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“After writing a concept album called “Colma: The Musical” as a birthday present for his childhood friend, he reunited with film school classmate Richard Wong, who had just finished working on the television show, Arrested Development and was looking for a script to direct. When Wong listened to a track from Mendoza’s concept album, he asked Mendoza how long it would take to turn it into a script. After seven days, a first draft was born, Mendoza flew from Philadelphia to San Francisco and the plans were set in motion. After 18 days of shooting and several months of editing, a feature film was made for a budget of roughly $15,000. The film, called “an itty-bitty movie with a great big heart” by The New York Times went on to win three Special Jury Prizes on the film festival circuit and was acquired by Roadside Attractions and Lionsgate Entertainment.”

It was exciting to experience a number of things during the distribution process of Colma: The Musical.

Or, if you have any questions, ask me here.

OPTION 3, A dream-logic thriller by Richard Wong

I wrote an early draft of the script for director Richard Wong and the Center for Asian American Media before he shot this in 2007. The film premiered in 2008 at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival and won me and Rich a Techincal Achievement Award at the VC Los Angeles Asian Film Festival.

I also edited and scored the film, paying homage to Ennio Morricone, Elmer Bernstein, Henry Mancini, Angelo Badalamenti and 16-bit video games and wrote the musical number performed by Preston Conner. The studio version, which plays over the end credits, can be heard here:

ELYSIUM (EMILY, I’M IN YOUR WAKE) – Performed by H.P. Mendoza

The piece is a trio between the functions of music, noise, and semantic meaning, wherein each function can mingle with the others, lose itself in reveries (under fields of motive force that assert themselves with varying degrees of insistence), or, when necessary, take a solo.

Conversation Storm sees three friends from three sides of the political spectrum unwillingly argue their way through a “ticking time bomb” scenario, dissecting, revising, and even brutalizing their own positions in the process — but time has either stopped or entered an ugly loop, and as the friends assign and reassign roles, the scenario begins to dissolve the boundaries between real and hypothetical, past and future, day and night.

In 2007, Mendoza was working for the San Francisco Fringe Festival and was able to see a performance of The Nonsense Company’s Great Hymn of Thanksgiving/Conversation Storm and was determined to meet the troupe. In 2008, Mendoza gave his voice to Great Hymn playwright Rick Burkhardt for his award-winning composition “Calf”, performed by the ensemble Ascolta and decided to ask Burkhardt if he would be interested in making a film version of Great Hymn of Thanksgiving/Conversation Storm, called “a delicious two-course evening” by Time Out New York.

The film is currently in post-production and is due for festival submissions in 2010.

Movie Poster

I recently finished scoring the latest film from Robert O’Geen and Tim Bland, A Lower Power, a sex comedy shot in San Francisco. The film stars Matthew Lotto, Terri J. Freedman (Night Fliers) and Gigi Guizado (Colma: The Musical).

When writer Tim Bland made his early cameo appearance in my film, Fruit Fly, he asked me if I would be willing to write a song or two for his new film. After post-production on Fruit Fly finished, I ended up not only writing “one or two songs”, but an entire score.

Here is one of the songs I wrote and performed for the film:

HURT (YOU’RE NOT THE ONLY ONE)

I was shocked to find out from our producer, Don Young, that LaLa was getting great reviews and that people were trying to find it online.

L.A. Renigen and I are about to talk about the future of this series and whether or not our stomachs can handle another non-stop eating session.

In the meantime, I’m gathering all of the episodes of season one and will put them up here in January.

under construction.

Until January, here’s a taste of LaLa:

I wrote a new piece called “Autumn” that will be used in Julia Kwan’s new short film, Blossom that will be screened as part of the Olympics in 2010.

Here is a piece of the song:
AUTUMN (pt. 3)

Originally, I was only supposed to star in this film as a bigot cop but after the shoot, Tanuj decided to hire me as the sound designer, as well.

Here are two clips of the same scene: one with sound design, the other without.

PIA SCENE – WITH SOUND DESIGN

PIA SCENE – NO SOUND DESIGN

ABUELA
A film written and directed by Paul Kolsanoff.

After shooting Fruit Fly, I acted as co-director on the shoot of Abuela as well as composer.

The film is still in post-production and will be in festival submissions in 2010.

Here is one of the tracks I composed for Abuela.

PICTURES