We caught up with the brilliant and insightful STAN WONG a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
STAN, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?
In 2012, I was living in the West Village, Manhattan. It was a very creative area of the city. Many of the people I met were artists. Things weren’t going great for me at work, and I had a lot of stress and frustrations that I couldn’t find a way to vent. I decided to write a screenplay just for fun. I had no idea what I was doing, but writing a story where I created an entire world with fictional characters felt so liberating. A filmmaker friend of mine back in Texas offered to help shoot what I wrote. Once I got on set in San Antonio for the shoot, I was in awe of how films were made. My friend and I had differences in opinion about how the film should be shot; that’s when I realized that I had to learn about filmmaking. I decided to pursue this full-time and dropped everything else that I was doing. Over the last decade, I learned how to use a cinematic camera, how to write a screenplay in proper format, and how everything on a film set worked. I learned everything I could about pre and post-production. I helped others create their films. I shot commercials and industrial videos and put together a network of artists. I plan on making my first feature film this year. It is a sci-fi about teleportation.
STAN, 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?
As a filmmaker, I’ve moved away from shooting commercials and am focusing full-time on feature films. I currently have a documentary, “The Real American,” that is almost complete, and a sci-fi feature film, “Departure,” that is in development. I started making the documentary in the fall of 2020. There was a presidential election that year, and our nation was very divided and still is in many ways. We were locked down in the Covid pandemic, and my stress was high. I was very concerned about the direction our nation was heading. I got a call from a retired Air Force Lt. Col.. Col. Beckman was an A-10 pilot that had a good friend that passed away the month before. Evan Thompson III was not only a friend of his but a friend of the Air Force. He had shown his support for the Air Force by waving an American flag at fighter jets flying low over his ranch for 45 years. His ranch being located between the Nellis Air Force base and its target bombing range in Nevada.
Once I flew out there and met with Col. Beckman and the Thompson family, I knew that it was a story that needed to be told. The Col. told me about his mission in Afghanistan, where he saved 24 Army troops as well as countless civilian lives. That’s when it came to me. I would format the documentary in an anthology, and it would feature the stories of American heroes told through the narrative of Evan Thompson’s patriotism.
I felt that, through this film, I could help, in however small a way, to heal the division in our nation. I knew that fear was causing the rift, and the only thing that can defeat fear is hope. Hope was how this nation was built. Fear causes people to look inward, it causes people to be selfish, and it causes hate. Hope allows people to empathize with others, it allows us to care for those that are different than us, and most importantly, it allows us to talk without fear.
A film about actual American heroes can help break the ice with each other and talk about what Americans are willing to sacrifice for our nation. Not just military heroes but also civilians, as the film ends with the heroes of United flight 93 and what they did on September 11th, 2001.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
My goal is to help our nation heal. Growing up in a wealthy, traditional Chinese family, I wasn’t versed much in the meaning of hope. My first experience with hope was watching the Star Wars trilogy, a space opera; George Lucas wrote about fear vs. hope. I didn’t quite understand what he meant by fear at the time, but I would spend most of my life exploring this phenomenon. It led me down dark paths that I would never want to walk again. It wasn’t until I met a psychologist and spent two years with him that I understood the term. I remember sitting in his office the first week, and he smiled at me and said you are really smart; you will figure it out in about two years. Sure enough, almost exactly on the day of, two years later, I had my breakthrough. I felt like my eyes had been opened for the first time in my life. I finally realized how lost I had been, and I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs to help spread hope. However, this was just the beginning. I need to find a new path, a path that I always knew I was meant to follow. Always knew, but fear prevented me from finding it. Awarkwardly, I stumbled to find a way through this world that I saw with brand new eyes. I had thought that I had lived a life in fear and that most other people were already living in hope, but I was wrong. I didn’t realize how much fear was in the world, including within my own family.
Once I discovered screenwriting and filmmaking, I knew that I had found my calling. I have never been happier in my life. I had a successful career in the past, with multiple businesses and investments that afforded me a comfortable life, but I knew that in order to pursue this path successfully, it was going to be difficult and painful. I didn’t want to give myself an opportunity to give up and turn back. I remembered hearing a story about the Spanish Conquistador, General Hernan Cortes. In 1518, when he landed in what is now considered modern-day Mexico with his six hundred men, he burned all his ships so that his men knew that they were no chance of retreat. As a result of that, two years later, he completed the conquest of the Aztec Empire. Using that example, I sold all of my businesses and assets and invested it all into film. It’s been over a decade now, and I’m finally making my first feature film. Hernan Cortes was right, although it took me a little longer than he did.
Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?
I grew up in a wealthy family that afforded me everything I wanted. I had fancy cars, big houses, and plenty of money. The one thing that was lacking was happiness. It wasn’t till I understood the true meaning of fear that I found happiness. Once one understands fear, that’s when one finds hope and faith. Faith in God, faith in the universe, faith in humanity, or just faith in oneself. That is true happiness. I went from having everything I wanted to not being able to buy anything and even had problems paying my rent and bills, whereas, in the past, I owned multiple houses free and clear. But that clear vision of my future and my success in making great films made me happy no matter what I had to endure. It was also during this time that I met my wife, Amy. I had many relationships in the past and was even engaged a few times. But this time around, with Amy, I knew that she was the one. I finally realized that fear was what stopped me from committing to marriage but also that it was meant to be so that I would meet Amy. Writing helps me in so many ways. I was never a big reader. I think I’ve only completed 3 or 4 books my entire life. So it came to me as a massive surprise that I would find so much enjoyment in writing. Perhaps not having read many books gave me a sense of liberation in writing that I may not have had being an avid reader. The characters I create are all from people I know or have known. People that I liked, people that I disliked, people that were funny, and people that were downright boring. When one writes about fictional characters, it helps one empathize with real people. One will understand people and why they do what they do. However, I feel that one needs to understand fear vs. hope before one puts pen to paper. Because every character, whether real or fictional, will have one or the other in their hearts. And that is the essence of every good story.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.ifpbox.com
- Instagram: @tradocumentary
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hmvstan
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stan-wong
- Twitter: @stanifpbox
- Other: www.therealamericanfilm.com www.departuremovie.com
Image Credits
All images belong to Infinite Fountain Productions llc.