Meet Melanie Rish-ho

We recently connected with Melanie Rish-ho and have shared our conversation below.

Melanie, we’re thrilled to have you sharing your thoughts and lessons with our community. So, for folks who are at a stage in their life or career where they are trying to be more resilient, can you share where you get your resilience from?

My resilience comes from desire. Since a young age, I have been obsessed with characters and comedy. Growing up in Hong Kong with 3 english TV channels, I savored these things wherever I saw them- in the bumbling anchor of the nightly news, the overly serious scholar being interviewed on BBC, or the tearful mother speaking to camera in a Kleenex commercial. And, of course, in movies.

I quickly learned that not everyone noticed how wonderfully funny people were, and that I could point it out. I honed my skills of impersonating characters, not only the ones I saw on TV and in movies, but the ones who acted as regular players in my life. When I was lucky, my older sister would join me in making up scenarios and playing them out, and then she’d help me film it all. I’ll never forget the feeling of showing my friends and family these tapes and watching them laugh. I was capturing and sharing what I loved most about life.

I didn’t know it at the time, but I was, essentially, writing and directing. To this day, when I watch a comedic film, I’m struck by a realization: this filmmaker saw something or someone that made them laugh. And they went through all the trouble of making a movie, just to share that laugh with me.

Pursuing film has been not been easy. I spent four years in undergrad churning out (mostly bad) short films and exercises, worked for three years as a commercial production coordinator, putting in 12+ hour days to make a living and get my feet wet on set, and then I spent four more years in an MFA, making (hopefully much better) short films and writing features. And I still feel that my career is in its beginning stages.

I am still, and will probably always be, obsessed with characters and comedy. And I’m grateful for that. Life, and its colorful cast of people, move me in a way that makes me need to capture what I see and share it. If I didn’t have this deep desire, I would have quit a long time ago.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

I graduated in May from the Film MFA at Columbia University, and since then am working on launching my career as a writer and director. This looks like revising my existing feature screenplays and finishing post-production on my short films. My ultimate goal is to bring my features to life.

I also teach undergraduate screenwriting as an adjunct at Columbia, and serve as an advisor for Sundance Collab’s Core Elements Screenwriting course, where I help writers turn an idea into an outline for a feature film.

What I love most about what I do is that each of my stories, as well as the stories of my students, have a life of their own. Writing, for me, is less about making something than it is about finding something– the right structure, the right characters, the right ending. When a story really comes to life, it will reveal itself to you and tell you about itself.

One more thing you should know about me is that most of my work tends to live in the realm of romantic comedy, a genre I believe is worth protecting and reviving!

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?

Knowing what to say yes to and what to say no to. It has instrumental for me to understand my own limited capacity. Pursuing my passion has meant learning to say no to things that may be good, but will drain me.

Letting go of being great while I’m young. In my twenties, I felt a pressure to be creatively great, and quickly. Over time, I’ve learned that a truly great creative career, the kind that lasts, is one that is built steadily over time. These days, most of my creative heroes are much older, and I’m more interested in playing the long game like they did.

Making things I like. My sense of joy and fulfillment from my own work sustains me more than anything. If you don’t enjoy the day to day of the work, but find yourself slaving away at it, you may be focused on recognition rather than making something great. It will never produce as good of a result. Make something you like, not something you think others will like.

Before we go, maybe you can tell us a bit about your parents and what you feel was the most impactful thing they did for you?

The most impactful thing my parents did for me was to believe in my dream alongside me, and allow me to pursue it in college. Going to an arts school was not the norm at all in my family, and felt like a risk. But seeing that my parents supported me in doing it showed me that they also believed the arts were worth pursing in a real way.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://melanierishho.com