NYWIFT Blog

Meet the New NYWIFT Member: Ching Juhl

By Katie Chambers

Welcome, new NYWIFT member Ching Juhl! Ching is a Chinese American filmmaker, video journalist, and music educator who has directed, filmed, edited, and produced three feature films, promotional videos, and hundreds of shorts. Her feature documentary My Yang Gang Diary, which she shot entirely on an iPhone 11, won Best Feature Film Award at Toronto Documentary Film Festival in 2021.

Ching has published more than 800 videos on various social media platforms with topics ranging from live interviews to current events to music productions. She taught music at St. Joseph’s College for 15 years. Ching currently directs Music Studio Manhattan and conducts Smartphone Video Production workshops in colleges and organizations. 

Ching spoke to us about the benefits of shooting on iPhone, the intersection of music and filmmaking, and the friends who brought her to NYWIFT.

NYIWFT member Ching Juhl

 

Tell us about yourself – give us your elevator pitch!

I am Ching Juhl, a Shanghai-born New York City based film director, video journalist, content creator and concert violist. I am the proud mom of Sean Juhl, a violist who just joined the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. In recent years, I have enjoyed shooting videos and films with iPhones. My feature doc shot on iPhone won five awards internationally in 2021-2022.

 

  

I first met you when NYWIFT co-presented the screening of that most recent award-winning documentary feature, My Yang Gang Diary, at the Socially Relevant Film Festival earlier this year. Tell our members about that experience making the film – I know you were so inspired by 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang that you left your college teaching job to campaign for him full-time and made a film about your time doing that across the country. What was it like being fully immersed in that world 24/7?

Becoming a Yang Gang [member] in 2019 (a supporter of Andrew Yang’s 2020 presidential campaign) was one of the most exciting experiences I have ever had in my lifetime. Reading Yang’s book The War on Normal People and witnessing how people volunteered for his movement Not Left, Not Right, But Forward, was incredibly inspiring.

I was fascinated by what grassroots movements were like and how a political campaign was conducted, and I documented every event I went to in New York, Connecticut, Iowa, and New Hampshire. I quit my teaching job, which I had been doing for 15 years, so I could devote my time to the cause.

 

 

You shoot most of your work on an iPhone. What are some tips for other filmmakers who want to use their phone as their primary tool?

I have been using video camcorders in different formats and sizes for more than 20 years. As a video journalist, shooting with an iPhone has changed the whole game. I shoot events on the streets, in my car, and capture music concerts and my cats.

The quality of the phones has improved greatly, and the audio of the newer iPhones is impressive. I like to shoot with iPhones because of their accessibility, lightness, low budget production and unobtrusiveness.

 

 

In addition to being a filmmaker, you are an accomplished musician. How do those two artistic mediums overlap for you? What are some of the similarities and differences as forms of expression?

Thank you for asking. I studied classical music in China and the United States. The similarities of pursuing music and media production is that one needs to work with discipline, consistency, patience, and passion. I used to practice the violin for three hours daily when I was 11. When preparing concerts and auditions, I practiced six hours every day.

I really enjoy making videos and editing films. The storytelling in media is different from playing classical music. Making films is my way of composing, while playing the music of Bach or Beethoven is to interpret the composer’s work the best I could. As a classical musician, I mainly played other people’s compositions. However, these days, I fiddle on a five-string electronic violin so I can go wild on the color, timber, texture, and the sound projection.

 

 

What is the best advice you ever received? And the worst?

My viola teacher Csaba Erdelyi suggested me to enter the Guranna International Viola Competition in 1988. I commented, “I don’t think I would win.” He said: “Don’t think about winning or losing. You need to be heard!” I ended up winning $10,000, and I bought my first video camera that year. (Now you know how old I am.)

What is the worst advice? When I wanted to move to New York City, people said, “Don’t go to NYC, you will be starved.” I came to NYC with no job, no money, and no family 23 years ago and I still made it.

 

 

What inspired you to join NYWIFT?

Filmmaker and family friend Dawn Young has been talking about NYWIFT to me for years. Nora Armani, the founding director of the Socially Relevant Film Festival also highly recommended your organization. Meeting you, Katie, at the screening of the My Yang Gang Diary in March 2022, inspired me further to join NYWIFT. I am very impressed by the programing and the opportunities to networking with women artists. I wish I joined you earlier.

 

We are so happy to have you! And what is next for you?

I am cooking up a feature documentary about classical music, China/US, twisted family drama, and unforgettable celebrations. I am going to Germany to film part of it in August 2022.

 

Learn more about Ching Juhl’s documentary feature My Yang Gang Diary at  myyanggangdiary.com and watch it now on Vimeo-on-Demand.

Connect with Ching Juhl across social media:  

On Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter at @chingjuhl

And Clubhouse, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok at @juhlmedia

PUBLISHED BY

Katie Chambers

Katie Chambers Katie Chambers is the Senior Director of Community & Public Relations at New York Women in Film & Television (NYWIFT). She is also a regular contributing writer for From Day One, an outlet focused on innovations in HR. She serves on othe Board of Directors of the New Jersey State Federation of Women's Clubs and is a freelance writer, copyeditor, and digital marketing strategist. Follow her @KatieGChambers.

View all posts by Katie Chambers

Comments are closed

Related Posts

NYWIFT Member Spotlight: Myrta Vida

Myrta Vida is an award-winning writer and independent filmmaker specializing in features, shorts, documentaries, and stage productions. She serves as a producer at 3DMC, the production company behind the John Cassavetes Award-winning feature Premature (2019) and the Sundance Award-winning hybrid documentary The Infiltrators (2019). Since 2010, Myrta has worked as a story consultant and script doctor for independent filmmakers worldwide. A proud Army veteran from Puerto Rico, she earned her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Missouri-St. Louis and completed a conservatory program in screenwriting at the New York Film Academy, both with summa cum laude honors. Additionally, she holds a certificate in sketch comedy writing from the Upright Citizens Brigade and was a 2022 Fellow with Third World Newsreel. Get to know her in our latest interview!

READ MORE

Meet the New NYWIFT Member: Marci Clark

NYWIFT is excited to welcome new member Marci Clark! Whether you were tuning into MTV during the mid-90s or consider Super Bowl ads to be immersive entertainment, there is a good chance you’ve engaged with remarkable content in which Marci has left an indelible mark! Marci is now Co-owner & Chief Marketing Officer of a location agency, The Scout Source, representing over 800 production-friendly locations in the Tristate area. Check out her blog feature where we converse about the evolution of her dynamic career in the film and television industry as a marketing professional, her talent and enthusiasm for linking content creators to incredible location sites for them to shoot their projects, and the iconic cartoon character who she “butted heads” with (no pun intended)!

READ MORE

Meet the New NYWIFT Member: Chiemeka Offor

Chiemeka Offor is a NYC-based Nigerian-American interdisciplinary artist, image maker, and director currently focusing on editorial photography and poetic short films. Her artwork has been featured in Cultured, i-D, Vogue Italia, Women’s Wear Daily, Buzzfeed Photo, Frieze, and Office Magazine. Chiemeka has received National recognition as a Grand Prize Winner in the Smithsonian Teen Portrait Competition for her portrait “Showtime”, and a 2020 National Young Arts Foundation Award in Photography. In the spring of 2023, she joined the 2023 Voice X PhotoVogue NFT Residency and is currently pursuing a major in Film and Television at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, where she continues to construct visual and sensory worlds of inclusion through her intersectional and community-driven work. Continue to read more about Chiemeka and how she hopes to mesh the two worlds of fashion photography and visual activism in her career.

READ MORE

Meet the New NYWIFT Member: Becky Morrison

Let’s all welcome new NYWIFT member Becky Morrison! Becky is the Founder & CEO of The Light, an award-winning production company that produces films, series and high-end commercials. Becky kicked-off her career on the Hollywood blockbuster I Am Legend, dabbled in animation on Disney’s The Wild, then entered the world of rock n’ roll as visual content producer for U2’s world tour. In the span of her career, Becky has produced hundreds of projects for clients such as Netflix, Apple, NBC, A&E, Hulu and Disney. She has spent years studying the history of Hollywood and uses her research to inform a new framework for conscious production. She spoke to us about how she is using her creative work to inspire positive change.

READ MORE
JOIN OUR NEWSLETTER
css.php