Meet Jerry Lee | Editor & Director

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

Hi Jerry, where are your from? We’d love to hear about how your background has played a role in who you are today?
My life has been split between 3 countries. I was born in Chengdu, China before moving to Melbourne, Australia when I was 8 years old. I spent most of my life in Australia, before moving to the US for college and have been here ever since. I think living in three different continents has made me a very adaptable person, and also gave me perspective on understanding and empathizing with all sorts of people from various backgrounds. This upbringing has definitely helped me a lot as an editor, as the job constantly asks you to empathize with characters you probably have never met in real life, and craft the nuances of their performances on screen.

I learned filmmaking through American film schools and I also consume a lot of American media, but my cross cultural background grounds me in the reality that American Hollywood storytelling is not the end all and be all of storytelling styles. I’m very influenced by East Asian media, everything from the excessiveness of Japanese anime to the subtlety of Edward Yang. I’m always curious to experience new art that I don’t know and I love pulling from unlikely artistic inspirations and incorporate them into my editing work.

Growing up, I was also a serious violinist and my musical background very much informed my sense of rhythm and pacing when it comes to editing. I am generally a very analytical person, but my music background allows me to switch into an impressionistic approach to editing when a project calls for it.

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 art is the art of reconstruction, repurposing and recontextualisation. It is what I’ve always been drawn to in many different artistic mediums, and it has manifested itself in me being a film editor.
Outside of film, I’ve always loved hip-hop and street photography, and the uniting factor between them is the art of recontextualisation. A huge part of hip-hop is the idea of sampling; taking an existing piece of sound and repurposing it into a beat. I love seeing the artistry of how a producer recontextualises a piece of music or sound to create their own unique art. Fundamentally, street photography is the same type of art, as street photographers take whatever they see on the street and reframe it to create images unique to them.
Similarly as an editor, you must react to the footage and sound given to you and reconstructing them in creative ways to tell a story is the craft of editing. When I decided to first pursue editing, I did not make the connection between hip-hop, street photography and editing, but in retrospect, my interest in film editing is a natural progression of these hobbies.
Editors constantly have to repurpose a look on an actor to hit an emotional beat, or combine a shot with the right sound to change its feeling, or juxtapose images that aren’t intended to go together, and I really enjoy doing all of those things. When I edit, I chase the exhilaration of successfully making images and sounds gel together when they’re not supposed to. That’s why I see editing as the art of recontextualisation and reconstruction, and that’s why I love editing.
I’m very lucky to have gone to Northwestern’s film school for undergraduate studies, and USC School of Cinematic Arts for graduate film school, and I’m very grateful to have met life-long friends and collaborators at these schools. As cliche as it is, I think learning to love the process more than the outcome is a lesson I’ve learned throughout the years and internalising this lesson is an ongoing lifelong endeavour. I’ve been a part of films that have not gotten into any festivals, and films that have won the Student Academy Award and regardless of their success, the films I’m the most proud of are the ones where I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the process of making movies with my friends.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
One of my favourite things about LA is the quality and diversity of the food here, and so I would definitely take my friend around different neighbourhoods just for their food; Ktown, Sawtelle, Westwood, Thai Town or literally any taco truck in LA. I also love thrifting and visiting various flea markets around LA, and so I would also take my friend to Melrose Trading Post, Los Feliz flea and Vintage vortex in Thai Town!

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
First, I really want to thank my parents for everything they have done for me. Although they often can’t understand what I’m doing, I appreciate their efforts trying to understand and support me to the best of their abilities. I definitely won’t be where I am today without their moral and financial support and I’m endlessly grateful for them.
A lot of my artistic growth have come from allowing myself to be artistically influenced by the people around me and being curious about things other people love, and so I’m incredibly thankful for my girlfriend, my close friends, and my artistic collaborators, because they have all helped me grow as a person, and therefore as an artist.

Website: https://jerryxlee.squarespace.com

Instagram: @jezm9

Image Credits
EDITING.jpg – photo by Alexander J. Milne
HoldMyHead_Editor_Director_2.jpg – photo by Stephanie Bell
StreetPhoto.jpg – photo by Jerry X. Lee
NeitherDonkeyNorHorse_POSTSUPERVISOR.png – From Neither Donkey Nor Horse (2024)
Seraphim_Editor – From Seraphim (2023)
HoldMyHead_Still2 – From Hold, My Head – Pei Wesley (2022)