It’s been about 8 weeks since college started, and Melanie Wu is the first person that I get a chance to know deeply. The best way to get efficient answers out of a person is to bring them out into a place where they don’t feel like the center of attention. I decided to interview Melanie in two places: The hallway, and outside in public. She was able to respond to my questions without hesitation.
Daniel: So Melanie, tell me a little more about growing up in Florida. How was your childhood there?
Melanie: I like to consider Miami separate from Florida. It isn’t as “American” as the rest of the stated, you know? Growing up in Miami was different in the sense that there were people from all these different cultures and backgrounds. Being a kid in Miami is quite the rollercoaster, because just about everything there is for adults. It’s a lot of night clubs and beach parties and drinking. So when I was living there I would always be like, “Aw man, I can’t do anything!” you know? It was because of this lifestyle that I spent a lot of time at home bored. My creative side began to unfold as I got older, when I started to see nothing in the art world when it came to Miami. Like yeah, Art Basel comes down there, and there’s a new town called Wynwood that has a bunch of graffiti and street art all over the place. But it was just very curated by people with money rather than actually focusing on the artist; it wasn’t authentic enough to say the least. But yeah, living in Miami was this mix of being too young to enjoy yourself but being too creative to express yourself. But you do get a lot of inspiration from the clashing cultures in the city, and me being half Chinese and half Guatemalan I definitely got that exposure. It was a fun ride, growing up there, but I saw Miami as just a wasteland in the art world.
Daniel: So earlier you told me that you want to be a film producer, right? Can you tell me a little more about some films that were most influential to you?
Melanie: I wanted to become a filmmaker especially after watching a couple movies by Wes Anderson and Hayao Miyazaki. Wes Anderson is known for his formulaic way of telling a story and/or his narrative, also the way he stylizes a film makes it really interesting. Another Filmmaker being Hayao Miyazaki, whos an animator, however the stories that he tells are very intriguing and whimsical in the sense that you can watch his films as a child and grow up to watch it again with the same atmosphere to it. But yeah, those two are the biggest inspirations for me deciding to become a filmmaker.
Daniel: So these two producers are like your role models. Did their work have any impact on your personal life growing up?
Melanie: Well, I grew up as an only child, so movies were like the siblings and entertainment that I never had. I remember growing up watching a lot of Hayao Miyazaki films from Spirited Away to My Neighbor Totoro, but my most favorite one is Spirited Away because I related a lot to the main character of that film, in the sense that there’s this girl who really depended on her parents for things although she is very angsty and can’t really deal with her feelings. Movies were something that entertained me but also brought me into a different world. It was a form of escapism from the family troubles, or anything personal that was happening to me.
Daniel: I’m not sure if you’ve heard of him, but one of my favorite authors, Oscar Wilde, once said that all art is quite useless. Seeing as how the film industry, a form of art, has shaped the life of someone as yourself, I wanted to ask, do you believe that art is necessary for societal growth and creativity?
Melanie: That’s an interesting topic to bring up, because when you think about trying to advance society, normally a person’s first instinct would be to think of the sciences and technology and medicine. I believe that art delves deeper than just creating something; it delves into how humans think and perceive, and I think what is most important in society is getting to better understand one another. When you don’t try to do these things, you don’t exactly think rationally. In a sense it opens your mind to other perspectives.
Daniel: Do you ever see yourself challenged by any mental obstacles whenever you’re in the mood to create, or have you ever felt like you were lacking the motivation for creating? And if so, what do you normally do to bring yourself back into focus?
Melanie: I think one of my weaknesses when it comes to creating is always putting myself down and comparing myself to others, because personally, I didn’t go to an art high school. Me coming here to Parsons was really a big leap from my academic way of thinking and delving more into my creative side. However, when it comes to my entire process of creating I always think of ways to understand my emotions and visualize them in a way that gives them a form.
