Film/Television/Theatrical Projects
The Hanoi Hilton, feature film, 1987
This was the welcoming sign to the Hanoi Hilton prison compound.
As I stated before, painting style meant to duplicate rough
often bad paintings by traveling university art students who
scrapped together materials to paint propaganda signage for
locals and N. Vietnamese army.
A little backstory on this painting. The day the film company
shot the scenes which included this painting, the Vietnamese extras started a commotion and became visibly upset and began waving their arms and screaming.
As it turned out,the Vietnamese interpreter that was assigned to the
film was apparently not paying attention when I showed her the roughs for this painting. There was a word or phrase misspelled and it
infuriated the extras. I was called down to the set by the director
to fix it immediately, as the camera crew was readying for the opening shot.
I had to grab a ladder, brush and paint and get up to the painting.
While being coached by several extras, I made quick changes. There was a huge sigh of relief from the crowd as I finished up. To this day, I have no idea what the problem was, no one fully explained.