Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Chris Ungco. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Chris, thanks for joining us today. In our experience, overnight success is usually the result of years of hard work laying the foundation for success, but unfortunately, it’s exactly this part of the story that most of the media ignores. So, we’d appreciate if you could open up about your growth story and the nitty, gritty details that went into scaling up.

..I changed.

I found myself sprinting through the airport, two bags in tow, wondering about the ten things that had put me there.
It would have to be a Quick Ten…
The reminiscing was actually speeding me up, I could feel the sweat building, but I knew this dance; navigating through the airport horde, it was more about vigilance than speed. As I ran on the moving walkway I searched for the right memory as fuel.

Celebrate where you are right now.

I could sense another person parallel to me, running on the tile and sweating wildly, cursing under their breath, and as they dragged their case from behind to front, their eyes went wide. I looked ahead.

A family of 5, maybe 7, just ahead, with arms outstretched, looking like church choir in the midwest.

At that point I was rubbernecking, and the walkway was ending so I jerked up the handles and sprinted the rest of the way to the gate.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

The thing age makes you accept about time is that you never get the same moment back again.

I spent most of my 20s shooting narrative content for Comedy Central, international commercials for Google, and documentary work for clients including CNN, BBC, and the United Nations. I learned to run in the streets operating on “Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee”.
I found more purpose in my work in 2017, working with Spike Jonze on Frank Ocean’s World Tour and operating on Free Meek (Amazon Prime) as a gateway into the cultural impact of film on community.
In 2019, I started working as a producer and Director of Photography for Sesame Street.
My work with BIPOC creatives continues in recent work on “Leguizamo Does America” on MSNBC as well as the forthcoming series “American Historia” on PBS.

Outside of filming, I have led community film workshops ARRI and Panavision, and worked closely with Patton Veterans Project for the past decade, leading workshops as a form of PTSD therapy for veterans and soldiers.
My goal is to work will collaborators across the diaspora on progressive campaigns whether commercial, documentary or narrative, and to help younger filmmakers develop their Worldview in their work.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

“Who are you and What do you want now?”

I’m incapable of telling this story in chronological order.
I jumped into the NYC film industry in 2009. Overall, I feel an obligation to share 3 things.

Where I came up, every filmmaker wanted a mystique, a shroud of invisibility, like a lid over certain things… “oh I’m working, do I like the project? Well…(look at my social media)”
One in 7 would get truthful and say “F that, I’m not getting “commercial work” but I’m making my art.”

We meet Here at the Intersection between Experience and Ambition.

I’ve seen “the future of film” in unlikely rooms..
I cam opped at the New York Planetarium when Branson announced Virgin Galactic and the billionaire space race to come..
I was there when Werner Herzog directed the Killers and told the cam ops “Absolutely, No MTV snap zooms!”

I’ve heard it whispered in corners many times over the years, I can practically read the lips now. “..Oh, I don’t know how it happened, word of mouth, I started getting calls, and I worked constantly..33 days a month, and then I’m going somewhere else now and I’m anxious of what’s next..” or
”Once I cut through this noise, This idea is gonna explode and I’m gonna make all this money..”
“Snowball, viral, it’s our time” has been a consistent chorus over the years.
But the Mentality has to change!

1. A Film won’t change your life, but the People around it, a Film Community, Can Change your life.
Equity is a persistent dream but Community is a Reality.

I started at the bottom, stayed at the bottom; worked, traveled, and made it to the middle, I keep dreaming about the top (to pay off my loans); but I am grateful to keep meeting people there, seeing peers recognized more and more, and I feel like these loud stand up for dignity and strike times represent the most optimistic of times for our stories and our cultures to reclaim their narratives in what I believe is the coming renaissance of 2024.
A shakeup is good for us.

My generation has been in 3 recessions since undergrad so please let me contextualize my optimism..

2. We witnessed the recent tech bubble burst together, but the decentralization of Hollywood started happening years back..

I heard a story about Gene Hackman retiring because production had him waiting for hours while they shot coverage of a dog instead and he foresaw our current production engine method and didn’t want to make films that way.

I’ve accepted my love of the craft. I’ve stood, sat, or squatted in a prone position in a lot of different climates for a lot of off-screen on screen time. I’ve waited hours for an active 90 minute window for a 3 minute commercial. I’ve overpacked and destroyed my car interiors consistently for documentary creatives. On a narrative, our vehicle got stuck in the sand for 12 hours.. I worked on a few features and dolly partied a Fisher 10 up a few Uptown walkups. My knees are bad, my heart is scrappy..

I’ve seen friends and foes fly too close to the sun, blow up, make mistakes, lose gear…

One rising NYC DP lit a studio on fire once…set off the sprinklers..an awful sound bellowed as the cheap black paint burst off the pipes and there was a flashflood of black rain..
Another DP put a wide lens too close to a small airplane engine for a “cooler shot” and had to send it in for a $10,000 repair. I’ve seen ACs, Grips, and Producers trample Talent in their haste. I saw a toxic director push a child once.

There’s been times I’ve messed up, people I disappointed, and shots I wish I could apologize for, but for worse and better, what I’ve also learned with age is that you never get the same moment back. And you’re not trying to repeat too many of the same moments either. This too shall pass.

3. They don’t tell you about the 3 paths: Union, Non Union, Advertising.
They don’t tell you about branded content in film school.

More on that below.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

This story is not about my resilience.

Between 25-30, I flew 100,000 miles with a Brooklyn Production Company with a client mentality of making progressive tech people look interesting for Google..
My first, (and last time) on a motorcycle was in India wearing an Easy Rig, sitting on the back, squeezing the seat cushion for dear life, hopping off to film the festival with a RED Dragon.
It was the Anant Chadurashi, a joyous holiday.
Mumbai is a constant soundtrack of traffic, color, smells, people, animals, art and tourism. Each bend of the roadway reveals skyscrapers and ruins, hope, pain, and joy.

We were scheduled to have a rest day before our corporate shoot began but our producers couldn’t resist paying a few motorcyclists to take us through the crowd and “get some cool footage.”
Ae saw the vastness of Mumbai, we realized that we were singular, but our sense of free will was also part of something bigger, the people who walked through the streets, chanting and praying, carrying children, carrying offerings, bringing the sculptures of the Elephant God Ganesha to the water. It was a holy moment, it was a casual moment, full of joy and anticipations, it felt like Times Square on NYE, I had never seen such a mass of people gathered all at once to celebrate. I lingered in a doorway as the time passed and tried to reestablish contact with our crew.

The next day had us filming artists in the slums around the city. One painter we profiled had been born without arms and in later life discovered an art as therapy class where he realized his feeling of Otherness could be channelled into something productive. The work made him happy and became very popular.
We began at his doorstep, filming him climb a ladder into his art studio. Then he unscrewed a paint can with his feet and picked up a brush with his toes and began to paint.
He told us that when he was a born, he was seen in the town as a miracle, and villagers came to see him, after a while his parents started asking for donations and people stopped coming. He spent much of his life depressed until finding his calling as an artist, his work had led to meeting a woman who loved him and they have two children and they continue their love story..

The producers gave me that painting afterward and when I look at it, I see the hours of that and the beauty of the landscape and I reflect:
3. The Waiting is Good. You will discover more reflecting on what’s inside yourself, answers you can’t find inside your phone..

Contact Info:

• Website: chrisungco.com
• Instagram: chrisungcodp