BEHIND
THE
SCREEN

WHO ARE YOU? WHAT ARE EACH OF YOUR ROLES ON THE TEAM?

S: I'm Sonia, I do a lot of the art side of things, like costuming and art direction.

EV: I'm Evan. I produce, direct, and edit. A lot of other things too.

K: I'm Katelyn, I'm interested in directing and producing, but right now my focus is on makeup and set design, making props, things like that.

C: SINCE EVAN IS THE FOUNDER, WHEN DID YOU GUYS JOIN THE COMPANY?

K: We actually joined pretty recently.

S: It’s been only like, three weeks.


HOW WAS IT ADDING MEMBERS TO FAMILY VIDEO STORE?

EV: I think I'm always on the lookout for new talent. That was kind of the whole basis of the company. I wanted to create a network for queer POC in general, whether it's the artists and musicians we shoot, or the filmmakers we work with, or the stylist or makeup artist or anyone that helps with production, you know? If you've ever seen Guardians of the Galaxy, it's like when they all have to share the Power Stone. It's actually hella hard for just one person to hold it, you know what I mean? So it's good to have people sharing that for sure. And it's just more ideas. I've had a lot of different people go in and out of different sets, but I’ve never really hired people to join Family Video Store itself.



DID YOU GUYS HAVE CREATIVE HISTORY? HOW DID THIS COME ABOUT?

S: Katelyn and I already knew each other from school, but I think our first actual time meeting Evan, we were already working together. Katelyn and I signed up to be extras for a music video and then –

EV: I forgot about that actually. That seemed so inconsequential at the moment. I posted on Instagram like, "Hey, I need extras!" And they had just flown in that afternoon and they were like, "Yeah, we’re down." We met and talked about creative stuff and clicked, so it just felt natural. Plus they both had such a love for hyperpop, and it's hard to find people into that genre. I started Family Video Store as a hyperpop-centric production company, not just in the artists we work with, but also in our entire approach to filmmaking. In similar ways, our goal is to violently blend genres and push boundaries.


HOW DID YOU GUYS GET INTO YOUR RESPECTIVE ART FORMS?

S: Yeah, so I think I've always been interested in the artistic side of things, growing up. And then I went to school for art and design. So a lot of my background is in fine arts, but I ended up going to a school focused on interdisciplinary art and kind of just collaborating with other people and collaborating with film departments and stuff like that. I felt a lot more interest in artistic forms that focused on community and collaboration. So that’s kind of how I ended up in this world of music videos, film related stuff, and costume design.

K: I feel like I've always been really interested in art as well. I was really lucky that I was able to attend an art studio growing up. Having that community of people who were interested in art, and I could grow alongside, was really important to me growing up. But actually, I'm still attending university in Michigan. And so it's not specifically an art school, and I bounced around a lot of majors before becoming interested in art again, film specifically is really interesting because film aims to attach the viewer to a sense of self and to display  a specific subject matter and I feel like I'm really interested within art and film in not only transforming the subject matter but the viewer and in terms of reality and how it's shaped by POC and queer experiences. I really want to explore identity — like Sonia said, find community while also kind of redefining how certain themes and subjects are defined by boundaries like, this is exactly what this is versus something else.

EV: Yeah, I mean a lot of it was semi-forced on me in a way. My parents made me take piano, , art class, and a lot of, uh, trumpet. I tried the French horn at one point too. I did the cello for a day. But I wasn't good at any of them, you know? And the guitar still, to this day, I know five tabs.

E: Is that a lot? Is that a lot of tabs?



EV: It's not a lot. I like listening to music, not so much playing it. It felt like a natural progression going into music videos. I grew up in the movie theater. That was something I was curious about from a young age, what's behind the screen and all. But making videos was a struggle in the sense that my parents were actually quite against it. My dad had this one camera I would steal to film videos with my stuffed animals, all around the house. I would edit them together in Windows Movie Maker.

    EV: But again my parents didn't really like the stuff I did. I was quite mischievous. I would put our family vacation photos in Photoshop and swap my mom’s and dad's faces. Then I would delete the originals. There are still framed photos in my kitchen that I drew all over. There’s a picture of my mom in a field and I drew little UFOs in the background to make it look like, “Oh my god a real UFO!” like photo evidence. So without a doubt, I've always been curious about doing visual art in a way.

    EV: So yeah my parents were not very happy when I started making live action videos with my church friends. I was ten or eleven maybe. I was raised in a Chinese Christian church so I made little skits and videos with all my church friends and I would post them to YouTube. It was basically my first time directing. And the videos were pretty harmless, you know? They were silly but all the church moms and dads were very unhappy with our faces being on the internet. They made me take them all down and I think that just made me really sad for a while. I felt so defeated. I didn’t talk to my parents for a week, and I grew up fast after that. I didn't even touch a camera for a decade.



NOW THAT YOU HAVE YOUR OWN COMPANY AND YOU HAVE WORKED FOR SOME BIG NAMES SUCH AS DAZED KOREA, HAS THEIR PERCEPTION CHANGED AT ALL?

EV: I think to them, it doesn't really mean anything. My parents are quite conservative and they’re not exactly familiar with pop culture, or American culture in general. I’ve always felt more validated by my peers and the people I look up to. They’re definitely a lot more supportive nowadays, but I do remember there's this one conversation. It was my sophomore year, my mom sat me down “for a talk.” It was a very rare incident, you know what I mean? She doesn't really communicate like that. It was around the time I was dropping my CS major. My mom was like, “Evan, I'm just worried about you pursuing film 'cause there's a lot of gay people in Hollywood and I'm really worried they're gonna influence you.”

EV: That's literally the line, 'cause I remember it word for word, it really wowed me. So I called my friend I was talking to and I told him all about it. He bought me a flight back to Michigan immediately 'cause I was crying, like “oh my God, like how am I supposed to stay in this house?” It was Christmas, too, you know? It was like, what the fuck?

C: So after that experience, was there tension between you and your parents?

EV: Yeah, for sure. That was absolutely very rough. It was a dark time, definitely.

E: Do you feel as if it's repaired at all, your relationship with them since then?

EV: Yes, significantly. And now I actively make sure that I see them. Back then I was running away from them. Now I actively try to keep in touch at least. I don't know, something just clicked. One day I was like, damn, one day I'm going to blink and I'm 80 and my mom's dead and that's going to suck. I don't even know what it was. One day something just snapped in me. I realized I should really talk to my parents more. Maybe it was Adam Sandler, have you seen Click?

E:  So you watched Click and then you were like, I should call my parents?

EV: Yeah, thank you, Adam Sandler.



PRICING YOUR WORK?

EV: I don't like to “price” things. I think it's really sad to put a monetary value to art. That's such a cliché answer. That's such a cop out. That's all I have to say.


SPECIFIC ARTISTIC INFLUENCES?

EV: I would shoot a free Ice Spice video for the record.

S: Not specifically, just since I work a lot more in the art realm, there's an artist, I don't know if you know Yeule, but I really like their style and how they approach their artistic identity in terms of their styling and their music. They all kind of fall into this world of cyber-identity and transhumanism. And they're just a huge inspiration because of the way they kind of, create a new universe almost, where they're kind of exploring how we can transcend things such as gender and redefine it.

S: And so I think that, because all their work is so heavily oriented around this, it’s something I also wanted to do with them by owning work and exploring how art and  clothing can impact identity and how we can use it to create changes within society. But yeah, I think their work is really inspirational to me.

EV: I follow a lot of directors– Věra Chytilová directed Daisies, this 1966 Czechoslovakian surrealist comedy which I thought was splendid. Sophomore year after that whole incident, that whole escape from my parents thing, I went down a rabbit hole of these strange arthouse films. Some of my favorites were Pink Flamingos, Tetsuo: The Iron Man, and Gummo. I’ve always been drawn towards trash cinema and hyperrealism, but also dark fantasy, like Tim Burton and Guillermo del Toro. That rabbit hole saved me in a way, but it was also a dark pit I was clawing myself out of. It got to a point of like, Cannibal Holocaust, movies like that. I’m huge into gimmick, and shock art, and camp. Lady Gaga too. Warhol by association. The Neorealists and Surrealists too. New French Extremity, Hong Kong New Wave, and Dogma 95, which was this film movement that had certain rules like you could only shoot handheld.



K: I’m a rising junior, and I spent most of my first two years in the corporate trenches. I was really driven by fear of my parents so I feel like I wasted that time but I think it needed to occur for me to reach a certain place. But a lot of the time was not spent exploring what I was interested in artistically and it was more focused on things outside of myself. I would say one person I look up to the most for inspiration is actually a professor of literature at my school named Daniel Valela.

K: I took a queer color theory class with him and I would say that has been one of the most life-defining experiences for me in terms of just artistically. Sonia mentioned the idea of transhumanism and of the cyborg. There's a book that we've both read that has influenced our work a lot called Glitch Feminism by Legacy Russell. And it explores ideas of how we can use the body and then source that side of it as a site of resistance. And I think just learning about theory in general and how it relates to, like I mentioned earlier, film is what has definitely influenced me the most. And I think one of the theorists on film called Franz Fanon is one of the people that has definitely been one of the larger influences this past semester that I've just been reading about a lot of theorists. And one of the really important things that he talks about is how it's not race or how someone is depicted racially, that is racist, but specifically about blackness on the screen, and it's more about how that race both precludes and concludes their existence as a figure on screen that's really important, and I think it's topics like these that I want to really focus on — the idea of a fantasy constructing these fictional realities and exploring how we can expand that idea.



DO YOU EVER FEEL FORCED TO PRODUCE ART?

EV: Yeah, I do feel forced sometimes. Thank you for asking. But it's my own personal forcing myself to do it. I think I am harsh on myself a lot. We just watched Turning Red yesterday, and there's one line in there that was like, “You try to make everyone happy but are so hard on yourself.” And I don’t want to perpetuate this idea that Turning Red sufficiently represents all of the Asian American diaspora, but it was cool to hear that line and think about the idea that you don't need to grind all the time. You can just chill sometimes. I do push myself though, but I also think a lot about Murphy's Law. I’ve learned to ride the wave, the ebb and flow of the universe.


HAS YOUR LOVE FOR FILM DECREASED NOW THAT IS A CAREER?

EV: No, not at all. I think every day it grows more and more and I think that's what makes it so beautiful and fun. I do have bad days, for sure. But then I remind myself that a year ago today, I wouldn’t even be able to fathom what I’m doing today. I hope people feel this way about themselves.



EVAN, YOU PREVIOUSLY WORKED IN TV PRODUCTION. HOW IS IT WORKING WITH A BIG CREW VS A SMALL CREW?

EV: Hmm, yeah, I like small crews,  I like the eight person team. You don't really need a lot to get things done if you're passionate about it. It just feels right being on a crew where it's so personal and you’re friends with everybody. That's so important, I think, towards this new wave of digital media we're entering.

C: Would you say having friends on a shoot is a good or bad thing?

EV: It's a neutral thing, like all things. I think it can be good for sure, and it can be bad in some ways. I try to not think about what's good or bad, because there is only one truth, which is decision. I've definitely worked a lot more by myself than with friends, especially first starting out. Right now I'm working with friends, and I like working with friends a lot more.


HAVE YOU EVER HAD ISSUES WITH A FRIEND ON SET?

EV: I mean yeah, there are people, but I don’t take things personally. There are people who have wronged me and I believe karma will get them. I'm saying that in the most neutral way. It’s not like I’m hoping it will happen, I just know it will happen.

EV: But yeah, there are certain people that I will not want to work with in the future, but there are also people that have completely changed my life view, or led to a life changing opportunity, you know what I mean? I love doing things for the plot. I'd rather have done something and regretted it than not have done anything at all.



NOW THAT YOU DO HAVE A TEAM, WHAT IS IT LIKE BEING THE LEADER?

EV: It's very natural because I view video sets like throwing parties and I used to throw a lot of parties in high school. It's about vibes, right? You just have to bring the right people together. That to me is direction. I’ve always struggled being in a position of authority though. I don't like to see myself as a “boss.” I don't like that idea, I don't like being called boss, or “daddy” or anything of that nature.

(LAUGHING)

E: Wait hold up, nobody said anything about that.

C: I’d hope you aren’t making them call you daddy.

EV: (LAUGHING) It just feels so heavy of a role, right? I see it more like I'm hosting this party, and my job is to invite an eclectic mishmash of talented people together. I see myself similar to Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters. Have you heard of The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test? It's a 1968 New Journalist book written by Tom Wolfe about Ken Kesey, the author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Ken would drive a painted school bus around San Francisco and picked up hippies and hitchhikers and handed out free acid and threw “Acid Test” parties. It was like a party bus with disco lights and stuff. I see myself similar to the driver of that bus. I've always been fascinated by the 60’s counterculture movement, the discovery of LSD. Psychedelics are quite revolutionary in treating complex PTSD. MDMA-assisted psychotherapy has become a lot more legitimate nowadays, same with psilocybin and ketamine. But anyways, yeah, back when I was a church kid, I was actually the youth leader too. They always put me in those roles, and I liked to do them because they were fun. So I feel I’m used to the role.


HOW HAS THE INTERNET AFFECTED YOUR CAREERS?

K: We met on the internet, and obviously Evan on the internet as well, but I think it's really important to me because part of it has to do with the internet being such a refuge for queer people of color. I think that it is a really important topic. But those labels of being people of color and queerness is a very reactionary term right? Because people of color just means anything that's non-white and then queerness just means anything outside of that cisgender heterosexual label. I think even though those are reactionary terms it's a way to find community with other artists and people who are involved in that, sort of like, or passionate about bringing people together. And so I think the internet overall is just really important in being able to use these terms in finding community for people who are marginalized.

S: I feel my opinion on the internet and just how it gets influenced is pretty similar. I see the internet as a tool that can be used for both, good or bad, right? And I think that, in this context, at least for like, my career and just meeting everyone and the people around me, I think it's a really important tool in terms of finding community and building spaces where we can have discussions and productive discussions and finding people and creating these collaborations and connections that otherwise would not be possible. I wouldn't have met both of them if I didn't have the internet, especially growing up in a predominantly white area. I think it's just a very important tool in terms of finding connection, finding identity, and everything in between.



EV:  For sure, yeah. I love the Internet. It's uh, I don't know, it's just there. It's not really good or bad, but it's the next logical step in human communication, at least within the society we've built already. It’s the reality we live in now. I think the internet raised me more than my parents did. Once I discovered YouTube, it was over. I was obsessed with Lady Gaga’s music videos and I always pretended I had “book reports” as an excuse to browse the Internet. Whenever my mom walked by, I quickly switched tabs to a Wikipedia page about Georgia. I “researched” the state of Georgia for a few months. So it was definitely an escape for me too.

EV: But there’s also this term, cyberutopianism, we were actually talking about right before the interview. It was kind of this belief early on, right when the internet first started, that the internet would be this new, open space with infinite real estate, no longer restricted by race and gender and class because we could all just be anonymous avatars, right? Floating in this digital soup that doesn't actually exist. It wasn't until once commerce got into the picture, and the Internet stopped being that. Unless you found websites that provided the community we're talking about. And I think that’s what happened– the birth of 4chan and forums, right? It’s perplexing that when the internet first started, the general consensus seemed to be in favor of anonymity. When you made a username you could make it whatever you want,  “fluffydog1” you know? There was no human identity to it. And I think that was very much in line with transhumanism, which is what Katelyn and Sonia were talking about, and being free of gender and class and race and colorism and all these things that limit modern society. Maybe it was when Facebook got big, right? Like, what else marked the shift? I think after Facebook came out, suddenly if you wanted to be online, you had to create a very revealing personal profile instead of hiding behind an avatar. It’s interesting for sure. Again, I don't believe in goods or bads. If it wasn’t for Mark Zuckerberg, we probably wouldn't even be together right now. Hi Mark, I know you’re listening.




WHO IS YOUR DREAM PERSON/BRAND TO WORK FOR? ANY PERSONAL GOALS?

S: I don't know if this is a cop out, but I don't specifically have a dream person or brand or anything. I think in terms of music video collaborating and stuff like that, it's definitely more about the people behind the scenes for me. Something that is very important to me is that aspect of “found family” on set and being able to really enjoy the process of creating something even if it is separate from who it's for. Obviously that's an important part of the creation. I think even more important than the client is the people behind the scenes and really having that great sense of collaboration. So yeah, just working with people that I admire and creating that kind of family is the most important thing. A good group of people, that's who I dreamed of working with basically.

K: Um, I guess this is more of a vague answer, but a really, core memory I have of when I was growing up. I would really love to draw things that I really wanted to see, just a phoenix or something in the library. And I remember vividly knowing within myself that if I could show what was in my head onto this piece of paper — these multiple pieces of paper I was taping together because it wasn't big enough or something that I was so sure it would eviscerate everyone in the room. I don't know how to describe it but as a kid I was just so sure that I could create this thing that when someone looked at it they would literally burst into flames from how much it would consume them. I think as I grew older, I realized as people when our identities are commodified and we become these labels, characters of ideas, I think I lost that because my sense of self disappeared over time. I feel like one day I can get back to that point where I feel what I remember feeling as a kid. I don't know what it's like anymore, but sometimes I can see glimpses of it within myself and I think one day I'll be able to get to a point where I can feel it once again for me. That's what I want to accomplish.

EV: Hmm, I was thinking about it. I would love to shoot an Apple commercial or a music video with SOPHIE. The latter is impossible, which is why it would be a dream.



THE FUTURE FOR FAMILY VIDEO STORE?

EV: This is gonna be a wet and wild and wacky summer. It's about to be a movie. Yeah so crazy, crazy stuff you’ll see in like, three months. I'm gonna say give it three months.

(DISCLAIMER: WE DID THIS INTERVIEW IN LIKE JUNE I’M SORRY EVAN I GOT OVERWHELMED -E)

EV: But, the future of Family Video Store is in building a network for queer and POC filmmakers, artists, creatives in general. I use “filmmakers” very loosely. It doesn't mean you have to know anything about cameras, it just means you are actively making a film, helping with set design, doing makeup, physically being on set. I love meeting strangers and inviting new people to make these “family videos” with. That’s kind of the intention with the name. Family Video Store is a chosen family, and we make home videos– moments of found footage here and there.



AS NEW MEMBERS, HOW HAS JOINING FAMILY VIDEO STORE BEEN?

S: I feel it's been a really nice thing for me specifically, because back in Michigan I worked in TV and the vibes are very different there. I think being a part of Family Video Store has changed how I looked at filmmaking and the entire process. It definitely made me significantly more excited about it, just because I think crew and the people I'm set are so important in terms of experience and also just the filmmaking process is so dependent and so heavily influenced by the people that are working behind the scene that I think being around a community or working with a community of queer and people of color has been extremely rewarding. I think it’s just a whole different world to me honestly and in my eyes it introduced me to what filmmaking can be. I don't know it's just got me significantly more excited and I'm enjoying it a lot more.

K: As I mentioned, during that first year or so I was very much driven by fear. Cause I think it's not mentioned as much but definitely within an immigrant family, there's a lot of pressure to undergo a certain lifestyle. I feel I didn't really get to see people around me, my demographic or who I knew. There was nobody who was older and an established creative. I almost couldn't even see myself in the field, like obviously there are queer/POC creatives but it's kind of difficult when you don't have anyone to talk about it with. It almost feels like, oh that's a reality for some people but it's not a reality I can ever achieve for myself. I think working on projects that are not just school sanctioned projects or kind of creative projects with your friends but genuine, I mean not saying that others weren't real. But working for a company creatively has been really life-changing and that I can understand that I can do the thing that I want to do and still have food. I don't know, just surviving I guess. So yeah just showing me the importance of intersectionality once again because I've also only gotten into film more in college so working on sets where it's definitely all white at a PWI is a very isolating experience.  The difference is really like day and night.

E: You guys wanna shout anyone out? Can we get a mom, a dad, brother or sister, someone, something like that?

C: Mentor, maybe?

EV: GG Long Xia. Hit me up, I'll be in Shanghai.




YO, THIS INTERVIEW IS COMING OUT PRETTY LATE. SO JUST WANTED TO THANK EVERYONE AT FAMILY VIDEO STORE FOR THEIR PATIENCE & TIME!

EVAN & HIS TEAM DO SOME REALLYYYYY COOL VISUAL WORK! CHECK OUT THE FVS WEBSITE!

familyvideo.store

CREDITS

SUBJECT/BRAND : FAMILY VIDEO STORE @familyvideostore

PHOTOGRAPHER : LAURA SONG @gh0stpimp 

MODEL : EVAN DENG @evvdeng / SONIA XIANG @sonsbear / KATELYN MA @s33dlingz

EDITOR: FELICE DONG @felice.112 / RUI ZHENG @ruimooie

TEXT : E&C* @acediastudios