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Daily Inspiration: Meet Byung Chan Jang

Today we’d like to introduce you to Byung Chan Jang.

Byung Chan Jang

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? 
Ever since I hit my puberty at the age of 9, I remember sneaking into my dad’s office, snooping around the shelves in search of a DSLR he owned to document his dental procedures. I much preferred spending my free time storyboarding my version of the Star Wars series with the Lego sets my older brother gave me to a full day of running around the dirt chasing a soccer ball. I was more of a baseball kind of guy anyways. My name is Byung Chan Jang, a writer/director from South Korea. I was raised in a small satellite city of a million people called Goyang City, north of Seoul, and spent the past 10 years as an international student in the States. Upon completing my degree at Emerson College, I wrote and directed my latest short, ROOFTOP, starring the one and only Won-Jong Lee (Money Heist: Korea, Asurado, and many more), while continuing my studies in LA. 

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I think chasing that smooth road can be a quite dangerous thing for creatives. Especially as a filmmaker, I believe we shouldn’t be settling for less at any point. Otherwise, you lose that genuine passion behind the things you want to tell people. One of the first things I had to figure out was realizing that I couldn’t help myself but become a filmmaker. I started off as a STEM major. And I loved studying biology. But it felt like I was living a life for someone else, perhaps to not let my parents down. And then it occurred to me that I’ve never even sat myself down for a second to think what I wanted to do with my life. I was just going through the motions of being a good student, and before it was too late, I found myself crying my eyes out in front of a textbook, feeling lost of my life’s purpose. 

That’s when I realized that my real goal in life is to find ways to heal as many people as I can. And I’m using the word “heal” broadly. Because just as much as a STEM research project could find a cure to a disease, I believe that cinema has just as much power to heal people, making even the loneliest of us feel like we’re not alone. And if any of my projects helps someone turn away from making irreversible choices, at least one person, and help them think about their life in a better light, I would’ve fulfilled my purpose in this world. And I sincerely thank Charlie Kaufman for having healed me personally. 

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’m a writer-director, first and foremost, but I also have plenty of experience working on the Grip and Electric team across student projects both in Boston and LA. My website is titled under ChAnimation, and a lot of people have asked me if it’s an actual company, but no, at least I can’t make it official until I’m back home in Korea after my studies. Chanimation Studios was just a nickname my high school calculus teacher gave me that I’ve always used as a fun way to make my passion projects look more official. I’m proud of my recent short ROOFTOP, and I can’t wait to share it with the world. The project has a special meaning for many of us involved, not just because it’s a story that needs to be told, but also because the project itself coming to fruition was somewhat of a miracle, an indie period piece set in 1992 and filmed on-location around Los Angeles. And I think a lot of the elements of cultural and generational conflicts depicted in the film are still relevant to many of us. 

I believe having spent the most formative of my teenage years in rural parts of the US, with an already-established identity as a Korean, I have a lot of unique world views to share. Wherever I went, from Lynchburg, Baltimore, Boston, to Los Angeles, I’ve found the same kind of people, good or bad, same kind of problems and struggles that we, as humans, all deal with. 

And I hope, with my projects, I can encourage others to look beyond our differences and focus on the commonalities, wherever they’re from, whoever they were, are, and want to become. And focusing on that shared humanity, I think we can be more honest about our flaws and encourage people to have a conversation rather than get caught up and fight over each other’s insecurities. 

Is there anyone you’d like to thank or give credit to?
Yoo Yeon Kim, the trailblazing producer behind ROOFTOP. Without her, the project would not have seen the light of day. She’s a rare gem in an industry already full of talented people. Mr. Darko Sedlar who was the first teacher to believe in me and eventually helped me make a feature-length student film in high school on a shoestring budget. Without that experience, I probably wouldn’t have had the courage to pursue filmmaking professionally. 

And my good friends, amongst them, are Kira T. Bixby, also a producer of Rooftop, and Patrick Krum, the most amazing DP. Sam Spencer, Marion Johnson, Briony, George Burruss, Michael Briggs, Sophie Julich, Liza Kaminski, Nico Chmielewski, Jenny Thach, Josh Carone, Amy Yang, Anton Isaac Lee, the Johnsons, and quite literally, every single soul that’s touched my short life, many of whom left unnamed. 

And to the most amazing, patient, understanding, and supportive parents and siblings anyone could have ever asked for.

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Image Credits

Vinh Pham
Kyu Sun Hong

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