Peter Hyoguchi

Last Login 05/27/12

• Los Angeles, CA
• Backed 3 projects
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My Japanese father and Russian Jewish mother met at the World's Fair in New York City, circa 1965. They spoke the "language of love", pissed off both families by marrying and having me. Nine years later, like most couples in the 1970's, they divorced. My father moved back to Japan and I was raised by my mother, grandmother, uncle and aunt in Marin County, California.

The Hyoguchi family comes from Fukuoka, Japan and is of a Samurai blood line. My father became an architect and designed buildings at UCLA, Japanese Village Plaza in Los Angeles and currently designs military bases for the Army Corps of Engineers, CIA and NSA.

The Tzisis family comes from Kiev in the Ukraine and are of a Rabbi blood line. Both of my mother's grandfathers were Rabbi. In her twenties, my mother became an animator for Hanna-Barbara and worked on cartoons such as Scooby Doo and The Flintstones. Currently, she is a legal secretary in Santa Barbara County.

Obsessed with movies, I started making films at thirteen. In 1987, I made my first real film; a sci-fi short called "The Future's Future". It's about a boy in the future who discovers a secret on the Internet. I submitted the film to George Lucas' first youth film festival and won. They made a PBS special on the group of teenage winners of the festival and my film and interview aired nationally. That kinda blew my mind.

At 17, I got an art grant, dropped out of high schooI and made my first feature film - Jean-Paul Sarte's "No Exit". At 23, I wrote and directed "Fagin's Children"; a black and white 16mm dramatic feature film about rich kids in Santa Barbara who get sucked into a crime ring/vampire role-playing circle (slightly based on real events).

I had an on again/off again college experience at Santa Barbara City College, College of Marin, UCLA and audited film classes at USC and CalArts. I just showed up to classes. No one seemed to mind.

I've supported myself since I left my mother's house at age 18 and have lived at below poverty-level most of my adult life. I've worked hundreds of minimum-wage jobs, been homeless countless times, lived in my car and squatted in an abandoned house in Berkeley, Ca. for over a year.

In 1997, I was hired to re-write a Ray Bradbury fantasy/horror screenplay called "The Waking". Meeting Ray and sharing writing credit with him was a dream come true. John Carpenter was attached to direct and CAA was the agency repping the movie. I felt like I was finally going to have the Hollywood career I'd always dreamed of. But...

"The Waking" was never made. John Carpenter wanted to make "Vampires" instead. But the producer liked my writing and hired me to adapt Hermann Hesse's Nobel Prize-winning novel "The Glass Bead Game. That was never made either but it was great experience and it paid my rent for a time.

At 29, wrote and directed the dramatic feature film, "First, Last and Deposit" which won both New York and San Francisco Film Festivals. It was bought and broadcasted by the Independent Film Channel in 2000 and is available on home video. Stream it on NetFlix here: http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/First_Last_and_Deposit/60036576…

These days, I'm CEO of www.Strike.TV and president of Roninfilm where we are in production of a sci-fi adventure Webseries called THE NEW KIND. http://io9.com/5886692/the-most-gorgeous-animated-series-weve-seen-in-a-long-time

My greatest joy is collaborating with brilliant cinema artists. Creating in this medium is the purest high I've ever known and am overwhelmed with gratitude to be doing this for a living.