I’m in my final year of pursuing an MFA in Film Production at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts. Studying at USC is definitely not an easy journey, but I love that it gave me challenges and helped me grow. We had great opportunities to learn and explore all aspects of the roles in filmmaking through practice. I learned not only the creative side of storytelling but also how to work with people, which is incredibly crucial. Knowing that I wanted to pursue a career in sound design before coming to USC, I’m honored to learn from the professors who are the best in the field, and all of my experience at USC has been so valuable and led me further on the road that I want to pursue.

I then hope to apply my education and pursue studio employment experiences in sound design and audio mixing while strategically developing plans for the establishment of my own studio service capabilities and beyond. I plan to become a working audio professional as a re-recording mixer working on films and sound.

"Until The Day" by Yushu Shen (Synopsis)

Amos settles down on a deserted planet to get away from the traumas of his past on Earth. He only has his A.I. computer assistant keeping him company while he efficiently fulfills his duties on the planet to take care of himself. His desire for a life of solitude fades over the span of a few years and his depression becomes worse and worse as he realizes he wants human companionship. When tremors are detected underneath the planet’s body of water and causes a tsunami, he must decide to either die on the deserted planet in a flood or leave to back to
Earth. He tries to fix the sea walls to prevent the flood but fails at doing so. He decides to give up and succumb to his death.

“Until The Day” was created during my writing class a semester ahead. The writing process was difficult, but it was unique to me that my professors and peers gave me a lot of support.

It was an independent project, and we were paired in trios to shoot three 5-minute scripts in one semester, including the post-production process. We rotated between the roles of Director, Producer, and Director of Photography. My producer Gregory Roberts was incredibly helpful and managed to make the film come true under the short of budget.

Sci-fi has always been a genre that I’m fascinated with. I have to confess that I always found myself daydreaming about how I would be inside the sci-fi universe after watching films such as “Blade Runner” and “Dune”. One thing that I realized through my study is that all films are essentially telling the same stories no matter the genre of the film, “The Lion King” just seems to be an animated version of “Hamlet”. Although having a limitation of budget and time for “Until The Day” as we had to complete and screen the film in class, I wanted to challenge myself by telling the story through the sci-fi backdrop. It felt incredible that we managed to complete it at the end.

It’s famous to film students that George Lucas once said, “Sound is 50 percent of the movie-going experience”. To me, the most exciting part of the sound is that the better the sound is created the less the audience would realize. It struck me the first time when I was in a film sound class at the University of Surrey during my undergraduate study. I remember we were studying ”Harry Potter” the scene at the Burrow when Harry and Ginny were kissing for the first time; George (Ginny’s brother) sneaked behind them and gave them a smirk. On top of the music and the movement sound between Harry and Ginny. When the moment is interrupted by George, the ticking clock is exaggerated, which instantly pulls us out of the romantic atmosphere and reveals Harry’s awkwardness. In addition to this, Mr Weasley’s voice outside the window can be heard throughout the scene without us paying too much attention. Not until later, our attention is drawn to him with his voice heard louder and louder, and finally, it leads to a close-up shot of him performing such a smooth transition. Before then, I only listened to everything as a harmonious whole instead of noticing the intricate layers of sound and its power to create dimensional places from such a ‘normal’ scene. The power of sound is invisible, but it is the most powerful way to evoke emotion to the audience.

My early childhood experience singing and performing for the Beijing Philharmonic Choir and around the world is what first sparked and ignited my interest in sound and creating sounds of various types. My curiosity about the technical craft behind the art of storytelling is what ultimately pushed me to pursue an education in sound design. As an operatic singer, besides the constant practice and the technical skills of singing, you’d also have to study the meaning behind the lyrics in a different language, and the story of the character you are trying to say in the scene. Each part of it is greatly connected to sound design in filmmaking. As a singer, it was easy for me to pick up the voice or vocal sound, which helps in the aspect of dialogue editing. You’d also need to concentrate on the accompaniment while you are singing and what chords or rhythms the song is progressing; this is also equivalent to the background, sound effects, and music when you’re thinking of the sound as layers. The balance between them is crucial, and I often count on my intuition to determine which elements to use or hide to tell the story of each scene.

It was a challenge to create an outer space world that would provide a lonesome and depressive environment for the main character, Amos. What made it more difficult was that we rented a storage place in a residential area in LA, and there were constructing sound while we were filming. It took me many efforts to clean the production sound and bring it into an imaginary reality. I also watched a lot of sci-fi films and searched for many sfx and layered them in the background of the film. There is a certain low frequency buried inside the background throughout the film by instinct as a human we find them cold and discomfort, and it also serves as a hint of what comes next to the story that the planet is about to collapse, I worked on a lot of the sound effects to create the contrast when we’re at the outside world.

Another fun challenge was the voice of computer David. My producer, Gregory, is also a fantastic voice actor. I recorded his voice for David and used plug-ins such as doubler and synthesized his voice. The idea was that the computer David started as a machine but gradually learned from Amos and became more like a human while Amos lost his hope of living in the past of time. Amos is also a messenger to God, taken from one of the authors from the Psalm, David is the connection between Amos and God.

Sound definitely plays a more and more important role, whether it is a blockbuster film or not. I had the honor to meet the sound designer of Dune Mark Mangini, during the Cinema Audio Society’s award, which I was very lucky to win the Student Recognition Award of 2024. His film “32 Sounds” explored all aspects of sound, and it struck me the most with the power of sound to bend time and travel across the border, which also won the outstanding achievement in sound editing and mixing for the documentary category. By talking to him I learned how he designed “Dune” what has greatly shaped my perspective on designing sound and how important sound is as an integrated part of the story even before the post-production process. With more and more documentaries about sound, I believe more and more filmmakers are realizing the magic of sound.

I would like to concentrate on working with sound, developing, and growing as much as possible as a multi-sided filmmaker. I think it’s important to focus on one strength that I’m good at as a standing point. As filmmaking is a passion of mine, I’d love to become a director once I accumulate more experience in the field.

The genre that I love designing the sound for and the most challenging – Horror. Sometimes people might consider horror pieces to be easy to design with that you just have to create the jump scare to the audience. But I think there’s a great deal of thinking behind it, especially for the psychological horror. I took many inspirations from the films “Midsommar” and “Men” both from A24. To build up a climax, it takes a lot of effect, which I think it’s the hardest part to design the contrast in-between. Because I think when you want something impactful or loud, first you have to create “quiet”. It’s the exaggeration of what the character is hearing without the audience realize it. To put a cherry on top, you misplace a sound or take a sound such as the one element of the background away from it, it disturbs and adds the sense of uncomfortable to the scene.

I’m working on a couple of projects within and outside USC as a sound designer and mixer. Now that I’ve developed my own studio setup with the award money from CAS, I’m confident and am crafting my skills step by step, hoping to become a professional in the field. I am always looking for emotional and unique stories and eager to use my strength of sound to tell the story.