Today we’d like to introduce you to Mye Hoang.
Hi Mye, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I moved to LA ten years ago after a few adventures in other cities. I had always avoided LA, thinking it wasn’t my vibe, but then it turned out to be the place I feel most at home. When I landed here, it was the hardest challenge of my life. Just trying to hold on to survival jobs or dealing with typical horrible Hollywood bosses or toxic workplaces. I had dabbled in producing and directing narrative indie films and it was emotionally rewarding but leading me nowhere to making a sustainable living doing what I love.
I had more or less given up directing a decade ago and focused on producing and editing. Years passed until one day I noticed a growing trend in one of my favorite subjects – cats. More and more men were debunking the cat lady stigma by being proud men with cats. This included my husband who never was a cat guy until the right cat made him one. There were social media accounts aimed at this, along with books and Buzzfeed articles. I kept thinking about how much I loved internet cat content but how there weren’t enough films about cats. I started to envision a cinematic cat documentary about “cat dads” and how this kind of project would bring the cat community together in a fun way. But I had never made a documentary before. So in my mid-40s, I went back to directing and made the switch from narrative to documentary filmmaking. And looking back, I don’t understand why I never thought to do this before. After all, I loved watching documentaries and maybe even more so than fictional films. But most of all, and as weird as a film called CAT DADDIES sounds, I finally found a project I was really passionate about!
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
The start of my journey with my film CAT DADDIES was smooth sailing! I was invigorated and excited by all the great footage and scenes we were putting together. This was near the end of 2019. Filming was going to continue into spring of 2020. And we all know what happened then.
Curveball doesn’t even begin to describe the challenges I had to finish my movie. And like many artists and creatives, I think I had a bit of an existential crisis at the beginning of the pandemic. I think we all questioned ourselves and whether what we were doing mattered and if anyone cared. We weren’t essential workers – the farthest thing from it. And here I was feeling on track to suddenly feeling like starting from scratch and wondering what I am doing in life.
But plowing ahead, like any good director, meant finishing no matter what. I had investors I felt obligated to deliver to – health crisis or not. Although so much was out of my control, while the whole world seemed to be out of control, I knew I just had to stay focused and push through all the obstacles and get to the finish line. And the biggest obstacle of course was travel and the uncertainty of it all. My film was taking place all over the world and when that looked impossible, I decided to focus on the US only. But that also proved difficult because we had already shot footage in New York and needed to go back multiple times. With mandatory quarantine requirements, we had to get creative which meant sending in my camera guy alone without me and the rest of the team. My camera operator Rob was already on the east coast with family, so he was able to get the interviews and footage we needed by going solo and recording sound along with working the camera and everything else! Not to mention, all while trying to keep everyone involved safe from the virus! It was insanely stressful and I hope we never have to do that again.
Another wild card in this process was that one of our main subjects was diagnosed with aggressive cancer and so I was in complete fear and heartbreak of losing him at any moment. And also, constantly I had to think about how to keep filming with him and keeping him safe as an immunocompromised individual. Whenever we couldn’t be out filming, I spent a lot of that year just raising money for his treatments and making fundraising videos to build awareness for his dire situation. In some ways, this became a way to distract myself from the doom news all around us. The subject of my film became a friend I loved dearly, and I could be useful in trying to keep him alive.
At the end of 2020, we finally wrapped filming. It wasn’t the movie I had started out to make, but we did it and made something I’m really proud of. I know that film work is always stressful and documentaries can be particularly unpredictable. But I never thought we’d be up against a global pandemic as well as our subject having terminal cancer. I was trying to make a light-hearted documentary and this wasn’t what I signed up for. But in the end, my takeaway from this experience is that we all have the capacity use our talents to help others. It might not be what we think of traditionally, and it might not be deemed essential work, but we all have something valuable to give back to society. We just have to dig deeper and harder to find it.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
So now my film is done and I just started showing it to the world at film festivals. Much to my surprise, we’ve already won four awards and signed a sales agent. It really seems like all this work is going to pay off, and things have only just started. Best of all, I have raised money for our cancer-stricken cat dad and I started organizing fundraising screenings to benefit local cat rescue organizations in need. I’m so proud of this film and I hope it opens new opportunities for my team. If there’s a new demand for cat-related content, I hope I’m the go-to director for it.
In the meantime, I edit commercials and product videos at Gray Hat Productions. It gives me the flexibility I need to work on passion projects like CAT DADDIES.
If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
I grew up in Dallas, TX as the youngest of eight kids and the only American-born in a family that immigrated from Vietnam in the 70s. I never felt I fit in, but I attended a unique high school of only 125 students where my creativity was supported and could flourish. I always excelled at extracurricular activities and I loved writing and making home movies. I grew up with very strict parents so movies were my escape and going to the cinema was one of the few things I was allowed to do. Even though it would be a difficult path, I always knew I would end up in the business one way or another.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.catdaddiesmovie.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/catdaddiesmovie/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/catdaddiesmovie
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/catdaddiesmovie
- Youtube: https://youtu.be/lgwMXhgbqeg
Image Credits:
#2 and #3 for Eric Yang
The rest are by Mye Hoang
