Today we’d like to introduce you to Yueran “Jamie” Wang.
Hi Yueran “Jamie”, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
Even though I have the most loving parents in the world, my babysitter was the television in my family. Ever since I was young, I have encountered many different genres of films and television because I would always love a good story. No matter how am I feeling, stories are fuels to power me through a bad day of school or a relaxed weekend. I realized I wanted to work in the film industry after watching Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain because I wanted to create something that’s so emotional and touching that’s cross-culture. In my undergrad days, I went on many student film sets and gradually found my interest in production design and sound design. Even though these two areas may seem very different from each other, to me, they both deal with creating three-dimensional spaces where the story takes place. There’s nothing more exciting than that.
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?
As a Chinese, my parents had been disapproving of my passion for film when I was young. They did not think I was serious, and they always preferred me to work in finance or medicine. This got better once they realized that I am serious about content-making and I have been improving my craft. Now, I have their full support.
Filmmaking itself is never a smooth journey. I constantly have to socialize with people in order to find the next project to work on; as an introvert, it is pretty hard. Working in film also means I always have to work closely with different people with different communication styles. Some directors are more direct and precise in telling me what exactly they want, and some directors would give me more creative freedom as long as it follows their general ideas. I need to learn how to adapt to different situations really quickly. However, this is pretty much life. You would encounter and collaborate with different people from different walks of life.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I am a production designer and a sound designer. In production design, my main work is to design the setting the story would take place. I would first read the script, having an idea about the overall sense of the story. I would collaborate with the director on what kind of settings they are looking for. After doing some extensive research, whether on the era, location, or characters, I would pitch some designs around on how to design the scenes with the director. After consolidating the design, I would start to select or choose props and set dressing items to fill out the space. A lot of the props cannot be found simply on Amazon. I would either have to alter some features on some props or age them to make them appear more used. Sometimes, it also means I would have to go visit prop houses to find the perfect item. Working as a production designer also means I would have to collaborate with the director of photography to see what kind of lights they want to use and what kind of coverage they are getting. I would also need to collaborate with costume designers to talk about the color palette. Because most of the films I have worked on are on a smaller scale, I would also be on set, dressing up the location and trying to solve any problems that may come up.
Even though I also worked as a production sound mixer, my primary interest in sound is in post-production. As a sound designer, I would usually start working after the physical production is over. I would talk with the director about the overall emotions they are striving for in the project and in the soundscape. After receiving the file from the editors, I would start the steps on cleaning up dialogues and cleaning up sounds made during production. After that, I would make a list of what sounds I need in ADR and Foley. In the meantime, I would find sound effects that suit the movie to edit them in. After the ADR and Foley recordings come in, I would edit them to fit the sound session. After the sound editing phase, I would either mix or work with a mixer myself in order to make the sound fit the environment of the film and convey the right feelings. Currently, I work as a student mixer at the University of Southern California.
Many of my works are currently in the post-production process right now, so a lot of it is still hush-hush. I am currently working on sound design for a road trip short film as well as a zombie comedy. I am very proud of my recent production design work One Shot directed by D. Draper. It is a story about a depressed young drug dealer. It is a relatively small project, so I have to manage to make everything work on a small budget. This means a lot of the props needed to be hand-made with a minimal budget for the material. Being a production designer means I need to work with constraints. I am very proud to say I managed to make everything work.
Let’s talk about our city – what do you love? What do you not love?
LA might be the best place to be for an aspiring filmmaker like me. There are countless screenings and retrospectives I (a proper film nerd) could go to. Every time I walked out of the theater, I would hear heated discussions about the movie. It feels great to see so many people are still passionate about movies, no matter how many subtitles they need to read.
The traffic in LA is infamous; I would definitely say that.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jaminiverse/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yueran-jamie-wang-b8a081180/
Image Credits
Vinh Pham Andrew Ge Allegro Yang
