Today we’d like to introduce you to Michi Que Doan
Hi Michi Que, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My filmmaking journey began with video games. As a teenager, I played a social MMORPG called “MapleStory.” During the early years of YouTube, I started editing music videos using screenshots and video captures from the game. As I entered high school, I created a scripted romantic comedy series, incorporating “MapleStory” animations and recruiting my friends to voice the characters. It was during this time that I realized filmmaking was my passion, and I began experimenting with a video camera to tell my own stories.
Throughout high school and college, I focused heavily on directing and video editing. Eventually, I edited for digital media platforms like “World of Dance” and “David So Comedy,” worked with event marketing companies, and contributed to local news stations like Saigon TV. However, my true passion lay in narrative filmmaking, so after college, I left the editing room behind to return to set, rediscovering my love for filmmaking through script supervising and assistant directing.
I later moved from my hometown in Little Saigon, Orange County, CA, to Los Angeles to pursue film full-time. My first major feature film production was “Gook” (Sundance 2018, Audience Choice), directed by Justin Chon. I started as a production assistant, but after demonstrating my script supervision training, I was promoted to script supervisor. My 1st Assistant Director, James J. Yi, invited me to join him on future productions as a Key Production Assistant and 2nd Assistant Director, including “A Boy. A Girl. A Dream” (Sundance 2018) and “Ms. Purple” (Sundance 2019). At that point, I was balancing roles in both the assistant director and script supervisor departments. However, one day, while script supervising a disorganized production with low crew morale, I realized there was little I could do to improve the behind-the-scenes situation. That’s when I decided to fully commit to my assistant director career.
As an assistant director, I realized I had the ability to influence the tone and efficiency on set. I could create an environment where the cast and crew felt safe, respected, and heard without compromising the quality of the story. Filmmakers, myself included, often enter the industry because we genuinely love filmmaking. So, what’s the point of creating magic on screen if those making the film are miserable behind the scenes? This philosophy drives my work as an assistant director: (1) prioritize “the show”; (2) keep everyone safe; (3) be efficient; (4) treat everyone with respect.
Over the past decade, I’ve had the privilege of:
– Assistant directing over ten independent feature films, numerous short films, and an independent TV series.
– Script supervising three independent feature films.
– Traveling to Wyoming, Utah, Massachusetts, Kentucky, Georgia, and Haiti for work.
– Shooting films in four National Forests and National Parks, including Yellowstone National Park.
– Navigating multilingual productions in English, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Farsi, Tamil, French, and French-Creole.
– Working with a variety of animals, including a grizzly bear, garden snake, tortoise, dogs, cats, chickens, pigs, and a water buffalo, and alongside bison, elk, and moose.
– Collaborating with stunts, special effects, makeup, intimacy coordinators, puppetry, visual effects, and transportation teams to plan complex scenes such as fight choreography, explosions, car chases, monster work, and intimacy scenes.
– Managing and directing hundreds of background actors on multi-million dollar productions like “The Sympathizer” (HBO Max S1), “Big Shot” (Disney+ S2), and “Unstoppable” (Amazon Prime).
– Working alongside talented actors, directors, producers, and crew members who have left a lasting impact on my career.
As of November 2024, I am proud to be listed on the Director’s Guild of America (DGA) Third Area Film Qualification List as a 1st Assistant Director. This is an important milestone in my career, but it’s just the beginning. My ultimate goal is to join the DGA’s First Area (Southern California) list as a 1st Assistant Director. Southern California is where I was born and raised, and I plan to continue making it my home base for work. To explain it in simple terms to my immigrant parents, “it’s like getting promoted to a full-time position with benefits.” The idea of doing what I love while having a stable and affordable lifestyle is something I’m incredibly grateful for.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
When I first started in the film industry, the key factors that worked against me were being (1) short, (2) young, (3) female, and (4) Asian, with (5) very minimal connections to the industry.
(1) Being short: Long story short, being short literally meant people often looked down on me—sometimes condescendingly. It didn’t help that I was also young and female.
(2) Being young: Being young is great because the possibilities are endless. You have all the energy in the world, and younger me was extremely ambitious. I’m still young now, but in my teens and twenties, there was no such thing as “no.” However, the downside was that, no matter how old you get in the film industry, there will always be someone older than you, and you will always be seen as a “baby” to someone. You’ll never be old enough to know how things used to be—whether it’s old technology, old ways of running a set, or old methods of climbing the industry ladder. Even as a millennial, I often tell my Gen Z friends what it was like to live through the transition from analog (tapes, film) to digital. But what made it the hardest was stepping into a leadership position as an assistant director. When you’re younger, you often have less experience, a softer voice (or sometimes too strong a voice), and people may not take you seriously. That’s one of the biggest challenges of being young.
(3) Being female: Being female is seen as a positive now, but only really after the #MeToo movement. Even before the 2018 movement, working with other women sometimes felt like competition because there wasn’t enough space for women behind the camera. Much like being young in a leadership position, I also felt like I was looked down upon. Having an assertive voice as a female assistant director running a film set was challenging at first. How do you assert authority without being labeled as a “bossy b*tch”? Why is it that men can easily scream on set or use a monotone, indifferent tone, while women are criticized for the same behaviors? After years of working on sets and seeing the gender ratio on crews shift post-#MeToo, I’ve finally found a balance where I can still be myself while pushing the set along.
(4) Being Asian: Asian people have historically been treated as “exotic” in Hollywood, but rarely portrayed by Asian people themselves. If Asians had a hard time portraying themselves on-screen, it was even rarer to find an Asian person (or any person of color who wasn’t Black or Hispanic) working behind the camera. After the #OscarsSoWhite movement in 2015, there was a push to cast more Asians in film and television. Naturally, this push also extended to increasing the number of Asian crew members after #MeToo, with more job postings for BIPOC and female crew. I’ll admit, I was extremely grateful for these opportunities, as I don’t think I would have progressed as quickly in my career without them.
(5) Minimal connections: Being a second-generation Vietnamese American from a refugee family, I had minimal connections to the Hollywood film and television community. However, after college, I had one friend who became an early career mentor and helped me get on my first feature film production. Lily Vi Pham is now one of my closest friends, was my maid of honor at my wedding, and is one of the best production managers I work with to this day. Since then, my network has expanded exponentially over the past decade. All it took was for younger me to overcome my fear of failure and have the courage to ask for help. Since then, I always try to find opportunities to help others rise with me, so we can all succeed and grow together in this industry.
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 am an assistant director in film and television. In short, I am the timekeeper, the safety officer, the sheep wrangler, the information hub, and the tone-setter—and I get to call “rolling,” “cut,” and sometimes even “action.” I often tell people that, metaphorically, if filmmaking were a war, the producer would be the person at the base, managing resources, while the assistant director is at the forefront of the battle, putting all those resources into action and directing everyone where to go, alongside the director and director of photography.
I have a philosophy that there is a triangle between the director, the director of photography, and myself. The production runs most efficiently when this triangle stays intact. If any side of it breaks, the system can still function on two legs, but once two sides break, the system falls flat.
My highest priority on-set (after safety) is the director’s vision and “the show,” “the story,” “the picture”—whatever you want to call it. It’s crucial for me to build a strong relationship with both the director and the director of photography, to understand their creative needs, and to align those with logistical strategies. I take pride in putting their ideas into actionable steps that keep the production moving smoothly.
The assistant director role is one that many people are intimidated by. The position is high-stress, and it has one of the highest suicide rates in the industry. Despite that, I am incredibly proud of the work I do on every production, knowing that we pushed out the best quality product while ensuring everyone was safe and happy in the process. While my job might seem all logistics, in reality, I need to be part of the creative process to execute it properly. Being involved in the creative side actually fuels my passion and makes me even more driven to execute my job efficiently.
What would you say have been one of the most important lessons you’ve learned?
The first lesson I learned in filmmaking is that film and television are collaborative mediums. We have to be unafraid to ask for help and ask questions. Everything I’ve done to gain experience as an assistant director boils down to the fact that my training was very much apprenticeship-style. It was hands-on learning, where I had to make mistakes and ask questions to truly understand how to do the job correctly.
Additionally, it’s not just the director and actors who create the film—it’s the entire crew. The teams working in camera, grip, electric, costumes, makeup, transportation, the assistant director department, the production office, and beyond, all contribute. Each department plays a crucial role in balancing the scales and raising the quality of the work.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.michiquedoan.com/ad
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/michiquedoan/
- Other: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm7451123/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cr9
Image Credits
Headshot: Trang Vo Photography
Image 1: Jake Carpenter
Image 2: Kynder Bonilla
Image 3 & 4: Natalie Kingston
Image 5: Unknown
Image 6: Michi Que Doan
Image 7: Paolo Ongkeko
Image 8: Unknown
