Written by Shirley Baugher
Who Is Wonjung Bae
“I’ve seen you, beauty, and you belong to me now.” -Ernest Hemingway
There was a time—not so long ago—when the names of prominent filmmakers were household words. Think Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Ang Lee, Woody Allen, Spike Lee, Ingmar Bergman, Fedrerico Fellini, Spike Lee, Roman Polanski, ….well, you get the picture. They were mostly men and mostly of “a certain age”, (a notable exception being Kathryn Bigelow who won an Oscar in 2010 for her brilliant war film, The Hurt Locker). They made big commercial feature films that showed in big theaters and garnered a lot of attention. That is now changing, due in large part to the advent of video filmmaking and the appearance of a relatively new genre: the short film made for video and shown on youtube and Vimeo.
In the brave new vimeo world, the filmmakers come in all makes and sizes. They are young, immensely talented, edgy and daring. Men and women work behind the cameras and the short features they produce are attracting a world-wide audience of avid film buffs, especially among young viewers. Among the new names dominating this world are Ted Chung (a master of telling stories with and without words), Vincent Pascoe (who has a flair for combining music and narrative in his visuals), Alvaro de la Herran (whose work is reminiscent of the great Spanish filmmaker, Pedro Almodovar and who turns fashion film into high art), Gary Nadeau (whose black and white films are thought-provoking and compelling), Vincent Vescoe (a French filmmaker whose brilliant La Tangente gives the road trip concept a whole new dimension), Jaro Minne (an 18-year old French filmmaker whose three-minute film Reverie is hauntingly beautiful) and Joshua Weigel whose 20-minute film The Butterfly Circus won the first-ever Clint Eastwood award at the Carmel Art and Film Festival.
Now, Wonjung Bae, a young woman about to graduate from the film school at Columbia and whose documentary Blunt Edge walked away with the 2011 Student Academy Award in Los Angeles, enters this pantheon. Born in Busan, South Korea, Won says she is interested in issues of identity and the power of visual story-telling. She made her first documentary at age 16 using her family as her subjects. She trained for five years with respected Korean documentary photographer Youngsu Kim learning to shoot 35mm still photography and to work in the dark room. She worked as an editor for a photojournalist who won the World Press Photo Award. As the cinematographer for most of her films, Bae now shoots on both digital and film. She is featured in the August 2011 issue of Screen Magazine.
Bae says she loves the short film form and thrives on the intensity of fast turnaround projects. To date, Won has focused on documentary filmmaking, but she is becoming increasingly interested in commercials and music videos for their innovative visual techniques and cross-disciplinary practices. In the following interview, Bae reveals her passion for filmmaking and her hopes for the future.
Baugher: What inspired you to go into filmmaking?
Bae: I never consciously said to myself, “I’m going to become a filmmaker.” It just happened. When I was 16 years old, I attended a poetry workshop and was attracted to the creative storytelling in poetry reading. One of the options for me to enjoy that kind of creative freedom was through the use of the video camera. Then I thought to myself, why not put the words into images? I took a Super 8 camera and made a film essay about my grandfather, my father and myself. It won an YMCA award at a youth film festival. Now, more than 10 years later, I am still making films.
Baugher: What do you like about being a director?
Bae: I like doing documentaries. Through a documentary, I can establish a fundamental relationship with my subject and convey that relationship on film. The film becomes the evidence of my life experience with the subject matter.
Baugher: How do you select your subjects?
Bae: I more or less stumbled upon them. My uncle, Andrew Bae, owns an art gallery in Chicago and specializes in displaying works of Japanese and Korean artists. When he saw some of the magnificent wood furniture pieces created by Southern Illinois craftsman Kyle Kinser, he saw both Japanese and Scandinavian influences. He invited Kyle to show his work in the gallery. One day, I was working in the gallery and Kyle was there. We started to talk and I knew I wanted to make a documentary about him and his art. My uncle also led me to Vera Klement. We were discussing how some aging artists lose their edge and no longer paint with the same intensity as when they were younger. An exception was Vera Klement, who was about to celebrate her 80th birthday and was still creating work that was crisp, clean and up to the minute. I went to see her work in a gallery and couldn’t believe that the paintings were done by someone who was 79 years old. I approached her about being the subject of a documentary and she agreed. My interest in art led me to the Iraqi students at Niles West High School. I visited the Oriental Museum at the University of Chicago and was fascinated with the Assyrian artifacts there. I wanted to learn more about the Assyrians and the civilization that led to the creation of these magnificent sculptures. But delving into history books was not enough. I wanted to add a human dimension to the art. After more investigation, I learned about the refugee teenagers from Iraq who had made a field trip to the museum hoping to rediscover their cultural heritage and reestablish identities that had been taken from them when they were forced to flee their homeland and take refuge in America. I knew I wanted to make a documentary that would bring ancient Assyrian art to life as a human experience and to connect contemporary viewers with the legacy of ancient Mesopotamian civilization.
Baugher: Once you have selected a subject, how do you approach your films?
Bae: I become very personally involved with my subjects. I live with them and look at the world through their eyes. My camera observes them and tells their stories. For example, I spent two weeks with Kyle in Makanda, Illinois and followed each step of his creative process, from finding the tree that will be the source of his art, to drying the wood, to actually making each part of the object, and finally, revealing the work of art in all its glory.
In the same way, I attached myself to Vera. I became a part of her developmental process when she made the painting of Dmitri Shostakovich. My camera followed each brush stroke and paint splatter—each element that filled the white canvas until it revealed the maestro in a study of red on white: his genius, his passion, his suffering and his triumph. I interspersed the stages of this painting with Vera’s plans to hold an 80th birthday party. It made for a very human and effective montage.
With the students, I followed their tour through the museum and tried to make my camera show their pride experiencing the history of their past. In the museum’s artifacts, they found the suffering brought upon the Assyrian people by war and privation, and the triumph of their perseverance. The film enabled me to reconcile the old with the new—the ancient with the modern. I met with the young people in their ESL classes after school and documented the loneliness of their exile, their desire to go home again and their anxiety about the future.
Baugher: How do you determine the elements of your film?
Bae: I don’t begin with a pre-conceived plan. As I get into the process, I figure out what needs to be there. I gather the specifics of my subjects and their situations and I bring these specifics together into a visual unity. I believe you need tangibles to make a film: physical artifacts, specific instances, concrete things. Then, you can make a poetic statement out of the mass of tangibles you have brought together.
Baugher: How do you incorporate these elements into a complete film?
Bae: As I said before, I bring together the worlds of fact and art—I translate facts into art. I believe the cinematic form is a powerful way to create a visual work of art by combining its disparate parts.
Baugher: Who are your most significant influences as a filmmaker?
Bae: First and foremost is my mother. My mother is a painter and she taught me to appreciate what the eye can see. She is also my inspiration and my best friend. She sent me to my first teacher—who became my mentor—the noted Korean documentary photographer Youngsu Kim. Kim taught me how to shoot using 35mm film and how to use the dark room. I worked with Youngsu Kim for five years, from the time I was 18 until the age of 23. He was a very strict taskmaster and working with him was not easy. But, I am grateful for the experience and for the things he demanded of me. Because of what he taught me, I was able to develop as a photographer and as a cinematographer.
Baugher: How do you feel about your films once you have completed a project?
Bae: I believe it is too early to say how I feel about my work. I am still trying to hone my skills and to grow as a filmmaker. I haven’t done enough work to be defined by it as yet. I think that something is missing in my life and in my work. I am still searching for the self that I will become. I guess I have a lot of unanswered questions. I like what I have done, but I think the best of me is yet to come.
Baugher: How do you go about getting your film before the public and your peers?
Bae: Right now, I am looking for a way to do this. It is difficult for me to be a self-promoter. This runs counter to my Asian culture. But I realize that I must be more aggressive in terms of publicizing my work. The awards I have won and the attention I have received through my films have increased my public visibility; but I need to do more to make people know that Wonjugn Bae is out there and that she is producing films about the human condition that are both aesthetically pleasing and true to the subject matter.
Get To Know Wonjung Bae
To really appreciate Won as a visionary filmmaker, you should watch her recent documentaries. Blunt Edge, for which she won the Student Academy Award, follows Chicago artist Vera Klement as she develops a painting of renowned composer Dmitri Shostakovich. She deftly interweaves the creative process with the celebration of the artist’s 80th birthday. Museum of Exile is a stunning depiction of exiled Iraqi youth attending Niles West High School in Skokie. The camera captures the emotions of the students as they reflect on their displacement and shows their joy as they re-connect with their cultural heritage on a field trip to Chicago’s Oriental Institute. Made in Makanda tells the story of Kyle Kinser, a master woodworker, who wanders the isolated forest of the Shawnee National Park in southern Illinois, in search of fallen trees. He uses the wood from these trees to make exquisitely beautiful minimalist furniture. His voice, playing and singing Autumn Leaves, form the background of the film. All of these films, executed in a seven to twelve-minute time frame, are powerful statements of the filmmaker’s interest in art and identity.
Share Wonjung Bae’s Academy Award experience
What They’re Saying
This is the most beautiful Columbia College film I have ever seen. It has deeply challenged and inspired me. I am not the same after seeing it. -Orion Pahl on Made in Makanda
Visually your films (Blunt Edge and Made in Makanda) are a delight and their rhythms are impeccable. You work with music so that your films and their music become one. Each film reveals its woman and man through their dedication to their artistry, which is difficult to do. Each person has a love affair going on with his/her medium—paint and wood. Each thinks very much about the spiritual and expressive quality of his/her craft…[The cabinet maker] and Vera are both completely realized as people. If you are not such a person now, you will become one, because you have the same comprehension of a medium and pursue it with the same intelligence and integrity. -Michael Rabiger on Blunt Edge and Made in Makanda
Fantastic film Wonjung. You captured the beautiful but dark essence of Vera’s character to well. -Sara Hopman on Blunt Edge
Really beautiful film; the camera work and editing are terrific. Thanks for this. -Suraj Das on Blunt Edge
A moving and insightful piece of work. You capture the essence of lonliness, yearning, and the search for identity. -Shirley Baugher on Museum of Exile
“(Made In Makanda is) A charming b/w documentary done in a restrained camera style that invites the viewer to share in the intimacy of working wood. It is a pleasure to watch a documentary that respects it’s subject and wants to honor the craft it portrays” John Bailey, ASC from Kodak Film School Competition
.jpg)
.jpg)
