For many reasons, creating films is not just about money; it is about love for the art and passion. This is what inspired Evan Luputra, a Pierce College graduate, to create a sci-fi film that will be both scientific and imaginative.

Luputra started making films when he began his film major at the University of DePaul in Chicago after graduating from Pierce College in 2012. Evan began his career by working on TV shows. One was in Indonesia, but most of the time he worked in the United States. When he became part of a film crew that ended up being nominated at the Chicago South Asian Film Festival in 2013, he decided to pursue filmmaking as a career.

In his new Sci-fi film, “Roach,” Luputra is the director of photography, He partnered up with Long Tran, a fellow university film club member. Tran is the director of the film under his company, This Is Long. Both Luputra and Tran believe it is time to show their potential. By tackling social and economic issues at the same time, they hope to add more value to the film in the eyes of the audience.

“It will have global appeal and I think everyone in the world might like it. So, it gives us a lot of freedom to kind of play around with the story or problems,” Luputra said.

The goal is to produce a short film that takes place against the backdrop of a hypothetical World War III involving nuclear warfare between the United States, North Korea, China and Russia. “In the film, they all use nuclear warfare and we’d like to show the aftermath of that,” Tran said.

They also want to show diversity by recruiting a variety of actors of different races and color. “We want to put people of color at the center of attention,” Luputra said.

They just finished a short film project called “Jap” about the Japanese internment camps that were set up shortly after Pearl Harbor. It has been submitted to several film festivals, including the Seattle Film Festival and the Utah Film Festival. It recently won the 2018 ASUPS Campus Films Foolish Pleasures award.

They expect to start shooting “Roach” at the end of this month. “We are still preparing everything, including scripts,” Luputra said.

Creating a new film is not without difficulties. Teamwork is key. Luputra and Tran want to hire people that are reliable and with whom they have close contact. For them, finding actors who do not consider money as their first priority is also important.

“When I met people on set, they are reliable and friendly people, easy to work with and for them money is not the only thing that drives them; that makes me want to hire them. Some people will think, ‘I only do a paid work.’ For me, it is really a huge turn off,” Tran said.

Creating a script also can be a challenge. “Our concept wasn’t complete until we found a good writer since we just had a small idea to work with,” Tran said.

At the same time, having a script is more like a blueprint and the final outcome is a work in process. “The script is never ready until we shoot because there are always last minute changes, things that go wrong, people who don’t show up. You are always editing. A script is like a jumping off point,” Luputra said.

Money is a limitation for them. Once the results are published about the Japanese internment production, the hope is that proceeds from that production will help to fund “Roach.”

Additionally, they have plans to sign up with Indigogo and Kickstarter. Funders of the film will have the opportunity to see the premier of the film in Seattle. In the future, Luputra and Tran are open to the opportunity to show the film at Pierce.

A trailer for “Roach” will be released the first week of June and the feature film will be released at the end of this year.

For more information about the production, contact Luputra at [email protected]. Information about the film company can be found at longtranfilm.com