SoYoung Lee

Can you explain to the audience your career? Well…, I live as a multi-inter-disciplinary artist, visual storyteller, educator, performing artist, - that comprehensively makes me become a filmmaker.

How many years have you been making movies? It’s been 4 years of this particular project, yet about 5 years of professional filmmaking. I also worked in commercial industry briefly in New York City and other cities, yet I decided to dive into my own film project as soon as it became clear for me to make this series. Nevertheless I’ve been a digital photographer (more or less) since 1998, so I’ve been playing with camera most of my creative time, as a part of my life, and I contemplate when I travel with my camera. Camera has been my solid consistent companion ever since I journaled through my photography for about two decades. It has been my medium for visual journaling.

Why did you start making movies? Well… I don’t think that is the right way to describe my reasons of making movies. Making movies became much clearer for me to become a creative storyteller. So I decided to train myself to become a filmmaker and I dived into it. Big challenge but thrilled.

Tell us a little about your project. What will the audience be able to see in your film? I hope my audience is for all ages, races, genders, cultures, and nations. Because that is what my film ‘Seon Actually’ is about. When we understand this moment, we can understand the whole world. I would like to bring peaceful connections between all of us, as a human being.

Why did you do this project? You know…, I have been going through a lot of life changes throughout my questions to my life and I always wanted to know what the meaning of life was/is, yet I have learned that there’s something more than just the meaning of life. It is neither about the meaning nor the truth. But something that is so genuine that is always with our nature. I want to bring the discussion about that. Why we do what we do?… I want to bring the questions to ourselves.

One of the problems some directors encounter is directing actors and dealing with some actors, especially in the amateur world. How do you see this topic? What kind of work do you do with them? That is one reason I started my project ‘Seon Actually’, as it truly manifests the nature that is not tinted with any views, or ideas that occurs in both before and after your own actions. Well… I don’t know wether this makes sense to you. In other words, genuine understanding of the crew is the most important fact for earning the fortified trust between professionals, knowing that privacy and personal boundaries are necessary to get all jobs done in a set. Distrust and inequality can be stemmed from not having common goals between the team members, and the director is an important role to interconnect your crew for achieving common goals. That is for building more positive environment for making good stories. Challenging but possible tasks.

A good movie takes care of all departments. But normally we can not allocate all the resources to have a good photography or spend a lot of money on sound post production or budget to hire actors. In your project what % have you allocated to. I don't just mean money but time as well. Of 100% of the time/money, what % did you dedicate to each department? Well… in fact, wether you believe it or not, so far, It has been really challenging for doing one man production all alone for the last 4 years since I took this documentary. The idea came up first with my friend in Seoul, S. Korea in 2022, yet there was no allocated budget to start. However, I am a meditation enthusiast, and Seon meditation has been a very vital subject for my art, so without any hesitations, I just initiated this project with my own expenses by doing everything whatever it takes to make the series possible. And it has been a journey for sure. I did learn so much about making a story by experiencing all the challenges in film sets.

-Direction: 100%

-Photography 100%

-Sound. 80%

-Postproduction 95%

-Work with actors 100%

-Art direction/locations: 100%

If you could go back, what would you change about this project? (1 thing only) Hahha.. i will have better recording system.

What are you happiest about this project? I am truly grateful and gratified with all the participants trusting my questions and being able to share with my audience. That is truly moving moment to create this series.

Make a wish to the movie gods. What do you ask? I would like to make an endless series about human mind and wisdom regarding meditations in various traditions as a series. I want to bring the moment to connect all beings so that we can reduce global conflicts and restore our nature to be more sustainable. Spiritually ecologically sustainable world. I would like to bring some peaceful psychology to the world of Seon. I believe storytellers have power to alter social consciousness to bring more fundamental understanding of our true nature. -What movie would you have liked to direct? As of Director - ‘The Mission(1986)’ by Roland Joffé,

What kind of cinema do you like? Genre, directors, actors? I am a cinematic omnivore; I love all genre, yet I love ‘Love Actually (2003)’ directed by Richard Curtis, and Seven Samurai by Akira Kurosawa

Imagine that all the movies are going to be lost. If you could save 3 movies, what would they be?

Casablanca (1942), Gone with the Wind (1939), and Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

If you have more projects underway, can you give us a bit of information? I would like to make human stories with people’s true experiences that inspire us. I wish to create about 12 episodes of a series ‘Seon Actually’ on the globe, to bring the sacred understanding about human nature. I think, there’s an infinite subject to delve into.