Meet Byung Chan Jang

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Byung Chan Jang. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Byung Chan, really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?

I didn’t always know that I’d be a filmmaker. It was a particularly frigid winter, of my freshmen year at Johns Hopkins, where, for the first time in my life, I had to reflect on who I was and I was on track to become. And for the first time, I was stuck pondering the answer to a question that I didn’t even realize would be relevant to a 20 year old’s life. Quickly enough, dread overwhelmed my senses; the dread that I had wasted all my parent’s time, money, and effort in securing a successful future for me, not knowing if I knew who I was becoming. Or it could’ve been the dread that I was on track to become a nobody. But how could that be? I came to a renowned medical school in hopes of saving lives.
But through all this mental turmoil, one thing kept me smiling through all the unknowns, was movies. Watching the right film at the right time does more than simply provide you a couple hours of escape from reality. The right film comforts you by making you feel heard, empowers you to keep your chin up and move on, and in turn brings you back to look at your reality in a different light. And in many occasions, good films have steered me away from making what could have been irreversible choices. And In many ways, that felt exactly the same as what doctors do to us, just physically. Plus, I won’t be restricted by the physicality of my doctor’s office. A good films cannot only crack a laugh or two, but it heals your pains and saves you from feeling like you’re drowning every minute. And ever since Charlie Kaufman lifted me up, I knew what my purpose was; to tell stories from my heart, in hopes of touching, hopefully, even a single human soul.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

I’m a freelance director/writer of fictional narratives, although they can be loosely based on or inspired by real events, organizations, or people. I find that by exploring stories where people come into conflict and result in consequences that have much more collateral damage than they realized, the moments where one loses their cool, so to speak, I get to explore the deepest corners of human psyche. Because I think it is precisely these moments where we get to explore and spark an interesting conversation about society. And simply put, it allows for gripping stories to be told with many moments of character decisions and thought processes that audience could relate to or question. And even when that relatability comes from a character’s desire deemed taboo or a guilty pleasure, the film invites us to a deeper reflection; nothing hits me harder than realizing I was rooting for technically-the-bad-guy all along.
My latest film is Rooftop, and it’s currently in the festival circuit. We hope as many people get to hear the story of Korean Americans during the Rodney King protests of 1992. And I believe it makes the audience leave with questions worth pondering, as I believe that the lack of conversation around this topic in the Korean American community is precisely the reason why it still suffers from racism-related issues. As a filmmaker, my goal is to start a conversation, which is the first step towards healing our generational conflict.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

Patience, passion, and acceptance. Patience to wait for your turn and to carry a project through the finish line is one of the key qualities as a filmmaker, as many projects never get to cross that line, if it even had the luck to escape the writer’s brains in the first place. It’s also the patience to be attentive to everything around me. And without passion, I wouldn’t have the motivation to be patient. And along the similar lines, I think being accepting of things at face value has helped me through filmmaking a lot. You can only be so prepared, and there are simply just too many variables in a movie set that something could and likely would end up going wrong at some point. There’s no need to get hung up on it, as that’s just more waste of a time. Accept what happens, and try to work with it is the best way. So it puts me in a problem-solving-ready mindset, which I think is most of the director’s job on and off the set. Make the movie work with what you have to so that it has your intended effect on the viewers.

To close, maybe we can chat about your parents and what they did that was particularly impactful for you?

One of the three qualities I mentioned previously, patience, mostly comes from the fact that I was lucky to have such patient parents. They never rushed me to do things, which actually encouraged me to do things on my own even more. Go at my own pace, but it would be totally up to me to carry myself through the journey, learning by trial and error. But they would always be right there if I needed to fall back on. Because I think it is very important that a dancer knows to dance at their own pace, that looks the best, regardless of the types of songs or BPM that the dancer’s competitors are dancing to. And being able to dance to my own rhythm and go at my own pace, I felt that I gain the tenacity to follow through the post-production of film projects that often take years to finish and the ability to stay true to my heart as a storyteller; I truly get the time to find and tell the stories I think other people find are worth their time as well. It’s almost like learning to think, before you speak, and filmmakers speak through their movies. And rushed thoughts are often worth keeping to oneself.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://ChAnimationFilms.com
• Instagram: @bcjang925
• Linkedin: bcjang925
• Youtube: ChAnmationStudios

Image Credits

Vinh Pham
Kyu Sun Hong