Meet Mengqiao Zhang | Storyteller & Filmmaker

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

Hi Mengqiao, what role has risk played in your life or career?
Some people say taking risk is gambling, and you will never know what you will receive, I disagree. The biggest difference is that, you are giving your density to others through gambling, but you can always decide whether and how much you are going to take the risk. To me, risk is an interesting thing. You may benefit a lot from it; on the meantime, you may lose a lot. However, I’m a person who likes risk. As long as I’m passionate about what I’m doing, and I think I already tried my best, I’d love to take risks.
Study film is the biggest risk I’ve ever taken. I love telling stories, and I think film could become a strong voice of mine to the world. However, what I do know is that, there is a huge amount people could not receive a good offer after graduate. Especially I was an Econ major student in the undergraduate, I am doing a new thing that I haven’t done ever.
However, I’m pretty sure I want to study film, and I can take this risk. I’m good at studying and thinking. Instead of just reading books/studying, I can summarize “how to become a good filmmaker” quickly; then I will set a goal for myself. With that, I would be very passionate and efficient.
I know it’s hard to decide whether to take the risk or not, but I love taking risks, and I am working harder and harder to make my decision valuable.
One more thing, it is small, but I’d love to share this experience. When I’m in the undergrad, all my friends are looking for interns. However, I barely go for an internship. Instead, I walk around the world, and explore different live style. That’s a risk too – If one wants to find a good job in the future, they need those working experience. However, I decided not to. Instead, I feel different culture, different lifestyle and focus on snowboarding. It is important for me to take this risk – by doing this, I know what type of person I want to become, what story I want to tell, what should I really focus on, and what I am working (making money) for. I think I had a success on that, because at this moment, I know that I know the lifestyle I’m chasing for, the story I’m in passionate about, and I have something that I want to express.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I really love my last film, though I also know that I need to study more to become better, My last film was a fairy tale which happens in the medieval castle. It’s not easy to do in a low budget film: you need to find great locations, and it cannot be very expensive; you need to do production design to make it good. Also, on the director side, you need to make the actions/posture and so on looks like medieval style; and you need to cover up all those insufficient from the location/limited angle by telling great story. I did it, and this really made me proud.
It was a hard journey, but I became a better filmmaker by taking these challenge!!! And also, I learned how to negotiate with different people as well!

What I hope people could know about me is that, I’m a filmmaker who is eager to spread my voice to the world with the world.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I live in LA right now, so did my bestie – we became friend since high school, and we went to the same university in Irvine. But anyways, let’s just suppose she had never been to LA. (I mean, I really want to take my bestie to Alaska!!!)

I hope her visit happens in summer, because there are so many things to do in summer. First of all, ignore the jet lag, I’m gonna take her to Venice beach to surf every morning- I have extra wetsuits, and it’s easy to rent boards. When I say morning, I mean morning, say 6am. So we probably gonna finish surfing at 9am. Great time management! After that, we can have a breakfast – there are many cute restaurant near Venice beach, although I don’t have a favorite one. We can always try different restaurant depends on the mood.
After that, we can checkout different cafeteria – it’s one of my favorite thing to sit in a cafe, thinking about nothing, just reading and observing people passing by. There are stories in their posture. It’s fun, I promise.
There is a rooftop cinema near Beverly Hills is interesting – just order some food at the bar table and pick up a headphone, we can enjoy an old film. Summer wind blows our face, that’s really comfortable. Or, if the screening film doesn’t attractive, we can just go to a random AMC – I would prefer the one in Orange County, If the time is properly, we can see the fire work in Disneyland. That’s my favorite part of going to that AMC!
If her visit happens on the second week of the month, we can go to Rose bowl flea market. That’s a good place to walk around, it’s interesting!

But if it’s happens in winter, I would still so the similar thing, the only difference is that I would use two days for snowboarding instead of surfing.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
The person who I really thankful to is my mom, she is always on my side, supporting me, no judgement, do whatever I need. She makes me feel like I deserve the best, as long as I’m hard working enough. This motivated me a lot.

There is a friend of mine, he makes me realize I’m good, and also makes me realize what should I keep working on. Because of this, I read more books, watched more films and art pieces.

Instagram: https://instagram.com/xxmmqiao?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

Image Credits
Mengqiao Zhang