We were lucky to catch up with Kevin Lau recently and have shared our conversation below.
Kevin, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.
In the film industry, the “stay in your lane” mindset is commonplace, making it somewhat difficult for jacks of all trades to find their place in the industry. Though a jack of all trade may have specific roles they feel more passionate about (for me, it’s Director of Photography, Director, and Writer), it can be difficult to find the path to be where you dream to be, especially when you have skillsets that are in demand. For me, personally, I currently work in production more than any other department with roles as Producer, Associate Producer, and Unit Production Manager. However, it’s through this experience of working in production that I learned I can provide something that many claim to be missing from the industry for the past couple decades.
As a self-taught jack of all trades, specializing in writing, directing, and cinematography, I naturally try to find as much educational material possible on the subject of filmmaking. What makes a shot look good? What makes a good script? How do the best directors direct? And, of course, how do I make a good movie? This eventually led me to becoming a film critic for the website Cinefied, as well as following and reading materials from a plethora of film critics. Essentially, I taught myself, and still teach myself, about the medium of film itself. And now being in a position where I can make interesting pieces of media with limited resources, due to learning a bunch of DIY techniques, I am able to bring the projects of my peers to life.
The film industry is accused of having people in charge care only about the bottom line, and you can see it in the quality of most major studio films compared to those of the previous century. There’s a plastic-like, almost sterile, quality to these films, and we see a part of our culture against that, championing independent and foreign films, which have been more normalized as more original films of good quality are in higher demand. This is where I’ve realized that, as a producer myself, I care more about making a good film, telling a story that I either feel needs to be told through the perspective of a director I want to have a voice, or even just stories that I find fun or interesting enough to explore. As a creative, I can also help guide other creatives to strengthen their ideas to their fullest potential. Sure, there’s a budget to keep in mind, but I’ve lost count of the scenarios where I was able to offer a cheaper, more effective alternative of storytelling than what was originally planned.
Of course, these events are recent. As of writing this, none of the projects I’ve produced have been released yet, but they are very close!
I’ll boil this all down for the summary crowd: I consider myself to be a creative that happens to be good at logistics. Just like everyone else pursuing a career in film, I want to be a director. I also want to be a writer. A director of photography would be really cool too. However, I can’t deny that I am beneficial in production, being able to budget shoots, brainstorm alternative story ideas to save costs, and make sure everyone is fed. I think it’s great to be really skilled at one thing, but being skilled in multiple areas, and building a team of multi-skilled people, have created extremely fulfilling experiences and projects that I can’t wait to share.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I’ve always watched movies since before I could remember, but I never thought about them until I was 13. At that time, a new movie had just released on DVD and was blowing people’s minds. That film was… Inception.
My opinion on Inception is much different now, but that initial viewing changed the way I viewed film. I’ve always been a reader as well, but the catalog of movies I had seen before Inception were the typical studio family movie fare. It wasn’t until Inception came along, with me being old enough to start watching PG-13 movies, that I realized the stories in film can reach the same heights as those in novels. Plus, with all the practical effects involved in the film and my pre-established interest in storytelling, mainly novels, I started to browse the web for more information about Inception, leading me down a filmmaking rabbit hole.
This was in 2010, when Freddiew (known now as Rocket Jump) and Film Riot had just started to gain mainstream popularity. These were YouTube channels that had sketches focusing on visual effects and DIY filmmaking techniques and teaching new filmmakers how to make movies, alongside talking about the behind the scenes of some films. I believe it was Film Riot that discussed Inception quite a bit (back when Film State was still active) and Ryan Connolly posted a photo that became my gateway to the next step in this process: Reading books about filmmaking. Specifically, he posted a photo of the Inception Shooting Script as his in-flight reading, and I bought that immediately alongside another book he mentioned in one of his videos: Rebel Without a Crew by Robert Rodriguez.
So yeah, I became obsessed with film and filmmaking. I eventually went to Southern Illinois University in Carbondale and graduated with a bachelors in Cinema and a minor in Marketing in 2018. Though I always hesitate to suggest going to school to study film, it was through this experience that I managed to get an internship at Shatterglass Studios in my hometown of Champaign, IL. My internship at Shatterglass Studios in the summer of 2017 was cool, but it was a very small company that didn’t have much for me to do. However, little did I realize at the time, that was a turning point.
After I graduated, my dad met a guy who knew a guy that was looking for crew on a feature film. A terrible shark movie set in a lake, the budget allegedly totaling $100k, morally questionable people leading the production. But hey, a movie’s a movie and I didn’t have the resources to move to Chicago, LA, or Atlanta without a safety net. Was the experience terrible? Yes. Did I at least get paid as a camera assistant? No. Did I even get anything out of it? Actually, yes!
You see, even though I understood that the project I was working on was going to be abysmal and that the director was the type of person I should avoid in this career, there were other crew members who were in the same boat (both figuratively and literally, since we were filming in a lake) I was. There were other recent film school grads hungry to be part of the medium, smart enough to read the current situation, and still humble enough to do the job with everything they’ve got even if the end result was going to be garbage. We helped each other out and, after that production, those people pulled me onto a series of short films that were much, much better.
I had emailed Shatterglass Studios once I had moved back after graduation, just stating that I was back in town for good and willing to help out on any projects, but didn’t hear anything back until that winter due to my email disappearing into the void. It was actually thanks to the help of a shark movie crew member that I was put back on Shatterglass’s radar to be a production assistant on a feature film they were producing and filming in Champaign for a couple days.
The timeline gets a little messy here, an intertwining series of events that puts me on a short film, a feature for a couple days, a commercial with completely unrelated people, another short film in the woods during a polar vortex, gaining some clients to shoot music videos for, joining and helping lead a filmmaking workshop, joining a friend for a trip to North Carolina to shoot a proof of concept for a feature (and hating the entire state of North Carolina (long story)). Eventually, though, that lands me on my first real feature film job, starting from beginning to end, as an office production assistant with the Shatterglass Studios crew.
Now, this movie wasn’t particularly good. We were contracted by a company to produce a film they had a script, a director, and post-production house for. Essentially, I was part of the crew hired to do the legwork of making a movie, which is very common practice for independent studios. But again, just like with that shark movie, I made sure to give it my all. I knew going into this industry that I was going to have to work on bad films before I could work on good films, and, if I didn’t develop a good work ethic, I wasn’t going to work on any film.
And it cycled like that for a bit. I spent half of 2019 just hanging out in Chicago, using the spare bedroom of a family friend, and working on movies as I was contacted for them as well as job searching in Facebook groups for commercials, short films, and documentaries. Eventually, COVID hit and slowed things down, but Shatterglass Studios managed to create a fantastic feature film, Revealer, as soon as the SAG-AFTRA COVID guidelines were released. This film was shot entirely in my hometown in a single location, a building I passed by every time I went to the studio office. Once the film was shown, it awakened a new layer of drive I didn’t know I had doubts about. It showed me that making movies in my hometown was possible.
Revealer was picked up by Shudder and also received a DVD release. I was given the opportunity to direct and edit the Making Of documentary, getting to interview a comic book writer whose work I had been following for a decade (Tim Seeley) and meeting another comic book writer whose work I’ve recently really enjoyed (Michael Moreci). These opportunities and more had all stemmed from multiple points, but I think there was one true way I was able to get my foot in the door. After Revealer had finished production, I emailed Luke Boyce, the director of the film and Creative Director of Shatterglass Studios, saying that I was available to help out at the office with literally anything.
Turns out, a lot of things needed to get done, and Luke was the only person at the office. Together, he and I completely redesigned the studio, and that led to more opportunities of working with him on client shoots, editing videos, and eventually producing projects for Shatterglass.
I know this part is long, and there’s still more to this interview to go, but I’ll summarize it here for the ones in a hurry: I got my start by being a team player. I started working for free or favors until eventually I started to get paid for my work. Even when I started getting paid, though, I didn’t let that go to my head because at the end of the day, this career isn’t a race. It’s a marathon. We all succeed by helping each other out. It’s how you form strong connections that stay with people for longer than a single project. The best way to network isn’t to talk to as many people as possible and hand them your business card, it’s finding those other team players and asking how you can help them with their current projects.
How do you keep your team’s morale high?
I personally believe the best leaders are team players and the best way to lead is by example. Of course, you need to make sure you are also hiring team players and know that you are only as strong as your weakest link. Even if you have one person on your 10 person crew that either doesn’t attend to their responsibilities, isn’t motivated put in the effort, or, unfortunately most commonly, brags about how great they are at what they do, doesn’t actually do the work, and then point the blame at someone or something else, that’s going to hurt morale and productivity.
Hire the people who are humble, motivated, and self-reflective, and be sure you meet all three requisites as well.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
It may sound lame or corny, but even just one person looking at something I made and saying something as simple as “That was cool” always feel rewarding. It’s the idea that you created something that, beforehand, didn’t even exist. And then someone else sees it and had a positive experience with it? That’s just the cherry on top!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://linktr.ee/ktothelau
- Instagram: KToTheLau
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-lau-3b7912169/
- Twitter: @KToTheLau
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFKQmlhefMphlq6qFGM3Q0A
- Other: https://letterboxd.com/KToTheLau/
Image Credits
Cassie Ballschmidt Nadia Stiegman Guillermo Pineda