Daily Inspiration: Meet Jiayan He

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jiayan He

Hi Jiayan, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
My name is Jiayan He, most people call me Henry. I was born and raised in Chongqing, China. Around 2011 or 2012 my dad decided to send me to the USA for my academic career. Then I became a little depressed cause I barely had any friends in New Jersey. Somehow I started watching movies day after day just to get rid of boredom. I spent like 6 months like that and I absorbed some positive energy from movies and 5 cats in my host family to end the depression cycle. In the end, I decided to become a filmmaker and now I am one based in LA.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
To be honest, I’d say it’s a rather smooth road for me. I’m just a filmmaker. And if you made/participated in a film, you are a filmmaker to some degree.

If I have to mention some obstacles, I started college with an undecided major, and my father wanted me to go to Canada and become a psychologist and live a stable life. But this is not an obstacle at all, especially when I look back at my father’s concerns at my age, they are understandable. But my thoughts at the age of 25 are still the same as my thoughts at the age of 18. I want to experience different lives, I like to observe people’s joys and sorrows, and only filmmaking can allow me to figure out different roles and write different lives.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I’m a writer & director. I’m now writing vertical TV series as my part-time job, English & Chinese. If you are really curious, Falling in Love with My Ex-Husband Again is streaming now.

My dream is to become a big director in Hollywood and direct two or three stupid blockbuster movies that make shit tons of movies so I can retire and throw some money into some meaningless tiny-budget indie films. My realistic goal is to direct a feature film.

I’m proud of my upcoming project. I’m going to shoot a feature-length documentary about an autism institution in my hometown. My aunt opened this institution and my cousin is autistic. I did a short documentary of them back in 2022 by myself and a Sony DV. And now I’m going to do it in October this year with many other filmmaker friends of mine. I hope this documentary will mean something, and bring some hope to some desperate families.

Is there any advice you’d like to share with our readers who might just be starting out?
Don’t overthink, just shoot. Make as many short films as you can, even if they just have a budget like 200 dollars or even 20 dollars. Despite the budget, you can practice:

Tell a story without any dialogue.
Tell a complete story with at least one character development in 3 or 5 minutes.
How to build your trust with your actors, and make them believe in you.
How to direct your actor to get out what you want.
Etc…

I bet most of us already heard all of these blah blah blah a million times. But there are two reasons I’m naming these things. First, you can make a short film while practicing all these with almost zero budget. None of those requires much money. Second, you can only improve those skills by actual shooting. And they are all crucial requirements for directors.

Image Credits
Yizhe Ye
Zikun Wu