Check Out Isha Wang’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Isha Wang.

Hi Isha, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Hello, I’m Isha Wang, 22 years old. I am a story artist, studying animation and digital arts at University of Southern California. I’m an international student from Singapore, and I’ve been calling LA home for almost 2 years now. I’m a bit of a coffee addict, and I am a big fan of alternative rock music. And I’m a fan of stories of all kinds — from D&D campaigns to narrative video games like Disco Elysium to cinema, I get very easily immersed in the world and the characters.

I only recently came to terms with it but looking back, I think storytelling was very much ingrained into how I was raised. When I was young, my grandfather’s hobby was to record and edit home videos so that my parents (who were both working full time) could watch on my growing moments. So, I was very familiar with the camera lens at a young age. My family also always encouraged me when I drew, and I remember I loved drawing—just as a way to have fun and express myself. At some point, I got my first video recorder, and then I developed an interest in photography. But it definitely helped me with creating a sense of awareness of the “frame”, so to speak.

It wasn’t until middle school (or secondary school, actually) that I really got serious about art. I grew up in Singapore, and I got into the art program that allowed me to really learn more about art history and different disciplines. It was the movie “How to Train Your Dragon” that made me aware of the creative craftsmanship and people behind these movies and got me interested in the animation industry. I tried animation for the first time at 16, and I really enjoyed watching the pictures come to life through movement. However, since Singapore was a small place, and if I was seriously considering this a career, I wanted to really learn and gain exposure from people in the industry. That’s what made me decide to apply to colleges in the US, and fast forward to now, I’ll be a rising senior at the University of Southern California for animation.

Now, I’m aspiring to be a storyboarder. I’ve always been enamoured by character-driven narratives and cinematography that really drive these emotional beats forward. I want to try to board pieces that can really accentuate those moments and move people’s hearts, just like how these films moved me when I watched them. I like drawing big, rough gestures and getting ideas out quickly, and I’m really eager to work with other people who share the same vision.

Alright, 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?
It has not been easy. I felt it immediately when I compared myself to my peers at college right now, but I definitely did not have the same resources or knowledge about the industry as people my age living in the States. So many of them already knew about the industry and built portfolios oriented towards things like “Visdev”, having projects with their own characters, etc. I never knew the inner workings of the animation pipeline or the idea of specifications until I got to college. There was also the “stigma” of working a creative career. I really felt it in my junior college, where most people were gunning for medicine, law, politics and the like. I always had to put my academics before my creative passion. Creative voices felt so stifling, and the accolades in the arts never seemed to be on an equal pedestal as accolades in the sciences. That made me really afraid to showcase my work or try things out in general.

However, in my own way, I tried to navigate around that. My art program was more Fine Arts based, but I tried to do films instead. My A levels final was an animation that I made with my iPad on RoughAnimator, Procreate, and a little bit of Premiere. I’m really glad I had very kind teachers who shared a lot of resources and helped me along the way. I also remember taking the bus to small studios tucked away or polytechnics that offered figure drawing. I would pay a small fee to get those gesture drawing practices that I so desperately needed. It was these little things that felt like obstacles that I had to overcome if I seriously wanted to do animation.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Right now, I’m finishing my undergraduate at USC for animation. This year, I’ll be working on my thesis, which will be a short film. I’m not the best animator out there, but with this project, I want to try tackling the world of rotoscoping. It’s a personal film, a tribute to memories and my grandmother, as well as the piano. I am excited to get started on it and hopefully send it to festivals when I am done with it.

While I work on graduating, I am also making short boards for my portfolio. I am focused on action and drama boarding for now, and I would really love to work on media for teens. There’s a piece on there, “New and Old” which is about an older brother (who has been estranged) taking in his younger brother after being apart for a long time and hurtful memories of the past. It ends on a hopeful note that even though the past might have been painful, it was still a treasured part of someone’s life and the complicated feelings associated with familial connections.

My proudest work recently was also my comic I made in Comics class, which is about a radio DJ who encounters a fan of his in the form of a ghost. Storyboarding is very much like comics in the way you try to tell beats with clear movement and line of action, but comic paneling and the format of it being “static” also creates limitations that was challenging at times. I felt really proud of being able to finish an 18-page comic and a pretty complete work.

What does success mean to you?
When I was younger, I thought success was deemed by the amount of accolades and titles you achieved under your belt. I think that’s definitely something worth striving for, and they are definitely achievements to be proud for, but over the years, I’ve come to terms with a more realistic definition of success for myself. It’s seeing it through. If I have a project I’m developing, I think completing it and showing up with a finished product that’s realized would be a success to me. Many times with creative work, I stumble when there’s areas that don’t align with how I was envisioning it. I recognize that I’m not the most talented, and there’s technicalities that I lag behind on, but there’s something in trying to compromise and overcome it that still takes a lot of resilience to do. Especially when you walk out of it with mistakes and new areas to improve on. That shows that you’re learning, and to me, that makes a successful attempt because I know that I will grow from the process.

From a filmmaking perspective, I think success is determined in the moment I share my project. Like when I pitch my boards and elicit laughter and chuckles in my comedic bits. Or when I hear people gasp at plot reveals they did not see coming. When I feel a heavy air with subject matter that’s serious and emotional, and the whole room is in solemn silence. I love watching for these moments because it’s the number one sign of whether I’ve succeeded or not as a storyteller. If I only get a lukewarm response, then I know there are areas I have failed at.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://ishawang.carbonmade.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/milk.curdles/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/isha-wang-52a400209/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/rekteddd

Image Credits
Portrait photo credits: Michael Chow.