Since Jennifer Li was a child, she has loved all forms of creative endeavours, such as painting, music and martial arts, which has led her to a career of acting and stunt performance. As a filmmaker and visual artist, she wishes to combine all aspects of filmmaking, acting and stunt performance and become a great team player and leader on projects. Her short film SOLD was screened at this year’s festival. She not only played Ming, the protagonist, she also wrote, directed, produced and edited the action drama.

SOLD is about a lone girl who suddenly realizes she’s been trapped - surrounded in all directions, so must she run and fight. There’s no time to think as she navigates this unfamiliar farm trying to find a way out - then she hears a familiar voice…

Describe yourself in three fictional characters.

Monkey King, Stephen Chow in any of his Movies, Fa Mulan

This was such a fun question, but I honestly had trouble answering it… Growing up I loved Dicky Cheung’s Monkey King portrayal in Journey to the West (1996), as well as all the Stephen Chow movies: I would re-watch them to this day, and I felt I really identified with Mulan in the Disney animated film and would watch it a lot. Those characters and their humor for sure played a huge part in influencing me growing up.

Can you tell us about your martial arts background?

When I was around 10 years old I started in Chinese internal Martial Arts, such as Bagua Zhang, Xing Yi, Chen Style Tai Chi, and Tai Chi Push Hands, then when I was a bit older I started practicing Martial Arts Tricking, and through tricking I got into stunts and started practicing film fighting, and training in Gōjū-ryū style Karate, Boxing, BJJ and just anything martial arts/movement based skills I could learn.

What got you into filmmaking? What is your favourite part about filmmaking?

Inspired by my pursuing stunts/film I enrolled into the film program/major at Emily Carr University in Vancouver and learned about filmmaking that way. I would say my favourite part about filmmaking is directing and working with people, and the fact that you’re constantly growing and learning, since there’s so much depth in filmmaking. I would say that even before film though, I’ve always been a creative and a storyteller, I had loved drawing and illustrations since I was a child which went on to being quite helpful for when I wanted to create storyboards for my ideas.

You incorporate martial arts into filmmaking, what made you choose to marry those two parts of your life together?

I guess it was just the natural thing to do, since martial arts has been such a huge part of my life. Since I worked in film as a stunt performer/actor, I wanted to take advantage of the resources I had with my skillset in action filmmaking, film fighting as well as having friends who were stunt performers who would be willing to help in the making of my film.

How did you get your start in stunts? What’s the best part about being a stunt performer and stunt coordinator?

I started practicing Martial Arts Tricking when I was around 14-15 years old and fell in love with the sport and the community, I would go every week as much as I could to gymnastics open gym in our area to train. I then later realized that many stunt performers whom I’ve since become friends with were also training there, and learned that there was such a job as stunts! I’ve always loved the 80’s HK Martial Arts films growing up, so I decided to try and pursue stunts. I guess that’s roughly how it started.

In terms of stunt coordinator, I wouldn’t call myself a stunt coordinator, I would happily help out on student shorts or smaller projects as such, but in terms of bigger projects there’s still a lot I’m unfamiliar with as a stunt performer/and especially to be a stunt coordinator. But I am interested and I hope to learn more about it in the future.

What prompted you to write the story of SOLD?

SOLD was my graduation capstone film at Emily Carr University. I feel like I can be quite practical when it comes to projects, so even with the school’s support in terms of equipment I first brainstormed what kind of resources I had for creating a story that was also practical to create. I knew I could put in my expertise, and utilize my connections in incorporating action and fight choreography, and I had access to a farm that my dad, and his current wife owns. So that was my initial spark; I was also inspired by the kidnapping cases that was happening around Cambodia, with a lot of the victims being travellers from western or other countries. I contemplated on incorporating the idea that we shouldn’t take it for granted that we’re in a safe country like Canada… But I then realized that I had too many ideas I wanted to include in a 10-15min short film and ended up cutting down a lot to focusing on friendship and the relationship between the two central characters Kiki and Ming.

What was the writing process like for SOLD? Was there any research you had to do to write the script?

The writing process was fun and challenging for me. Compared to my previous experience in screen writing which was very limited, and at most 1-2 pages, a 10 page script felt pretty daunting at first. But it was my first time actually getting a feel of what I imagine real screenwriting to be like… After writing my first draft of the script which was a lot of brainstorming and planning scenes… after that we brought the script to our class and we would have table reads and feedback with our instructor and peers every week for a number of weeks. I also shared my script with many of my trusted friends who were writers or just friends I trusted to look over it and give me feedback. Our instructor/professor Carlo was also very supportive, I sent him my script the most for feedback. I think ultimately, I did around 25-30 revisions… It was a lot of writing and rewriting, and hard work, cutting down on dialogue etc. Almost up until a few days before shooting day. But it was really fun I remember being so deep into the writing process I’d be thinking about the characters and the story all day and even in my dreams. The story changed a lot from the initial draft, but I liked it a lot more at the end.

How did you assemble the cast and crew that you trusted with your vision?

Majority of the crew were my peers/classmates from my graduating class at Emily Carr. We were encouraged to help each other with the production of our graduation films, and so many of them were gracious and kind enough to help. I have been in and out of my university classes for quite a few years now because I was also working in film as a stunt performer/actor and it was tough to juggle, so all the classmates I started school with has since graduated. I just have to say I got very lucky with my crew, they were very talented and wonderful people, and some have become dear friends since. The cast consisted mostly of my longtime trusted friends who happened to be very talented actors as well: Kyle and Leifennie, as well as my father, my husband, and a few other dear friends I know from the stunt community in Vancouver.

You had a mostly Asian cast and crew working on SOLD, is there a strong Asian filmmaking community in Canada? What advice would you give to other Asians in film looking to find community?

I feel like there is a strong Asian filmmaking community in Vancouver as well as performer base, it’s quite multicultural here. I wouldn’t say I actively set out to have a majority Asian cast and crew but it just so happened that the people I connected with, and were able to help were more from an Asian descent; it was quite nice though.

I would say feel free to ask your friends and family to help out especially in the beginning, even if they might not be in film. It can still be a fun experience to learn and create together. Who knows they might end up finding an interest in filmmaking.

How did you do the location scouting for the farm? How did the location impact filming?

The location was one of the most crucial aspects of the story since the majority of the story takes place there in the different areas of the farm, so the 2 questions really go hand in hand. We went multiple times during pre-production to scout the location with many objectives: we looked at all the different areas of the farm that action and story could happen for each portion of the story and how they would logically tie in together, once that was loosely decided we choreographed and did video references of the action. We also took photos, panoramas, and videos of the different areas of the farm we decided to use for communication with the crew so they’re in the loop. Then in terms of logistics, we had to cut and clear up some areas of the farm that had a lot of blackberry bushes, as well as clean up the trailer that was available to us for indoor holding since we were shooting in the winter with a high chance of rain.

I also produced some top-down map images with descriptions to clarify with the cast & crew which scene happens where, washroom locations etc. Finally, we did a shot test day at the farm with minimal crew for about 6 hours (just me, my husband, DOP Thomas, Justin our Camera op and Jetic one of our producers) we walked through the shots with more complicated camera movement to make sure it all worked as we imagined in our minds.

The cinematography for SOLD showcased the importance of visual storytelling, by the way it captured emotions within character arc and communication. How was your experience working with Thomas Jing Tong Mai, the cinematographer?

I loved working with Thomas! He’s very talented as a cinematographer, but he also has a humble attitude and is a collaborative team player. SOLD would not be the same without his help and expertise. We initially thought we would have one 3-4 hour meeting to create the shot list together for SOLD…It turned into 3 meetings, each for about 6 hours before we could complete the shot list of over 100 shots together. Thomas worked tirelessly, and even during the first day of shooting I remember he was stressed because he had barely had time to work on his own project which he was supposed to be shooting in the next 2-3 weeks because he was so busy helping me with SOLD. I’m very grateful for the whole cast and crew but Thomas especially was one of the few people that had to pull a lot of weight. His passion and love for cinematography and filmmaking inspires me, and I can see him going far in the future.

How was the emotional fight scene between Ming and Kiki choreographed?

I had a rough idea of what I wanted in the story for Ming and Kiki’s final fight in the story: it’s an emotional fight that stemmed from the feelings of betrayal and disbelief, but Kiki is not a fighter, and deep inside Ming knows she doesn’t want to hurt her, she’s just in shock and needed answers. I basically described the scene to my husband Brendon, who was the stunt coordinator and fight choreographer (He also played one of the villain thugs and was just the most solid support system I had throughout the making of SOLD) and told him the moments I had imagined – the tackle, and the choreo being a lot of loose grappling and fighting on the floor without physically injuring Kiki. Brendon did the rest of the choreography to make all the moments fit and flow to the story.

Leifennie who played Kiki is a dear friend and I roughly knew how capable she was physically, of course I still communicated with her to make sure she’s comfortable with the level of choreography we were designing and the specific stunts we had in mind. She’s not a stunt performer but she has practiced martial arts before and we made sure to rehearse and have safety mats for the parts that required it to make sure it was safe for her to perform. We were close friends, so that trust definitely made acting and performing together a lot easier.

What was production like? What was the best part of filming SOLD and what was the most difficult part of filming SOLD?

Production was exhilarating, especially after all the hard work I/we put into pre-production, it was so exciting and fulfilling to see it all come together. I felt like the harder part was the pre-production – we did our best to prepare all that we could so that we would be ready for the day, and as with any film I’m sure, issues and things would always come up on the day that we would need to adapt to, but we really did our best.

The best part of the filming of SOLD was definitely working with the cast and crew, one thing I love most about indie projects is that everyone is there with a single goal to create the project together and help in whatever way they can, since the team is so small.

The most difficult part in the filming of SOLD had to be the weather and just shooting on location in early November, both in the unpredictability of the weather and also the cold and rain. We had to do some shooting schedule rearrangements the night before shooting, since we had not planned on it raining, but there was no stopping the rain. We shot for 3 days on the farm, the first day was pouring rain, second day was clear and sunny, and the last day was rain, snow and hail. It was a miracle that the film was able to be cut together cohesively. We did our best to make sure our cast and crew was warm as they could be, but it was still very cold and for me and some of the stunt cast members, we were pretty much drenched for a majority of some of the shoot days and there was no way around it.

What was your favourite part of the final edit of SOLD?

Ohh it’s so hard to pick one favourite part…I think my favorite shot in the final edit was the moment Ming has her realization that Kiki had never betrayed her. That was actually a pickup shot we went back to the farm to film later in the editing process, because it was so essential to the story.

However, I would say one of my favourite elements of the entire film that I feel brings the whole thing together is the original soundtrack and sound mix done by Emma Shang, our music composer – also one of our classmates who worked tirelessly on my film, as well as 5-6 of our peer’s projects. It did an amazing job to finalise the mood of the film.

Do you have any upcoming projects you can tell us about?

I’m working on writing a small project with one of our film friends here, Leslie Kwan who’s also an Asian actor/stunt performer. It’s still in its early development stages, but the core idea centers around the relationship between two siblings and their inevitably-aging mother, which we both related to. I’m not sure where this project will go yet, but so far I think it has a lot of potential and heart. There won’t be any action in it though :P

Speed Round. Pick one film for each category.

What is your favourite cult classic film?
Shaolin Soccer
What film has the best soundtrack?
How to Train Your Dragon
What is the best film to watch on an aeroplane?
Flubber
What film has the best ending?
Kung Fu Hustle
Which cinematic universe would you like to live in? (e.g. The Grand Budapest Hotel, X-Men, MCU)
Jin Yong Novels - Wu Xia Universe

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Jennifer Li Interview

Interview with ‘Fighting For A Living’ Director Tanja Ploner