We were lucky to catch up with Arthur Li recently and have shared our conversation below.

Arthur, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

The most meaningful project that I’ve done is my own short film “Nirvana” which won one of the most influential Asian Film Festival Awards– Best Directing Award. I am the Action Director and the protagonist in the film and the stunt crew and I spent endless time on this project not only for the choreo of the stunt fight and firearm manipulation in this film, but also we made sure every detail should be as authentic as possible that we want the audience to feel “I’m totally drawn into this…” It started with an idea of a fighting reel and I talked to another director about this. As we discussed more details we thought “Hey, why can’t we make a short film out of this?” Suit, stunt, fighting, agent, firearms… All of these elements could mean something “Hollywood” if we do it right, and we start doing it. In the process I was in charge of every movement, fighting, and “John Wick” details. The choreography is extremely complicated and realistic which I incorporated 7 different martial arts “Krav Maga, Jujitsu, Kung Fu, Close-quarters Combat…” you name it. Then I split my stunt team in 3 because we had 3 fighting scenes and each team spent 10-15 hours per week to rehearse and I had to be there rehearse every time. So… it was hard, but it was definitely worthwhile which also brought lots of resources and connections into the net after it won the award.

Arthur, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Hey I’m Arthur Li and I’m an Action Director, Actor, and also a Tactical Instructor. My company LITAC FIILMS is a film company that not only provides stunt solutions for films, but also provide tactical& action training to individual and teams. I started acting, dancing, operatic singing when I was young and I never thought about being a stunt coordinator or an action director. When people realized that I practiced martial arts for decades and I’m a Krav Maga(an Israeli martial arts system that is widely used in special forces and civilian self-defense) instructor; they said “hey why don’t you do some actions and firearms in Hollywood?” So I did. The beginning of my journey is not easy, I know I’m an Asian guy who knows martial arts (WOW YES), but there are lots of guys who are doing great in the industry too. So I decided that I needed to work hard and think harder than everyone else: this means I really focus on details. Whenever I receive the script I would always spend the majority of the time doing research to make sure I understand every single detail of what’s going on. Then I explained every necessary detail to my client and provided precise solutions that solved their problem: to make the scene better. On the other hand, I would use this mindset in training as well that I would think from the students’ perspective about what do I need to do to let them learn better. Once I start thinking from their point of view, I see better results!
Now not only I contribute my skills in the film and teaching industry, but I’m also active on international social media platforms: I’m collaborating with quite a few million-followers influencers and we are planning our next big project. So stay in tune!

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

My social media platform is both at U.S and China. What I would most suggest for building your audience is your personal characteristics and how your characteristics connect with the audience. Now, don’t just have one of those because it won’t work like that. I need to understand who are my precise audience and what do they like to watch. It could be pure entertainment videos, it could be teaching reels: it could be things that they long for every day. No matter what is it, we need to establish a solid connection between us and the audience, but this connection must be very general and attractive. For example, if I post a firearm video about me shooting on the range you would probably not be interested. Now if I post a firearm video that teaches you how to correctly manipulate a handgun it could probably attract audience who want to learn this kind of things, but it could only work to some extent due to limited audience. Now if I am a guy who never shot come down to the range and I show people every correct procedure from check-in, firearm knowledge my personal feeling, to the total cost. This would attract even more people because it is not just a video of showing what am I doing, but it is a video showing those who never been to the range what do you need if you ever come down and what is it like if you never have the chance to come to a range. This is the general and attractive connection that I’m trying to convey.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

I think the mindset is one of the most challenging part of this industry because no matter it’s acting, directing, or firearm instructing; we all need one thing called critical thinking skill. This skill requires us to be very precise at our knowledge and we need to understand every single detail about human interaction, human mentality, and the details of the surrounding environment. Once we have all of those tiny details the job is far from done because we need to use our critical thinking ability to re-arrange them to create an efficient solution that best solves our problem. For example, if I’m a director I have to understand not only characters’ inner thoughts, but also the world around them, the relation around them, the history of the world and so on. Once I have those details I am the one who need to come up with the ideas of how to most effectively shoot the scenes and convey what I want to convey. One little mis-arrangement could mess up the frame. In the tactical teaching industry, critical thinking is the key to train students to be successful because they are the ones who will think in their career and, as an instructor, I cannot think for them. So cultivating their critical thinking ability is the most difficult part of my job that requires even more critical thinking.
So my suggestion to those who do non-creative jobs, the ability to think is a wonderful gift and even your job might not require immediate critical thinking skills, but, trust me, you will be luckier and luckier if you possess this ability in your life.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.litacfilms.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/arthur_li_jiaao/