai? It seems like a natural sell.
Everybody is fighting to get a production. If it was that easy, we wouldn’t have to have this tax incentive. With Kauai and Hawaii, there is a limit of the type of movies that can film here because it has to be a tropical island. We may have some areas that don’t look like an island, we have some rustic places. For example, we have an independent movie from New Jersey, and they don’t want the tropical thing, they just want a basic campground, so they are looking at Waimea.
… You can have an island that has a lot of looks like Kauai has — the dry side, the tropicalness of the North Shore, the quaint stores in Hanapepe, the mountainside, the ocean side, the brown sea on the Westside — but what I’m learning a lot more, is a lot of the production can do multi-shoots in a couple of days rather than spend a long time driving around the island. The farthest they can drive from is from Haena to Kekaha, which is only about two hours. That’s what makes it attractive to filmmakers.
Are there any projects down the pipeline?
Yes, there’s a Japanese reality television series. It’s a wedding planning company from Japan, and they came here because they want to create a reality show based on following a couple around up until the day of their wedding. This particular company from Japan has redefined what a Japanese wedding is going to be. They want to pitch this to American audiences through MTV and whatnot.
The other one is another Japanese production. The working title is “Rain,” and they scouted here for five days in February, and I spent two days with them. It’s based on a story about a surfer, and the person who wrote this book is Japan’s No. 1 bestseller author.
… On Monday, we had this iconic producer in Hollywood, Roger Corman. He’s filmed sci-fi movies, and you can talk about this, because everyone knows because it’s really popular, because everyone talks about “Supergator,” followed up by a movie “Dinocroc vs. Supergator,” and the current one is running on SyFy channel is “Piranhaconda.”
We just got word that he’s expecting to film another sci-fi movie, and because of his long relationship with Kauai, dating back to 1956, he is considering Kauai.
Another is a film-based production company out of New Jersey — I can’t say who they are — and they are considering an entertainment-related feature film, and they are looking at the Westside of Kauai right now.
I heard rumors that Hawaii International Film Festival might come back to Kauai. Any truth to that?
In July, I’m meeting the assistant director of HIFF with other interested people and organizations interested in this endeavor. It’s not going to be easy. We are trying to bring that event back this year. We need a community-based organization as long as people who really want to support it.
The original Hawaii film festival started in 1981. In 1982, Hurricane Iwa hit, and Kauai was impacted the most. We did not continue the festival, and then when I came on board to be the film liaison in 1986, the very first project I was delegated to do was to bring back HIFF, and we did it with the help of Delta Kappa Gamma and community organizations, and it took that.
How did you become film commissioner?
When I was a kid in Tokyo, I was always around still cameras and television studios. Fortunately, my dad who was involved in the newspaper, had a lot of entertainers come to our home. I was always around people who were in entertainment. … I was an entertainment editor at The Garden Island before I began working for the mayor in 1986. In 1985 I asked to be on the county’s first arts council.
I told the mayor we should be part of HIFF, and since I opened my big mouth, he made me the project leader, and it grew from there.
What is the bulk of the work you see? Film productions? Magazine shoots? Reality shows?
We have a lot of reality type of documentaries. This week alone we had an Australian crew, a German crew, a Japanese crew and a Taiwan crew.
Earlier this year we had an English crew from The Weather Channel. We have a German crew filming a commercial here. It wrapped today.
We had an Australian crew filming the Australian “Today Show,” and the week before we had the “Today Show” from New York City.
… Reality shows are part of a new wave called film tourism. It’s an incredible way to market the island. They are not going to make up fictitious places.
Besides working as film commissioner, what do you do in your down time?
I oversee the Jam Room (which sponsors a weekly Friday night event for youth at Kukui Grove Center), that is because it’s completely different than what I do. The tagline is it’s free, fun and Twitter friendly. It’s a homebase for Kauai’s talented youth. It’s free to everybody.
I created a new foundation I always wanted to — which bridges the cultural gap. I was born and raised in Japan, so what I want to do is, through children, bridge the gap. I can’t release the name because we are still going through the process, but by end of summer, my wife is going to oversee that.
I want to make sure we give equal opportunity from kids from here and Japan to be part of a cultural exchange.
I think it’s really important to do things not film related.
Film facts
• This year’s film highlights include: an independent film; six episodes of reality television shows; plus scouting by three production companies and four media and magazine crews
• Seattle-based Jumpshot Films, an independent film company, spent three weeks in February and March filming “Endeavor”, a story about two young runaways who escape by boat to an island paradise
• Left-Right Productions from New York City, who shot an episode on Kauai last year of HGTV’s “Hawaii Life”, returned to the island to film another episode and is scheduled to shoot more episodes later this year
• “Saving Lives” (working title), a Kauai-based reality TV show featuring Kauai’s Junior Lifeguards, will be shot over the course of a year. The show is being produced by 4D Ventures of Lihue
• Students and film clubs from Kauai High School, Chiefess Kamakahelei Middle School and Kapaa High School are producing short films around the island in an effort to nurture local talent.
• Andrea Frainier, managing editor, can be reached at 245-0427 or afrainier@thegardenisland.com.
