Meet Yayun Hsu: Producer

I soon realized that my birthplace of Taiwan didn’t offer a true path to what I craved, and that only a serious commitment to move to the heart of the action would be needed.  So with my big dreams (and a few bigger bags), I left my home of Taiwan and set my sails towards the shore of opportunity that was Hollywood.

At first, I have to admit the feeling of risk was scary. I knew no one. I didn’t have any connections or jobs waiting for me, but I knew the only way to learn was to just jump head-in and go for it.  So I dug in my heels and tried to learn as much as could.

I focused my energy on anything skill-related to getting a job in entertainment.  I spent my nights and weekends glued to online tutorials.  If it was a new skill, I wanted to learn it.  Then I volunteered to work with any legitimate production just to practice my newly learned skills.

Over the course of the next year I found I had learned many elements of production.  Budgeting, casting, storyboarding, setting up permits, editing, animating motion graphics, color correction, sound mixing, you name it!  And if there was a session I could sit in on, or a producer who could teach me something new, I paid close attention.  I truly put my heart into it!

My hard work finally paid off when I was approached by a local production company, Station22 to come onboard as a content producer.  It would end up being one of the most rewarding experiences in my career,  because it exposed me to so many different types of high profile work, and allowed me to hone my skills as a producer.

So the risk of leaving my comfort zone in Taiwan for the unknown had finally paid off and set me on my dream career!

One recent stand out project we just completed was for Sony.  Sony electronics had approached us, because they were releasing a new pair of headphones called the MX4’s.  What makes these headphones special is that they are able to reproduce sound spatially in a 360 listening sphere.  Kind of like 3D vision, but for sound.  To launch these headphones off, they wanted to produce a commercial that would air during the Sony keynote speech at CES, which is the consumer electronics convention, and show off the new functionality of the headphones to the world.

Using my producing skills, I was able to secure Grammy award winning Keith Harris, who is the musical director for the Black Eyed Peas, Whitney Houston, Busta Rhymes, and Michael Jackson.

I then pitched him our concept, which was to place Keith in a virtual world of sound, where 3D music spheres would be coming at him from all directions.  To accomplish this I needed to coordinate specialized motion control filming rigs that our VFX team could use to create the virtual landscape.

This was a new skill I had to learn quickly, because motion control rigs are so specialized in the industry, and they were vital to the success of the campaign, so everything had to be coordinated and planned perfectly.

The end result of the project was a huge success from both a creative and measurability stand point, being viewed by a live audience of over one million people.  We were able to calculate that the retention rate of the viewing audience was over 80%, which is a metric I’m very proud of!

Another project I recently worked on was the “Shein Together” Global streaming event which was an emergency COVID-19 solidarity response event, taking place on the cusp of the pandemic May 9, 2020.  Being a four-hour digital live streaming event, it was a massive undertaking production-wise and scheduling wise for me as a producer.

Hosted by E! News’ “The Rundown” host Erin Lim, the streaming event featured many powerful artists and influencers such as Katy Perry, Lil’ Nas X, Rita Ora, Doja Cat, Hailey Bieber and more, all joining the event to raise money to help people in need.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, all live events and productions were canceled. Shifting gears from the industry as we know it, everything became “virtual”, meaning instead of filming in person, everything was done remotely. It became the new way of producing content.

It was my first virtual event, and I was so proud to work with and be trusted by so many celebrities but also nervous at the same time. During the streaming event it was intense because the celebrities were not physically on set, so I didn’t have full control of their on stage and performance time like we would in a traditional environment.   In fact, one of the celebrities overslept and couldn’t join the show on time, so  immediately as the producer I had to make the decision to put up a backup pre-record segment to buy time and had the host interact with the audience until the talent was ready to be on camera with the host. Very nerve racking, but as a producer, remaining calm and solving the problem is one of my strengths that I’m proud of.

The event was a celebrated success, with over 1.6 million live views and we raised over half a million dollars for Covid research!