Hi Creative Lab 5,

I’m Steven, a 25 y/o filmmaker and writer living in San Francisco, hoping to move in New York ;-)

My favorite colors are orange and blue. See —>

If I’m being real, I scrapped together the whole thing. I shot it on my first camera and edited/ colored/ sound designed the film with the help of YouTube tutorials. My friend Bowen did the score. To me, the most important part of any production is the story—the emotional core that ties it all together. I believe that what you lack in budget, you can make up with fundamentals imperceivable to the naked eye. Things like pacing, originality, and sincerity are free.

That said, I’m always trying to hone in on my craft. Since Memory Palace, I got a camera with more color flexibility and better low-light. I worked on film sets and made a few short films to capture feelings like summer, growing up, and corporate disillusionment. I directed, shot, and edited a commercial for my friend’s Mahjong event, which has since taken off, earning collaborations with reputable brands and venues across San Francisco.

Here’s the one for summer, which my friend affably dubbed “a trailer for Steven’s life.” It’s also vaguely about an unrequited crush (the making of this video helped me move on).

I’ve always loved making videos, but I don’t have a background in filmmaking. Despite going to the university with the “best film school,” I studied Public Relations, Computer Programming and Consumer Behavior at USC. (It’s an expensive school, and I prioritized job security over creative pursuits. I still loved my classes, though!).

Last year, I made Memory Palace, a documentary about the places that defined each era of my life: early adolescence in the suburbs, fresh independence in a big city, and my ancestral hometown in China.

It was my first “proper” short film, and it’s been selected for festivals like LAAPFF, SF DocFest, and the Silicon Valley Asian Pacific Film Festival.