Meet Thomas Wu | Sound Designer & Filmmaker

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

Hi Thomas, what led you to pursuing a creative path professionally?
I chose to work in film because it’s the way I felt most comfortable communicating with the world. I studied in local Chinese schools that use Chinese to teach, but since middle school, I suddenly transferred to an international school that teaches in English. It was quite hard since I barely spoke English and all my classmates spoke perfectly fine English. Eventually, I met a film nerd in middle school who started recommending films to me, which drastically helped improve my English. I also started watching a ton of YouTube at the time, to improve my English and just have a common topic with classmates. Eventually, I was always watching creators like FreddieW, Corridor Digital, and Rocket Jump and was hooked on VFX and post-production. Soon I started making films on my own with my friends and it was amazing to figure out a story together, I decided then that I wanted to go to film school and perfect this craft. Being in film school, though facing some challenges, I was even more certain that film is the way to connect with a wider audience and the best way to bring a message to people.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
As a Sound Designer/Mixer and all-around post-production professional, I focus on the aspects that aren’t always obvious. I’m always excited to theorize and imagine scenarios in the story that aren’t immediately shown on screen, so I can use my craft to build further upon the universe the film establishes through sound. A lot of people treat film as just visual art, but we hear much more than we think, and it’s just as important as what’s on screen, and trust me, bad sound instantly makes a film less than what it could be.

The journey to being a post-sound professional was filled with many late nights and fights against our greatest sometimes unreliable friend: Pro Tools. It was very difficult to get into the software, especially for someone like me born after the 2000s who didn’t work with analog sound, so it took me a while to understand why the DAW was the way it was. But after years of practice and working on countless films, I’ve grown to understand why it’s the industry standard, and even love the software.

Another aspect of working post-sound that I had to learn through practice was the unique relationship between the Sound Designer/Mixer and the producers and directors. There’s always trust that needs to be built with a new director/producer, even if they understand that you are a professional, there’s still a process where we each need to understand the creative process the other person goes through, and everyone has a different way of approaching their work. With sound, there’s also a layer of perception, since often people hear things differently when in different moods. Sometimes the director would be happy with a mix, and they go for a coffee break and come back unsatisfied with the mix, as sound mixers it’s often another process to make the directors believe in their senses and decisions again. All and all, my job is being the creative technician, and I use my creative juices and technical finesse to take the project to another level, I’m quite proud when I see the satisfied faces of directors seeing their films for the first time in the big studio with a complete mix.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
For five years I’ve called New York City my home and although not a native New Yorker, I’ve grown to love the vibes of the city. For food, NYC covers some of the best cuisines in the world, the first stop would be Dim Sums in Chinatown. Born in Hong Kong I love my dim sum and tea drinking routines, and NYC’s dim sum restaurants bring authenticity across the seas. At night, I would bring my friends to K-town to get some Korean barbeque and get some late-night desserts afterward. Flushing is another one of my favorite hangout spots, great food for great prices and the best Karaoke place in NYC (at least for me who loves Mandarin and Cantonese songs).

Being in a city that innovated jazz, I would also take my friends to some of my favorite jazz bars. The frontline of the best new players play in Smalls Jazz Club, and their Friday jam sessions get wild as legends play all the time till dawn. For more modern and fusion jazz, Blue Note always offers some of the best shows with legendary musicians. For more easygoing venues and good food, there’s the Japanese Jazz Club Tomi Jazz in Midtown, another one of my favorites.

My favorite spot overall though has to be in the Lower East Side. Chinese, Thai, Japanese, Jamaican, Indian, Turkish, Columbian, all kinds of great food, and my favorite place to jam with friends, the Rivington Music Rehearsal Hall is right in the center of this exciting and diverse neighborhood.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I would like to dedicate my shoutout to James Redding, my mixing professor, who gave me insights into the real film industry and truly brought me into the world of Sound in film. I learned so much from him, whether it was technical or theoretical, or simply life knowledge on how to survive in the sound/filmmaking world and what matters. There was one time when he brought the class into the facilities he works in and it opened our eyes to what it’s like working in a Hollywood-level mix studio, and how to talk to producers and directors and cooperate with people with strong visions and say in the industry as a technical person. He continues to teach me every time I meet him and remains a legendary sound mixer.

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

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-wu-125665195/

Other: IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm14925039/?ref_=fn_al_nm_22

Image Credits
Keith Leung Jonathan Zhao