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293 Aquetong Road

Augut [[August]] 23, 1983

Mr. Trevor Greenwood
1935 Preuss Road
Los Angeles, CA 90034

Dear Mr. Greenwood:

I have received your letter of August 16, 1983 in which you mention interest in doing a thirty minute documentary film on my work and philosophy. It so happens that National Geographic and W.Q.E.D.(Public Television of Pittsburgh) are interested in doing something in a similar vein. It started out as being entirely on my work but now seems to be enlarged to become something similar to the one made on Japanese National Treasures several years ago. This team has made a dozen or more very fine documentary films on a number of subjects. They have a very fine prospectus of about forty-five pages but nothing actually as they are looking for considerable funding which seems to have dried up. However, with our seemingly moving economy, things may be different.

I spoke to Bill Graves, one of the editors of the National Geographic, yesterday and he thinks that if you can put it over, you should do it as what they plan to do is somewhat different in scale and approach. Actually there has been some filming this past Fall on the Island of Yaku off the Southern coast of Japan where great cedars about the size of California Redwoods grow, but they are twice as old and half again as old as the Bristlecone Pine. These are reputed to be over seven thousand years old and are fabled in Japanese lore as the oldest called Jomon Sugi. They may have started in the pre-historic period of Jomon. The National Geographic arranged for N.H.K. of Tokyo to send a film crew with our party.

Possibly if you can get your act together, it might fit in with the National Geographic. At this point, I will say that as long as the National Geographic agrees, you should try to raise funding for your project.

Wishing you luck,

Sincerely,

George Nakashima