Meet Chuyue (Christina) Wen

Today we’d like to introduce you to Chuyue (Christina) Wen.

Christina, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I graduated from Berklee College of Music in May 2018 and moved out to LA immediately after. I was hired as an intern at Igloo Music Studios (Projects include First Man, La La Land, Beauty and the Beast, Frozen, Coco, Moana and etc.) to work alongside Grammy Winning engineers and on awards winning TV shows, movies as well as video games. In the beginning, my role was to make coffees and teas for clients, cleaning up trash, getting food orders and many other standard intern tasks. After two weeks of proving myself to the people in the industry that I am very dedicated, I started to ask for opportunities to help with any projects starting from the basic tasks in post-production audio engineering field including tuning vocals and editing ensemble instruments. Because I was able to finish all my intern tasks and manage to have free time during the day as well as being willing to stay late at the studios, my boss started trusting me and gave me my first post-production audio task in the real world where I got to tune back up vocals for a live band concert recordings. Within days, I also got to start preparing sessions for International Disney Television shows and started working with Walt Disney Company on several projects. The next thing I know, my boss brought me to assist on an HBO documentary that just got released recently named ‘What’s My Name: Muhammad Ali’. And that was the first movie project that had my name on the rolling credits. After my three months internship was done, I was hired as a freelance assistant engineer at Igloo Music to come help work on projects whenever an extra set of hands was needed. Then in a few months, I was hired by another well-known post-production company Formosa Group (Game of Thrones, West world, Aquaman, Transformers, and pretty much any movies in theater) under their video game division named Formosa Interactive (Call of duty, Final Fantasy, Plants vs. Zombie, The Last of Us and etc.) as a freelance dialogue editing/mastering engineer. With my ability to finish the tasks I have been given on time and provide good quality work, I started my career as a post-production audio engineer. Within a year in LA, I have worked on more than 10 Netflix English Dub shows/movies, video games including Life Is Strange 2 and Call of Duty, Feature films including Brightburn produced by James Gunn, International versions of Mary Poppins Return. As I work on more different projects, I am learning so much more every step of the way to be a better audio engineer.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I think it has been a smooth road for me because I see a lot of people struggles hard in the industry, especially in this city. The hard part of my career would be the time when I was an intern and had to stay at the studios almost 15 hrs a day every day, taking out trash, cleaning and serving coffees just so that after the clients leave I get to work on some basic tasks for the award-winning engineers on real-world projects. But I was always happy and motivated to keep going because I know that I have to pay my dues to become a better engineer and to prove myself. I always know and believe that hard work will always pay off. Besides that, I think I have learned so much in terms of interacting with clients and people in the industry. I am not the most sociable person and English is not my first language, I felt awkward and extremely nervous in the beginning having to interact with people from huge companies or that are well-known in the industry. Throughout last year, I have definitely gained more confidence and become more assertive to feel like I am a part of the post-production audio industry and I know how to have conversations with people in professional settings.

Tell us about your work – what should we know?
I am a post-production audio engineer. I work as an editor/mastering engineer for voice-overs on video games/TV shows/movies. I work as a digital score editor for film and TV scores. What makes me a little special as a newcomer in the industry is that I have audio engineering knowledge as well as musical knowledge. Besides being able to handle the studio hardwares/softwares, I can also read orchestral music and scores. I am also very comfortable with DAWs that composers use. I have explored the different aspects in post-production audio and I think as a beginner in the industry, I can be very flexible and versatile.

Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
Being hardworking have dedication and passion.