The W Files

Profiling Screenwriters at Work

by Ian Caddell

Mina Shum

Mina Shum had never written a screenplay when she sat down to start asomewhat autobiographical story about the family conflicts that arisewhen a young Chinese Canadian woman falls in love with a Caucasianman. She knew that she needed to work closely with someone who hadscreenwriting experience and asked award-winning playwright DennisFoon to be the story editor. Double Happiness, which she alsodirected, was a Canadian hit and Genie Award winner.

While she was waiting for its Toronto film festival premiere in thefall of 1994, Shum had no idea how successful Double Happiness wouldbe. To counter her anxiety about the premiere, she sat in a Torontohotel room and wrote outlines for three short films, Long Life,Happiness and Prosperity.

Seven years later, she dusted off the outlines and took them to Foon,who told her that he would work with her to turn the ideas into onefeature film encompassing all three stories.

"I was alone when I wrote Drive, She Said [Shum's second feature]. Itis such a tough thing being a writer/director in a way, because youare the writer by yourself. You are asking yourself the questions,and if you don't have the answer you are a loser. When Dennissuggested collaborating, I said 'perfect.' We took the bare bones ofmy idea and started jamming on it like songwriters, until we got thetune correct," says Shum, who was a songwriter, arranger and leadsinger for the rock group Playdoh Republic from 1982 to 1987.

The film that Foon and Shum have written has incorporated both thetitles and the story lines of the three short films. The plot forLong Life, Happiness and Prosperity uses the relationship between awaitress (Sandra Oh from Double Happiness) and her young daughter totie together the three separate stories. Shum directs once again, andthe film is scheduled for release across Canada later this year,after a premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival.

When she directed Double Happiness, Shum says she had a hard timechoosing which scenes to cut from the film. The job has been easieron her last two movies.

"When you write a script, the first rule is to ask for the moon,because it is the only time that the writer has the pure joy ofplaying God. You are just writing it on the paper and getting theessence of the story. But I learned with Drive, She Said that whenyou get the green light for a film, and you get your financing inplace, you put on your director's hat and say 'Hold it, there are toomany locations here,' or 'Do we need all these characters?'Generally, you have a 28-day shooting schedule and you have to thinkfrom the director's point of view. Then you have to sit down withyour collaborator and say things like 'You know that favourite jokeof yours? It's gone.'"

She adds, "You also have lofty ambitions as a screenwriter, so therewill come a time when you get to directing the film that you realizesome scenes are just not practical. There was one scene that we wrotethat had a band of Chinese instrumentalists serenading one of the characters. But when we werecasting, I realized that it was hard enough to cast the real parts inthe movie and that it would be just extra work to find four Chinesemen who play instruments. So the scene ended up with a guy with atape recorder."

Working with Foon made the process easier for Shum. Although all ofthe characters are Chinese, Shum says the stories have universalappeal. "We can all talk about families, which is what this film isall about. It's also about betrayal and trust, so the collaborationwould consist of us telling each other stories in order to find thenuggets of truth. The great thing about Dennis is his theatrebackground. He sticks to theatre liturgy in terms of greatstorytelling-which is good because this film reeks of fable classicsin terms of the dilemmas of the story and the concerns of eachcharacter."

Shum likes working in a familiar world, but admits that she islooking for something that will take her away from her roots. "Iwould like to direct something outside of my world, to stretch mywings. But I am not interested in writing a genre picture. I want toshed a light on an untold story. I don't want to write something forjust the entertainment value, I want to introduce emotions that wedon't normally talk about. I want to be entertaining, but there hasto be something there that is mine."

If she had to choose between writing and directing, Shum is veryclear about which she would pick. "I don't think I will ever stopwriting. It's my therapy. It certainly isn't directing. You're givingeveryone else therapy when you direct."