Recap: 4th Annual Talent 1 Media Film Festival

As I stated in my previous post, the last 3 months I've been assisting Talent 1 Media in putting together their annual film festival in Little Tokyo. This is their 4th year putting this festival on and it just gets bigger and better each year.

A little bit about Talent 1 Media...

Talent 1 Media is a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping emerging filmmakers and artists use their creative talents for the purpose of causing change through raising awareness of social injustices. They offer wonderful and entertaining films, seminars and workshops, and live entertainment throughout their annual film festival, and best of all, the event is FREE! You can find out more information on their website at http://www.talent1media.org.

I had the pleasure of working closely with Sun Kim, Founder of T1M; Johnny Lee, Director of T1M; and an awesome planning team all made up of volunteers. As this is a completely free event for the general public, we had to rely on donations and pro bono work from volunteers. Thanks goes out to generous donors like Whole Foods, Platt Designs, Blossom Hill Florists, Wet Ink Printing, and many many individual donors who contributed cash and in-kind donations for the festival. Because of their kind donations and all the hard working people behind the scenes, we were able to provide food and entertainment for over 900 people, as well as spread awareness on human trafficking to the residents of Southern California and beyond.

My role was the Reception Coordinator, so I was in charge of coordinating all aspects of the evening reception. This included getting the red carpet and step & repeat set up, arranging DJ and music, coordinating catering, and laying out the decor. It was a lot of running around on the day of, but well worth the turn out! I definitely felt blessed to be a part of this amazing event and experience.

Pictures speak thousands of words so I'll just let these pictures do the talking...

























Photos courtesy of Ed D. Chu and Frederick Chung

Sneak Peeks: Jisun & Dan's Wedding and T1M Film Festival

I am the WORST blogger EVER. I am so sorry for the incredibly long lagtime between posts. EWEP has been quite busy these last few months!

I've been working with one of the most amazing couples the last couple of months - Jisun & Dan. They were mucho organized and detail oriented, which made my job so much easier! Their wedding was at the end of May at the Grand Events Center in Long Beach. It turned out fabulous! I will post up a event summary and photos soon.

Another event I've been working on was the 4th Annual Talent 1 Media Film Festival that took place just this past weekend at the Aratani Theatre in Little Tokyo. Being the Reception and Marketing Coordinator, there were a lot of moving parts involved. But with the help of an awesome planning team and 40 volunteers, the event pulled off effortlessly! Photos and summary to come shortly!

Ta-ta for now!

National Human Trafficking Awareness Day!

Today is National Human Trafficking Awareness Day!

Some action items you can do: report suspicious behavior to your local law enforcement agency, learn more about the issue and get involved in combating human trafficking via www.ochumantrafficking.org, JustOne, Polaris Project, Not for Sale Campaign, and other cause organizations, buy fair trade products. So many things we can do! It really does happen in our own backyards, but most of the time, we aren't even aware of it or choose to ignore it.

Anyways, as I'm typing this entry, I'm also writing thank you emails to all the people who supported and participated in the OneHeart OC event this past Friday at UCI. Let me just say that it was so awesome to see so many people come together for the cause and do whatever it takes to spread awareness for human trafficking. We were able to raise approximately $1000 to donate to OC Human Trafficking Victim Services - this money will help victims in OC get reacquainted with society. There were 207 people in attendance, 10 community organizations represented, 10 artists and photographers displaying their pieces, 6 performances (music, comedy, and spoken word), 2 films, and a keynote speech.

There were some setbacks such as technical difficulties (hey, it happens, right?) , but overall, the feedback that I received was that it was a great night of education and entertainment around the important issue of human trafficking and modern day slavery.

Thank you to everyone that participated in and attended the event! Special thanks to UCI Chi Alpha, OC Human Trafficking Task Force, and Talent One Media for being amazing partner organizations to work with!