So Beauty - Production Notes
Although So Beauty is a feature length comedy, the making of So Beauty could be a film in and of itself. D.B. Cheng realized the concept for So Beauty nearly two years ago (November 2003) while eating dinner with a close friend. D.B. immediately started a treatment outline and continued to refine it over the next few months. With a little luck and hard work, the movie became a reality.

However the road from concept to finished film was not an easy one. After completing the treatment outline, D.B. realized there was no feasible means to shoot the film because he would have to handle all aspects of the production himself while having no funds to produce the film. As a result, he decided to shelve the project. In Fall 2004, D.B. started an MBA program. During a meeting with the program's career counselor, D.B. revealed his intentions for getting an MBA, which was to buy time so he could film a movie and some day start his own production company. D.B. told the counselor about the So Beauty treatment outline. The counselor also shared a passion for film and offered her services to make the concept a reality. She told D.B. she would talk to the university about using some of the university's resources. With her help, the fire to film So Beauty was rekindled, and D.B. wrote the script in two weeks in December 2004.

In January 2005, D.B. took the leap and decided to use his savings for graduate school to produce the movie. With a very modest budget, D.B. began the long and difficult task of scouting locations, casting, and assembling a crew. Hoping to utilize the university's facilities, D.B. approached various facilities at the university only to be turned away because of "liability" issues. Although the university as a whole supported the project, the various facilities on the campus did not. D.B. refused to give up and approached local businesses for filming locations. Surprisingly, the community was very responsive.

With locations squared away, D.B. focused on casting and assembling a crew. D.B. was overwhelmed by the number of women who wanted to audition for the film. However, the number of Asian men was lacking. In a last ditch attempt to fill the roles for the male characters and to fill the crew positions, D.B. sent out a mass e-mail to all his friends, associates, and anyone else he had the e-mail addresses of. Through six degrees of separation, Toby Lee joined the crew and played an integral role with the shooting of the movie. Toby e-mailed his friend who forwarded the e-mail to his sister, Raiderette Karen Tsai. Karen contacted D.B. for an audition time and brought boyfriend Tony Maroon to the audition. As things turned out, because of her busy schedule, Karen only had time to make a couple small appearances in the film, and it was Tony that ended up being heavily involved with the film. D.B. asked Tony what he wanted to ultimately do in film. During the conversation, Tony revealed that he graduated from the USC film school. D.B. immediately recruited him to be the Director of Photography for the film. In addition to Tony, D.B. found Randy Nakagawa (Kevin) and Arthur Leung (Sherman) to fill the roles for the Asian male leads. With the primary cast and crew in place, filming was ready to start.

Principal photography for So Beauty began on June 18th, 2005 and was completed by July 17th, 2005. The movie was shot in eight days over weekends (with the exception of 4th of July weekend) because everyone involved was either a full-time student or had a full-time job. The schedule was very ambitious, but, luckily, all of the cast and crew gelled very well and had fun together, which made the long days of shooting easier.

Tragically, on June 19th, 2005, Jarrett Chin's (Ming) mother passed away after a long bout with cancer. Despite his tragic loss, Jarrett insisted on carrying on with his role as Ming. "Considering the difficulty in obtaining the rest of the male cast, it was very fortunate that he was such a trooper. Otherwise, D.B. may have had to make his acting debut instead of only a directorial debut. All of the cast and crew were great, and they rallied around Jarrett to support him during this difficult time, " said Toby.

Although not all the roles were cast by the time of shooting, by luck and fate, the rest of the roles were filled as principal photography progressed. "We got lucky with the bar scene with Ally and Brandy. I mean, they showed up on that day because Jason (Football Guy 1) asked his sister (Michelle Augustine) to be in the movie the day we shot his scene, which of course was the same day we shot that bar scene. And by sheer luck, they showed up." said D.B.

Things constantly came together regardless of how bad it was looking, due in no small part to D.B.'s determination. The standards were high despite all of the challenges including the modest budget. With his belief in his own, as well as his cast and crew's capabilities, in the end, all of the pieces for the film eventually fell into place… oh So Beauty-fully.