Today we’d like to introduce you to Yuexi Li.
Hi Yuexi, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I was born and raised in a southern city called Jiangsu, China, which is one of the areas that has the best educational resources. Because my family is all in engineering, I was influenced by this, and I was always a math kid until I went to college. When I was in my senior year of high school, I suddenly told my parents that I wanted to go to a film school instead of a university. My parents freaked out. Not only because it was an industry that was completely unknown to my family but also I had to prepare for the art exam besides the college entrance examination (like SAT). Which my parents didn’t want me to waste time. But eventually, no one wants to regret or feel guilty about anyone and anything in the future. After a few family meetings, my parents allow me to use a month to take the art exam. I was lucky enough, like Jamal in Slumdog Millionaire, to always find the answer to a question from deep of my memory. I passed the exam and combined with my college entrance exam scores; I got the offer from Beijing Film Academy, the best film school in China. My film journey starts.
But yeah, how did these answers in the art exam already live in my mind?
I remember the first movie I watched was the Titanic DVD at home. I was only four years old, and my parents loved it so much that they watched it every night for about a month or so. But I would fall asleep every time and kept watching the first 40 minutes. I was particularly impressed when Jack won the ticket and got on the boat. That feeling of anxiety and hope is still fresh in my mind. So, when I was in that art exam, they tested our natural-born storytelling skills and acting, it seems not very hard to me, because I have some scenes deep in my mind already.
The first movie I watched in cinema was Zhang Yimou’s “Hero”, it also my first Chinese movie when I was about eight. Then I got a little older, around ten, and my parents worked a lot of overtime. I would be hosted in their office to stay during their work. On my father’s office wall, except for a variety of data charts I am not interested in, there is a long horizontal Lord of the Rings poster. Gandalf is guiding the team forward. It was like a preconception, saying, “Girl, here is also your adventure.” But for no reason, I never ask my father why he put it up. Then I get older, my father, again. He bought me a Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and the Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace book. Honestly, I think he bought it for himself but used me as an excuse. At that time, I had no idea what Harry Potter and Star Wars were. Something like this happened many times in my childhood. My parents shouldn’t be surprised by my choice in some ways, especially my father. Haha. But none of us realized it before.
I’m a film editor now. I studying and working in post-production for about nine years. This year, I graduated from Chapman University with a Master’s degree in Editing Emphasis.
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?
For my career, the good news is that I decided to do post-production(editing) very early so that I can thoroughly steam ahead towards this goal, and it makes me feel very lucky to find joy in editing. The hard part is how to maintain that joy. Recently I’ve realized that the joy of editing is not just ranking combinations of the footage on the sequence but also my life experiences and knowledge bases, such as math and biology. Although they seem to be unrelated.
At the beginning of this year, I started to learn Japanese Kendo as my new habit. It really helps me keep focused. Specially my Master is Korean, and I don’t know Korean. It is a great experience to learn something, but you don’t know each other’s languages. We would communicate in limited English or ask my ABK classmates. Another interesting fact, I’m the editor who really like editing fight scenes. I’ve been inspired to deal with my fight scene footage through the way of observing kendo. In November, we will have a tournament. It will be my first time participating in a kendo tournament.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I finished editing a feature-length film this May. It’s a road trip movie about a highly educational old lady and her street-boy uber driver. This was the first time I had finished a film as a lead editor. Before that, I worked for an Award -Winning trailer house in China. The experience there was very valuable. Trailer editing has its unique appeal, where you need to create an atmosphere within a super limited amount of time. Recently, I’m gonna continue my career in a great trailer house in LA. The adventure begins again!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://emmasissie.wixsite.com/yuexi
- Instagram: yueximma
Image Credits
Yuexi Li
