[This was a college assignment I had to work on for one of my classes. For the assignment, I had to interview a person with an occupation, and luckily, prior to the week that is due, it was Wesley Chan's ticket stop event from WongfuProduction, and I thought I would give it a shot. And here is the interview, I thought I should share it among everyone!] Warning, some of the words I may repharse a bit to make the sentence flow, and others may have lacked some words because it was a meet and greet and I didn't ask all the questions I thought I had. Please don't take my exact word for it. Thank you!] And shoutout to Wesley Chan! (: thaaaank you so much for letting me take time out of your day to interview you!
24 November 2013
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For the following interview, I went
to a meet and greet of one of the famous film writer/director well know on
internet and asked him if he would do me a favor, allowing me to interview him
for one of my classes, which is counseling 17. Thankfully, he was nice enough
to agree to it even though it was during his meet and greet event. There may be
some awkward responses below due to my nervousness in asking the questions, so
just fair warning. Some question because it seems very repetitive, or maybe
its just because my interviewee answers
it very detailed that one of his answer can simply cover three questions in the
sheet. So I may skip some, however, I will leave down a reference so its easier
for anyone to look back at the previous answers. And for some because I don’t have
his direct quote, I will write from my own perspective from my memory.
Simple
Biography of Wesley Chan:
Wesley Chan is a UCSD graduate who majored in visual arts, and started his career
as filmmaker/director as soon as he graduated, if not during his senior year. It
all started when he met his two classmates Phillip Wong and Ted Fu. These trios
made their legacy through uploading their videos on the internet back when internet
was just getting off its feet. Soon, when YouTube was created, they became even
better known to the public as Wongfu Production. They were invited to many places
as speakers, and soon they had their world tour, showing their fans worldwide their
videos live, along with meet and greets. Wongfu Production now not only make films
and movies for a living, they also have their own clothing line called “Are you
a nice guy?”, along with their popular plush sets called “awkward animals” that
have been constantly expanding. Now, they have been around for a decade, their fans
have grown from a few thousands who subscribed to their show all the way to national
wide simply from making little videos here and there.
1) How did you started in this field?
Well, I was a visual
arts in University of San Diego, and during the classes I took, I met Philip
and Ted. Back then, we started making videos just for fun. It started from
vlogging (or video logs) to short films. People started watching and the
audience grew around the country. It was unexpected. And finally in senior year
we decided to try something new, and made a movie. And through all those short
films and the movie, we were invited to different universities to give speeches
and talks, and that was when we realized, we have stumbled upon something, and
it was then that we decided to foster it and nature it. It was simply
unplanned.
2) What do you like the most and least
about you job?
What I like the most
about my job is being able to have the freedom to create and make videos, along
with being able to share it with the world. And as for the least, it is the
uncertaincy of where things are headed.
3) What is your typical day like?
Every day is different,
some days we would stay in the office and have the “office life”, editing films,
writing script and putting things together and on the other days we would be
out shooting films. We never have a set typical day, because one day we can be
giving a speech in UCSD for falls convention, and another day we could be
flying to London like last week.
4) What emerging trends do you see
affecting your job or industry in the next five years?
I think as technology and social media
progress is something exciting. And because of this progressment, you need to
be more unique and stand out more than everyone else to be able to stay on top.
For example, the Asian Community needs to stay together, because it is still a
young industry for Asian filmmakers. It is way too early for each of us to go
off on our own.
5) What skill set of skills and
abilities will I need to be successful in this line of work? What kinds of task
do you do on a typical day or in a typical week?
In order to be in this
field, you definitely need to be passionate about filmmaking, not to mention
the need of being creative in all senses. You need to care about community, and
not be afraid to take chances, especially being able to adapt to new skills and
obstacles that comes at you. [as for the
second part regarding the task, reference back to question 3, which he
explained pretty much that part, due to time convenience, I decided to skip the
ones that are similar to each other, or can answer each other’s question]
6) What type of task do you spend most
of your time doing?
[Due to the fact that
his task are different by day, it is spread out throughout the year depending
on what they are focus more towards that time/month/season/event]
7) What do you like best about this
job?
[Answered back in
question 2, when he answered what he likes most about his job. Which he stated
that it was being able to travel worldwide, to places he himself has never
though he would have been.]
8) What are some of the more difficult
or frustrating parts of this career?
Because we are or own
bosses we need to be thinking about how to sustain, and run our own company twenty-four-seven.
And since we are also our own employees, we have to be always on the clock.
And as for the frustrating
parts, during the Europe trip I realize that we cannot please everyone because
people tend to be disappointed. And it is really hard to be able to look past
that since we are trying to represent Asian
Americans in the film industry, yet we cannot please everyone. However, we
cannot complain about this, rather, all we can do is try our best to please
everyone.
9) What characteristics does a person
need to have in this job?
To be able to do this job,
a person needs to be creative, unique, passionate, and really have desire and
love for the filmmaking industries, rather than doing it just for the name and
fame. [Reference back to question 5 and the last question.]
10) Is this career changing? How?
Because the social
media is expanding, this career is getting more competitive and well know in compare
with back the; it has became more challenging for the new comers who want to
aim for the top or to become successful to be noticed today.[Reference back to
question 4.]
11) What kind of hours do you work?
Due to the fact that
they are their own bosses, their hours are flexible, and as for the hours, it
depends on what they are working on that particular day. [Reference back to
question 3, 8, and 12]
12) Is your schedule flexible or set?
Their schedules are flexible,
since each day their schedules are different/flexible by activity of the day, it
starts and ends differently as well. [For extended information, please look
over at question 8 and 11]
13) Does this career include or require
travel?
Yes, this career
includes travel. As Wesley explained during the interview, in order to get in
touch with their fans worldwide, it is an important part of the job to be able
to meet, greet and outreach to their supporters nationwide.
14) How does this career affect your
lifestyle?
It is still something Wesley
tries to wrap his head around, “because its social media, my lifestyle consist
of more travel, and I have been to places I never thought I would have been to”.
He explains further, “You feel closer to a lot of people with the influence of
social network, and because you put so much in blog and videos you feel like
you have a lot of friends. It’s this false idea like you have a lot of friends.
It takes time to accept so much out in the open, especially traveling, and this
whole celebrity idea, online celebrity to be particular”.
15) How did you prepare for this career?
+ How did you find this job?
Wongfu production is at
the right place at the right time. We started out a new, because back then,
there were no YouTube, and internet video making isn’t just a job out in the
open that you can major for in college. It is to the point where we didn’t know
where we were going, but we were just creating the path as we go. It is mostly
thanks to the audiences who watched our video and helped spread the word,
because if it weren’t for the audiences, we won’t be here today making films.
16) Do you have any advice on how
people interested in this career should prepare?
If you want to be a
filmmaker or someone of media through new media, first make sure you like it or
enjoy it, and its something you are passionate about, it’s not something you
want to do because you just want the name and fame. To prepare for this career,
you need to be at a point where you are not afraid of making mistakes, because
people fail many times, and with every mistake, you tend to learn to stay
humble grounded. Surround yourself with many people, and try to learn from
them.
