We were lucky to catch up with Huiyu Zhou recently and have shared our conversation below.

Huiyu, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We love asking folks what they would do differently if they were starting today – how they would speed up the process, etc. We’d love to hear how you would set everything up if you were to start from step 1 today.

As an international student who came from China and spent six years in the US, I have experienced two different kinds of culture and social structures in my life since I was 18 years old. It’s a journey in which you have to always change perspectives to see through things in two different kinds of ways. As I grew up and studied in these years after I was in the US, I think I heard a lot of different kinds of voices about the world and how people decide to live. Some of my friends decide to devote themselves to a life that can give them more honor and titles so that they can get involved in a better social class. Some of my friends decided to move to a quiet place where they could have a private life with the one whom they love. Some people decide to go back to their hometown because they feel like they don’t have a sense of belonging in a foreign place and nostalgia is the disease that makes them delicate inside. Some people, such as me who don’t have ideas about what will happen in the future and still hoping there could be a chance for me to expand more vision to see through the world, decide to keep observing and learning modestly.

I am a filmmaker, an editor, a storyteller, and a girl who keeps searching for a way to survive in this world, always hearing people talk about their own lives and opinions about the world. The world has a lot of diversity. If there could be a way that I can go back to the past and tell myself what are the things that I can do so that I can have success faster a little bit. That’s never stop listening and engaging. Being a good listener is also the best way people can cure their inner self and the best way for people to get more experience in life. When I decided to learn film study about six years ago, I never expected that I could join the production team and edit short films because I lacked the source of information. Nobody would tell you how to use Davinci Resolve to color grade or use Adobe Premiere to cut the film when I was an undergrad. Even though I have the basic structure of how to make the storytelling, the theoretical knowledge that I have is not enough.

I would tell myself to jump outside my comfort zone a little bit and not be scared of getting hurt by others. It’s common to have strong emotional connections and conflict when people are doing creative brainstorming. Being hurt means being cured sometimes because you realize what is the trauma that hides inside your heart.

Huiyu, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am a second-year graduate student in the Dodge Film Production editing emphasis program. I double majored in Cinema and Digital Media (similar to film theory) and Design at UC Davis when I was an undergrad. Art is always my passion and the goal that I want to chase in my life. Even though sometimes it takes time and patience to create a good piece of work. However, when you made such an amazing work, all the things which you’ve been through are wonderful. The film, as one of the arts that I got in touch with when I was very young, is one of the art forms that I was attracted to, and I want to spend my life discovering the beauty inside of it.

Before I started my filmmaking career and socializing with people who have different cultural backgrounds from me, I had a really difficult time getting involved in American culture because I am super introverted and I cannot speak English very fluently. When I was 18 years old, I went to UC Davis and I barely talked because all things are new to me and I am a person who needs a longer time to get used to those new things. However, I know I cannot stop here. I tried so hard to practice English and talk with my professor about my plans for the future and making new friends. I want to let other people know that I am open to them and I accept different voices and opinions. It takes time to let myself jump out of my comfort zone to see through a new world and it also takes time for other people to trust me that I am a person who usually speaks the real opinion to them. During the cooperation, people would all have different kinds of thoughts that want to tell. As one of the members of the team, what I need to do is be a good listener and help them to analysis about the advantages and disadvantages so that they can make the best decision. Different voice sometimes is a good thing for people like me to learn and to see, and to get a new vision about the world.

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

During my undergraduate time, I created a film that revealed several childhood traumas that I had when I was very young. The reason why I created this film is not to criticize my parents but to have doubts about several negative phenomena that Asia societies sometimes have. I am the only daughter in my family and I begin to become the goal that my family members used to compare. They hope I can become a better person. They hope I can do better than other children in my generation. It’s not a rare phenomenon in Asia. Moreover, the old family members such as my grandma or grandpa, sometimes hope to have a boy, not a girl. Therefore, I was raised in a restricted family which have expectations for me but they also hoped that sometimes I could be a man, not a girl.

In that film, I criticized about female gaze and the things that I mentioned in the previous paragraph. In that film, I decided to analyze myself and tried to escape those phenomena, though they still exist in the world.

Link for my work: https://youtu.be/k1jm9QkpQrs?feature=shared

Do you have any stories of times when you almost missed payroll or any other near death experiences for your business?

I think I am a lucky person. Back in 2022, I was in the fourth year of my undergraduate time and my mental status was not stable because of COVID-19. I feel depressed by the mode which people have to live in during that time. I feel like there is no tomorrow for me to live. I have been separated from my family for about three years during that time. The nostalgia makes me wonder about my future. I have no idea what would happen to me.

During that time, the film was the only thing that I could do to build an emotional connection and get my numb heart back. I didn’t treat myself as a filmmaker during that time since I knew I didn’t have backup knowledge about the production and the set. However, I still want to give it a try because I don’t know what could happen in the future and there is nothing else that can make me feel better except film.

At the beginning of this creative journey, I just wanted to find a place to escape and hide so that I could find stable mental health and security because the depressed atmosphere of covid 19 makes me crazy.

I applied to 11 film schools. The time for me is not enough because I need to prepare my portfolio and also take my regular lessons for the fourth grade at the same time. I remember the whole time of March was suffering to me because the other 10 film schools gave me rejections. Only Dodge Film School gave me the offer. Back to now, the whole process seems like a gamble for me but it still gives me a lot of inspiration in my life to persist in my creative journey.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jade.h.zhou?igsh=OGQ5ZDc2ODk2ZA%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@huiyuzhou7666?si=CV2ld1PPtHdLzvGW

Image Credits
Dodge College of Film and Media Arts