Jackie! Zhou

Unaffiliated

What was your first professionally directed work and when was it?
My first professionally directed work was a narrative short film, Order for Pickup, for Indeed & Hillman Grad’s “Rising Voices” program in 2023. Prior to this partnership and grant, I had been working professional as a sound designer and self-funding my directing work from narrative shorts to music videos for friends’ bands and music projects. This film existed at the blurry lines of branded storytelling and I’m thankful for the opportunity to flex my narrative directing muscles within the infrastructure of a branded opportunity. Upon premiering at Tribeca, the film took on a dreamy festival journey including: CAAMFest, Bentonville, Palm Springs ShortsFest, Baltimore New/Next, and ShortOfTheWeek.

How did you get into directing?
My entry to directing was by way of a decade of working professional as a sound designer in film, television, and commercials. As a sound designer, you’re in a unique position of joining a project towards the end of the process – after the project has transformed through pre-production, production, and editorial, you are a rare set of fresh ears for the project to revitalize and define the project for its vital iteration. Sound is magic – you aren’t bound by conventional parameters and are often extending the action beyond the frame, and I am thankful to have developed storytelling and worldbuilding muscles through my work as a sound designer.

What is your most recent project?
I’ve recently been directing episodic work for Galatea, a streaming platform with a focus on romance stories. It’s been fun deep-diving into genre and playing in a new frontier of “television”. In my personal directing endeavors, I have premiered a short film called Good Boy Banjo on the festival circuit at Baltimore New/Next. Good Boy Banjo is about a stoned Asian-American teenager receiving existential advice from an unexpected source in small town Pennsylvania. The film stars Shirley Chen (DÌDI, Beast Beast) and Mace Coronel (That ’90s Show) and was produced with the support of Netflix and NALIP’s WOC Incubator grant.

What is the best part of being a director?
People! Humans are everything. I find my inspiration from humanity and our surprising synchronicities and multitudes. Getting to celebrate humanity and forge connections both in themes and characters on-screen as well as the magic of collaboration behind the scenes continues to fill my cup with each directing project. The making is always sweeter shared and I feel so lucky to get to create! make! dream! with incredible people every day for my livelihood.

What is the worst part of being a director?
For a medium that is so collaborative, there are ebbs and flows when directing can feel like an island. The magic of deep diving into a project can come with the double edged sword of getting too zoomed in and losing sight of ~the big picture~. I’m thankful for the intrinsic communal nature of filmmaking which often serves as a balm for the spells of isolation that the work can sometimes lead to.

What is your current career focus: commercials and branded content, television, movies? Do you plan to specialize in a particular genre–comedy, drama, visual effects, etc.?
Currently, my work has been focused on narrative projects in various forms (episodic! shorts! features!) as well as music videos. However, I’m extremely genre and format agnostic and curious about commercial and branded content as well as future frontiers of filmmaking. My directing work tends to lean maximalist in themes and ideas with a playful approach and polished craft. I’m a visual girlie, I’m a worldbuilding girlie, I’m an actor girlie, whatever the project, I’m the girlie that is all in. I love creating a space and project in which all collaborators can thrive. I believe good people make great storytellers and my priority is keeping the work delightful.

Have you a mentor and if so, who is that person (or persons) and what has been the lesson learned from that mentoring which resonates with you?
As a sound designer, I’ve been lucky to be in intimate creative spaces with several directors – at times the post sound process can feel like master classes with several directors I admire. Whether it was working with Oliver Stone on Snowden or Jim Cummings on Thunder Road or Chuck Lightning and Andrew Donoho on Janelle Monáe’s Dirty Computer, I have been able to absorb so many different kernels of wisdom from my collaborators. A takeaway I am constantly learning is: with art-making, the truer we can be with ourselves, the truer our work will feel. Vulnerability and trust in ourselves and each other are necessary ingredients for any project.

Who is your favorite director and why?
Hayao Miyazaki – for his beautiful worlds, dense existential meditations, and playful sincerity. Gregg Araki – for his irreverence, silliness, and queer darkness. Garth Jennings – for his maximalism, versatility, and willingness to play! (Sorry I cheated and did three.)

What is your favorite movie? Your favorite television/online program? Your favorite commercial or branded content?
Lightning round answers! Favorite movie: Spirited Away. Favorite TV Show: Spongebob. Favorite Commercial/Branded Content: The Virgin America Airlines Safety Video

Tell us about your background (i.e., where did you grow up? Past jobs?)
Having grown up with many platforms of storytelling, I have always been eager to present the world through my own gaze. Throughout my adolescence, I moved from various American environments, including “only Asian family in the area” suburban Pennsylvania, deeply multicultural Bay Area, and hyper-academic Wellesley, Massachusetts, finally ending up at film school in Orange, California. As an Asian-American, non-binary, clarinet-playing, marathon-running, Spongebob-quoting, experimental theater-performing, hybrid documentary-making, sound designer-director, I’ve learned to embrace the varied hyphenated traits that exist in myself and aim to celebrate our individual multitudes in my work.

Have you had occasion to bring your storytelling/directorial talent to bear in the Metaverse, tapping into the potential of AR, VR, AI, NFTs and/or experiential fare? If so, tell us about that work and what lessons you have taken away from the experience?
I have had more experience in my sound design and sound art work venturing into the Metaverse as well as experiential work and AR. My favorite form of AR / experiential work are soundwalks! I had the honor of designing a soundwalk in collaboration with Point A (Annie Saunders and Andrew Schneider) that was set in NYC’s Financial District. With experiential work, there is a magic of liveness, spontaneity, and chaos that is necessary to embrace as part of the work. While digital experiential work may come with the illusion of control, what makes it special are the surprising choices that humans can make.

Contact

Website: http://jackie.world
Contact Jackie! via email here