How do you approach the beginning of a project?

It's usually something that I'm immersed in--when I was going to see Hong Kong movies three times a week in 1995 I thought I needed to make something useful out of this obsession, so I put together Beyond Asiaphilia, which dealt with HK movies & Asian masculinity. When I started to date my now-husband, a blond, blue-eyed person not of Asian descent, I made Mixed Blood, which is all about miscegenation. After Sept. 11 I made Carefully Taught.

What is your greatest fear when facing a project?

Forgetting to charge the camera batteries.

What is your daily creative work schedule?

I'm most alert between 9am-noon, after the kids are off at school and I've had some caffeine. I'm also creative late at night after the girls have gone to bed--funny, that?

What is the one question you have never been asked regarding your creative process?

What kind of camera do you use?

What would you be if you couldn't be a filmmaker/ artist/ writer/ multimedia/ installation artist?

A pastry chef.

What do you do when you get stuck?

Try to remember that it's only a movie--

What was the most discouraging feedback you ever got?

A grantor once said he liked my experimental work but wondered when I was going to make the jump to television.

What was the most encouraging feedback you ever got?

Once after a talk at UC Berkeley a student said to me, "You're pretty cool for an old person."

Is having a community of artists a beneficial component to your work?

Yes, which is one of the reasons I live in San Francisco--great weather, lots of diversity and tons of indie filmmakers not competing against each other (as there's not much to compete for!).

Have you ever transitioned to another medium or genre? How did it affect your original discipline?

I started out long ago as a black & white photographer, but quickly switched to video once I learned the technology. Darkroom chemistry was way too toxic, though I liked printing, but video is so much more immediate and intuitive that I took to it right away. Photography helped me learn to see and understand light and shadow and composition but the moving image is much richer and more chaotic so I prefer it.

What advice would you give to someone starting out in the field?

I started out making lots of short work that got my ideas going and got my technical chops up to speed. I wasn't interested in completing a magnum opus (still not that interested!) and making all of those short, pithy pieces gave me a sense of completion and accomplishment that was invaluable when I was starting out. So I'd say to complete as much work as you can, get it out to as many screening venues as you can, and see as much work by other people as you can. It can only help your own work.