Meet Zhiang (Michael) Chen | Sound Designer and Music Producer for Interactive Media

We had the good fortune of connecting with Zhiang (Michael) Chen and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Zhiang (Michael), we’d love to start by asking you about lessons learned. Is there a lesson you can share with us?
I think being as a sound designer and music producer for interactive media in 2023, the most important lesson is to have the ability to adapt and collaborate in this environment. You have to learn and know everything from tools to skills to industry knowledge and resources but at the same time you cannot do it alone, you have to work with other professionals as a team. in order to succeed.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
My name is Zhiang Chen, professionally known as Michael Chen. I was born in Shanghai, and moved to Hong Kong when I was 13. I’m a sound designer, music producer and audio engineer for interactive media. I graduated from Berklee College of Music in August 2022, dual majoring in Music Production & Engineering and Electronic Production & Design. I’m currently a Music Industry master student at USC with an emphasis on Music Supervision & Visual Media. I started off my career in 2017 as a music producer, working with different artists, songwriters and producers in the music industry. During the pandemic, I went back to China and got signed with a Chinese Entertainment company called Younger Culture, working as their in-house music producer, songwriter and audio engineer. After a year I went back to finish my Berklee career and that is when Geng reached out to me. We then started working together from late 2021 till now. We have been working on The Dark World: Karma video game for the last two years, and it definitely was not easy. One of the biggest challenges is time and work load. Since the video game was developed by a Shanghai Studio called Pollard Studio, we have a 12 hour time difference between Shanghai and Boston/Los Angeles. Geng and I had to stay up late till 3 am and sometimes it was even later for Geng while we both have early classes in a couple of hours. So I overcomed this challenge just simply being organized and work more efficiently. The lesson I learned along the way is that you have to earn your success. There’s no freeway, there’s no shortcuts. You have to sacrifice a lot and work much more harder, and time will tell. I want the world to know that we put a lot of time and effort in this video game, and we hope people would appreciate the final product which hopefully will be out in 2024.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Some of my best friends are from Hong Kong, if they were to visit me in Los Angeles, I would definitely bring them to live at the Santa Monica beach area for a couple of days. Since Hong Kong is a very fast pace city, just like New York City. People walk fast, talk fast and living in a very dense capacity. I would love my friends to enjoy the relaxing time on beaches and maybe even spent a night or two on Catalina Island. It was a beautiful island and I want them to take a moment to relieve themselves and embrace the nature. After that, we will go on a tour to the Hollywood, and Universal studio. LA is the center of the entertainment industry, they have to checkout them out. We will enjoy different burgers and Mexican food along the way. One of the restaurants I would really encourage them to try is the H&H Brazilian Steakhouse, it’s an all you can eat Brazilian-style grilled meats. The experience was amazing and very unique. Then, I would love to bring them to one of the shows in LA, whether it’s a concert or sports game, the vibe and energy was so different from any other country. Especially the NBA games, I still remembered the first time I went to an NBA game was at TD Garden in Boston, the energy of the Celtics fans were just explosive. And finally, going to art museums and art gallery. I remembered my dad said that the way people view arts will change as they grow older. So art museums are great places to check out and re-visit from time to time. They way you understand art and understand your life and yourself will change. Hopefully this will inspire my friends to become more successful people

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I want to shoutout to Geng Li, who is an amazing composer, producer, audio director, sound designer, and great friend of mine. We worked together on multiple projects at LM Audio Productions, including upcoming video game: The Dark World: Karma, and multiple Tencent cinematics (cut scene, animation, trailer). Geng has always been my mentor throughout my career. I’m truly thankful and appreciate for his guidance, opportunities, and support.

Website: https://www.michaelchensound.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mchk9215/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zhiang-michael-chen-151513188/

Image Credits
Zhiang Chen, Pollard Studio