1997 Intern Project: "The Interview" (with Bruce Lee)

Before there was “Youtube”, there was “Cable Access T.V.”

Because "Cable Access Television" can only put so many shows on the network, due to the time slots, only a selected few people were lucky to be chosen to have their own T.V. show on the air, showcasing any subject that they wanted.

Nowadays, you have “Youtube”, where there ARE no time slots. Everything is now unlimited.

The year was 1997, and the city was San Francisco. I was 16 years old, and I was a studio intern for "Cityvisions Channel 53" Cable Access Television Network.

It was a 3 month internship. My main job was to change the shows when it was time to put the recorded tape of the show on the air.

During the internship, our intern director, Don (God Bless him), would give us workshops on how to use the equipment, such as the studio control room, the studio cameras, the blue screen that was in the studio, and the analog editing machine (this was before there was digital editing on a commercial basis - as far as I knew).

Towards the last 3 weeks of the internship, Don gave us our individual final intern assignment. He said that we can make a video on whatever we wanted as long as the duration did not exceed past 10 minutes. On a certain date, he was going to play our videos on the air, one after the other.

To us interns, that was a big deal, because the entire city of San Francisco, if they were aware, would be able to see it live on Television.

I didn’t know yet what kind of video I was going to do. However, the only idea that I could think of at that time, was that it was going to have something to do with "Bruce Lee".

I am sure that the majority of you Bruce Lee fans can relate to this, but as for me, even if he wasn’t alive on this Earth anymore (respectfully), my number one wish was to meet Bruce Lee.

Regarding the intern project, the question was: with the studio technology now available for me, and the limited access to Bruce Lee footage outside of his films (remember, the internet was at its infancy at the time), how was I going to make this project in such a way where I can make it as close to meeting Bruce Lee as humanly possible?

Enter “Le Video”….

“Le Video” was a video store in the area that I lived in at the time - The Sunset District in San Francisco - that rented out films that were not commonly in the commercial, nor in the mom and pop, video rental stores. This video store had every rare film from all over the world, including Hong Kong films (which was unheard of at that time) – including rare PAL transfers of the original Jackie Chan Hong Kong films with English subtitles (That is another story for another time).

What this video store HAD was not only a PAL transfer version of all 26 episodes of “The Green Hornet” on VHS (once again, very unheard of at that time), but they also had a VHS of Pierre Burton’s complete "Lost Interview" with Bruce Lee, and the complete 1964 “Charlie Chan’s Number One Son” Screen Test (once again, unheard of at that time). This was the only video rental store in the entire city, if not the entire country, that carried these two very special videos on VHS. The only time we were able to see these videos were on Bruce Lee biographies on Television, where they only showed some clips of these videos. Also, clips from the "Number One Son Screen Test" were shown for the 1983 film documentary “Bruce Lee: The Legend” (still, my all-time favorite Bruce Lee documentary).

Thanks to "Le Video", I now had two choices of footage that I can use to make this project happen. Because they were both interviews, I now realized that the premise of the intern project, was that me meeting Bruce Lee would be in the form of a Television Interview in that time era.

It would have been very complicated editing-wise - and somewhat dull - if I were to have used the “Pierre Burton Interview”.

If I used the “Charlie Chan’s Number One Son” screen-test, not only would I be able to have an easier time doing an angle-changing interview, but I can also make it exciting by putting myself in the footage to make it seem like Bruce Lee was doing Gung Fu demonstrations on me. Because of that, it was then decided that the "Number One Son Screen-Test" was the video that I was going to choose. :)))

I want to give a very special thanks to my intern director, Don, for taking the time to help me voluntarily in the studio control room, while I filmed in front of a blue screen, Bruce Lee, doing supposed demonstrations on me, and me having my only chance - even if it was scripted, planned, and imaginative - to be in the same room with Bruce Lee side by side.

Keep in mind, that nowadays, when you see Bruce Lee’s “Number One Son” screen test, it is "digitally remastered" to the point where it is very visually clear, as if it was done yesterday using “black and white”. However, just in case you have complaints of the visual quality in this intern video, the footage that I used was originally how the screen test really looked in 1964. Proof of that: just watch the “Bruce Lee: The Legend” documentary again, and you will see that the quality is exactly the same as the one that I used.

After the Intern project was done, I submitted it to Don, and waited for the day when he was going to put all of our individual intern projects on the air. In the meantime, prior to the release, I did as much advertisement as I could.

In all humility: according to Don, after my project was aired, it was one of the most requested videos he ever encountered. It was played over and over for a period of a few months. I guess it was also that good enough to receive a "Cable Access Award". Plus, that one intern project gave me an offer from the studio to have my own 1 hour TV show twice a month on whatever topic I wanted. The show ended up being called “Turnstyle TV”.

10 years later, in 2007, there was a film contest for a Bay Area radio station: Alice 97.3. Since this intern video was doing nothing but staying in a closet and collecting dust, I thought that I would put it to good use and enter it into the contest.

Even if the intern project was highly successful at the time of its release 10 years earlier, now, with digital editing at my disposal, before submitting it to the contest, I looked at the footage again, and realized that there was one small problem that needed to be fixed…

At the time of making the project in 1997, I used a "Super VHS" camera to film the footage of myself interviewing Bruce Lee. As a result, the quality comparison between me and the Bruce Lee footage was very obvious, especially when he was doing supposed Gung Fu demonstrations on me. As a result, I called on the help of my friend, Andrew Dibble, of "Defcon Multimedia".

With the best of our ability, and with what the technology in our possession would allow us to do, we tried to make my footage match as close as possible to the video quality of the “Number One Son Screen Test” (hopefully giving it that classic touch). :)))

Speaking of which, I want to give a very special thanks to my friend, Andrew Dibble, from "Defcon Multimedia", for helping me with the editing and the visual effects. I wanted to offer him financial compensation for this tedious task. Instead, he turned it down, and did this project voluntarily out of the kindness of his heart, and in his own words: for the true love of filmmaking.

The video didn’t win the contest. However, the good thing that came out of this experience is that now, being my first ever publicly-released video, even if I still see small discrepancies, I am still very proud of this project to call it the true definitive version.

Now, in the present time, decades later, I am hoping that instead of this project just sitting in a closet collecting dust for another 10 years and counting, I would like to ask all of you, in all humility, if you would please allow me to share this very special, and personal, video to all of you Bruce Lee fans. :)))

I really hope you enjoy. :)))

“May it be Well with You”,
Scott :)))