Timothy Tau
- Producer
- Writer
- Director
Timothy Tau is an award-winning writer, director and producer. He was named by Mic Magazine as one of "6 Young Asian-American Filmmakers Who Are Shattering America's Asian Film Bias."
Tau's short film Nathan Jung v. Bruce Lee (2016), which recounts the true story of veteran actor Nathan Jung meeting Bruce Lee for the first time on the set of the TV show Here Come the Brides (1968) in 1969, won Best Original Script and Best Comedy Short awards from the Asians on Film Festival and screened at a number of film festivals in 2018-2019. Tau is also known for Keye Luke (2012), a short film biopic he directed, produced and co-wrote with Ed Moy on pioneering Asian American actor and artist Keye Luke (portrayed by Feodor Chin), who played the first on-screen Kato in the 1940s Green Hornet decades before Bruce Lee and who was also the All-American "Number One Son", Lee Chan, in the popular Charlie Chan films of the 1930s. He received a Visual Communications "Armed with a Camera" Fellowship for Emerging Media Artists to make the film, and it has screened at over a dozen film festivals worldwide and has additionally won awards from the HollyShorts Film Festival (Audience Award) and the Asians on Film Festival (Best Original Score). Tau has also directed and written the black-and-white Film Noir/Sci-Fi/Horror genre-bender, The Case (2010).
Tau also won Grand Prize in the Hyphen Asian American Short Story Contest for his short story "The Understudy", which is published in the Winter 2011 Issue of Hyphen Magazine. His short story "Land of Origin" also won Second Place in the 2010 Playboy College Fiction Contest and Second Place in the 2016 ScreenCraft Short Story Contest, judged by Academy Award winning screenwriter Diana Ossana (Brokeback Mountain (2005)). He is developing both stories and other scripts into feature films. For instance, a screenplay version of "Land of Origin" named "Kaohsiung" was a Quarterfinalist in the 2017 Zoetrope Screenplay Contest judged by legendary filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola. "Kaohsiung" and another screenplay he wrote for a surreal Western film entitled "Welcome to Eden" were also Quarterfinalists in the 2017 Scriptapalooza contest as well. A screenplay adaptation of "The Understudy" entitled "Under/Study" also made it past the Second Round in the 2016 Sundance Screenwriter's Lab and Asian American Fellowship.
Tau has also directed music videos and other projects for leading Asian American artists and entertainers such as Megan Lee (Destiny (2011)), Michelle Krusiec, The Fung Brothers of Andrew Fung and David Fung (The Jeremy Lin Effect 2: Linsanity (2012)), as well as rapper Dumbfoundead (aka Parker or Jonnie Park), singer Paul Kim and music producer/composer Scott Chops Jung of The Mountain Brothers (Chops, Paul Kim, Dumbfoundead: No Turning Back (2013)).
He is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, University of California, Los Angeles or UCLA, University of California Hastings College of the Law, and the University of California Berkeley School of Law. He has also graduated from the Professional Programs in Screenwriting and TV Writing from the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television.
Tau's short film Nathan Jung v. Bruce Lee (2016), which recounts the true story of veteran actor Nathan Jung meeting Bruce Lee for the first time on the set of the TV show Here Come the Brides (1968) in 1969, won Best Original Script and Best Comedy Short awards from the Asians on Film Festival and screened at a number of film festivals in 2018-2019. Tau is also known for Keye Luke (2012), a short film biopic he directed, produced and co-wrote with Ed Moy on pioneering Asian American actor and artist Keye Luke (portrayed by Feodor Chin), who played the first on-screen Kato in the 1940s Green Hornet decades before Bruce Lee and who was also the All-American "Number One Son", Lee Chan, in the popular Charlie Chan films of the 1930s. He received a Visual Communications "Armed with a Camera" Fellowship for Emerging Media Artists to make the film, and it has screened at over a dozen film festivals worldwide and has additionally won awards from the HollyShorts Film Festival (Audience Award) and the Asians on Film Festival (Best Original Score). Tau has also directed and written the black-and-white Film Noir/Sci-Fi/Horror genre-bender, The Case (2010).
Tau also won Grand Prize in the Hyphen Asian American Short Story Contest for his short story "The Understudy", which is published in the Winter 2011 Issue of Hyphen Magazine. His short story "Land of Origin" also won Second Place in the 2010 Playboy College Fiction Contest and Second Place in the 2016 ScreenCraft Short Story Contest, judged by Academy Award winning screenwriter Diana Ossana (Brokeback Mountain (2005)). He is developing both stories and other scripts into feature films. For instance, a screenplay version of "Land of Origin" named "Kaohsiung" was a Quarterfinalist in the 2017 Zoetrope Screenplay Contest judged by legendary filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola. "Kaohsiung" and another screenplay he wrote for a surreal Western film entitled "Welcome to Eden" were also Quarterfinalists in the 2017 Scriptapalooza contest as well. A screenplay adaptation of "The Understudy" entitled "Under/Study" also made it past the Second Round in the 2016 Sundance Screenwriter's Lab and Asian American Fellowship.
Tau has also directed music videos and other projects for leading Asian American artists and entertainers such as Megan Lee (Destiny (2011)), Michelle Krusiec, The Fung Brothers of Andrew Fung and David Fung (The Jeremy Lin Effect 2: Linsanity (2012)), as well as rapper Dumbfoundead (aka Parker or Jonnie Park), singer Paul Kim and music producer/composer Scott Chops Jung of The Mountain Brothers (Chops, Paul Kim, Dumbfoundead: No Turning Back (2013)).
He is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, University of California, Los Angeles or UCLA, University of California Hastings College of the Law, and the University of California Berkeley School of Law. He has also graduated from the Professional Programs in Screenwriting and TV Writing from the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television.
