CS Weekly Archive > From the Trenches > 2/01/08

Air Pair:
The Air I Breathe's Jieho Lee and Bob DeRosa

By jenelle riley

Writer/director Jieho Lee and writer Bob DeRosa use a Chinese proverb as a launching point for an intertwining tale of happiness, pleasure, sorrow, and love.

Jieho Lee and Bob DeRosa first met when the latter was programming movies for the Florida Film Festival. DeRosa was taken by Lee's short film, Nursery Tale, which was based on a Vladimir Nabokov story and premiered at Sundance in 2000. The film went on to win the cinematography award at the Florida fest —virtually unheard of for a short—and it was DeRosa's job to call Lee and get him there to accept the award in person. Only problem: Lee was currently enrolled in the cutthroat Harvard Business School (a concession he made on behalf of his parents in case the filmmaking thing didn't work out) and not up for flying down to the Sunshine State. "I literally bugged the hell out of him," DeRosa reveals. "He finally came; we hit it off, and became friends."

That friendship deepened over the years, personally and professionally. Both were doing well in their respective careers: Lee made a name directing commercials and music videos in Korea; DeRosa was an active playwright and screenwriter (not to mention the winner of the Creative Screenwriting Open in 2003). But their biggest success would come when they paired up to write The Air I Breathe, now in theatres. Directed by Lee, the film is ostensibly based on a Chinese proverb that, says DeRosa, "loosely says that life is broken down into four emotional cornerstones—happiness, pleasure, sorrow, and love—and you can't truly know one of them without knowing them all." As these four emotions are interconnected, so are the stories of their namesakes. In "Happiness," a restless desk jockey (Forest Whitaker) bets money he doesn't have on a horserace. In "Pleasure," a thug with visions of the future (Brendan Fraser) babysits the nephew of his Mafioso boss (Andy Garcia). In "Sorrow," a pop star (Sarah Michelle Gellar) tries to escape said crime lord. And in "Love," a doctor (Kevin Bacon) is the only person who can save the woman he loves but cannot have (Julie Delpy). As the film plays out, their stories and fates are intertwined and overlap in ways that would make Quentin Tarantino drool with envy.

Where did the idea for The Air I Breathe come from?
Jieho Lee: I guess the original idea stems from my journey as an Asian-American. As such, you're born into a world where you have America on one side and Asia on the other. The American part is really about the beauty of the individual and the power and freedom you get from being a unique person. On the other hand, the Asian culture is all about the collective and the feeling you get from being a part of a whole. There is this Asian belief that regardless of who we are, we're all connected through these four emotions: happiness, sorrow, pleasure, and love. So the idea stemmed from telling a story of how you navigate in today's world, trying to find out who you really are, while still retaining your humanity.

At the same time, it's based on a lot of real people and characters in my life. When I shot music videos in Asia, I knew a pop star who was trying to extricate herself from the claws of a gangster. There was a thug I knew—he didn't have visions of the future, but he was what they call a shaman in Korea. These ideas were swirling in my head for a while, and the inspiration for it hit me like lightning one night. I put together an outline and started fleshing the story out.

At what point did you two decide to collaborate as writing partners?
Bob DeRosa: About a year after meeting, I moved to Los Angeles and some friends were mounting a collection of my one-act plays. I don't think Jieho had ever read any of my stuff, but he was visiting L.A., so I invited him to the show. He shows up, watches the plays, loves my dialogue, and calls me and says, "I've got something I'm working on, can I get you to take a look at it?" And he asked me to be a part of The Air I Breathe.

Lee: What did it for me about Bob was two things. One: When I saw his plays, the dialogue was amazing. My skill set really comes from plotting and story and character, and his dialogue is second to none. The second thing was the humor. The humor in his writing is so heartfelt. And I knew this was a heavy story with a lot of darkness, so I wanted to have a lot of humor in it.

Had you ever worked with a writing partner before?
DeRosa: I did in my early days, back in college. I actually wrote as part of a trio with two other guys I grew up with. We made short films together through college and wrote a couple of features together. One of them and I shot an extremely low-budget feature before I came to L.A. About that experience, all I can say is: don't make a $10,000 movie. But I was doing improv, working in theatre, and starting to find my individual voice as a writer. So, eventually, to move forward in my writing, I had to work on my own. I was at a point where it was going well and I was pleased and I wasn't planning on writing with anyone again. When Jieho asked me to work with him, it was a big thing for me to respond to that and get excited about it. But I read the outline and talked to him about the story and knew it was my kind of movie.

Lee: This was actually the first real script I've ever written, aside from the short, which was an adaptation. And I was lucky; I was blessed to hook up with Bob. I remember that day when I came to his house and we put the outline on cards and spread it out on the floor and it was the moment of truth. Bob was looking down at the cards and was quiet and I was so nervous. He stepped back after a couple minutes and said, "This is going to be a great movie, Jieho."

How long did the process take to get from that initial meeting to having the film on screens?
DeRosa: I believe this was in 2001. We started working in earnest in January 2002. We shot it in January 2006. It's been almost six years to the month from the point I started working with Jieho that the film opens in theatres.

Lee: It was an amazing process. Of course, this is my first feature script, but it's very rare to find somebody who can execute your vision so well and take it to the next level. Directing is first and foremost my forte, and writing is something that is always terrifying to me. But when you have somebody who really knows the craft, it actually becomes pleasurable to be writing.

How does the partnership work? Do you sit in a room together or is it more of a back-and-forth with various drafts? Did you each pick certain stories to work on?
DeRosa: We really had no template on how to do it. It really evolved. The process of writing the script to the point it went out to the town was a two-year process, and the way we wrote during that two years consistently changed. We had no ground rules; we just figured it out as we went along. As a writer, you're essentially writing in a vacuum. You're writing a piece of work that's supposed to inspire people and make a director want to bring it to the screen, but at the end of the day, you don't know whose vision is going to sail the ship. But the fact that Jieho was directing helped. And it was never a matter of somebody else buying it to direct. It was a deal breaker; Jieho was going to direct this film. And his vision as a director was always the shining star we could sail our ship to. At the end of the day, Jieho was the guy who had to be pleased and excited and inspired. We'd debate things occasionally, but that vision always kept us moving forward.

Lee: I'm sure every writing partnership is different, but ours happened very organically. Half the time, I was in Korea and he was in L.A. and we were talking by phone but wouldn't see each other for a few months. When I moved to L.A., we really sat down and got into the meat and bones. But for those two years, it was about getting to know each other as people. Because we respected each other and got along, we're a lot alike spiritually. We share a lot of the same values. We never really got in arguments. The weird thing about this film is that in many ways it did write itself. I'm not saying we didn't bust our ass, but like Bob was saying, that shining star of what this film was supposed to be was always there. And that's a huge blessing for any writer.

What did the actual writing process entail?
Lee: Each story was different and written differently. I had a rough draft of "Happiness," "Sorrow," and "Love" and a detailed outline of "Pleasure." I went to Bob and we worked on the outline together, then he went out and wrote "Pleasure." We came back together again and went over it, then gave it all to Bob and let him do a pass at it that was brilliant.

DeRosa: In the early stages, it was very back and forth. Then, at one point, he gave it to me to do a pass and it was a very intense two weeks. At that point, we weren't sure if it was really going to be what we wanted it to be. When I came back to him with that draft and he read it, he really responded to it. That became kind of our template script, the draft we worked from—and it was a 137-page draft that we spent the next couple of months whittling down and focusing. Getting to that draft we were going to show the town went through so many different stages. The December '03 draft was the one we finally showed the town. That was the draft [producer] Paul Schiff read.

Lee: From the very beginning, we were very selective. We didn't blanket the town. We picked 10 producers we thought would be in line with this sort of film and had a very good response. Paul and I met and really got along. It turned out we went to the same college.

Did you do much rewriting on the set?
DeRosa: It was funny; I really wanted to be a part of the shoot in Mexico City. And Jieho was instrumental in making that happen. We had to tell the producers I needed to be there for rewrites, but I got there and maybe three days into shooting I realized, "I'm not rewriting a damn thing." There would be some changes in the moment, but I realized I needed to start earning my keep. So I started blogging; I shot behind-the-scenes footage. But I think because we worked so hard on the script and got it so tight, we didn't need to do massive rewrites.

Lee: The only real rewriting was for logistical reasons, to combine three different locations into one, for example. It's a very ambitious project, and as a first-time director, I didn't fully realize what the logistics were going to be. We had 55 company moves in 29 shooting days. We moved from nightclubs to corporate settings to basements with an ensemble cast. It was an extremely challenging experience.

Is there anything that has helped you through the tougher times in this business?
Lee: Having a partner really helped. Every writer goes through their personal hell, so to have someone to share the vision, the dream, and the tough times is good. We had all our eggs in one basket, and it was an extremely beautiful thing to be able to share it with someone else.

DeRosa: Getting any movie made is a mission. This film had a very ambitious structure, and I always loved it. Jieho always loved it. You have to love the movie you're going to kill or die for, because you can be in it for years. At the end of the day, I really believed we were writing and Jieho was going to direct something that meant something. We were fighting a good fight for something we believed in, and that got me through the constant ups and downs.

Jenelle Riley lives in Los Angeles and is abnormally obsessed with The Simpsons and playing Scrabble.

The Air I Breathe courtesy ThinkFilm

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