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Young Filmmaker Steps Up To The Plate

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By MELANIE CARROLL Palo Alto (Calif.) Daily News

Published: February 14, 2008

LOS ALTOS, Calif. - Long before Jon M. Chu directed a $25 million Hollywood film, he was behind the camera in his native Los Altos, where he spent many weekend nights editing videos of weddings and other events while his friends were out having fun.

Fast forward more than a decade and Chu is off to New York to promote his first major film: "Step Up 2 the Streets," the sequel to the 2006 release "Step Up" that hit theaters Thursday.

"The fact is that I came from Los Altos with no Hollywood connections. It can happen," Chu said. "There are not big gates that keep you out. Dreams come true ... I would love to keep making movies."

But it's hard work.

Chu, 28, a graduate of the University of Southern California School of Cinema-Television, started making the Disney film late last summer and has hardly slept since.

The maker of short films and the winner of the prestigious Princess Grace Award at USC said he learned from his mistakes during his first big job and that he had to make the hard decisions about the film that came to be his baby.

"It becomes part of your heart," Chu said.

Friends and family have helped Chu with his career; best friend and fellow filmmaker Jason Russell went with him to Baltimore to film the movie.

When he was about 14, he and his friends started a small video business, using the profits to buy more equipment. They would film special occasions, such as weddings, anniversaries or bar mitzvahs, and set the edited films to music.

Chu worked so late into the evenings that his mother told him to quit film completely. But she eventually caved in, bought him some books about how to edit film and told him to be the best at what he loved.

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