Meet Cynthia Chen | Editor & Colorist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Cynthia Chen and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Cynthia, what led you to pursuing a creative path professionally?
My desire to pursue an artistic career comes from my growing up environment, including my parents and my own hobbies.

I was growing up in an era that digital media is expanding. Influenced by my parents, a physics teacher and an art teacher, I was fascinated by science and art. In my memory, I had a lot of chances to paint with my mom. When I graduated from elementary school, my family got a SONY DV and a digital camera. My parents didn’t keep me away from these “adult equipment” so I got chances to play with cameras. I was addicted to learning and creating images with these “toys”. For a long time, once I finished my homework I would bring it with me everywhere I went.

I love painting, poetry, music and I love my life. Film is the art form that includes all my loves. Titanic is the first film that I ever watched when I was seven years old. Even at that young age, I was instantly enthralled by the mind-blowing artistry that was filmmaking. This film presents me the life of a person from another country and culture and it depicts the most eternal human being’s emotion. I knew even then that I had to be a part of making such an art form. I watched more and more films as I grew up and learnt that film can express the powerful emotions between human beings, attitudes of different objective matters, the worldview and the introspection of the current social status. It sometimes can purify one’s soul and even change the world with a little sparkle. This really inspired my desire to create visual art works especially films.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
Since I love film and pursued my master degree from a film school, my artistic style is always film cinematic. I am passionate about putting my story telling skills and filmic color into any projects that I work on, even if it’s an advertisement or a video campaign. I enjoy the process of creative thinking and I tried not to use the same skills or patterns to shape my projects. I usually get inspired by the story, the emotion, the lighting, the image, even the personality of the director. According to all different conditions, I create the style for my projects and even experiment a little bit before I start editing or color grading.

For example, The Letter, a short modern comedy I worked on recently. While talking with the director, a young talented filmmaker, I found she is a delicate girl who has a very high level of fashion sense. It shows not only in her dressing but also in every single detail in her film, especially production designs and costumes. The story is very cute and youthful which reminds me of my early age’s life. So I edited the film with a quick pace and created a liviling feeling. I got inspired by her personality and created a fresh, modern color style with bright yellow, light blue for most of the scenes. And also provided another dreamy wedding style for a hero scene when the two characters solve their misunderstanding and reunite together. The Letter won the Best Comedy and Best Narrative Short in New York Film Awards (2021), Best Comedy in Los Angeles Film Awards (2021) and also got official selection in Philadelphia Independent Film Festival (2021).

Black and White is another short film with a totally opposing color style. The director Wai Kuen Fu was grown up in Hong Kong. It reminds me of many gangster films shot in Hong Kong with dirty streets and dark lights. Although his film is shot in Los Angeles, I decided to bring in the Hong Kong style and created a dirty but cool green/golden-ish look for it. The outcome was really great which suited the story – a honourable young policeman who stays away from his gangster brother finally finds out his supervisor is actually the villain behind all those crimes and also the one who kills his brother. Black and White won Best Action/Sci-Fi/Fantasy in Lonely Wolf: London International Film Festival (2020) and Bronze Award in Latitude Film Awards (2020), also got Official Selection in Los Angeles Lift-Off Film Festival (2020), Asian Film Festival (2020) and Studio City International Film & TV Festival (2020).

Senator’s TV campaign (https://beachlion.com/ottawa-senators) is my recent project produced by Beachlion Studio. In this campaign, after I got the cool reference pictures, I created the color with Kodak film look and developed three color palettes. One is a cool teal tone with the young boy and a slight different cold blue tone for the players. Cold blue really relates to the ice and the rules of competition. Lastly a red/orange palette, stands for the team, Ottawa Senator. It also shows the passion and the determination to win. Different from most TV campaigns, which have bright, sharp and high contrast color, I created a film look which makes it darker but with richer textures and more emotional for this campaign. You can even see some film grains in it. It’s suitable to play on TV but will be even more amazing to play on a huge screen.

Another feature film that I had worked on last year was Forgiveness, a psychological thriller, which talks about three women mysteriously wake up in a hospital and discover that one of them is deaf, one is mute and the other one is blind; together they have to figure out why they are there and how to get out. This film is really special and challenging since it’s a long take film, like Birdman and 1917. The director Alex Kahuam is an enthusiastic artist grown up in Mexico. He is fascinated in long take films and is brilliant in creating thriller stories and he is always open to try new things. In this film, we used three different color styles: teal, greenish yellow and red, to represent different spaces and situations. The most unforgettable moment during color grading was when we were actually playing with different color tones to express the stress and intensity. We shifted the color from one to a totally opposite direction multiple times along with the rhythm of the music which echoes the crisis in the story. It’s mind blowing and unusual in filmmaking but we both love the outcome. The power of color grading really stands out in this film and just as special as the film itself. This feature got official selection in Frightfest UK 2021 and it’s still being competed in other film festivals.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I love road trips. Driving through California State Route 1 from North to South would be my first recommendation. You will able to view the beautiful Pacific Ocean from California State Route 1 and visit the cozy little towns/cities like Carmel-By-The-Sea, Monterey, Solvang and Santa Barbara, Ojai.

I personally love Ojai town a lot, it’s just one hour from LA. There are some artists making gorgeous ceramic craft in the town and it’s worth a visit. I also love the local olive oil and aged Italian Vinegar. Everytime I visit the town, I won’t miss the chance to taste Ojai Rotie’s roast chicken which is a must try. If you come and visit the town on Saturday morning, there will be a local farmer market selling healthy fresh fruit and local vegetables. To be honest, I found my favourite jam there. It’s good for the stomach. Finally, getting a kombucha tea from Revel and having a nice Spa in the town should be the coziest thing in Ojai.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Thanks Jie Meng for supporting my career.

Website: www.xinstudio.co

Instagram: @cynthia.chen_colorist

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ccynthia1991/

Other: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm8243516