Today we’d like to introduce you to Daniel Chiang.
Daniel, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
The first time I felt inspired to be a filmmaker was in high school after I watched a Taiwanese Romantic TV show called “Ex-Boyfriend, “that’s when I knew I wanted to create my vision and influence the world. Since my freshmen year in college, I started to learn all my skill and knowledge from books and some YouTube tutorials, but since YouTube didn’t had too much tutorials at that time, I started to notice the limitations of self-learning, on top of that I majored in computer science for my bachelor degree and that made it harder to find people who would be willing to make the videos with me, and after that, I finally decided to put my feet outside to real world.
I started to shoot wedding video in the second year of my college, in that period I didn’t only just built the foundation for my filmmaking skill, but also meet more new friends and people to bring me into more of different kind of projects. Time by time, I gradually started to shoot some commercials and music videos, but at that time, to make my works and freelance business to stand out, I needed to learn more things about design to enhance the quality of my video work. So I spent almost one-year learning Graphic design and UI/UX design, and eventually, not just brought my video works to a whole different level but I also started to be a freelance designer.
After I graduated from college, I kept being a full-time freelancer for almost two years. One day, as I sat in front of my laptop editing my freelance project, I suddenly started to get tired of everything I was doing and had this extremely unsatisfied feeling within myself, I figured I needed to learn more things to become a better filmmaker, so I decided to apply in the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) where I got my Master’s in Film Production.
After I got into the school, I was able to learn and search more deeply for the understanding of myself as a filmmaker and then I knew what the path I would choose was. I started to be obsessed by the cinematography and lighting technique, so I put all my time and effort to learn it during the program, it was an opportunity, I could be a cinematographer on the set, the more love and passion I feel for wanting to be a cinematographer in the future, was beyond imagination. During the time in my master’s school, I was lucky enough to be the director for some commercials and music videos, as for example, me and my crew helped Giftpack company to shoot their 90-sec commercial, in August 2019, which I think it was an amazing experience to me, working in it gave me the chance to learn more things in the real American film industry. It’s been two months since I got my masters and I will keep chasing my dream as a filmmaker, I will always keep learning and i hope one day, I can use my vision to make an impact on the world.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I will always be challenging when it comes to be an artist, not only your work need to be stand out, but as a freelancer, you also need to make sure your business side is on the right track, sometimes you would need to work on some projects, that you don’t really want to work on, just because you need to pay your bills, so I would say, all the road I’ve been through, wasn’t that easy, but I enjoy the challenges and keep learning and improving myself every single time.
Please tell us more about your work. What do you do? What do you specialize in? What sets you apart from competition?
I’m a Director & Cinematographer. I shoot various kinds of videos like commercial videos, music videos and films but when I’m off the set, I work as an Editor and Colorist. I also do the photography on the side. I love to capture the moment, it gives me a feeling of power. I believe my work can be different than others and I have three reasons behind it.
First of all, as a cinematographer, I extremely care about the visuals for my work, I always make sure the frame and the lighting can be the most efficient and I try to find the most beautiful way to tell the story in every single shot, as a storyteller, I strongly believe that how you made your work looks, on the screen, is all that matter. Second, by the design background I had, I think my work is really different from the design looks, ex. Title text, text font, animation design. I believe that great design for the video can bring the whole project to a whole different level.
Last, I think the color of my work is always a big reason why people love to watch the videos I made, making sure the video color is on the right track is always really important to me, not just let the visual looks cinematic but also I make sure the color I pick can represent the story the most.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
I think I don’t really have a specific proudest moment, but I’m really proud of I’m doing the things I love.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.danielchiangfilmforlive.com
- Phone: 4043760922
- Email: danielchiangfilmforlive@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/danielchiang0620/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002144608861
Image Credit:
@danielchiang0620
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