Winnie Cheung: A Few Of My Favourite Things

I’ve been revisiting this draft several times over the past few days, each time from a different computer, on a different desk, in a different building.

In fact, this sentence was written on a different laptop.

So’s this one.

I don’t have a designated workspace, and therefore no physical items to adorn it with.

Instead, my favourite things are ephemeral.

People, places, ideas and things that change from one moment to the next.

Change is the most inspiring thing to me as an editor.

Change is everywhere.

You keep moving, keep going.

You find the through line.

You write it down on paper, in a timeline, move it around, show it to people, and hope it makes sense.

The Artist Studio

Whenever I feel stuck creatively, I go to an artist studio.

Here is my friend Manuela Viera-Gallo’s studio in Greenpoint.

She’s an incredible and prolific painter.

A mentor once taught me that editing is like painting.

You don’t need to lay it all at once.

Work on the palette, mix some clips, and see what holds before committing it to a timeline.

The Sega Music Lecture

This is my friend Jaina, mid-lecture on Sega music from the island of Mauritius, where she's from.

She did all of it herself: the research, the writing, the organising, the standing up in front of a room.

I’m drawn to people who are curious without being told and who make time to give it back to the world.

I bring the same curiosity and work ethic to the post-production process: a hunger to explore the world and the craft, and a willingness to create an edit you can truly stand behind.

It’s tempting to make the “easy” edit sometimes, the one that simply satisfies the note.

I’d much rather present my point of view and explore the more interesting edit.

The 52nd Street Project

The 52nd Street Project is in Hell’s Kitchen.

Kids aged nine to 18 spend the semester writing a play, and trained actors like Billy Crudup, Frances McDormand and Jon Stewart perform it.

They write about lobsters, dinosaurs and tacos.

Nobody tells them to cut the taco.

These days, I still try to hold onto a few tacos of my own.

When I get stuck with editing, I try to think like a kid again.

What would nine-year-old Winnie do?

Sometimes, she’s the one with the best ideas.

The Tarot Deck

Every time Courtney and I get together, I get a reading.

The cards are from a tarot deck they designed, inspired by stick-and-poke tattoos.

We draw a pentacle, find the pattern, and tell each other stories.

It’s how we like to catch up.

I get approached frequently for montage editing.

Like tarot reading, I look for colour, symbols and compositions to tell a story from disparate images.

I try not to put too much pressure on myself to come up with the “right” one.

There are many stories we can tell, and I just let the one that speaks to me most at the moment rise above.