The Long Life of a Short Film

A conversation with award-winning student filmmaker Tiffany Liu

Making a short film is not as simple as grabbing a camera and pressing “record.” At least, not for student filmmakers.

Even less simple is creating an award-winning short film. But that’s exactly what Tiffany Liu accomplished.

Liu’s short film, “Winner,” won the BMW Hawaiʻi Driven Student Filmmaker Award and Scholarship at the 45th annual Hawaiʻi International Film Festival (HIFF). Student filmmakers in postsecondary schools from all across Hawaiʻi submit their films to HIFF’s University Shorts program every year, and around ten are accepted and screened.

A senior double majoring in Cinematic Arts (with a focus in Digital Cinema) and Communications, Liu has a lot on her plate. Still, she’s passionate about filmmaking. She’s wanted to pursue a career in film for many years, and being the recipient of this award puts her one step closer to achieving her dream.

The work that goes into creating a film, even a student short film, is immense. I only created one short film myself as a university student, and even with a crew of three, that endeavor took a lot of effort to finish.

“Winner,” a film about a Chinese American table tennis prodigy named Lena and the pressure her family places on her, is on a far larger scale than many student short films, and is of a far higher quality. Its recent award is proof of that.

So I sat down with Liu to ask her not just about her film, but about the university filmmaking journey.

The student filmmaker provided valuable insight, from the challenges that come with filming on a budget to the process of submitting to film festivals. Liu’s story offers a glimpse inside the process of making a short film.

Of course, everyone’s story is different. But for other aspiring student filmmakers who might not know much but want to learn, this interview could provide some guidance. Or at the very least, help reassure some and instill confidence in others.

Firstly, congratulations on receiving an award at this year’s HIFF! You could definitely feel the energy in the room surge when the film finished, and I thought the short was really good. What was your reaction when you found out you were going to receive this award?

“I was honestly really shocked. My DP (director of photography), Nick Keoni Souza actually recorded my reaction when they announced that “Winner” won, and I was super nervous and shocked. There were so many great films in the University Shorts category and I didn’t know what to expect honestly. But I’m really happy with the outcome because my team worked super hard and it makes me super proud.”

I want to ask some questions dealing more with the behind the scenes stuff. How did you come up with the idea for this film? What were your inspirations?

“Whenever I start writing a script, I always think about what themes I want the film to convey, basically what I want people to get from my film. Sometimes when I was growing up, I felt too Asian to be American and too American to be Asian, and the conflict between these two worlds was what I wanted to convey – individualistic values clashing with familial values.

In terms of the concept, I wrote “Winner” back in freshman year. It was originally about tennis because I had played tennis for six years, but when I showed it to my professor, he said, “You’re Chinese! Why not change it to table tennis?” I laughed about it for a bit until I realized that actually wasn’t a bad idea. My dad used to play table tennis competitively, and he gave up this dream when he immigrated here with my mom. And table tennis holds a lot of meaning in Chinese culture; we play a lot of it and it’s very popular in China. So I wanted to showcase how table tennis could be played as a competitive sport while lots of people here view it as a recreational sport.”

What would you say is the main reason you wanted to tell this story?

“I really wanted to write a story about a father-daughter relationship. Growing up as a daughter to immigrants, I could definitely tell how much my family and parents sacrificed for me, so growing up, I always wanted to please them in a way. Going into the arts, was a bit frowned upon in my family, especially since they wanted me to be a doctor or lawyer or have a major in the STEM field. So when I mentioned that I wanted to major in film, they were supportive but it took a lot of convincing. Sometimes in an Asian family, we work to please others and not ourselves. And I wanted to show the negative effects of living in that type of environment, where children might not be supported by their families.”

These next questions are going to be less about the story and more about the production side of things. Could you say how you got the funding for this short film? It looks very professional and the sound was very punctual. It’s well made all around, and I can’t imagine that it’s exactly cheap.

“I got $1000 from the Abernathy Screenwriting competition that SCA (School of Cinematic Arts) hosts twice a year. My script won the award back in 2023. The other funds came from fundraising. We had a gofundme, and some other friends donated as well.”

So other students can know, how did you find out about this screenwriting award, and was it a competitive process?

“Usually SCA sends a mass email out before the deadline for this screenwriting competition, and my professor at the time gave us extra credit for submitting to the competition. But I originally wanted to submit to the competition anyway. So I would say for any SCA students who want to get grants or opportunities, pay attention to the emails that SCA sends out because they’re very helpful.”

Besides getting this screenwriting grant, what sort of support did SCA or UH at large provide you in the process of creating “Winner”? Or were you just sort of striking it out on your own?

“I would definitely say SCA helped in terms of professors. My professor in 410 (Advanced Cinematic Production) — Thomas Chock, who goes by Tommy — helped me a lot throughout this entire process. I actually wrote 21 drafts of “Winner” before getting to the final draft, so throughout those drafts, Tommy was there giving me support and telling me whether the story was good or not from an outside perspective. It’s helpful to have someone on the outside reading your work.

In terms of support from SCA as a whole, they definitely helped us with equipment. They give us equipment to film with for the production classes we take, and that included “Winner.” They also helped with spreading the word. We showcased the film at the yearly Student Showcase in May and that got a lot of eyes on it.”

Moving on from the beginning stages of creating the film to getting it made, how did you go about hiring actors?

“We reached out to a lot of acting agencies, but SAG (Screen Actor’s Guild) in particular is a good place to look if you want to hire. They tend to have a lot of experience and they’re all unionized. Nick was at a HIFF event and was talking to Adrienne (who played Lena, the main character) at HIFF about “Winner,” and someone later sent her the Instagram casting call about it. When I saw her submission tape, I just thought that she was super good, so I hired her for the role. The other actors also auditioned through social media casting calls, and we called in some help for additional extras.”

Was this the same process that you used to get your crew?

“The crew was a bit different. Tommy’s 410 class had people who wanted to pitch scripts make their pitches, and the class picked the top two they wanted to produce. For the scripts, the writers become the directors, and the rest of the classmates become crew members of the film that they want to crew on. So that was how I got my main crew. And my main crew reached out to friends or anyone who might be of help.”

You said that you’re a writer/director. We all know what writers do; they write the script. And we all know movie directors, such as Martin Scorsese, Christopher Nolan, and Greta Gerwig. Those are just some famous examples, but their job is kind of hard to define. So as a director, how would you define your position in getting a film made? What was your role in the whole ordeal?

“My role as a director is always to guide the vision. As director, you’re basically the captain of the ship, steering your crew in the right direction. You work with all the production heads and they can offer suggestions, but you have to be very decisive on and off set of whether the script is going in the right direction or not. Because when your vision steers off course, that’s when, in my opinion, the team starts to fall apart in a sense.

Throughout “Winner,” one thing that I wasn’t used to was leading a large crew. We had a pretty big crew of around 15-20 people, one day we had 30. And I wasn’t used to that size having only made films with five person crews before.”

Many directors have a specific style. For instance, you know a Wes Anderson movie when you see it. Do you think you have a specific style? Or is that something you're still finding out?

“I think I’m still working on finding that out. I feel like the hardest thing about filmmaking or directing is finding your voice. But what I think that I have learned after making a lot of short films is that I gravitate toward family-oriented films. Especially ones trying to showcase my cultural heritage and familial values, I try to do that with every film I make. I really like exploring family dynamics.”

I remember there being a process of getting a filming permit when I made a short film for my freshman year class, but that was only for the Mānoa campus. Your film actually features multiple locations. Did you need permission to film at any of them and how did that go?

“Actually, nowadays, you don’t need a permit to film on campus. And there were really only two locations for “Winner.” The first one was my house, which is considered a private residence. For private residences, there is some paperwork that is needed to film there, such as a Certificate of Insurance, but that was easy to fill out. The second location was at the dorms. All the table tennis scenes were filmed in the lobby of Hale Wainani. We didn’t need a permit for that one, but we did need written consent from the Director of Housing.”

Was there anything in the story that you wanted to include but didn’t, and if so, why was that element cut?

“I actually cut out a whole character! There were initially four main characters: the daughter, the dad, the grandmother, and the daughter’s best friend, who I ended up cutting because I realized the story would be stronger if it were focused on just the family. The story was also initially centered at a Chinese restaurant. And we had the table tennis scenes at an actual table tennis practice room in Chinatown. But because neither of those locations worked out, we changed them to my house and the dorms, both of which had table tennis tables available.”

What would you say was the most difficult part of the shoot and what was the easiest?

“The hardest part was figuring out the locations, at least in pre-production. The Chinese restaurant we wanted to film at was busy. Understandable. And we had a low budget. Also understandable. So it just didn’t work out and we filmed at my house instead.

For production, I think it was getting used to directing on a time crunch. There’s this rule where you need 12 hours of turnaround time before the next shooting day. So basically if you finish shooting at 12 AM, you can’t start filming the next day until at least 12 PM. You gotta give the cast and crew some rest time. Also, I believe once actors stay on set for more than 12 hours, you have to pay. And we did not have the budget for that! So we had to finish filming in 12 hours every day. That might seem like a lot, but on set, time passes by so quickly.

I think the easiest was directing actors. I never had experience working with actors who had more experience and worked on bigger sets. So that was all new to me. But talking to the actors always felt really easy.”

What was the most fun part of the shoot?

“For me, it’s always surreal to see your words come to life. I’m always putting words on the page as a writer. So when I’m actually behind the director’s monitor, getting to see what’s in your brain being brought to life is so surreal.

Also, having fun with your crew between takes. At one point, my crew played tag outside my house. We also celebrated my production designer’s birthday on set, which was nice.”

This question is a pertinent one for students. How did you juggle making this short film while being a full-time student? That must have been pretty difficult and draining.

“Since most of the planning and shooting had to be done outside of class and I’m also an RA and I have other extracurriculars, it was very hard to juggle everything. But for me it was mainly about priorities. I had to prioritize what was most important to me, and at the time, making the film was very important to me.

I would also say if you do a lot in preproduction it will definitely help when you get to production. We only had three weekends to shoot, and that went by super fast.”

So now I want to ask some questions about film festivals. “Winner” screened in HIFF’s University Shorts competition with other student short films. It’s a very prestigious selection that I imagine many student filmmakers would love to have their short films play in. What was it like submitting your short film to a film festival?

“Once your editor finalizes the edit, there’s this amazing platform called FilmFreeway that has all of these film festivals that you can submit to, it’s a pretty easy process on that platform. What you do is create a profile on FilmFreeway, you upload your film, you fill out a ton of information about your film, which honestly took me a while because I wanted to make it look good, y’know? So I had to put in stills, a director’s bio and headshot, specific dates if your film screened already. I spent some time doing that over the summer, and that’s when I submitted “Winner” to HIFF through FilmFreeway. I submitted to other film festivals as well, I think 15 in total?”

Will there be a way for readers to watch “Winner” some day?

“I do want to publish it on YouTube eventually after we’re done submitting it to film festivals, because once it screens publicly online, that’s when the festival run ends. So I don’t want that to end yet because we’re still submitting. But I definitely want to put it on YouTube.

I’m trying to submit it to Short of the Week. It’s a YouTube channel with millions of subscribers and they’re always looking for shorts to post. I’ll try to submit “Winner” when it’s done with festivals and hopefully it gets accepted!”

What are your plans for the future? Are there any more short films, or maybe even a feature, in the back of your mind?

“Yes, I’m currently working on a feature! I love writing, and I would love to direct it with a production company. I’m also currently working on a short film for my Capstone class next semester. It got greenlit by SCA faculty so I’m set to direct it in the spring. I have most of my crew for that one already. I also plan on working on a short, personal documentary next semester with someone else, which I’ll also be directing.”

So you’re very busy, very booked!

“I try to be! Because filmmaking is what I want to do in the future, and I’m passionate about it. I love telling stories that need to be shown to people. I feel like filmmaking is an amazing platform for people to see themselves or see people like themselves on screen. And growing up, I didn’t see many people like me on screen, and certainly, there’s not enough female directors in the film industry. I guess I’m trying to be the change I want to see in the world.”

If you could give any piece of advice to students in SCA, or anyone interested in filmmaking, what would it be?

“This is advice I wish I would have given myself a long time ago. Keep making things and don’t be afraid to apply for opportunities. Even if you don’t think you’ll get it or you’re not qualified, you’ll never know if you don’t apply, and it’s a guaranteed “no” if you don’t. And don’t be afraid to take up space. If you’re afraid to take up space, you’re also preventing yourself from reaching those opportunities. Don’t be afraid of rejection! If you give it a try, you’ll always have a chance.”