We recently had the chance to connect with Huiyu Zhou and have shared our conversation below.
Huiyu, so good to connect and we’re excited to share your story and insights with our audience. There’s a ton to learn from your story, but let’s start with a warm up before we get into the heart of the interview. What is a normal day like for you right now?
A typical day for me now involves working 12 hours straight on editing. When you choose the freelance path, that kind of routine becomes the norm for most of us.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
My name is Huiyu Zhou, and I’m a freelance post-production editor who recently graduated from Chapman University. As an international student who has lived in the U.S. for the past seven years, I’ve had the opportunity to experience diverse cultures and learn to approach new environments with an open mind. This mindset has deeply shaped the way I observe and interpret stories—observation has become one of my most valuable tools in the editing process.
Currently, I’m working on a vertical mini-drama series—a format consisting of short episodes, typically one to two minutes each, with around 80 episodes making up the full series.
Thanks for sharing that. Would love to go back in time and hear about how your past might have impacted who you are today. What’s a moment that really shaped how you see the world?
As an international student who came from China and spent six years in the US, I have experienced two different kinds of culture and social structures since I was 18 years old. It’s a journey in which you have to always change perspectives to see through things in two different kinds of ways. As I grew up and studied in these years after I was in the US, I think I heard a lot of different kinds of voices about the world and how people decide to live. Some of my friends decide to devote themselves to a life that can give them more honor and titles so that they can get involved in a better social class. Some of my friends decided to move to a quiet place where they could have a private life with the one whom they love. Some people decide to go back to their hometown because they feel like they don’t have a sense of belonging in a foreign place and nostalgia is the disease that makes them delicate inside. Some people, such as me who don’t have ideas about what will happen in the future and still hoping there could be a chance for me to expand more vision to see through the world, decide to keep observing and learning modestly.
I am a filmmaker, an editor, a storyteller, and a girl who keeps searching for a way to survive in this world, always hearing people talk about their own lives and opinions about the world. The world has a lot of diversity. In my perspective, the world has its generosity. This generosity gives a space for people who come from different places to speak their stories to the public and let the public get more visions of a different culture. In the process of seeing and listening to different people’s lives and voices, I generally discover that life is not easy for all people no matter how much property they have or how much experience they gain in the secular way. The different voices and the vision that I gain through the process of listening to the public, in my opinion, create creativity because it is not a thing that always black and white. It has a grey area for people to see and to understand the complication of humanity. Therefore, listening to others probably is the best way for me to keep my creativity alive.
Was there ever a time you almost gave up?
Back in 2022, I was in the fourth year of my undergraduate time and my mental status was not stable because of COVID-19. I feel depressed by the mode which people have to live in during that time. I feel like there is no tomorrow for me to live. I have been separated from my family for about three years during that time. The nostalgia makes me wonder about my future. I have no idea what would happen to me.
During that time, the film was the only thing that I could do to build an emotional connection and get my numb heart back. I didn’t treat myself as a filmmaker during that time since I knew I didn’t have backup knowledge about the production and the set. However, I still want to give it a try because I don’t know what could happen in the future and there is nothing else that can make me feel better except film.
At the beginning of this creative journey, I just wanted to find a place to escape and hide so that I could find stable mental health and security because the depressed atmosphere of covid 19 makes me crazy.
I applied to 11 film schools. The time for me is not enough because I need to prepare my portfolio and also take my regular lessons for the fourth grade at the same time. I remember the whole time of March was suffering to me because the other 10 film schools gave me rejections. Only Dodge Film School gave me the offer. Back to now, the whole process seems like a gamble for me but it still gives me a lot of inspiration in my life to persist in my creative journey.
Being a filmmaker definitely is one of the boldest choices that I ever made in my life. It is a job that you need to quickly catch the audience’s various tastes and you need to follow the trend of the era ( such as vertical ) so that you would not lack the source of the information of the inner changing of the film industry. Being a filmmaker means you will not have a stable income source because it depends on the social network which you build on in the film industry. It is a job that usually needs to take a gamble on balancing your personal life and discovering more of your potential.
So a lot of these questions go deep, but if you are open to it, we’ve got a few more questions that we’d love to get your take on. What do you believe is true but cannot prove?
I believe people rarely intend to hurt one another, but misunderstandings and mistrust often arise—especially when it comes to the creative process. Creativity is deeply personal, and when emotions, visions, or expectations aren’t clearly communicated, it’s easy for collaboration to turn into conflict.
As an editor, I’ve learned that empathy and patience are just as important as technical skills. My job isn’t just about cutting footage—it’s about understanding the intention behind each scene, respecting the voice of the director, and finding a rhythm that connects emotionally with the audience. That requires trust, open dialogue, and sometimes the willingness to let go of one’s ego to serve the story as a whole.
Okay, so let’s keep going with one more question that means a lot to us: What pain do you resist facing directly?
I believe this isn’t a pain unique to me—it’s something many of us carry as the years go by. I’ve learned to manage loneliness and moments of isolation; those emotions, while difficult, are familiar and somewhat within my control. But what remains truly hard to confront is the feeling of not belonging.
Belonging isn’t just about being physically present—it’s about feeling seen, understood, and accepted without having to constantly explain yourself. As someone who has moved between cultures, languages, and expectations, I often find myself floating somewhere in between, not fully rooted in one place or another. This in-between space has taught me a lot about empathy and identity, but it also comes with the quiet ache of disconnection.
Ironically, it’s this very feeling—of searching for belonging—that fuels my creative work. Through editing, I try to weave emotional truths that resonate universally. Maybe, in helping to tell others’ stories, I’m also slowly piecing together my own sense of place.
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