We were lucky to catch up with Zhe Song recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Zhe, thanks for joining us today. Are you happy as a creative professional? Do you sometimes wonder what it would be like to work for someone else?

Being a filmmaker was not my dream “job” at first. I was passionate about physics and art, and being an engineer has always been a preferred choice because it’s more stable, it’s easier to earn a high salary, and it makes me feel secure when I have a more “practical” skill.

So when I went to college, I decided to study image processing and encoding, and aim to become an engineer in the film industry. Meanwhile, I used my spare time to make videos and short films, and one day, it just became clear to me that my real love fell into filmmaking. Not to my surprise, almost everyone close to me was very supportive of my decision to become a filmmaker. They all could tell how much I love watching, making, and studying film when I have the time. And even now, when I visit my friends after years of graduation, those who made successful goals in the tech industry still encourage me from their heart to do my best in the field that I love – the film industry.

To me, making films doesn’t feel like a job. I just feel like my time should be used for something like this. When working on a project that I don’t like artistically sometimes, I might feel struggle, or difficult to move forward, but still I enjoy the process, and still, I don’t feel like I’m working. When working on a project that I like, it’s like I’m looking forward to seeing more footage, or not stop, just proceed with what I have till the end of the day.

Being a filmmaker is tough, it’s not stable, it could be difficult financially. With the skills to tell a story is not enough; having the ability to connect and deal with people is equally important. So sometimes, when things are moving slowly or not as expected, I wonder what life would be like if I didn’t choose the filmmaking career, but stayed on my original path. I always joke about the working environment. Before I entered the film industry, I always thought engineers were those people who work at a typical office building, and filmmakers always work in those fancy, colorful gardens. However, it’s quite the opposite in the real world. Yes, from this perspective, being an engineer seems a much better choice, with very cozy working spaces, a comfortable working schedule, and lots of holiday breaks, most importantly, a very stable and high salary income. But, when I think of a job that allows me to watch tons of films at the time I want, to not think of work as work, and could feel every project as a new thing, all those other ideas just got into the back of my head.

I really feel happy and confident when I learn and use the technical things in the film-making process. Especially using them to help my work better, and explain them to the people around me. Like theatrical tech specs, projection system, picture, and audio specs, even about coding and encoding.

The best part is to watch something I’m proud of being shown on a big screen, with the other audience.

Zhe, 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 mostly work as a film editor and colorist, I sometimes do DIT and on-set live grading too.

I prefer to work on narrative films, but I also work on commercials, tv series, and documentaries.

I worked on the films and TV shows that distributed on Amazon Prime, Apple TV+, Redbox, Tubi, etc. Commercials for International brands including Nike, Shiseido, Jin & Juice, etc. Online videos for PocketFM. Online vertical shows for ReelShort and others that got paid views exceeding 100 million views.

The projects I worked on with well-known / popular stars including Anthony Hopkins, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Tian Jing (popular actress in China, known for “Kong: Skull Island”, “The Great Wall”, “Pacific Rim: Uprising”, “The Glory of Tang Dynasty”.), Andy Le & Brian Le. (Both known for their work on ‘Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’, ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’, ‘The Paper Tigers’, and ‘Wu Tang: An American Saga’.)

The short films I worked on as editor and colorist added in total have been selected to over 100 film festivals around the world. I myself earned best editing from festivals like LA Shorts Awards, Global Film Festival Awards, Los Angeles Film Awards, New York Film Awards, etc.

I also worked as screener for Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival and Burbank International Film Festival.

I also wrote articles about theater projection and sound system and introduced the technical specs of digital cinemas to the general audience who has the interests of knowing it from a film maker perspective. One of the articles was released on a very popular online media in China and received thousands of views.

To make a narrative project good, I need to have both good artistic sense and technical skills. Unlike shooting a project, working as a post-production filmmaker, the ability to help solve problems during production is also important.

My experience as an engineering student really helped me to understand the technical things better and deeper than a lot of the other creative artists. So I can have more mind focusing on how to communicate with the client and achieving their goals, rather than spending time and effort looking for a solution while working. Also, I love films, and I watch a lot of films, which helped me accumulate tons of visual and oral references in my mind, and I have a very good understanding of film itself. Both aspects helped me to better understand the language and idea behind the filmmakers and transform it into my part of the work. As a good filmmaker, knowing how to do things is important, having a very good taste is important, but acknowledging the other people, like the director, DP, and producer’s mind is essential too.

I’m glad that most of the client keep coming back to work with me on their future project, and their satisfaction is always my encouragement.

Right now, I have my own production company, “Mars Light Studio”, to serve the project better as a group, which could help people make their projects easier and confident. The company provides production and post-production solutions for creative filmmakers and studios. We aim to make the film great and powerful, not just providing a technical solution, but also a creative input from experienced filmmakers.

I believe films are not only about stories, but it’s the characters that touch the heart of the audience. Following the idea of rich character design, I always try my best to use film language to improve the richness of the characters in the film, by providing script feedback, using formal design (cinematography, editing, sound design, and even color) to help achieve this goal. For example, editing is not just putting pieces together in the script order, it’s about pacing, choosing coverage shots, and creating the feeling. Cutting dialogue is OK, but how to emphasize an emotion, a moment, or a character’s feeling is something I always like to play with. Sometimes, staying with minimal editing could make a scene totally different from cutting dialogue. Making those creative decisions suitable for different styles of films is what makes an editor better than another. It’s based on both working experiences and thinking after watching a number of good films.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

When the clients are happy to see what I did for the first time. Experience doesn’t mean people will be on the same page at the beginning. Great filmmakers could have completely different understandings of movies, same thing happens between young filmmakers too.

To find someone who has the similar thoughts and idea about one thing is really rewarding.

And to see my work with other audiences in an exhibition environment, mostly in a theater is also rewarding, especially when people come to congratulate and to have a conversation about what I did, could be joyful.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

I would like to make films that are big, like a huge commercial success, but having the chance to make the films that I artistically enjoy would be my goal.

It’s hard to find a director with a script that I enjoy completely at first sight, because people have different ideas and life experiences. But there were some moments that I feel like I have to work on this project, and I would have tons of inputs that are ready to share with the director. Like the film might not have tremendous audiences to fall for it, but it’s artistically well done and has good reviews from film lovers. For now, these feelings only happened on small projects, and I really enjoyed working on them. But I do hope one day, I can make a feature film with a proper budget like this.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.marslightstudio.com (currently under development, will be online later this year)
• Instagram: zsong.film
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/zhe.song.165
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zhesongfilm/
• Other: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10762004/

Image Credits

Yifu Li
Zhe Song