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Rui: Welcome to Floating Questions, the podcast where curiosity leads, we follow and stories unfold. My name's Ray, simply asking questions, shall we begin?
Rui: today our guest is Wen Tong, an experienced imaging engineer and colorist who transforms flat gray footage into the vibrant emotional cinema we see on the screen. Wen spends his day-to-day life bridging the objective science to the subjective film world. Beyond his world class portfolio Wen's Path is one of radical autonomy, choosing the grind of NYC over a comfortable path to live his life the way that he wants.
Rui: thank you so much for joining.[00:01:00]
Wen: Thank you for having me.
Rui: Um, okay. let me give the audience a little bit background of how we met. My father and your father are really good friends since. Childhood. and so our parents know each other for a long, long time. We even have the same last name.
Rui: so maybe if we trace a few generations back, we're from like the same lineage, I met you I think two or three years ago when I was in New York, with my parents, and we had a dinner and that's when I learned, uh, you are a colorist. And I was super surprised because honestly, I have zero clue about how really a film is made and what different roles are there
Rui: So that sparked a lot of my curiosity about your profession, and please bear with me today. I'm gonna ask you a lot of basic questions.
Wen: Yeah, of course. I wanna clarify one thing first. yes, I'm a colorist, but that's like on the side my main job. where I'm [00:02:00] working now is for our creative studio. I'm an imaging engineer there. Um, they also have a colorist, so I'm also wanting to be their colorist if that's gonna happen, but not at this point.
Wen: So I just don't want people to confuse that. Yes, I'm a colorist, but it's just like on the side.
Rui: Okay. Um, but what's the difference between imaging engineer versus colorist,
Wen: colorist, it's more like a artist job that focusing like client facing, and then, you know, color grading for the film. You're responsible for like, I guess all the Nissan scene, which is the, uh, all the visual techniques, all, all the things you see on the screen. You're more responsible for the color of it, um, versus a color image engineer. it's a lot of different responsibilities, but essentially it's under the umbrella of engineering. So you are [00:03:00] fixing calibrations, examining what's going on in the, in the whole pipeline, researching new technologies and see what can be improved. so there's like different lot of stuff, but essentially that's like engineering and versus colorist is like a artist.
Rui: Interesting. Actually, can you go into the imaging engineer day-to-day job a little bit more?
Wen: Um, so for example, when I was a technicolor, there was a time we are. providing a colorist for remote working option where we have a, um, studio in Detroit. we basically rent a location there and we send a bunch of reference monitor there computer consoles and cables and all that stuff. And the brain of the machine will still live in New York City. But then the setup in Detroit, it's more like a external, uh, surface.
Wen: and. [00:04:00] goal is to have the colorist be able to work in Detroit while having a reasonable speed so then they can grade live. Yeah. That's the goal. And then part of that research is to see what we need for that, um, for that to happen and what technologies we, we want. And then at some point I have to work with, our developers to develop like a small, um, app that allows the colorist to like connect, the hardware to the New York City side.
Rui: So what I'm hearing is that you actually are maneuvering. Among several different roles. There's colorist, there is software engineers.
Rui: Um, and what do you mean by managing the pipelines and to make sure the calibration is right?
Wen: So like to color stuff, it's not like I can just color my work on a Mac [00:05:00] with a DaVinci software open. Let's say if you just open your Mac and grade your work in a resolve, um, you would have one beautiful image at the end of your day and then you think, oh, wow, that looks awesome. And the next step you're gonna upload it to, let's say YouTube. Then next, um, you may just give it to your friend. They're gonna open it on their laptop. It could be Windows, it could be Mac, it could be Linux, um, or your film ended up going to like a film festival, and then it's gonna get projected in a laser projector. in all those cases, if the pipeline is not managed correctly, they will end up seeing a different color, and that's despite of the calibration, it's being correct. even though the calibration is correct, if you're not viewing it in a, in a certain way, it's very likely you'll, you won't see the color matching between your, what you're [00:06:00] seeing on your side and what the other person would see.
Rui: Fascinating. So how do you make sure that the color transfer remains consistent? Like does the colorist have to work in a dark environment, uh, have a very specific setup and then the way that they see the film will have to be on specific device or settings
Wen: So basically there are, I would say, three typical scenarios where the first one is SDR. Um, it's targeted as like a hundred nits. It's most of the, uh, broadcast television, standardized. In the old times, I guess now, because um, Adobe vision, it's start spreading out. So then the HDR concept, it became, I guess, more and more popular.
Rui: Sorry to interrupt. Uh, I just realized I don't even have the very basic concepts about color science that would help me understand HDR and SDR. Um, [00:07:00] it sounds like it's a combination of like brightness and the color peak
Rui: I don't even have the right language to describe it. Maybe it would be really helpful if you just take a step back and explain some of the basic dimensions that impact our perception of color
Wen: Yeah. So there are, two different things we can think about. One is perception, like the other is like physics, In the physics world, everything can be like measured pretty precisely, relative to, um. Our perception. So like knits is a measurement that's defining how bright a thing is, basically. So like a hundred knit is a number that can be measured like a photometer or like a spectrometer and a thousand. Its, it's also the same, the differences between a hundred and a thousand nits. It's just how bright they are. And [00:08:00] that's just a standard that, um, in the industry people has been following. And SDR and HDR, one spec of that is the differences the brightness. Of course there's also like the color depth, and how dark they are. Brightness is definitely one of the thing that comes to people's like, mind when you, when we talk about those things,
Wen: if you are just a pure artist, you probably just don't care about these things. you're focused, focusing will be like how I'm gonna help the director um, recreate this world, that attracts the audience. So the audience may not just realize you've done so much work in it, it's just very selling, uh, for the story. That's how I feel for some of the, um, colors I've met. Like, you don't necessarily need to have the knowledge [00:09:00] of, um, oh, it needs to be like bright or very dark. It's pretty subjective to them. but some of them does have good eyes where, you know, if I show them like a hundred knits white image, pure white image, versus it's getting to like 80 knits, they would tell like, Hey, this darker these days.
Wen: I think from that perspective as an image engineer, you're more ensuring that. Let's say the reference monitor, that means the monitor that the colorist is viewing on is calibrated to follow all the industry specs So then the colorist, when they're working on it,
Wen: they will just trust what they're viewing is correct.
Wen: when I was in technicolor, we used to have these like global meetings where our, um, color architecture will share where, what they learn these days. So because laser [00:10:00] projectors is became more and more popular these days and because how they, how the laser projector work, the red, green and blue laser, they create a very narrow, um, bandwidth. like an N shape. The more narrow their bandwidth is, the more people it's gonna start seeing different color. With the same projector.
Rui: So are you saying that individual differences would make them see that color differently even though it's the same projector, or it's just maybe at any point in in time, if your eyes are moving slightly differently, you would see that color a little bit differently.
Wen: No, we're talking about the differences between, uh, individual's eyes that's gonna see, uh, the color differently. Because what color is essentially, it's like a wave. it's a light wave, right? And the light wave have the bandwidth um, old, like these. [00:11:00] technologies, bandwidth is pretty wide. then, the receptors in human eyes that catches the bandwidth, has more tolerance it will reach the color. More likely the same, falls in the same overlap region more likely. But then with the narrower bandwidth, with all these like new laser, um, projector technology, it's less likely that you will have the over overlap. So that's why Some people will see like different color
Rui: Interesting, but why would we want to move onto a technology where a lot of people would see colors differently.
Wen: that's still in discussion 'cause I feel like a lot of these are guided by marketing. It depends on how the market would go, guess. I think I remember, don't quote me on this, I remember it's like 5% of population will see the difference. So then I think the question became, do we wanna [00:12:00] make sure everybody's happy or we wanna kind of let go that 5% of people, and that's not up to me to like decide oh, which way we're going.
Rui: is it because the laser projector is a little bit cheaper?
Wen: I actually don't know the reason behind that. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Rui: this is a small nugget for me to dig it out later after our chat. I'm curious why I would, would want to evolve into a technology space where we risk more people perceive the scene differently. and that would lead to how they feel about this movie differently, uh, in a very subtle way.
Rui: But that's a very fascinating point. Taking a step back from the audience perspective, if a movie. let's say if there is no imaging engineer, there's no colorist, and then you just hit export and then the audience would see the original raw [00:13:00] movies. what does that raw footage would feel like compared to the final finished edit?
Wen: that's a very. interesting way to say it because raw as a word has been used very loosely in the industry. And if you are referring to like, let's shoot raw in camera, technically that means you're just shooting a bunch of ones and zeros data. that's what the raw is when we're talking about shooting raw in, let's say a digital camera these days, um, raw footage in the industry that could referring to anything, uh, your principal cinematography footage, it just like untouched. So if you're shooting a raw, uh, footage and that, that just with like ones and zeros, you won't be able to watch it play it [00:14:00] on your monitor or on your device without de bearing it. what the de bearing, de bearing process is to turn those ones and zeros into like, your RGB color, so then it became a visible picture.
Rui: Got it. So if you shoot, um, video via the digital camera, it's just ones and zero, you honestly don't even understand what that visually would, would become. And if it's the raw footage, um, in that case you still see something, right? what would be the biggest difference between that raw footage versus the final finished product?
Wen: let's say, let's just make some, setups here. Let's say we don't have a colorist in the whole film production, um, process. So it will just be the DP and the AC and the, uh, g and e department in, in the in production.
Rui: is DP a z?
Wen: DDDD DP is like director of photography and AC is assistant of [00:15:00] camera, and then g and E is like gaff and electric, um, people on set. basically it just, all the people that's, working on. What will be captured in the camera. And there's no post-production. whatever the DP is shot will just directly into the client's, let's say TV or laptops. In that case, it's really up to how much the DP or the director of photography wants to, control. 'cause there's a lot of things that would affect what eventually, gonna look on the client or the audience, device. how you light a scene and what camera you're using, what lens you're using, and what camera setting you're using. Just think a filter, like a, it could be a red filter, it could be a green filter, it could be a filter that make your skin tone looks more, [00:16:00] like It could be a, a filter that makes this, Coca-Cola red, more like So if we don't have color, then everything, it's on the DP to manage that. Some DP would like that. Control of the process because this is interesting, for me as a student and became someone that works in the industry. I was at the school, I basically worked the whole pipeline till the end.
Wen: So I will be the dp. I would my film at the end so I don't have to talk to anybody. from, but once I get into the industry and start talking to more people, I realized a lot of DP think their image ends once it's out of their head. Because what typically happen is, um, the crew will find a DP to shot their footage, then the director or the producer will take all the footage they go to an indie colorist, or they go to, [00:17:00] uh, big post houses the colorist there will color their footage. So then the DP, sometimes, because they also have other work, not a hundred percent participate in those processes.
Rui: I see. So when you are coloring the image, Can you already see the finished look in your mind, or is that process a very discovery, driven one.
Wen: That's a interesting question because it really depends. it depends on people, I guess. So I've met people that, um, they're more like a artist versus a director where they don't have a very clear idea where the direction they wanna be. So then in this case, there's a lot of things I can experience and I can present it to the, uh, to the director. There will be some people that come in with a very strong [00:18:00] will that they want for the look of the film. So in that case, would try what they want and if in the process I found out, oh, there's a better, way to do this, or maybe let's try this, I will present it. But it's really up to the person's, um, personality, I would say.
Wen: And it's like the dynamic between, uh, me and the client.
Rui: So sounds like this coloring
Rui: iterative process I guess that's the art part, which is like you can't really describe until you try a number of different combinations like color with theme or lighting, right.
Wen: Um, I think part of that can be gained from experience. the more you seen the, like, you know, you might run into a similar scene that you've done before and then maybe you'll try that and that works. but also there's something I more and more realize is there will be not just one way to color grade one awesome, [00:19:00] but then the shot is not fitting to the sequence and the sequence is will just like stand out by itself.
Wen: It just looked pretty. But then it's not fitting to the story where right when the story comes here, it would just be this very beautiful, unless that's your like intention, unless you want this to be outstanding from the rest of the film. Um, there's more, there's more thing to think about, not just make one shot look great. Um, there's also like harmony. You want to keep, um, all the shots to live in the same world.
Rui: what I'm hearing is a pretty image itself means nothing. It has to be part of the whole, instead of just like oh one pretty coloring.
Wen: Um, I, I think pretty, pretty also means something. But yeah, I think it cannot just be itself, I think eventually it has to make sense for the storytelling.
Rui: I think this is sort of, um, similar to [00:20:00] podcast when I do the editing, even if a topic is extremely interesting, or even if this like, segue is fascinating for me personally, if it doesn't fit into the storyline, you have to cut it out. Um, I guess I'm very interested in the physicality and mentality and emotional aspect of like, when you are doing the colorist job, what do those things really look like?
Rui: Um, maybe let's start with the physicality. What's your set up usually look like? Like do you have to work in the dark? how do you make sure that, the environment that you are working in, um, is the right one besides the technical device setup
Wen: so you don't have to work in. Like a total dark, actually working total dark will harm your perception. So how should I put it? If you are like staring at your reference monitor and work on your content for hours and hours with no lights on in a completely [00:21:00] dark area, your eyes will start adapting to the image, and you'll see, um, yellow became more yellow. you'll see a color deeper, and then you, based on that you're gonna change what you're color grading, and then eventually you'll start like chasing your tail basically to endless loop. so one of the things people does in industry is they would have a bias light, which is, white light. And with that light, it's gonna keep having your eyes to adapting to that color, to the white color. then it cancels out your adaptation to your image. it's kind of keep refreshing your perception so then you can consistently working for hours and hours.
Rui: That's very interesting. again, I think over and over again, even just in such a short period of [00:22:00] time, we kept talking about how perception versus reality and how you think that you are seeing something, but actually it's not really what it is. I feel like the color is, it's always the constant calibration between.
Rui: What is really there versus what you think that you're seeing. Your brain is perceiving it.
Wen: it's actually very sad truth that I learned, um, that it's very
Rui: impossible
Wen: to have two people see the same thing. are just so many different layers that could make the perception to be different. the easiest thing is to have two people watching on the same monitor. And it depends on how picky you are, right? A lot of these things are very subjective. Like for example, I worked with a colorist and they are picky and they're very sensitive for color. So a slightly different between their reference monitor and the client tv, they would point it out saying, oh, this [00:23:00] looks, the skin tone doesn't look correct to me. So I accept that, you know, people just will see things slightly different. and then what you can trust, it's the monitor that's in front of you. That's it.
Rui: Uh, I feel like we can get into a very philosophical space from this point on, but, I'm gonna stick to the reality a little bit longer. Um, so I. The mentality aspect of doing this work though, uh, is there a specific state of being that helps you do the job the most? Like, do you seek to be in a excited state or do you seek to be a very calm state?
Rui: Um, you know, like is there a specific feeling if you have it, uh, going into the work that would help you produce the best work?
Wen: I feel like it's set up expectations set up like a reasonable expectations. As I said, if you going more and more deeper, you'll realize it's very hard to match and [00:24:00] to draw the line where we can say, stop there and this is good enough. That's what helps you to have a very positive altitude towards any research that you do or like anything. Anything that we're gonna deploy to the, uh, to, to the production?
Rui: So what I'm hearing is more like having a reasonable set of expectation to know that there will be differences. There will always be endless chase, you know, in this process it's more about like how do you make sure you keep yourself sane of not falling down that rabbit hole all.
Wen: Yes. A lot of, a lot of is actually, more about people thing, just about managing these things. Correct. 'cause people have different expectations. Some people understand that these differences exist and it's subjective. Some people don't understand. Um, so it cause trouble. That [00:25:00] also applies to like a client session. Some clients understand that, oh, there will be slightly different.
Wen: That's okay. client, um, I remember one of the cases, it's like they drag me into the room and the clients are like, sit in a row looking at their laptop and say, Hey, our Apple laptop looks more red. Why your screen looks so green, your screen is out of calibration. I have to like explain to them, in a nice way that we are calibrated.
Wen: And that happens with of the Apple product.
Rui: Interesting. Wait, so are you saying that the Apple products, uh, laptop o often skew towards certain direction? So it's sort of like constantly. Distorting our perception of things.
Wen: No, no, it's just, all the device that without calibration. I won't say they're good. That applies to anything that I'm facing these days. Basically someone would say, oh, I have a very good [00:26:00] monitor, or, oh, my color looks very good on my, on my phone. Um, I always say, yeah, that's pretty good. But then I always have a question mark in my head.
Wen: I was like, ah, interesting. I have to physically see it one next to each other. Like, have put your phone right next to the reference monitor and then you'll realize how much is off.
Rui: So oftentimes as a professional, you wouldn't even be able to tell that this device color isn't calibrated until there's a standard next to it to tell you that this is off.
Wen: I would have some memories that I, so what I would typically do is I would put up some footage that I, I graded before and I have an idea. like, what the color should look, and then I would look at their phone and then if that's too far off, then then I would realize right away. But if they're slightly different, I don't think I have a strong memory color that I can just, that I would just know, oh, you're red is [00:27:00] like two degrees off from the hue or whatever. That's a little bit impossible for me to do that. Yeah.
Rui: So color is so subjective. when you walk on the street, when you look at New York City, when you see certain buildings or look at the sunset, um, do you feel like your brain is constantly self-correcting or coloring the world as if you are doing a job?
Wen: I don't think I'm getting that crazy. Um, but it's interesting because I went into some film festival in New York City in those like film festival I was able to like watch, a lot of like indie films. And a lot of those are shot in New York City and you will be surprising how people think about the city. 'cause in some films it will just be in a siento. In some films [00:28:00] it will be like a very blue tone. And in some films it's like a very, like magenta tone. So it's really depends on what story you're trying to tell.
Rui: Well, so far we have been. Just chatting about the craft, the imaging engineering, the coloring aspect of things and how perception and real reality is often the constant battle and how there's always a degree of like the, the perception differences among people. But I'm also very curious, like, did you know this profession very early on?
Rui: Like how did you even come across it and how did you know that you want to stay in it?
Wen: Oh, uh, that's kind of a long story, but I'll, I'll keep it short. So I was actually in computer science for my undergrad and I hate it. Uh,
Rui: you choose that major?
Wen: no, like I, so I had, I had that in China, but
Rui: I.
Wen: you know, like the Chinese university rule, [00:29:00] it's like, it's like you have to be the top 30% of the student, then you can change your major. And unfortunately I don't really like what I'm studying, so I don't do a very good job on my major, so I
Rui: Okay.
Wen: stuck.
Rui: did you choose it in the beginning?
Wen: No, no. It's like, uh, what do you call that? When you chose your university, you chose there, there's like a tier that you fill in, six majors into it. And then computer science is like one of the major that I would like to go if I don't have enough of, uh, score to get in for the, for the first, uh, major. So then I kind of get moved to that one instead of like chosen that one.
Rui: What was your first choice?
Wen: I think it's, uh, digital media, technology, something like that.
Wen: So I am in undergrad, then I was like, okay, if I get to go to a grad school, I wanna do something I like. And that's how I [00:30:00] get into RIT. And in film production. So first film I made, I spent hours to color grading it. when I'm, when I'm so excited to like, share this to the world, I realize it looks like a pi piece of shit in the, the theater. And by the time there's no one around me that can tell me why. I just know it looks different from my laptop. So I'm really pissed and I start asking why around. that gets me to the, uh, motion picture science major in RIT. And I start talking to the professors there, their students there. And at some point I'm like, Hey, maybe I can just like sit in in their class and learn what's going on.
Wen: So after that I have a friend that get hired by Technicolor and he was like, um, telling me that they're hiring someone in New York City and if I wanna try, I should apply. then I [00:31:00] successfully went in that leads me into the technical color, which is my dream company to be honest. Uh, but now, you know, we all know the story on 2025 they falling apart. So got bring over with the, the member from the mill and they started a new company called Our Creative Studio, and I'm still the, uh, image engineer there.
Wen: And that's my full loop I guess.
Rui: Interesting. I guess I want to understand a little bit more. One, what propels you to really like, want to tell a story on the screen?
Rui: That's my first question Second question was like, in this pivoting journey from computer science into this color science, um, were there any friction, you encounter that you felt like, oh, there's a lot of struggle and did your parents actually support that?
Wen: They don't have a [00:32:00] strong resistance, I guess. Yeah. I mean, now they actually don't know what I'm doing. Like, even though I try to explain to them times, like I'm an image engineer, they always think I'm a colorist in the company. I told them, no, I'm not. just, I'm just an engineer. I'm not an artist yet.
Rui: Interesting. But, uh, when your dad shared part of that story with me, my impression was like he wanted you to maybe do something else and maybe like even follow his footprint into construction or real estate, um, but you kind of resisted. Is that part of the story? Is that the story that you also remember?
Wen: I, I guess I, I'm, I'm always a rebellion kid from very young age. my mom always want me to be like a or just work in the university more like a stable work. And my dad is like, you know, he definitely want me to work under him or whatever. Um, [00:33:00] I just don't care I guess my goal is just like, oh, if I can make myself enough money to be able to stay, um, and then I can just do whatever I want. I don't have to listen to anybody.
Rui: Yeah. Uh, in that rebellion process, did your parents was like, well, you have to be realistic. What are you doing that sort of like, talk with you?
Wen: There is definitely some struggle. 'cause, you know, um, when I film production here, this major is essentially still like an art major. When I'm about to get, um, graduate, I start thinking of like, how do I want to make a living in this industry? from what I'm aware, of the, um, dps or most of the film production people are actually freelancing.
Wen: They start from freelancing and you have to know a lot of people and a lot of connections. Then you'll start getting more and more work, and then that will [00:34:00] make your, um, money to stay. And, but another thing is like the international student visa thing. So I'm thinking, oh, I need something full time.
Wen: I can't just work as freelancer. at that point I'm thinking, oh, color is, is definitely my goal since I really like it. then near graduation, I found out, oh, this is so niche that maybe I can find a job around it. Um, I guess I'm also lucky enough at that time, um, Technicolor has a position open, then I'm able to get in.
Rui: Have you ever doubted your choice along this pathway? Like when your parents maybe didn't understand what you were really going for? When this type of creative industry job seems to be, you know, like not with a lot of security, um, and it really requires years of like accumulation of network, uh, to get bigger contract and things like that.[00:35:00]
Wen: There was definitely a lot of those conversations happened before, but I felt like that's before my grad school.
Rui: Hmm.
Wen: know, if you're just thinking of the timeline, I give up computer science and go to an art major in a, in a traditional Chinese mindset. That's insane.
Rui: It's insane.
Wen: like being an artist
Rui: doesn't
Wen: too much money in, in China at least.
Wen: That's from, I don't know the exactly number, but computer science people are always considered as a very. As the top of the pyramid or
Rui: Yes.
Wen: there, right? Like they make a
Rui: Yeah,
Wen: so I guess that conversation already happened before I come here. Um, and I don't know anybody. When I just got here, like literally just like nobody, I sometimes tell this joke to my friend. I'm like, I'm a, I'm a new baby here. I'm just with my adult mindset. I'm relearning the cultural, relearning the language, re relearning how you interact with people here.
Wen: So for me it's like a [00:36:00] newborn. So today I made a lot of friends. have very good connections with some of the people here, so that makes me feel like this is my second home. And that's also part of the reason I, I decided to stay instead of going back to China right after my graduation.
Rui: Yeah,
Wen: not just the skill or industry, it's also people here.
Rui: I actually really respect and admire the choice that you made. 'cause I know like in China, you probably could have had a very comfortable pathway paved by your dad because your dad is a very successful businessman.
Wen: we don't, we don't know that like this it, you know, things change. Things change. You don't know, you never know.
Rui: But either way, it will be potentially a little bit more comfortable
Rui: And I think your dad has a lot of respect for you on that regard,
Wen: yeah, I mean, but you know, that's not fun, right? Fun is always the thing that will make you to do things. If things are not fun, then it's hard [00:37:00] to do for long.
Wen: actually, to be honest with you, I didn't think that this will be, that this struggle before, I just didn't think that much. Um, from, the first idea for me is like, I wanna running away from this, from the computer science. then it's very interesting that now I'm actually using my computer science knowledge to do some daily work.
Wen: So I'm like, oh, wow, life is strange.
Rui: Yeah, I mean dots to connect. Um, I guess, sorry, going back to one of the first questions that I asked, why did you want to tell a story on the screen?
Wen: Oh, I guess when I was a. Kid, I started drawing those, like hand draw, like fighting scenes like a hero, saving the world. So when I first applying to the university, what I wanna do essentially is be a 2D animator. And at that point I was, I was so introverted, really wanna work with people. And the reason I chose 2D animator is I know I can just do all the work myself, [00:38:00] you know? Right. I would just like hide in a dark room, drawing all this, all these things all day long. And then when I finish, I just like up upload it to the, um, Billy Bely or some like video stream, video streaming platform, right.
Wen: And then Share to the World. Um, where I came from. And in my undergrad I joined those like, um, video making clubs, I started realizing live action. Is way easier to make a content in a short amount of time. So that's the time I start thinking, huh, maybe I should switch to that so then I can tell story more easily instead of trying to practice my drawing skills.
Wen: Because I don't know how to draw. I, when I drawing those hand, hand right, uh, hand drawing figures, it's very much just, I can understand it. Like nobody can understand it. my college experience, it's the time that I realize live action is the goal and [00:39:00] easier and it's faster for me to adopt and to make production. make products
Rui: Interesting. So it sounds like where you started is that you have a story in your mind And you're trying to draw. Now you are shifting to, uh, photography or video production. That's another media to express that story.
Rui: Uh, inherently you are more drawn to the story telling more than anything else, and color is also just a, a media to help tell that story better. So is your ultimate dream still colorist? Or are actually the storyteller, the director of some video production?
Wen: I don't think this, these two goals conflict. colorist could be, you know, what I'm doing day to day. I think having a good story to tell requires a lot of life experience, a lot of years, years to [00:40:00] think about it. you know, since if, if I'm able to be a colorist or do whatever job to, get food for me, I'm okay to postponing creating a story for myself or writing a story that I wanna tell. essentially what I get a lot is, the skill of telling a story and the specs that you would think of to tell a good story. that's more important as a scale level. And then once that's all set, then the rest of that is, um, what story you wanna tell, right? And that takes, that really takes time.
Rui: I have to say I'm very impressed by your practicality and even the level of wisdom of like. Story requires life experience and also the skills to present that story. And so you're willing to abide by that time to get to a point where potentially the story that you're gonna tell can be actually be presented on the screen, and then you know how that will look like.
Rui: I think that's actually [00:41:00] really impressive. Um, wow. So you're just abiding your time right now. what I'm wondering is, since the first film that you made on your own, versus everything that you have learned so far, what have you learned about storytelling?
Wen: A big part I do wanna shout out here is sound. It's
Rui: Okay.
Wen: because I'm a colorist, but I want to point out what's important is sound. Um, is very, very, um, important, not just, what you see on the screen. It's also what you hear. In when I, when I, when I was in RIT, we always make jokes when we're shooting a film.
Wen: It's like nobody cares about sound like, you know, when we are, when we're shooting something, if the boom operator, it's kind of in the frame. we would rather the sacrifice sound than, you know, then compromise the image. But [00:42:00] I took a class, from a professor Jack Beck, and he has a very great sound designing class.
Wen: sorry, sound theory class. about how you would use a sound in a movie to hint something. I guess that's the big part of, I'm taking out of, for example, in the film. If it's an intense scene and people are waiting, and then we're just like with the, main character on a couch waiting for the assassin to show up, you may start hearing the dog bark from outside. And that's like a hint that some dangers may come. if you're not having that like you may just leave a blank. Um, you may just like, uh, leave a blank there. Right? And that's kind of boring. But then, then there's like a little bit sound design here and there that adds up. And at the end when the session show up, [00:43:00] it naturally makes sense for you. But, but as an audience, you probably don't realize why. It's because some of that, it's those like sound design has been layered then it accumulate to a point. when the time comes, um, it gives a reward to the audience.
Rui: I feel like making a movie, it's almost like reverse engineer life, uh, in some way, based on your description, like just based on how much you perceive in life. In different scenarios, in different uh, setting, you might notice a million different like cues that's happening. And often you don't consciously realize that you already perceive all of those signals.
Rui: You unconsciously process all of those signals. So the environment made sense to you where you have an anticipation or innate feeling, either happy or fearful or anxious, uh, that comes to you. But if you want to make a film that's as realistic as possible with a lot of rich details, [00:44:00] you have to re verse engineer how your mind perceived all of those signals and sound sounds like a factor that you underestimated before.
Rui: Uh, but now you realize how important it's, I'm curious. How do you, how do you do that? Reverse engineering with the color a little bit? Or how do you leave the cues for the audience about where the story is potentially going?
Wen: Um, for color, I feel there's design, less carefully designed as, no, I shouldn't say that. That's not, that's not good. Um, for color, I would say it's different, different focusing than sound. 'cause sound, it's like. Potentially you're creating those things from nothing. You're, it's a zero to one process, color, it's more like, maybe like a one to 100 process or like 50
Rui: Hmm.
Wen: process. [00:45:00] You're working on something that's already existed, unless we're talking about, you know, a process that's including VFX, which you are creating something from zero to one, right? And
Rui: Hmm.
Wen: may have different, uh, potentials there. So that's how I see this.
Rui: Interesting. And so how is that qualitative difference, you know, the zero to one creation in the sound realm, uh, versus you know, 10 to a hundred stage in the coloring realm? How does that really impact the artist to think about their production and creation?
Wen: I can't fully uh, uh, speak for sound, but I can, I guess 0 2 1 is not a hundred percent correct because I'm just thinking of a case that if sound is completely messed up, um, we can als always do ADR even though that costs money, that costs time. there's some [00:46:00] possibilities that we can do, to. Recreate the dialogue or like people's voice for those, scenes. again, I just realized by just saying that I'm actually in the mindset of being a on scene. Like always takes prior then sound. 'cause why don't we reshoot the whole thing instead of the sound. I guess it's cheaper to redo the sound than, than to reshoot the, the scene.
Wen: So that's why sound is not really respected. Don't quote me on this, it's not respectful enough.
Rui: Fascinating. Um, I guess you can watch a movie without the sound like, I mean, there were so many silent movies before, right?
Wen: True. But I feel like you're missing a lot. Um, I feel like a a any element in a movie, it's layers, right? It's layers that adds up to [00:47:00] make a good film. It's not just a film that's good because of a single thing. Um, I always think of film that's good. It's because a lot of layers adds up.
Wen: And then that's why we think it's awesome.
Rui: is your next direction, or at least, uh, you know, time outside of work would be around sound engineering then, is that the next thing that you're gonna try to pick up a little bit more?
Wen: No, I actually, that's a interesting question. Um, I realizing I don't have too many times, like too much times to work on so many things in my life and I have to do some minus for my life these days. I still believe that. It's not conflicted, uh, eventually, but I think in, at this moment, I have to let something go maybe maybe pick it up after like 10 years or something.
Wen: I just don't think that would happen these days.[00:48:00]
Rui: Very focused. but if eventually your goal is to make a story yourself managing both the sound, the image, the shot, the composition of the shot and the, the color of the scene, that's a lot of things to control at the same time. And more than that, it's the people that you have to manage on the set.
Wen: Exactly. Um, you know, if I started making more and more content and I, and then I know more and more people well, there are a lot of like talented people in the industry. If I know them, then if I start working with them, then I don't have to sync all of these. Right? Then there will be people that's more, that's like mastered in their region then, then they will be able to give me ideas or like we can, we're able to talk which decision is better, what we wanna do here, what we wanna do there, and that essentially gonna add up.
Rui: That totally makes sense. I've never really dug into successful directors, uh, experience. Do [00:49:00] they usually have to, uh, accumulate a lot of experience, before they make a pretty good. Movie, uh, is that your observation? Or Some of them are just like naturally talented and be able to pull so many threads together all at once in a very early age.
Wen: I don't have that much of. Like life experience to say that. the only case that I know, they definitely run into a lot of, struggles and the every, every obstacles they run into, they will learn from it.
Wen: then eventually they will be more and more mature. And then I believe that's the process for for anybody, uh, in life. it's okay to make mistakes, right? Like, if the mistake is not gonna completely knock you out, you always can come back to it and then see what you did wrong. see what you can improve.
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