Back for Season 2- A speech

Leqi Vanessa Kong(AFI) Good morning, everyone! Can you believe it this is happening? We’re finally graduating. Thank you so much Mr. Gladstein for pronouncing my name right or at least trying to. It is a hard name to pronounce for the non-native speakers. That’s why in the US, I go by Vanessa. So Vanessa Kong is not my real name, just like Dr. Jodie Foster whose real name is Alicia Christian Foster. I couldn’t resist it. This is probably the only chance I can put my name and Dr. Foster’s in the same sentence. I’m sorry. But not really. I chose the name Vanessa when I was 13 years old and was madly in love with Johnny Depp whose wife at the time was Vanessa Paradis. Who would’ve thought that 15 years later, I’m here in Hollywood and Mr. Depp would be entrenched in his very serious rock and roll career and has divorced twice, which means I have chance now. And he doesn’t have to change that “Vanessa Forever” tattoo. It is a great honor to give this speech. An honor that I don’t think I fully deserve. Even though this is, technically, a Chinese theatre and I am Chinese. Part of reason why I’m standing here is because I received massive assistance from my Chinese fellows. That’s 20% of the AFI population right there. Pretty much the same percentage of Chinese people in the world. Take my word for it. I’m a Chinese, I’m good at math. It is true, we are taking over everything. One film school at a time. 2:16 Joke aside. Class of 2018 is a celebration of diversity. We are from all over the world. From Norway to South Africa, from the Philippines to Israel to some of the most exotic places in the world: Moldova. Whatever that is. And Georgia. The country, not the state, right Michael. And a place as far as a San Fernando valley. Did I say that right? Mr. Sedaka? My pathetic knowledge of world geography and culture can barely make up for my ignorance. I remember when I first arrived at AFI two years ago, I was so in awe of everyone, everything. The majestic building, these beautiful, talented people who are all way out of my league. I kept wondering if they made a mistake for admitting me in. Like they assume I can pay my tuition because I’m some sort of crazy rich Asian which is not the case. I mean, I’m crazy alright but I’m dead broke, just like my fellows. So for a while in the first year I was in constant social anxiety. I don’t know how to make friends and I would always miss home and isolate. However, that situation changed immediately after we started our cycle one school. You know what transcends all linguistic and cultural barriers. Hunger and sleep deprivation. We barely had time for the most essential things in life after we started our cycle one. We didn’t have coffee on campus and salads on food trucks cost 80 dollars. It was super easy to make friends. “Hey I’m starving! Do you wanna go out and grab some food?” Sure. Then we’re friends. I suspect this is all a deliberate strategy of the administration- a tough love kind of deal. Because collaboration is held so high in AFI and what is the most efficient way to force a bunch of ambitious, proud, young artists to bond? Structured, discipline specific accredited torture. It is good that we have a café on campus now, thanks to Mr. Gladstein. Next step is to lobby for something with a Michelin star. But seriously, we have benefited immensely from the collaboration we have had for the past two years. And I’m so grateful for all my classmates. The searing agony of collaboration made us some sort of a family. Never in my life have I imagined I could be in an environment where we celebrate our differences and find our voices through the conservatory itself: our obsessive compulsive producing family, our self-loving directing family, our very sexy cinematography family, our paint speckled production design family, our pasty face editing family, and my brilliant, beautiful, employable screenwriting family. 5:43 One of the screenwriting rules I learnt from my second-year feature mentor who shall remain nameless, Mr. Stan Chervin, completely altered my view on life. He said and I quote, “There should be only one shtup scene in a screenplay. A second shtup only undermines the first”. Now for people who don’t speak Yiddish- shtup is slang for sex. For the benefit of our Chinese parents. I told them that shtup means the activity we do for the first time after guests leave on our wedding night. Ever since I first heard this from Stan I just couldn’t get over how profound this rule is. I mean, think about, a great shtup scene in a script is a significant life-changing moment, only happens once. Just like our time here at AFI. It is so meaningful and delicate and perfect in its singularity. It should be cherished and harnessed. We’ve had these two years to find our voices, to build our craft, to experiment, to be crazy, to fail and cry, to lift each other back up and ultimately to embrace our imperfections. So as we sit here basking in the after glow of our AFI shtup like all good shtups, we’ve done something right, we’ve done something embarrassingly wrong. But it is time for us, the class of 2018, to get out there and show Hollywood how we, AFI fellow, Shtup! Thank you very much. 7:46