Today we’d like to introduce you to Fong Kuo.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
My road to working as a cinematographer started out as a kid in my LA bedroom, making Lego Stop Motion films and space saga comics. This cascaded into a high school feature about the subtle miseries and growths in being an Asian kid stuck in American suburbia. The journey continued in the university in Santa Barbara, where I found a lot of my peers (and a little bit of myself) along the coastal cliffs. Since then, I’ve worked on a kaleidoscope of projects: from legacy Asian cooking shows, a reality show that throws influencers into a foam pit, and meta explorations of our bodies and screens, to garish music videos set in a lighthouse and features about Santa’s phone history.
All of these projects have helped me hone my intuition in discovering the next project and the incredible diversity of our experiences.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Getting here was a journey full of anxiety, doubt, and uncertainty. I’ve lost relationships and family time partly because of the lifestyle that this career demands. I’ve seen the toll it takes on my own body others, from car accidents to trading pain meds and even collapsing on set. I really had to learn how to take care of myself and others. Even saying “No” to projects took years to learn. We forget to put ourselves and our health over work and to find that balance has been an enduring challenge.
Yet despite all these challenges, every project that has come along arrived naturally, and the people that stick around have become an extended family and an incredible support system. I feel very grateful for all the struggles and blessings from along the way.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I am always looking to be a part of hidden voices through stories in Asian American families and experiences of the LGBTQ community. I am also proud of my team and my ability to make as much as possible with as little resources as required. In each story, I ask the question “How can we make the audience feel this moment as deeply as possible?” as opposed to “How can I make this look good and big?”
The goal is to create a piece or present a thought that has never been done in that way before. I want to keep experimenting with form and aesthetics that is drawing from the aether of our moment but also transgresses the norms of how we usually tell stories. We are in an explosive moment of cross-cultural expression and virtual/corporeal convergence like never before. It’s an exciting time!
If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to?
I owe my career equal parts to the wonderful people that I have worked with and my storytelling instincts. At the end of the day, the film is made by the entirety of the team. In order to tell the story effectively, us DPs need to be able to break down the atmosphere and rhythms of the world into executable plans and schematics for the crew.
I have been blessed with the understanding of how to construct a compelling scene and the talented people that have the craft and love to bring it to life!
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fongological/
Image Credits
Santiago Sanchez, Jacob Mariani, Andrew Cordero
