Meet Ann Chong | Filmmaker & Designer

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

Hi Ann, how has your perspective on work-life balance evolved over time?

When it comes to creative work, I am a passionate workaholic. My friends and family would tell you I am notoriously known as “Miss MIA (Missing in Action)” in my social life. High school was when I became absorbed in club activities – I thrive when I am tasked with design work. I would take absence from science classes just so I can work on the school magazine – much to my teacher’s dismayed. And would miraculously reappear for art class.

This trajectory continues into my grad and work life where I would not sleep for many nights working on countless of projects. I took it that if I work hard till late nights, I’m making progress.

My workaholism has taken my attention away from my loved ones.

My balance changed when my values and what I valued changed. When I’m in my late twenties, I value more on the relationships I have in my life and I long to tell the stories of these people. It was when I set time to reflect, that I grasp – as a storyteller, if I spend less time with my loved ones and doing life, what stories do I have to tell?

A practical discipline I adhere to is to list down my to-dos in Google Calendar – including rest time. It’s funny to see Google sending me reminders every weekend notifying “REST DAY, DON’T WORK!!”. This new discipline has given me the balance I need. It’s still hard for me to say “No” to some work but overtime it has become easier. I see that work will always come, but you only get to live for a limited time.

To truly create something meaningful, I need to first live a balanced life and do life. I need to live in the stories, to tell the stories. With the 24 hours we have daily, there is time for work and play. Plus, creatives thrive on plays! I may still occasionally stretch myself with work, but I would say I am in a better balance than I am 10 years ago. Work-in-progress here!

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I tell people I am a filmmaker, but really I think I’m a multidisciplinary storyteller. I combine various media into my work, but ultimately it all cycles back to storytelling.

I’m most proud of a skillset I taught myself. Over the pandemic, I thought about taking my comic doodles to the next level by creating storyboards. Through researches, I’ve discovered a whole new niche in storyboarding. My intention wasn’t to get my storyboards seen, more like enjoying the process of “filming through drawings”. It helped refresh my composition, layout and understanding the flow of a story. What I’m most grateful about is that, a professor whom I’ve met, was kind enough to set up a feedback session, even though I’ve not taken a class with him!

It is support from people like these that made overcoming challenges a little smoother. It isn’t an easy road, especially being a person of small stature of asian ancestry in this industry. But my love for creating outweighs many other things, so I’ll let my work speak for me and hopefully for others too.

My goal is to tell more stories from my culture and to be one of the voices for it. We are living in exciting times as people are now bringing awareness to various cultures and seeing more colors on screen. I aim to bring some contributions to this era.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Now you’ve gotten me excited thinking about it. Since I’m in Malaysia visiting family, this is where I’ll take em.
I would take a day trip to Malacca and just walk around! It’s a quaint city with remnants of Portuguese influence with lots of good food and trinkets.

Ice cream of unusual flavors – durian, lychee, boozy ones.. Food from an interesting mix of Chinese and Malay culture known as “Baba and Nyonya”. Beautiful Portuguese architectures.. and if you’re lucky, you may find a secret white sand dune that makes it seem like you’re in Egypt!

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?

If I were to list every person who has nurtured my journey, the list will reach the moon!

The ones that nurture and supported me the most would be my parents. They’ve never seen my artistry as unimportant. In fact, my dad, who is an architect, gives good film analyzation when we watch films. His comments do keep my mind churning whenever I am working on my craft. If anything, I will know I have succeeded if my dad asks to watch my films.

He jokes that he will be a better filmmaker than I am. (Though I think he may be right if he ventures into it)

A huge thank you to my friends, family, film school, my professors and lecturers, my colleagues, the people in the industry in US and Malaysia who believe in me more than I believe in myself.

Website: www.voonann.com

Instagram: www.instagram.com/annchong_studio

Image Credits
Eric Liberacki, Eema Siddiqui