Meet Tony Ung
We had the good fortune of connecting with Tony Ung and we’ve shared our conversation below.
Hi Tony, why did you pursue a creative career?
My decision to choose an artistic career doesn’t feel like a conscious career decision, but rather a life pursuit that I’ve been fortunate enough to make a living from. I think for a lot of artists, expressing themselves creatively comes naturally and when the art you produce is validated by others, it really lights a fire within you to continue pursuing it.
The combination of being deeply moved by art and obsessively curious about the constructs of life and culture has led me to become an artist. I want to create films about people, places, and things that have incited revelations for me and share that experience with others.
Ultimately, I want to be fulfilled by my efforts and the only way I know how to do that is through creative expression.
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.
I’ve always felt like an outsider and I think that informs a lot of my work as a filmmaker. I gravitate towards stories about the misunderstood and marginalized. There’s a famous Confucius saying, “Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.” That saying really resonates with me as I can find beauty in even the most mundane things. This world is filled with so much poetic beauty and I’d like to be the person who connects the dots for others to feel it. At the core, I am just a storyteller and I’ve chosen film as my medium to communicate.
Filmmaking, specifically directing, has always appealed to me because I don’t specialize in any particular discipline, however, I am very passionate about all the different mediums that come together to create a film and I enjoy being the curator in that process. It helps that I am a very opinionated person who has a strong vision for how things should be.
My journey in becoming a filmmaker all started with having access to the family video camera as a child. It was such a pure and innocent joy making films with my friends and watching them afterwards. That collaborative process was very satisfying and it led me on a path to make all sorts of films at a young age, mainly concerning whatever I was interested in at the time. I believe the first film I made was with toys. I don’t know if kids still play with toys the way we did back then, but we would improvise entire storylines, go on adventures, and complete missions. Once I had access to a camera, we started filming our toy-playing sessions and the funnest part was trying to evoke the drama of the made up stories through the camera. We did so through composition, camera movement, and sound effects. It’s kind of wild how naturally it came to me as a child, but then again, I watched a lot of movies and TV growing up so I was learning the language of cinema at a very young age.
Toy movies eventually evolved into action movies starring ourselves which then led to prank videos al a Jackass and then to skate and surf videos. On a philosophical level, I think seeing my friends and myself in the context of a movie really shaped the way I perceive my life. I began viewing my own life as if it were a movie and I wanted it to be a good one. A movie filled with comedy, romance, and drama! This helped me deal with the rollercoaster of emotions, tragedies, and traumas that come with being human. So rather than becoming totally consumed by these events, I’d be able to take a step back and think of them as elements that are making the movie, that is my life, more exciting. A true romantic, I know!
My love of filmmaking naturally evolved into a love for cinema. I studied film in college and had amazing professors that exposed me to a diverse array of cinema which further strengthened my passion for filmmaking. I worked on a lot of films and forged great friendships in college that would become beneficial after I graduated and moved to LA.
To be honest, finding a good job was difficult when I first graduated. No employer cares about how much you know about the French New Wave and you don’t just get to be a film director unless you’ve already done something noteworthy. I was green and I knew I had to get some sort of supplemental income while building up my reel. I applied to a bunch of jobs, while crashing on different people’s couches, even living in a van at one point. I moved to LA with $2000 in my bank account and shared a room in a Franklin Village with a friend from college.
My first job was editing wedding videos for some Beverly Hills company. It was a trip and I burned out quickly from how formulaic and repetitive it all was. All the while, I was making music videos and working as a production assistant on set.
After a year, I was yearning for a change of scenery when a friend from college hit me up and asked if I would be down to travel to Guatemala for 4 months to shoot a documentary. This came at just the right time and was the beginning of my growing propensity for taking risks in my career. I accepted it and was thrown into a new world, but ultimately learned a lot about what it takes to be committed to a project for a long time.
When I came back to LA, I was a changed person and more driven than ever. I was unemployed living in a converted dining room in Venice Beach, but still managed to make a short “city symphony” style film about my new home on the westside. Another friend from college shared the film with some people that worked at Media Arts Lab (Apple’s ad agency) and 3 days after applying for food stamps, I got a job offer. This started my career in the advertising world and I would eventually work at other agencies such as 72andSunny. I was able to sharpen my skills directing and shooting in-house productions and I also made a lot of great friends and built a network of people working in production.
Although the ad agency life was very comfortable, it wasn’t my end goal and I found myself with hardly any time to create personal work that was more fulfilling. So I made the tough decision of quitting and going freelance. It’s been 8 years since I left a full-time job and I haven’t looked back. Now I get to pick and choose what projects I work on, all while making time to work on personal projects that feed my soul.
Last year I embarked on a new project that required me to move to Hawaiʻi for 10 months to direct and shoot a documentary about schizophrenia. One year later, I’m proud to say that I’ve completed my first feature-length documentary and will be taking it on the film festival circuit. The film is titled, An Island of the Mind.
If there’s anything that I’ve learned from my career path, it’s to keep doing what fulfills you. I stayed persistent with making personal work while working jobs that paid the bills. Whether it was uprooting my life to move to a new place or quitting a comfortable job, taking risks have served me well. They say, “luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity” and I really believe that. I’ve created a lifestyle that stays open to new opportunities all the while putting in the work to hone my craft.
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.
First of all, I wouldn’t recommend anyone to come to LA unless they know someone who lives here. Having a local friend is really like having a key to the city. Luckily for my friend, I’ve called this city home for over 12 years and grew up in nearby Long Beach so I know it pretty well.
For a week long visit, I would create an itinerary that would emphasize LA’s strengths, this would include the diverse food scene, proximity to nature, and plethora of arts and cultural events.
Lifehack, I would have my friend fly into Long Beach Airport to avoid the chaos at LAX, and then I can show them around my hometown. We can shake off those plane legs and walk around the Long Beach Antique Market. Once we’ve built up an appetite, we can hit up Phnom Penh Noodle House for some Khmer soup noodles. Then we’ll take out my inflatable dinghy boat and cruise around the marina. We can dock at Ballast Point to watch the sunset and have a drink.
Now for our time in LA, we’re gonna start the day with a hike up to Griffith Observatory via the Fern Dell Trail. For lunch, we can go to Thai Town and get a meal at Ruen Pair. Then hit up Wacko and Goodwill down the street and maybe even get ice cream at Jeni’s.
For a more chill day, we’re ordering Sqirl to-go and heading to Echo Park to picnic. Then we can hang out at The Semi-Tropic for some drinks. End off the day with a meal at Pine and Crane.
The swell is up, so we’re going surfing, but we’re skipping Malibu and El Porto and heading down to PV to get waves in a more natural setting with less of a crowd. Post-surf we’re head up to Tokyo Central to find something to eat and buy some Japanese goods.
The temperature is dropping and the stars are aligning for a trip out to Joshua Tree to watch a band at Papi + Harriet’s and spend a couple days hanging out, cooking, and stargazing.
For our last day we’re cruising to Arts District to eat at Bestia and hit up some galleries. After an early dinner, we’re going to Little Tokyo to visit some shops and pop into bars like Wolf & Crane and The Let’s Go. After bar hopping, we’re finishing the night the right way with some tacos from Avenue 26 Tacos.
Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Despite being the only person in my family pursuing a creative career, my family has always been supportive of me being a filmmaker. My cousins are all doctors, lawyers, or engineers, so I’m a bit of a black sheep. However, my parents never pushed me to do anything in particular and I’m very appreciative of that. I know for a lot children of immigrants that sort of loose approach from their parents is not very common, but my parents just care that I’m healthy and happy. Both of my parents are refugees of war, my father from Vietnam and my mother from Cambodia. I don’t know to what extent they see my career trajectory as a pursuit of the American dream, but it does feel like we’re moving the needle in deconstructing the concept of a “model minority.”
Website: http://tonyung.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tony.ung?igsh=MmVlMjlkMTBhMg%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
Youtube: https://youtube.com/@tonyisooo?feature=shared
Image Credits
Mari Weiss
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