Renee Zhan: the best of all worlds

Represented by BLINKINK, Renee Zhan is a Sundance award-winning filmmaker with an ever-evolving portfolio of characterful commercials and introspective cinematic work, traversing illustration, stop-motion, live-action, CG, and puppetry. 

A Jekyll-and-Hyde of animation direction, her personal films ooze with all things deep, dark, and sometimes downright disgusting, whilst her commercial projects are characterised by their popping colours, quirky characters and playful narratives. 

I am a bit greedy, and I really want as much of it as I can. Songs and music and dancing and colours and philosophical ideas. I want all of those things in every film.

It’s hard to imagine that the confident, multi-awarded filmmaker sitting before me once aspired towards a career where she wouldn’t have to collaborate, as she confides in me. "I was very shy and didn't like talking to people. So when I learned that animation was a way that you can make movies without talking, I was in.”

She studied animation at Harvard, where professor Ruth Lingford opened her mind to the full potential of independent film. From there, she embarked on an animation fellowship in Japan, where she channelled the loneliness of her experience there into her poetic, hand-illustrated short film, Reneepoptosis. 

“I didn't know anyone and didn't speak the language. So I was very alone. And the film was about being alone. It's about three Renee's who go on a quest to find God, who's also Renee, so it's about what happens when you spend too much time on your own. Yeah, it was a lonely one.” 

She tells me that she finds inspiration everywhere, from the innovative Icelandic musician Björk, to the Studio Ghibli films she grew up obsessively consuming, and even filmmakers like Mia Hansen-Løve, whose sensitive, live-action storytelling is very different to her own. 

I think what I love about filmmaking is that it can be so many different disciplines combined into one, like writing and visual art and sound and music.

Sound and music also play a crucial role in her films, from the deeply satisfying ASMR-like drippy drops of Reneepoptosis, to her Vimeo Staff Picks winning stop-motion musical, O Black Hole!. 

“I think what I love about filmmaking is that it can be so many different disciplines combined into one, like writing and visual art and sound and music,” she explains. “I am a bit greedy, and I really want as much of it as I can. Songs, music, dancing, colours and philosophical ideas. I want all of those things in every film. And then I have to slowly strip them back.”

Following her solitary fellowship in Japan, Zhan decided that her next big move would be something “very new, and hard” for her - and that was to collaborate and direct.

Despite setting out on her career path to "make movies without talking to people", she soon found herself in the UK, studying Animation Direction at the National Film and Television school, where she discovered the joy of working with fellow creatives to bring a story to life. 

Unfortunately, no one wants a blobby worm in their grilled cheese commercial.

“That turned out to be the best thing about it,” she explained. “Working with friends and collaborating is the real joy of filmmaking. I was able to work with a cinematographer, and a production designer for the first time. That aspect of it was so exciting to me”.

Above: Zhan on set. 

She soon joined London production house BLINKINK, where she found that commercial work and collaboration offered the opportunity to broaden her wheelhouse of animation techniques, and even try her hand at live-action and puppetry. 

Something I wanted to talk about was being a minority, and being made to feel like other members of your race are the enemy, rather than like potential allies or friends

Although a little more lighthearted than the dark, visceral imagery of her independent films, her commercial work still offers the playful narratives and range of technical experimentation that characterise her personal projects. 

“The kind of colourful, sillier, pop-y stuff, I love that too, and in commercials you have to really hone the craft of storytelling in such a short amount of time, with a specific brief. I like the challenge of that. Unfortunately, no one wants a blobby worm in their grilled cheese commercial” she jokes. “But for me, it's really fun to be able to explore both sides of my style.”

When asked about the inspiration for her personal work, Zhan explains about how her films are often an outlet to explore her emotions, womanhood and sexuality, and her experiences as a Chinese-American. 

“I start with something very personal, like a feeling or a thought that I'm experiencing, and use that to build a narrative that is relatable to an audience. So ideas like womanhood and sexuality, those are things that I am, and that I've experienced, and that I'm questioning and considering."

It's nice to just delve deeper into the darker stuff and push that to see how far I can go.

And, just as she is always changing and growing as a person, her films do so too.  For example, her upcoming project, Shé (Snake), combines live-action, animation and puppetry to tell the story of a British-Chinese violinist who plays in an elite youth orchestra. When another Chinese violinist shows up and challenges her place, her inner demons and internalised racism come to life in the form of snakes and sinister creatures. 

“She has to come to terms with the idea that it's her own demons that she's battling, not this other girl who hasn't actually done anything to wrong her. Something I wanted to talk about was being a minority, and being made to feel like other members of your race are the enemy, rather than like potential allies or friends”.