New Generation-Independent Filmmakers

Animation Showreel 2009

In Search of Identity - Chinese Design

Jianhua Lao

Born in Shaoxing, Zhejiang providences of China in 1978, Lao Jianhua is a product and interior designer. He studied in Zhejiang University of Technology between 1997 and 2001 majoring in industrial design. Lao began to work for Haier design center, a leading Chinese design brand after his graduation. In 2003, Lao moved to Shanghai to work as the head designer for the Haier’s design center. In 2004 Lao joined the GK Design Shanghai branch; and Italian designer Luca Trazzi contracted GK Design with Lao as Design Team Leader in 2005. At the beginning of 2008, Lao set up his own design studio LAO design Shanghai, and took on the role of HSBC Designer in Residence at the V&A London from November 2008 for a period of six months. Lao currently collaborates with different designers to further develop his design ideas in Shanghai, China.

Du Yang

Surrealist fashion designer Yang Du’s collection entitled, “It Is a Dream” blurs the lines between art, fashion, and fetishism. Du has already established a cult following in both Japan and her homeland China, with a reputation as an artist-turned-fashion designer extraordinaire. Her collection, inspired by a spiritual journey to India, is set to go on exhibition in the UK, Scotland, and New York.

Emie Lee

Emie was born in the city of Taipei, but spent her youth in the American suburbs of Kansas City. She graduated from the University of California Los Angeles with a degree in Design|Media Arts.

Many find Emie’s work ethereal, delicate, and dream-like. Her vision translates into commercials, music videos, on-air branding campaigns for production companies in Los Angeles, New York, and London. Apple, British Airways, Coca Cola, Cartoon Network, MTV, Nike, and Vodafone all share her work. Emie’s art exhibits at the Hive Gallery in LA, in the pages of Grafuck Magazine, and on New York’s independent fashion label, Cykochik handbags. Her illustration for Vodafone reached the London Underground and her video billboard for Zune lit up New York City’s Times Square.Emie was honored with a BDA design award, and her short films have been screened and distributed by Smile Faucet, a video magazine and DVD release in NYC.

From her roots as a keyboardist in the experimental LA band My Velcroe, Emie has since directed music videos. She recently finished a video for Many Birthdays, an experimental/electro/indie band in Austin.

CDR Creative Meeting 0109

Qian Tian

Qian is as an award winning, multi-disciplined designer currently working and living in London.

In 2004, she gained a Masters degree in Media Production, and afterwards started her UK career, a multimedia design and production company in Newcastle. In 2005, She joined London’s leading multimedia design agency Cimex. 

Qian is also enthusiastic in video production. Her short films entered many festivals cross the world. Recently, She participated as editor and sound designer in short film project Palingenesia that wins iStock Future Now! Contest and be nominated at Brief Encounters Short Film Festival’s Children s Jury Award. Another project ‚”Keepup” edited by Qian, produced by team Quick Brown Fox, wins honourable mention award at 07 Cannes Film Festival in Adobe Reel idea studio competition.

Chong Boon Pok

Born 1964 in Malaysia but grandparents were from the province of Chaozhou in China, Chong Boon Pok is a graphic designer turned fine artist. He was awarded the Owen Rowley Prize in 2001, and has been exhibiting his works in the UK, Italy, Malaysia and China. Currently a PhD research student at the London Metropolitan University making a comparative study on the concepts of the everyday in art practice and Zen Buddhism practice, Pok finds himself interestingly trapped between the roots of his childhood memories, Malaysia’s Chinese-ness, and the influence of his journey to the West. His art practice is based on a simple mindset where he sees the necessity to devote attentiveness to the everyday objects and situations. His work may be seen as the result of his combined interest on the everyday and Eastern thoughts. Pok’s produced a body of cross-disciplinary work explores the as-it-is-ness of things, and interconnectedness between objects and people, where his cultural background and life experience are often revisited, examined, and evidenced in the works within his exploration.

Luo Hao

Passionate on photography and fashion, nothing is better than becoming a fashion photographer to Luo Hao. Four years ago, he gave up a stable income and a promising position in an IT company, and stepped up on the way of pursuing his dream. He switched himself into a fashion editor in 1626 Magazine, a young and street-style fashion magazine in Guangzhou, China. Later on, he made a life-changing decision, which led his way to London, the creative fashion capital of the world. During his studies at London College of Fashion, he continues to contribute for several Chinese magazines like VISION, 1626 and independent magazine TOO.

*’My Wardrobe’ is a special column in 1626 Magazine (China), which was collaboratively contributed by Hao Luo as photographer and his girl friend Min as fashion journalist. Min is a fashion journalism student in London college of Fashion now. They are working together as a group with all their passion on fashion, photography and the creativity embodied in both. ‘My Wardrobe’ is a project about personal style. Hao and Min interviewed a lot of young people around them and penetrated into the stories behind each individual style, providing not only interesting and vivid images but also the profound cultural reference underneath.

Kiki Yu Tianqi

Tianqi Yu is now doing a practice-based Ph.D in documentary film at CREAM (Centre for Research and Education in Arts and Media), University of Westminster. In her project, she aims to explore an innovative aesthetic style in presenting the complexity of cultural translation between two political and cultural parts: a rising country - China and the established capitalist ‘West’.  Tianqi was born in an ancient town along the Yellow River in 1985 and migrated with her family to Shenzhen at nine. Influenced by her father, Yu Haibo, an established Chinese social photographer, she has strong interest in visual art and pursued a BA in Film and TV Production at University of Westminster in 2005. In 2006, she went to Tibet for a documentary film making on the impact of Chinese culture and political domination over the local ethnic. Her graduation film “Photographing Shenzhen” was commissioned to Discovery Channel Asia in 2007 and won the Best documentary and Grand Jury Price at 2008 Screentest-UK’s National Student Film Festival. She graduated from Newnham College, University of Cambridge in 2008 with an Mphil degree in Sociology. She organizes ‘Polyphonic China’ - the first Chinese new independent documentaries screening in UK with the support of CREAM. The screening event takes place in February and March 2009 in London.

Zhu Tiantian

Zhu Tiantian was born in China and moved to the UK at the age of 19. She currently lives in London and is working actively as a sound artist. From studying classical music on the Guzheng (Chinese zither) from the age of 7 to founding her first experimental music duo in 2004, from designing sound for moving images to interactive sound installations, Zhu Tiantian has come a long way to discover the sounds that naturally express herself. She appreciates the beauty of sound for its own physical quality and through her work seeks to focus people’s attention on ‘listening’. Her works have often struck the audience as innovative, challenging yet rewarding.

Ann Xiao Yanfei

Ann Xiao is originally from Beijing, China, where she was a trained architect before moving to London in 2003. For many years she had her comic stories regularly published in magazines and books. After graduation from The University of Arts London in 2004, Ann has been directing for animated short films, music videos and commercials, whilst she’s an active illustrator and curator for exhibitions. She has a unique, surreal, strong illustrative style which leads to commissions from MTV, Channel 4, Toyota, Tiger Beer, Discovery Channel, Radar Coke Music and so on. Her short films has been screening in Edinburgh International Film Festival, Onedorzero Festival and Rio International Short Film Festival. She has also won the “Best Art Style Animation” at Oriental Animation& Comic Competition in China. Her style has been described as “architectural space meets the surrealistic dreams”.

Wang Zhe

Zhe Wang (b. 1981, China) started his design education since 2001 in London, and obtained a Master Degree in Communication Design (New Media pathway) at Central St. Martins College of Art & Design the summer 2007, after the successful acquisition of a BA(hon.) Degree in Graphic Media Design (Moving Image pathway) at London College of Communication, both in University of the Arts London. He is very enthusiastic about films, where his BA and MA dissertations were both focused on specific subjects towards the study of film and culture from both the East and West. He is now working at Tank Publication, renowned by the Tank Magazine, as the design director of EO; a fashion supplement associates with the China Economic Observer newspaper and he’s also a graphic/media designer for other commercial projects in the company. Besides his profession, he is also a self-taught musician/sound designer who has participated in various animation, music video and short film projects.

Chen Lei

Born in 1977, Lei Chen grew up in a small island called Gulangyu in south east China. During 4 years (1996-2000) of study at Fuzhou University on environmental design, he has won quite a few prizes however he was still pretty disappointed on this industry in China. So he went to Tsinghua University, Beijing for a master degree of automobile design. It was in this period that Lei realised that he was more interested in computer animation than design. After graduation, instead of being an industrial designer, Lei became a CG (Computer Graphic) freelancer. He has done quite a few commercial adverts and game intro animations for Beijing’s leading CG companies. In 2004 he came to UK to study at NCCA (National Centre for Computer Animation). In 2006 Lei’s short film ‘Brush’ won the first rank prize of Animago festival and has been included in Siggraph Electronic Theater as well as its annual review. The other short film ‘Wonderland’ directed by Lei won the First prize of Crash Fest Festival. Currently he works as a CG artist for Framestore, which is the largest visual effects and computer animation studio in Europe. Lei specialises in concept design, 3d graphic and short film directing.