CHRISTINA XING

This week, Hashika and Nicole were so stoked to talk to the hilarious Christina Xing (she/her). Christina is an Alabama born but LA based award winning director. Her work spans both the narrative and branded space, having grabbed the attention of clients such as Tinder, Snapchat, Crayola and major music labels such as Terrible Records and Sony Music. At the age of 17, Christina achieved international recognition from her musical featurette 'How the Moon Fell From the Sky and No One Even Noticed'. She is a recent (pandemic) graduate of The Art Center College of Design with a B.F.A. in Directing and Film Production. Chrstina strives to make Cassavetes for people of color. She also strives to keep her nose clean and to eat more veggies.

Without further ado, we present you Christina Xing. ✨

What are the differences between making a narrative, a music video, a commercial?

Christina: Y’all are so cool. Okay so I would say with narrative, there isn’t much money. It’s all passion based. Everyone who is on it is your friend or is doing it because they love the story or they love you or both. It’s that itch that you have where it’s like a personal story and you don't necessarily know what’s going to happen or if anyone’s even going to see it. But it’s not for that. It’s for yourself. 

And then in terms of commercials, I love commercials because I think the best directors have come out of commercial. Please don’t shoot me for saying that. I’m sorry, but Spike Jones, Michel Gondry, all these amazing directors have come out of the commercial world. In commercials, it’s harder to tell a precise, clean story that makes you feel something and fit it into a 30 second punch. It taught me to learn how to trim the fat off my work.

For music videos, it’s just the coolest medium in the world. Music can tell stories, music can transport people’s experiences. Getting to be a part of that process as a director with the artist is a very unique and an extremely special experience.

Hashika: How has your experience been entering this space as an Asian American woman?

Christina: The hardest part is that every white institution is looking for that token person. Instead of tokenizing people, why don’t we just normalize that there are other colors making art? The first comment I usually get is “ oh you know, I’ve never actually met an Asian American female director. I know Lulu Wang (@thumbelulu) from the Farewell. You know her?” I get compared to her all the time. Don’t get me wrong, she’s amazing. But imagine if I walked into a space and told every white male director, “You know Steven Spielberg? He’s the only white director I know. You’re like him.” They would be like, you’re wack! What are you doing? I just want to be Christina Xing. Let me just be me, you know?

Nicole: That’s a beautiful answer. Working in the industry, working with Adolescent Content (@adolescentcontent), what is the biggest thing you have learned as a young creative? What kind of advice would you give to people that are trying to break into the industry?

Christina: I definitely have an answer to that but I also want to hear Hope and Naomi’s answers just because I also think they would have really great advice. They’ve seen a lot of this.

Hope: I think you go first. There’s so much but I think your perspective as a young person is going to be a lot different. Because I’m from a completely different generation and I think it’s changed so much and I’d love to hear what you have to say first and then I’ll pitch in.

Christina: That’s a great note. Let me think. There’s so much. There’s so fucking much.There’s this stigma against making commercials for young creatives. I was like this too. I was like, oh my God if I do commercial I'm selling out. I obviously understand that some people have personal things against capitalism. No judgment at all towards that. Everyone is allowed to feel that way. I was taught growing up and in film school that if you did commercials, you weren’t as good of a director. You were selling out and all of this stuff which is totally not the truth. I don’t think people talk about how so many of those A-list directors do commercials to pay for their life and their narrative and it’s made them better directors. I would tell anyone who’s a young director to not shy away from stuff just because your professor told you or whoever told you that you should focus on X, Y, Z. If you get to direct, you get to direct. If you love doing something, it’s fun no matter what form. It’s an honor and it’s fun. It’s always a challenge. I would say, be open to commercial! Make spec commercials, have fun with it. Money aside, it’s just a good form to really teach you how to cut the fat in your work.

Hope: I think that’s super good, I think the other thing to say is that you do have an opportunity to change the narrative in commercials. I think we see it a lot when you have young voices and diverse voices. Because commercials in some ways feel like they are dying, brands are a lot more willing and open to letting young people influence commercials. Like it's not the same way it was when I was going up where it was just like complete and total BS ya know where you just had to ‘fake the funk’ I think now it is a lot more openness to authenticity. It is a way to make money also that cannot be ignored. It is a way like Christina said, to learn to tell a story in 30 seconds, in 60 seconds, or whatever. I think it is also another  medium where you can express yourself and communicate to your peers. 

Christina: I totally agree with that.

Naomi: I don't have anything to add I think you hit it home!

Nicole: A question for Naomi and Hope, what are you doing with Adolescent Content to elevate these young voices and why do you think it is important to get young creatives in the game?

Hope: Oh my god, the reason we started Adolescent was because we saw a real need for authenticity. We also saw a need for representation of ya know, minorities, women, members of the LBGTQ+ communities and we wanted to create a space that was representative of the world. And we continue to want to do that. We think young people have important things to say. We think that they are the way of the future and there is no reason that a forty year old white man should be the person communicating for everyone. Quite frankly, that's not a person who is connecting with me, not a person who is connecting with young people, who have incredible buying power and who also don't really give a shit about furthering belief systems and uh it isn't just about like they aren't just consumers right? They care about what brands are really saying and what brands stand for. We see so much and how they have really shown up for things like Black Lives Matter and shown up for the environment and so they are going to make brands better. And that is why they should be the ones leading the communication to young people. That is why they are the ones that brands should be listening to when they talk about how they are communicating. The old model just doesn't work anymore. And we have learned so much. 

You know, when my business partner and I started this company years ago, I just wanted to do it because I thought it was interesting if I was being candid. I am tired of jaded directors who say let's do something fresh, let’s do something people are going to be enthusiastic about. But still it was also ya know we are gonna have a business and make money, we still needed to do that. But I have become so inspired by the young people we work with and the kind of integrity they have and how they challenge everything, even within our own team, how they challenge us about the brands that we take on and the clients that we decide to work with. And how, even though I have to make a decision as a business owner, who wants to have a business so we can still pay people, but have to make decisions as a human being, as a black woman, as a woman, as a citizen of the world, and so I think they just push us to be better and they just evolve communication so quickly they are on the forefront and so I think it's just exciting and important to be working with them. I feel like I didn't really answer the question. 

Nicole: You definitely did! 

Christina: Love you!

Naomi: I guess from my perspective it's just so cool to see such young creators, such diverse creators, and diverse voices to be able to tell their stories and have a place in the industry. Growing up I remember everyone talking about Steven Spielberg but I couldn’t name at the time one female director. So I think that Adolescent’s and all of the creators who are making this work are really changing the game and it's so fun and inspiring to see. Makes me wanna tear up! 

Nicole: I would agree to that ever since starting this little instagram community, everyone is awesome! Everyone is so cool and so inspiring, holding each other accountable to do the right stuff and the good stuff and it's important for young people to be on the forefront right now because we are the ones making change. 

Hope: I also just love the businesses, you said this little Instagram thing, like this is massive. This is awesome. There is such power with words and you have to have the mindset to know what you are doing is amazing, it's massive and it's HUGE. My husband sometimes makes fun of me because I always reach for the stars like this is going to reach BILLIONS of people, yada yada, thinking big. It is limitless what you can do and when I see all of the businesses popping up like yours being run by young people who don't see any road blocks - my 10 year old has a business and this is like her third freaking business. I am so for it! You know what I am saying! Young people see a space and they occupy it. Don't let anyone push you out of your space or tell you that, it can be a little space or as big as you want it to be. 

Hashika: I think you are right. People have always discounted the young voice.

Nicole: Because we don't know enough yet! Why can't we! Going off of that, in quarantine, we have all been doing through it. How have you stayed motivated to keep creating? I know you worked on launching WLDKAT’s (@wldkat_skin) brand. What was your experience like working on a project from home virtually and your whole experience working with Adolescent Content putting that together.

Christina: I think it was cool because like during this time, one thing that has been really cool is like the creators that started out knowing how to shoot, how to direct, and how to edit their own stuff are like coming out as king because we have to go backwards in that technology whereas like everyone is trying to get their crews as small as possible with as little people possible and its a great time for a lot of creators that are good at several things that have been the jack of all trades. In terms of the WLDKAT brand launch, like yeah I was just like one of thirteen creators a part of it, it was so cool i think that adolescent actually put it all together and put together a great team of like homies and made something really beautiful. And it was really fun getting to work on that and getting to see the creativity that everyone had and just using resources at home. 

Hashika: Just thinking about your other projects, for example ‘Have You Eaten Yet’.....

Christina: I tried a new funding method with ‘Have You Eaten Yet’ where I basically funded it through my instagram story, which actually worked out really well. Basically I made a poster and at first I was asking for like $500 or something like that and I honestly didnt think anyone would give me any money because I was just another kid asking for money to make their film, like who cares, there's bigger issues to support. Anyways I posted on my story and my friends started giving me money out of kindness. $500 in 3 hours became $800 and then within an hour became $1200. And it happened all in a day. By the end of it we had raised $1500 and it was crazy we got so much more than we expected. 

Hashika: I mean that's the power of community. 

Christina: And to answer yall’s question about the artists struggle, finding funding, especially for someone who is independent, I think the biggest thing is that people aren't willing to put their money somewhere where they don’t see return value. If this is a person's first art piece, no one wants to put their money towards it but if it were someone's final art piece, people fucking put down as much money as they can. I think that’s the biggest struggle, convincing people that your investment is going to be a good investment for the work. That’s the hardest thing I think.

Christina: Yeah! I would say that ‘Have You Eaten Yet’ is probably going to come out soon, my short film. We’re finishing that up. And if you guys want to follow me on Instagram (@christinaxing), I post a lot of my friends’ work too. I think that’s something I didn’t really get to mention. One aspect of it is I direct the stuff but without my friends helping me make all my stuff, it would literally just not exist. They are probably more to brag about than I am. You can also see all their stuff on my posts. Thank you guys so much!