Interview (Part 3): Alysha Chan and David Zarif

My interview with the 2024 Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting winners.

Alysha Chan and David Zarif wrote the original screenplay “Miss Chinatown” which won a 2024 Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting. Recently, I had the opportunity to chat with the couple about their creative background, their award-winning script, the craft of screenwriting, and what winning the Nicholl has meant to them.

Today in Part 3 of a 6-part series to run each day through Saturday, Alysha and David go into depth about how they crafted an entertaining Act One in their Nicholl-winning screenplay, but also efficient.

Scott: I’d like to do a breakdown of Act One, because I was so impressed how efficient the writing is. By the time I got done with your story set-up, I was like, “Wow, these writers really did a great job of moving this thing along and setting up these characters.”

You start off with essentially a prologue. It’s about a five-page voiceover narrative sequence from Jackie where we’re seeing her as a child. Was that something you had in mind originally?

Alysha: I think we had that from the get-go.

David: We wanted to get into our story as quickly as possible. Readers have a razor thin attention span. And as a writer, you have to ask yourself, “Why would someone spend time reading your script as opposed to, say, doing literally anything else?” And I know a lot of people dislike voiceover, but it’s an effective way to pull the reader straight into the world you’ve built.

Scott: It’s a testament to efficient writing. I mean that as high praise because, in five pages, you establish the youngest version of Jackie with that Little Miss Sunshine thing where she’s watching pageant videos. She says via voiceover:

“To me, she [my mom] was an Asian Michelle Obama, a lesser-bootied Kim Kardashian, and an equally badass Michelle Yeoh all rolled into one.”

And you feel that. But by the end of that prologue, Jackie is pulling back, not wanting to pursue the Miss Chinatown route. There’s a literal arc that happens in five pages. The prologue sets up the tension where the mom is hoping for Jackie to be one way, but she’s starting to carve a path of her own. She says:

“And as time passed, what was once a tight bond with my mother was broken.”

Did you know when writing the prologue that you wanted to get to that point of brokenness?

David: Yes. We wanted to establish their conflict as quickly as possible. We must have rewritten that prologue twenty times. We wanted to keep it short and because of that, every word was–

Alysha: Real estate.

David: We thought about and rethought about every word. What if we take this out? How will this change that?

Alysha: Is the spacing of the voiceover segments too far apart from each other?

David: We probably worked on that more than anything else in the script.

Scott: So you come out of that prologue and boom: Jackie’s eighteen years old and she’s a skateboarder. That’s a great juxtaposition. Did you know that you were going to go right to that?

David: I think so. I think that’s always been in the script. Neither of us have ever stepped foot on a skateboard, but we thought it was the perfect symbol of youthful rebellion.

Alysha: It’s also very Southern Californian.

David: Plus, you don’t really see a lot of Asian American skateboarders. So,we thought it was an interesting choice.

Scott: What is that aside that the mom keeps saying, “Skaters all high school dropouts who live in vans”?

[laughter]

Alysha: Pretty typical of how older generations view skateboarding.

Scott: Annie calls Jackie “Day Day” and that’s a growing source of tension because Jackie repeatedly says, “No, don’t call me that.” Again, self-identity. And there’s a big dramatic moment on pages 13 and 14, about the middle of Act One, where Jackie’s been injured.

She succeeded in a particular skateboard trick but fell and hurt herself. And of course, this is exactly what Annie’s been harping about, the dangers of skateboarding.

They have an altercation. The mother uses a Chinese salve on Jackie’s wound, and Jackie says, “I want Neosporin instead.” Then Annie says, “Why do you have to skate? Why you don’t play piano or tennis like normal Chinese girl?” and Jackie says, “Because that’s not who I am.”

Once again, identity, right? “Day Day, you’re too young to know who you are,” Mom says, and Jackie, in all caps in the script, explodes on her, “FOR THE LAST TIME, STOP CALLING ME THAT,” and then the mother leaves the room, leaving Jackie alone.

That ends up being the last conversation they have. On page 15, the mom drives off to pick up some Neosporin and dies in a car crash. Did you plan that to happen by the Act One midpoint?

David: Yeah, that’s been a constant in our drafts.

Scott: You have this argument, the last exchange Jackie has with her mother. So there’s a lot of guilt built into this at that point, right?

David: Guilt really drives Jackie’s journey. In most “competition” or “sports” movies — and Miss Chinatown fits that mold to an extent — the protagonist is typically chasing a cash prize. But that’s become such a tired trope. We wanted it to feel more personal, deeper, so we made guilt the central motivator.

Scott: Yeah, because by the end of Act One, the family’s dealing with the grief in different ways. Jade seemingly is ignoring it. Edwin is kind of lost and adrift emotionally, and Jackie doesn’t know what to do. But at some point, she gets rid of her skateboard stuff and says, “I’m gonna win Miss Chinatown.” Literally on page 25. Was hitting that page count a target for you?

David: Absolutely. Our goal was to keep the first act around 25 pages, so we were really intentional with every line, every word. We kept asking ourselves, “Do we really need this?” If the answer wasn’t a resounding “yes,” even if we liked it or thought it was funny, it got cut. We were determined to make the first act as fast-paced and engaging as possible.

Scott: A good read. I tell my students that when you’re going through a script, doing an edit, ask yourself about every scene, every line: “Is it essential? If you extract the scene or that line, does it impact the story?” If not, you probably can cut it.

Alysha: Definitely. It’s like Busta Rhymes says, “Keepin’ it tight.”

Tomorrow in Part 4, David and Alysha discuss how the time-frame of the actual Miss Chinatown competition provided a natural flow for Act Two’s structure.

For Part 1, go here.

Part 2, here.

For my interviews with every Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting winner since 2012, go here.