SAN JOSE — With any great idea, there are always supporters backing it, whether they be family, friends or colleagues. But what if there was a website to help generate and showcase that support?
Kickstarter.com is where filmmaker Jason Uyeda has chosen to host his online campaign to start his comedy web series.
Kickstarter.com, a crowd-funding website, is powered by a unique all-or-nothing funding method where projects must be fully funded or no money changes hands. Uyeda’s web series, “WedUh Man,” will only be funded if he meets or exceeds the budget ($5,000) before Sunday, April 15.
Support does not go unnoticed with Kickstarter.com’s innovative reward system that gives supporters interesting rewards based on how much they give.
The young filmmaker looks toward alternative funding through Kickstarter.com to fund his comedy series about reversing stereotypes. With only a 45-day funding campaign, he hopes in the end he’ll be getting the last laugh.
When asked about what drove him to make “WedUh Man,” Uyeda said, “Growing up as an Asian in America, I grew tired of seeing Asians only playing martial artists or nerds in the media. And when I realized I didn’t know martial arts, I knew I had no chance in the industry.”
“I don’t want to be considered just another passive ‘Asian,’ and hence ‘WedUh Man,’ the comedy web series, was born. I want to make people laugh and think about the ways Asians are portrayed,” Uyeda wrote in an email to NikkeiWest.
The origin of the series name, “WedUh Man,” came after many years of mispronunciation of Uyeda’s last name while he was growing up. Uyeda said, “I just wanted to create a name that was spelled the way it sounds without that confusing ‘Y’ in there.”
To learn more about the web series, visit www.kickstarter.com/projects/1835706931/weduh-man-comedy-web-series.
Uyeda graduated from Gunderson High School in San Jose as a salutatorian. He played high school basketball, and when he stopped getting playing time he switched over to varsity badminton for his junior and senior years. He went on to graduate from San Jose State University magna cum laude in film in 2009.
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“My parents never insisted on us getting good grades,” Uyeda recalled. “‘As long as you try your hardest’ is what they always told us.”
Uyeda has worked on an award-winning feature-length film as an assistant editor and has written an episode for a CW teen TV show.
He is the son of Diane Uyeda of Carson and Ken Uyeda of Monterey.