By Simran Kalkat, Courier Editor-in-Chief
Logan alumnus Thomas Tiger Zhong did not wait until his senior year of UCLA to leave a mark on campus. In the first take of his directing career, he became responsible for a broken window at the women’s bathroom in Haines Hall.
The broken window must have been worth it. In just his freshman year of college, Tiger’s film was selected to go to the renowned Cannes Festival, an annual film festival held in Cannes, France. The prestigious festival is an invitation only event in which new films from all over the world are previewed.
Tiger’s journey to Cannes began when he submitted a script to UCLA’s Film and Photography Society (FPS Productions). Every quarter two scripts are selected by the FPS, Tiger’s being one of them. Once the script was selected, Tiger became the director and writer, and the FPS supplied him with the rest of the cast and crew so that he could begin the filming process. The five-minute film, titled “Run” is about the relationship of two young adults after a break-up.
“Usually when I try to tell, like an elevator pitch of my story in five seconds or so, I usually tell people it’s about a guy chasing after a girl with a crowbar,” said Tiger.
Tiger’s inspiration for “Run” started at a road near the Cesar Chavez Middle School Campus in Union City.
“That road is super shadowy and I just had this image of a girl in a yellow dress running through the road, as if she were running away from something. That’s the one image I had in my mind, and the way I write stories is that I usually have one image in my head, and then I elaborate that image by giving it further characterizations, dramatic conflicts. After I see that one picture, that’s the premise I have, a girl running away from something at night, that’s the premise and then I add characterization,” said Tiger. “So I guess the movie started with Union City, but I moved it to UCLA.”
“Run” turned out to be a huge success. The film entered Campus Movie Fest, a student film festival, and swept the awards there. It won the audience award, jury award, best performance, as well as best directing, which went to Tiger Zhong. Due to the huge success at CMF, “Run”, among other well performing films at CMF on the national scale, made it to the Cannes Festival.
Although Tiger is excited about the prestige and honor that comes with having a film selected to go to Cannes, he is looking much more forward to the new opportunities and ideas that it will bring.
“I have a new project in mind which is a feature length. I want to pitch the idea, like elevator pitches or one page write-ups,” said Tiger. “You should use it as a opportunity to further your career,”
As a Logan student, Tiger hadn’t considered studying film in college. He had applied to many universities as an economics or political science major. Although storytelling had always been one of his passions, he didn’t really consider a future in film until he watched “La La Land” and its director, Damien Chazelle’s success at a young age.
“I just loved the director Damien Chazelle, who won an Oscar as the youngest director at age 32 which was so inspiring. He basically told me that you can achieve something so great at such a young age,” said Tiger.
Tiger decided that he would go into UCLA with film in mind, but with some clear goals as well.
“[I gave] myself three years, freshman, sophomore and junior year, that I would try to make a film, and if I can make a film before senior year I’ll try to professionally do film, for example go into Hollywood and professionally do film,” said Tiger. “And then I made a film, freshmen year, first quarter, and it did pretty well at the film festivals,”
Many would see going into film as a risky venture, and Tiger did too. The one thing he hopes Logan students will realize is that “risk is the one thing that keeps you out of comfort zone, and only on the verge of that line can you challenge yourself and advance,”