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RN: Yeah, that was a major undertaking and I think it really tested the whole organization of VC. And VC had a little larger staff and different people, younger people, and some of the old guard like Steve and Duane were around. I can't remember who they are 'cause I didn't get to know them as well. Oh, I'm sorry, John Esaki and Amy came in during Hito Hata. And Nancy Araki came in during Hito Hata.

SY: And so in the end, after you finished the film and started screening it, did you feel that it was worth the effort that went into it?

RN: Well, I guess generally... let's see, how do I say this? That was a lot of effort, I mean, physically and psychologically a lot of effort. And sometimes, early on, I thought, you may be using that energy and that money into making some shorter... they could be narrative or documentary films, might have served our purposes better than this huge epic. But then looking back, and a lot of people tell me who were not part of VC, I think one of the upside of doing Hito Hata, first, it did reach a larger audience. Not necessarily a mainstream audience, but it reached a wider Asian American, especially Japanese American audience. So that was good because they were very, more receptive to a narrative film and had Mako and all this in there. And Linda Mobalid, who was a director of VC before she passed away, always said that young filmmakers, after seeing Hito Hata, realize that it could be done and that they wanted to go on filmmaking. So she felt that it influenced a lot of the young filmmakers that started up around that time. And maybe that's true. But it was a big undertaking. And we did reach a different audience. They had, NHK screened it in Japan, they had a special national broadcast, and they had a panel of educators talking about Japanese Americans all on a special. Actually, went, everywhere else except here went well. In Europe and Germany it was screened quite often. And I think of the reasons, and maybe we should have compromised, I think PBS or local PBS stations were interested in broadcasting it but they said it had to fit a certain length, I forgot what the argument was. Maybe we should have edited it. [Laughs] So we didn't have that broadcast. And also, to me, the film needed to be edited a lot more. It was too long, and it always bothered me, but we just hadn't, we didn't have the time and we had to finish. So that would be the only...

SY: In a lot of ways, Hito Hata was really... I mean, there aren't that many films like it even today.

RN: Yeah.

SY: So it is pretty, it's kind of an amazing accomplishment.

RN: Yeah, and then when you look at it, "These guys are really stupid. Not only had a low budget, but they do a period piece." [Laughs] Have to recreate Nisei Week 1933 and go back to the old railroad working days. I mean, if you really look at it, "What were these guys thinking about?"

SY: So personally, did it affect you in terms of what you wanted to do after that?

RN: No. I just needed to recuperate, and so I went on to... so by that time I'm teaching, and so I wanted to make my, do some of my films on my own. Yeah, I had just burned out from VC. Thinking about that time, well, Eddie left a little earlier, and Duane, so a lot of the old guard -- and Steve Tatsukawa passed away. So there was a whole new generation, and that's like Linda, John, Amy... it's kind of the new guard. And that's where VC began to change. Instead of a community based production company where the focus was on making, doing our own productions, they became more what they call it now, a media arts center, where there's a lot more advocacy, fundraising for their films and the film festivals. So it's a little different organization. Because I think Hito Hata was the, that was the demarcation point where the old guys left. Yeah, and we left VC in debt, unfortunately. We were really in debt from Hito Hata. Well, and Linda was very good about saying that, because I think we kind of stuck her as director paying off the debt. But because of Hito Hata and the debt, the Friends of Visual Communications started. So they were able to raise money as a member, not quite a membership, but like a membership. They said it was a whole different way of being part of a community, at least a more national JA community.

<End Segment 28> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.