Welcome: A3 Advisory Council!

When Phil, Franklyn, and I launched the A3 Foundation at the Sundance Film Festival a few weeks back, we said our goal was to invest in people.  One of the most important factors to cultivating talent is this idea of mentorship, of guiding those that are up and coming. We believe in order to be successful in media, an organization has to provide more than just funding, but build a community where Asian American artists help support each other in the ongoing life cycle of break in artists to more established artists.

Today, we’re excited to announce the first piece of our community in the form of an Advisory Council for the A3 Foundation.  Our advisors have been indispensable to helping shape our vision since our journey began almost a year ago.

In the startup world, where we’re from, advisors are experts who lend their wisdom and networks to refine the ongoing vision for the organization, keep you in check with the latest and greatest in the industry, and provide additional opportunities.   Our advisors are established Asian American luminaries who are doing amazing things in their own right from Hollywood, to the digital world, to the government & nonprofit realm.

Please extend a warm welcome to our seven advisors:

  • Harry Shum, Jr. (Actor, Glee)
  • Jon M. Chu (Director, G.I. Joe Retaliation, Justin Bieber: Never Say Never, Step Up series)
  • Konrad Ng (Director, Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center)
  • Bing Chen (Global Creator Development & Management Lead, YouTube)
  • Hieu Ho (Producer, LXD and President, DS2DIO)
  • Sheree Chang (International Business Development, Hulu)
  • Mynette Louie (Producer, Children of Invention, California Solo)

We’re excited to work more closely with such talented individuals in our ongoing mission to support emerging Asian American artists in the media.

You can learn more about our advisors and team at http://a3-foundation.org/about-us .

Julia Lam
A3 Foundation, Co-Founder

Introducing: The A3 Foundation

Growing up in Brooklyn, I remember watching TV as a child and rarely seeing someone who looked like me on the media screens.

Although in my lifetime, the US has become more diverse with different ethnicities and personalities, this still isn’t accurately reflected in American media.  While we represent almost 5% of the United States, only 3% of characters on television are Asian American , and these are rarely lead roles [1].  Although Asian Americans are more prominent in online media with 4 out of the top 30 YouTube artists being Asian American artists with more than 14.4 MM subscribers, we still lack overall representation [2].

About a year a ago, myself and a few early Facebookers, Julia Lam, and Franklyn Chien, who are also passionate about seeing more diversity in media, met up to figure out how we could help.  We’re technologists, but we believe media is important and influential and wanted to see if we could have an impact.  How could we better help support diverse storytelling — both in traditional and online media?  How could we help Asian Americans be portrayed as more than the ninja, the nerd, the doctor, the dominatrix?   How could we support stories that helped display Asian Americans and all ethnic Americans as who we are — Americans.

So thus the A3 Foundation was conceived.  Our mission is to foster and support emerging Asian American artists in the media.  Our philosophy is to invest in people.  We take bets on the most promising young artists and provide them funding, mentors, and resources to take their skills to the next level.

Through this last year, we funded three fellows through the A3 Fellowship program and placed with them with two online digital powerhouses:  Wong Fu Productions and Justin Lin’s online channel, YOMYOMF.  Learn more about our fellows and our program here.

Today, we’re excited to launch a second program in collaboration with the prestigious Sundance Institute, which has a history of educating and supporting talented up and coming artists.  Together, we are doing more outreach to the Asian American community and supporting an Asian American fellow for their prestigious Screenwriting or Directing Lab in 2013 or January 2014.  Over 2,000 screenwriters and directors apply for these labs, for just ~25 spots and we’re excited to be working together with them to support Asian American storytelling.  Learn more about Sundance’s Screenwriter’s Lab and Director’s Lab.

We’re excited to build and support this community, but we can’t do it alone.  If you’d like to get involved or donate, please contact us.

We hope this is just the beginning of a future that more accurately represents the diversity of stories of Americans today.

Philip Fung
A3 Foundation, Co-founder