Found Voices™ Season 2 Episode 4 Frank Ishizaki

I really enjoyed speaking with Frank Ishizaki. It’s not every day that you meet someone who casually refers to his life as source material. But when you’ve lived a life like Frank’s, one that reads like the most compelling script, you understand why. Two opposite worlds collide in his story: he was a gang member, and his father was an FBI agent.

But the thing about Frank is that he doesn’t define himself by that collision. He’s a phenomenal writer and a very cool human being.

I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I enjoyed talking with Frank.

Frank J. Ishizaki is a writer and director from Los Angeles, raised by cops, gangs, and punk rock. Born on the island of Guam of Chamorro and Japanese descent, he draws from a childhood torn between his FBI agent father's world and his hidden life in violent street gangs.

Frank directed The World Poker Tour for over a decade and continues to direct high-stakes live television broadcasts. His poetry, essays, and fiction explore identity, belonging, and moral complexity, writing from the trenches of crime, power, and survival with unflinching authenticity. He holds a B.A. in Film and Television from California State University, Northridge, and lives in Sherman Oaks with his wife and their young son.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:26

Hello, I'm Carolyn Zeal, and welcome to season two, episode four of Found Voices. Today I'm speaking with Frank Ishizaki. He's a writer and director from Los Angeles, raised by cops, gangs, and punk rock. Born on the island of Guam of Chamorro and Japanese descent, he draws from a childhood torn between his FBI agent father's world and his hidden life in violent street gangs. Frank directed the World Poker Tour for over a decade and continues to direct high-stakes live television broadcasts. His poetry, essays, and fiction explore identity, belonging, and moral complexity, writing from the trenches of crime, power, and survival with unflinching authenticity. He holds a BA in film and television from California State University, Northridge, and lives in Sherman Oaks with his wife and their young son. Frank is fascinating. I hope you enjoy listening to Frank as much as I enjoyed speaking with him. Thanks so much for listening. Normally I ask people the first question is, have you written forever? But I can't ask that of you because in your bio it says that you produce high-stakes TV shows.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

And directed. I think it says directed.

SPEAKER_02 1:44

Directed. That you direct high-stakes TV shows and live. And I'm thinking, hmm, it seems like your whole life has been high stakes.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

Maybe in my mind.

SPEAKER_02 1:56

I mean, did you do that in person?

SPEAKER_00 1:57

No, I don't. I should have had my wife um, you know, edit my bio more. So um she's better than me.

SPEAKER_02 2:05

Other than poker, which I get is high stakes. Do you direct TV shows where people are taking motorcycles and jumping over canyons? Like what are you? I'm curious I'm really curious.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

No, I I direct um sports.

SPEAKER_01 2:19

So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:21

And there's also there tends to be gambling involved in my endeavors. I'm not a big gambler.

SPEAKER_01 2:29

You're not?

SPEAKER_00 2:29

I'm I'm not. I mean, I I have and I know how. I haven't been uh really a big gambler when it comes to yeah, my own money. So um I've lost enough to learn.

SPEAKER_02 2:40

So, how did you get into directing the World Poker Tour? Because that's a big deal.

SPEAKER_00 2:46

It was around 2001 or two. Um so I've been working in production and I I uh I went to Cal State Northridge way back to study film and TV. I was fortunate enough to always have some kind of job in the business in the town, whether it was on the distribution side or um I had even worked in feature film development. And then I got into production, you know, they had still called it video production, but it was television, live TV. And I was working in reality TV before they called it reality TV.

SPEAKER_01 3:22

Right.

SPEAKER_00 3:23

And then I had enough experience working with crews and equipment and you know, really a lot of the below the line, you know, stuff. So I got this opportunity to work on this show, and it was called the World Poker Tour, and no one had ever done what they had done before. There was poker before the WPT, right, but no one had put cameras in the table so we could see the whole cards, and it was gonna travel all around the world and it was extremely expensive. And I thought this is definitely not gonna work. This thing's gonna bomb, you know, and uh thank God I was completely wrong.

SPEAKER_02 4:00

It it's popular, right?

SPEAKER_00 4:02

Yeah, it really exploded. And um, and yeah, the uh the people who created the show, I worked on it for I think maybe it was the third season in. Things had changed. The company went public and and they needed they needed someone to direct because the gentleman who was the director had to move on to be the CEO of this company. And so he was like, hey, why don't you just move over one seat on this front bench and direct it? So he was the one really who gave me the shot. He and you know, the other folks who put it all together. And um, and yeah, and that was about 20 years ago, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 4:45

Wow. It's it's just it's interesting. You have the most interesting life. And I'm curious, now I'm going to ask you, did you always write? I mean, I would think that in your world, writing wasn't looked upon as the coolest thing ever.

SPEAKER_00 5:00

It's a yes and no answer. Um, professionally, or uh as say someone who identifies as a writer. No, I have not taken it to that level, or really, again, put as much um of myself into it as I have more recently, since I've met you and Jack and the others. Um, I had written, I've written several screenplays um over my life. When I was uh, you know, when I studied, when I was in college, I I studied some writing. Right. And then and it go, but it goes all the way back to when I was, I think I was a senior and yeah, I was a senior in high school. And you're supposed there is this thing, right, in Southern California. I don't know what other states do it, but it's called the subject A. And you write an essay, and then it's judged by um, you know, uh, I forget who the judges were, but you would connect with this one. The the um a professor from UCSB, right, uh read my S my essay and um she loved it. And I scored, I got like a really high score on this subject. And so that planted the seed in my head when I was a senior in high school that, hey, maybe I can do this. Um, but a whole bunch of years went. Again, I I did take a few stabs at at writing a few screenplays. Um one of them I I did that I had a writing partner and we did a pretty good job. This is around 2000, and um and we did well with the screenplay that that we wrote. You know, we had something, we had a we had a um, you know, we had a piece in the game for a little bit. Uh, but then you know the the WPT thing took off. And for a bunch of years, I I had really pushed um writing to uh like the furthest back burner it could be, like barely on the stove. Um and then um it was like 2018 I was producing, directing stuff, and I had made friends with some pretty high-level feature film producers, and we talked and they had learned about this stuff in my past, and uh they were really interested. They they felt like it was tremendous source material for something. Yeah, you'd think like a TV show, and so we went down that whole track of putting together a pitch and trying to find a showrunner and all that, and then COVID hit and COVID was COVID, and um and then I was still I I had still been developing this thing, and I I uh I saw the YouTube video with with Jack. Oh this is just a few years ago, right? It was and he's getting interviewed, and I just randomly watched this video. It wasn't like I had heard of Jack or I thought, oh, I'm going to you know research the best you know writing teacher so I can elevate my my craft. But when I saw that interview, it was pretty cool because he uh the the interviewer asked him about massaging a transformation line.

unknown 7:54

Right.

SPEAKER_00 7:55

So for the listeners, um, if you you know, for the non-method writing folk out there, it's this technique that that Jack you know teaches. So the interviewer had asked him about that. And so, you know, so Jack is Jack, he was very direct, and so he was like, Do you really want to do this? Yeah, I'm paraphrasing, but she was like, Yeah, let's let's do this.

SPEAKER_02 8:15

You know, I no, I think he asked, he made them massage their own transformation. He did the transformation line, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:22

Yeah, um, yeah, he he made her massage the transformation line and he made her go deep and she went and he made her go deeper and deeper, and it got it got uncomfortable, you know. It did, and that's what what happens, right? The truth, right? And so, um, and it was but it was badass. And I thought, oh, I I gotta find this guy. So um, so yeah, I came into method writing. I wanted to learn, you know, I wanted to learn from Jack. And I came in because I thought, well, if I can elevate my screenwriting craft, then you know, maybe I can get this project going. Um, but I learned some other stuff along with.

SPEAKER_02 9:01

So yeah, just a little. You're I think you're a phenomenal writer. And um talk about high stakes, going deep. You know, screenplays are hard, I I think hard to write in a way because you don't have all the commentary and you have to really key in on your dialogue. I know this producer, um, he started in nonscripted reality. It's funny because I'll read a book like Chaos, the the the book about the CIA and uh Charles Manson, and I'll I'll say, You've got to read this book, it'll make a great series. It'll make a great something. And five minutes later it comes out on Netflix already, of course. Of course. The agent already pitched it. But I still think it would make a great series. And we get we get to talking every once in a while, and he loves the idea of book to screenplay because it's all there, especially when it's cinematic, which is how you write for sure. So now you're writing, are you calling it a memoir?

SPEAKER_00 10:03

I am. I I think for um for several reasons. One the first and foremost, it was maybe let me re rephrase that. I again when I came into to method writing, it was to elevate my screenwriting. But you know what I found, right, was that prose, prose poetry, poetry, writing for writing's sake was plenty good enough. I didn't need to write something just for the read, to then maybe get a project set up, to then maybe get a showrunner, to then maybe get a deal, to then maybe get the green light, maybe get the budget, maybe the pilot, maybe it gets picked up. Like that's so it's so there's so many steps and things out of our control. I started to really enjoy and come to embrace you know literature, you know, art art. And so initially I was writing um about my father. I think I thought, well, maybe let me just let me write a the his biography, right?

SPEAKER_02 11:03

And then it was and is he is he cool with that?

SPEAKER_00 11:07

Yeah. He yeah, he had some, I mean, there's some caveats to um my father is an F was an FBI agent for many years. He's retired and he be he retired from the FBI. He still does stuff. He he's a university teacher and he continues. But yeah, when it came to his FBI career, yeah, he was comfortable with me writing about it. There, you know, there are certain details that you know that you don't want to share, but there's plenty to share. That's fine. Yeah, he thought it was great, whatever I wanted to do. He's very he's always been very, very supportive of um, you know, what I'm doing. So I was writing pieces about him. I was writing pieces about my own experiences. And then I think it was really in um it was in one of our classes when it when it struck me, I think Jack sort of put me on the spot. Like, what is it you are doing? What do you want to do? You know, and um and he he said it and asked it in that Jack way, right? That he he was putting me on the spot in a in a in a great way. I I'm grateful for him. And um it was uh it was then it was a he was paraphrasing that what is the truth of who you are, man? You know, what's the story? And so I I decided, yeah, Jack, I think I'm writing a memoir, you know. It's not an autobiography, right? It's it doesn't start with me in the delivery room as a newborn um up to this point. It covers a a certain span of my life and uh that I shared um in particular with my father. And it covers the years from my adolescence into you know my late 20s.

SPEAKER_02 12:51

The reason you're writing about him, not just because he's an interesting guy. I mean, he's got this amazing career, and but because he's your father and it's the relationship that we care about. I think you're a phenomenal writer. I'm pretty sure I know I'm not the only one. But do you ever write something and think, wow? And you're surprised as how it showed up on the page? Do you look at it and say, Wow, I didn't realize this about myself or my life?

SPEAKER_00 13:19

All the time. I do think that um since I've started writing with you guys, I think that it happens more often now. And I I um I attribute it to you know the training, the exercises, the tools. A large part of it is that because I'm I'm not sitting and for lack of a better way to express it, I'm not overthinking whatever it is. I I write and then sure, I'll go back and edit, of course. And I'll edit the shit out of things, right? To where, right, like I will remove the comma and put it back again.

SPEAKER_01 13:54

Yeah, it doesn't countless times.

SPEAKER_00 13:56

Um but but yes, to answer your question, I I've I I've written things, I've written myself into tears, right? And to where I will write and I will read it and I either I can't believe that this truth has been there, say this whole time, and I just now realized it, or I'm bringing myself to a moment in which I was overwhelmed with some emotion and I'm experiencing it again. And now when I write, when I create sentences in a particular order with the words that feel perfect to me, then I realize that I'm able to convey that to a reader and share something, you know, and be connected to them in that way.

SPEAKER_02 14:46

So you're writing about your past, that you were in gangs and such. It's such a fascinating background. Obviously, it would make great TV. I mean, people are so into true crime, right? Me included. We are it would make great TV. But then just you know, it you can't write a life like that. Like the the kid's dad is an FBI agent. Have you read any of the stuff to your dad? Or are you worried about that? How much do you read to your to your wife? I'm curious too.

SPEAKER_00 15:17

I read everything to my wife, but the part about my father, I am you know, I'll just be transparent right now with the listeners and with the I'm I'm I'm terrified. But no, I I I I'm joking a little bit. He knows a lot. Yeah. He knows a lot. He does. We we've talked about the gangs and and all of that stuff. We have, we've gone into great depth, right? The terror part is is probably about a book like this requires, you know, um to uh to be any good, man. You know, like I the the level of honesty and the it's it's it's I you know I can't say enough about you and Jack and and what method writing is like it demands that, you know, and it's not like well you better be honest or it's not gonna be any good. No, it's just that everyone here is being so honest. And so, you know, at the same time that we may be afraid, there's so much like courage and grace and support, you know, in the room that you just come and you bring it. So as far as my father goes and sharing with him, really the the part that I'm most worried about is being any good, you know. So it's it's like, am I gonna, you know, it's it's really probably not the emotional, you know, honesty part. It's just, yeah, it's my father, right? I want to, you know, I want him to enjoy the read. So he's been asking for, you know, the draft. Hey, let me see it, let me see it. And I'm like, hold on. And I've been, I've been telling him to hold on for like I think a year and a half now. And so so the good news is that I'm pretty much done with the partial manuscript. The partial is pretty much done. I'm just editing and polishing. So I'm, you know, I'm targeting like an early January uh, you know, date to be done with that, and then get it out there.

SPEAKER_02 17:19

So are you going to pitch to agents? I mean, you have an agent, don't you?

SPEAKER_00 17:24

No, I've got um I've got a couple of producing partners for this thing as a TV project. As far as this I guess we're gonna call it source material goes. No, I don't, but we have a list of folks to share this thing with when you know when it's ready, which will be very soon. I'm saying like within the next month, month and a half.

SPEAKER_02 17:48

Yeah. How long did it take you to write the whole thing?

SPEAKER_00 17:51

So the memoir itself, this partial I've started, I want to say about I I don't think it's been two years, you know, maybe a year and a half since I really started to, you know Turn it into a memoir. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 18:05

When did the relationship I mean you it sounds like you always respected your father? I mean, now I'm just curious about your father, if that's okay. But absolutely you always respected him. It must have been hard to hide that life from him, and you write about that.

SPEAKER_00 18:21

It was hard. I God, there's so much there. I um yeah. I think that it's a two-way street, right? With um with honesty and parents and children. On the surface, it could look like something else, like I was the one doing all the hiding. Um but he was an FBI agent. And and FBI life is about secrets, you know. And so I don't think my father set out to raise me a certain way, you know, like, but I think if you combine FBI, cops, and then um, you know, culturally we're we're I'm half Japanese, you know, but there's um there's a certain cultural element to keeping things in. And you know, also it was the time that I was I was growing up and the community I was growing up in. It was it was how I went, you know. So sure I I hid um a lot like the most important you know parts of uh of my life from him for um no let me let me take that back. It wasn't the most important part, it was the most shameful, you know, and um fear inducing part of my life from him for many years.

SPEAKER_02 19:44

Fear inducing part. So that's intense. Fear inducing part. And and now you're a father. I am your son's ten. Is your son ten?

SPEAKER_00 19:55

He's he's eleven now.

SPEAKER_02 19:57

Eleven.

SPEAKER_00 19:57

But yeah, he's uh He's my little hero. So yeah, I love being a dad.

SPEAKER_02 20:04

And I bet your dad loves being a grandpa.

SPEAKER_00 20:06

Yes. He and he loves his grandson. It's really cool to it's really cool to see. You know, something I've learned from from being Joaquin's dad is that I've learned about my dad. You know, like people say, oh, you'll learn about, you know, how much your parents love you when you were all that stuff. It's it is no, it's it's I've I've learned that. But when I look at my son and I think about how much I depended on and loved my parents when I was little, then I realize how much he must love me. And it's very humbling.

SPEAKER_02 20:43

The podcast is called Found Voices. I have this theory about, and I know it's it's not about finding your voice, but it is sort of about finding your voice. And I have this theory that when people find their voice in writing on the page, something seems to shift internally and it seems to move out into the world. And I think that people show up differently in their lives because of it. And I'm just curious in this process, especially in writing a memoir, we notice certain patterns in our lives that maybe we hadn't seen before, some obvious that we do see, some not so obvious. And I'm wondering how it all seems to have affected you in your life. Like maybe you show up on the set differently now, or maybe you father differently or husband differently.

SPEAKER_00 21:34

That's such a great question. I would like to think I'm better, but I don't know that that's the case. Like I I would be the worst judge of that. What I know though for for a fact is that I am more curious now about people's processes. In whatever endeavor I might find them. So whether you're a writer or talent or a mother, right, or a pastry chef, I'm so much more curious now about how you go about that.

SPEAKER_02 22:11

So yeah, without curiosity, I don't think you have good writing. Just a comment on the truth, because I mean, I'm writing about the 80s, you're writing about the 90s, right? Truth, what we're putting of ourselves in it. Not necessarily this really happened in this order, though some of when you're writing a memoir, you know, it is the actual events. But I think it's about more the emotion, what you're conveying.

SPEAKER_00 22:37

I think that, and and this might push back a little bit against some of Jack's coaching, in which he's like, just write it, you know. And and it's that the the truth for me in this in this work, I can't judge how other folks write memoirs. They do what they do. You know, we found out after the fact that some memoirs were a lot of bullshit.

SPEAKER_02 23:03

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:04

Just straight. And I'm I can't do that. So so for this, it's the best I can remember about what happened in in certain events. I think that if there's anything I bend, it might be, it might simply be like to your point, like maybe the order I'm telling it is how I'm trying to share the story, but not exactly the order in which I experienced it or the order in which I learned it. It's more the reflection after all these years.

SPEAKER_02 23:35

What I've noticed is I try to be as accurate as possible. There are certain things that you just can't find on the internet. At least I can't. Is is yours easier in that? I mean, you didn't keep a journal back then, did you?

SPEAKER_00 23:49

No, well, I um not intentionally. So some of it is easier because there are news articles um that are still archived. So some of the information is is still public record. I did write, I don't know if I would call them journal entries, but I just wrote stuff. Thank God, yeah, I was still a teenager. So it was when I was on Northridge. Um, I have stuff in boxes that I wrote. I don't know who I was writing to.

SPEAKER_02 24:19

Did you go back and look at it?

SPEAKER_00 24:21

I've looked at it. And it's God, it's humbling. It's it's exciting. And but it's also a little, I I should say it's a little sad, it's strange. Some of the stuff I wrote, I I should you not. I think, fuck, this is good. You know, why like how did I how did I not continue doing this? You know. Um, oh well, right? It's uh my life is my life. I wouldn't uh I wouldn't change a thing because um, like I've shared with other people, my things went the way they went, and it ended with me sitting right here in this chair talking to you.

SPEAKER_02 25:01

So I I think that's a nice place to come to. That's what makes your narrator so good, is where the writer is. Some memoirs are, you know, hit pieces, especially Hollywood memoirs, right? Or some memoirs are just boring and they shouldn't be. They're of people who are really interesting. You don't tell the reader how to feel, you just put it on the page and give us the opportunity to kind of immerse ourselves in what you're writing.

SPEAKER_00 25:34

I mean, you just sort of said what I hope, you know, is the result, right, of putting in the work.

SPEAKER_02 25:40

So Yeah. You're really good. Do you think that you'll continue writing? So you'll have this project, memoir, book. It will, I mean, I don't want to jinx it, but I don't know how it couldn't be, you know, a bestseller. It's it's just so it's written so well because it's not about the story as much as what I just said. It's about this narrator and his experience. You'll continue to write. I mean, you f you feel that you have more in you, correct?

SPEAKER_00 26:12

Absolutely. I there are a ton of um there are a ton of other true stories that I could that I could share or that I could explore. Um, but there are just a ton of stories, there are a ton of characters that I've um discovered along the way, right? And every day something comes up. So yes, the uh I'm yeah, I think I'm just getting going.

SPEAKER_02 26:41

So I love it. I think too, what you said about curiosity, if you stay curious.

SPEAKER_00 26:48

That's it.

SPEAKER_02 26:49

So you have something to read.

SPEAKER_00 26:52

Yeah, I have a piece. It's the it's uh potentially, we'll see, because I'm still assembling the uh this manuscript, but it's potentially the the opening to the memoir. It's called for now. The working title is called Joaquin, which is the name of my son. My ten-year-old comes into the living room. It's less cluttered than normal. Usually there are toys strewn, half empty juice boxes, half completed homework. Usually he's holding a small toy or clay sculpture in progress. Usually there's a grin and a giggle when he sees me. Today there's a furrowed brow. His shoulders are pulled forward, making him smaller. Dad? I know what it is. My wife called me on my way home. Were you ever bullied? Yes, when I was young. He confided in her. That boy at school has been hurting him, pinching and punching him, on his shoulders, his arms. I haven't paid enough attention. Now I owe. We don't know how long this has been going on. Joaquin tries to get away, but the boy hounds him, and this awareness that he's been enduring it alone makes my jaw curdle. It creates an energy that pulls everything down into my chest and abdomen where I carry certain things. Joaquin doesn't fight or antagonize at all. He's small and skinny, strange and sweet, and makes noises, laughter, talking to nouns, who, where, what, I've often no idea. Like a forest elf with his perfect little nose and almond eyes, or some such creature, not from Shermanogs, that God gave us by accident, and every bone, hair, cell, fiber, bit of him is ours. He is so much more than I deserve. He's what they call painfully shy. He'd never even try to fend off a bully or dare report this sort of thing to an adult. He just takes it, hopes it goes away. And when it doesn't, he eats the fear. Then it devours him and sucks him into the ground, down and down. Or he's not our happy, strange boy anymore. Was someone mean to you at school? Instaccato bursts of narrative. There's this kid and what's his name? He tells me, I don't know how you'd spell it. Maybe from a country whose words are unfamiliar to me. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Ain't anything fucking right about it either, yeah? At the tetherball court, goddamn tetherballs, they get weaponized, and the courts on the far edge of the playground, away from the teachers, away from anyone who might stop this. Sometimes he punches me, and he tries to take my water bottle. Why? He doesn't know why, only what the kid does. I explain slow and low that I will talk to his teacher, I will talk to his principal, we will do whatever we have to, it will stop. You're very brave for telling me all of this, because when it happened to me, I didn't tell anyone. Not grandpa, not Nana, not a teacher, nobody. I kept it to myself. Then lots of bad things happened. I got into trouble. Then it got very, very bad. And do you know why I didn't say anything? Especially to grandpa? No? Because I was afraid. His face darkens, becomes grown-up. And so by telling mommy and me, you are brave, more brave than me, this softens him. The wrinkled brow smooths. The world seems lighter again. He hugs me, squeezes me tight, until he lets go to look into my eyes. What happened to you, Dad?

SPEAKER_02 31:06

I think that's an amazing beginning, if it stays the beginning, even if it moves, but cool.

SPEAKER_00 31:12

Yeah, I think that's the beginning.

SPEAKER_02 31:14

The other thing that's so good is when the father gets angry in the piece, you can feel it, and it's subtle, and he's pushing it, you know, so it kind of sets something up for what's to come. And then the I don't deserve it, or he he is so much more than I deserve. I like how he tells the son he's brave for sharing it. It's very subtle. I think that's the beauty of your writing, though. I think you're not trying to be fancy, you're just laying it out there, but you're so good at layering and creating tension, even in what seems to be a simple scene of a father and a son. So you're not relying on the fact that what you're writing about can be sensational.

SPEAKER_00 31:57

Well, well, thank you.

SPEAKER_02 31:59

Well, shucks.

SPEAKER_00 32:01

Well, thank you, because I, you know, you're a part of it too. I learned from you. I learned from Jack, and um, and just being there and there, you know, putting the time in together is you know, it's it's part of the craft. It's not just community, right? But we're all there to just get better, you know, a little at the time, right? So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:18

I really enjoyed speaking to you. You're fascinating.

SPEAKER_00 32:21

It's been a real no, it's been a real treat and an honor, Carolyn. Thank you so much for everything that you do. So you're so sweet. Thank you.