The Melakan is no stranger to directing camera crews and producing aesthetic visuals on the big screen.
Meet Ong Rui Jiang
He is a Malaysian filmmaker based in Los Angeles who has received worldwide recognition for the stunning visuals he directed and brought to the big screen.
The 25-year-old has recently won a handful of awards for his work in Patroon-an indie film based on the life and struggle of an immigrant teenager living in the Netherlands.
As director of photography, Ong has brought life to the film director 's vision and conflicting experiences as a Dutch Caribbean youth living in a country that often prides itself on acceptance and anti-racism.
With the premiere of Patroon in 2019, Ong has since been awarded the Best Month Cinematographer and Best Short Film at the 2020 Asian Cinematography Awards in the Philippines.
He has also received an honorable mention for Best Cinematography at the 2020 Prague International Indie Film Festival.
The film itself has also been given nods at the 2019 Netherlands Film Festival, 2019 HKU Awards, and the 2020 New York Cinematography Awards.
Born and raised in Melaka, Ong said that he stumbled into filmmaking in the first place.
After most of his schooling in Malaysia, the opportunity was presented just as he had completed his last two years of high school in New York.
The former national water polo player was accepted to several pre-college courses at Brown University, which included, among the subjects of economics and sports physiology, an introduction to filmmaking.
"After taking the film course, I knew that I wanted to pursue filmmaking," he said to SAYS, despite having only studied science at school.
With no previous experience, Ong was also initially discouraged by the refusal of seven out of eight universities to apply for film studies.
"Eventually, I studied visual and media arts at Emerson College," he said, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree.
Since then, Ong has deepened his career in the film industry, where he started working as a camera assistant in Los Angeles before actually venturing into cinematography.
In the first few years, he worked as a camera and lighting technician with companies such as Disney, Vogue, BuzzFeed, Samsung, and even with Netflix in the Lethal Weapon series.
"As years progressed, I moved further into the field of cinematography, leading to where I am now," he said.
"As a director, I am responsible for the lighting, design, and visuals of what you see on screen," he explained.
"Picture painters with their brushes and paint. Cinematographers paint with light, shadow, and color."
The young Malaysian now leads lighting and camera departments, providing guidance, and making critical calls to production lighting and aesthetics.
Since then, Ong has also worked on music videos that have garnered millions of YouTube views for world-famous musicians such as Lebron James, Big Sean, A$ AP Rocky, Nicki Minaj, and Chris Brown.
At present, Ong said that his goal is to promote social change and make an impact on society through his art and collaborations.
When he was approached by film director Mario Michael Gonsalves, whom he had met in a summer video course in 2015, he said the script gave him the credibility and intent he was looking for.
He said that the film seeks to highlight the normalized subtleties of discrimination that take place at the individual level, from family to friends, and the expectations of growing up in the Netherlands.
As a Malaysian Chinese living in the United States, he has been able to navigate the nuances of being a minority living in another part of the world, as well as to relate it to discrimination at home.
"Patroon stresses the negative stereotypes and persecution of minorities both locally and from other nations, which has always been a problem there and, sadly, even in Malaysia," he said.
"In Malaysia, we are guilty of our own unconscious and conditioned prejudice towards each other and towards foreign workers," he said.
Asked if he had advice for other budding filmmakers, he said it was crucial for a person to get involved in film in any way possible from the outset.
"Even if you're working as a production assistant or an art assistant or even a runner, do your best and, with a stroke of luck, someone could give you a chance to be their mentor and take you along the way, which is what happened to me," he said.
He also stressed that networking is a huge part of the industry that is as important as attending film school because you can meet people who might want to work with you in the future.
"Malaysia has a lot of untapped potential and stories. With the right tools and encouragement, I believe that the Malaysian film industry will prosper both domestically and abroad," he concluded.
Source from SAYS
Author: Shobana Manokaran
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