RYAN K. CHANG
FILMMAKER · WRITER-DIRECTOR · EDITOR · COLORIST
Ryan Chang is an award-winning filmmaker working between narrative cinema, experimental film, psychology, music, color, and emerging production technology.
His work is interested in what happens when rigorous filmmaking collides with the irrational: archetype, desire, ritual, pop culture, nervous-system intensity, and the strange patterns beneath ordinary life.
U.S. AIR FORCE VETERAN · BLACKMAGIC DESIGN CERTIFIED · INTERNATIONAL ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE
THE LONG WAY INTO FILM
At seventeen, Chang began writing professionally about cinema for On Magazine / The Yakima Herald, covering films including Oldboy, Hard Candy, and The Raid. That same year, he was the sole student selected for his high school’s annual One Acts program, receiving a production budget to write and direct an original play.
From 2016 to 2022, he served six years in the U.S. Air Force in satellite communications, where technical precision, systems thinking, troubleshooting, and calm communication under pressure became an unlikely foundation for the way he would later approach filmmaking.
THE TECHNICAL DISCIPLINE STAYED.
THE OBJECTIVE CHANGED.
BUILDING THE PRACTICE
After the Air Force, Chang returned briefly to film school and began developing Pisces Rising. Limited budgets, tiny crews, and compressed production time pushed him to learn across cinematography, editing, color, sound, VFX, finishing, and eventually Unreal Engine—both to fill gaps when resources were limited and communicate more effectively across departments.
Moon in Scorpio and THOTH became prequel films and proofs of concept for Pisces Rising, testing its visual language and production methods under constraint. Moon compressed an eight-minute film into a five-hour shoot; THOTH pushed the process through more than 10,000 individually captured images and later received awards for Experimental Film and Visual Effects. Chang went on to become Blackmagic Design certified in DaVinci Resolve and use Unreal Engine extensively to previs and engineer difficult shots before production.
LIMITED RESOURCES CREATED RANGE.
RANGE CREATED A METHOD.
THE PRACTICE IN THE WORLD
Chang began applying that practice to other people’s visions through commissioned and collaborative work spanning narrative, documentary, art, and specialized media—from editing, color, sound, and theatrical DCP finishing to documentary work on Eduardo Kac’s Adsum: An Artwork for the Moon and specially commissioned guided films for ketamine-assisted therapy. His work has also extended into cinema programming, projection, and exhibition across DCP and 16mm.
His own practice continued alongside it. In London, Chang photographed Lady Frieda Harris’s original Thoth Tarot paintings with 16mm and digital cinematography, creating Libra: Respect in Diamonds. At artist residencies including Nida Art Colony in Lithuania and Casa de Creație in Romania, he continued workshopping Pisces Rising and other projects; at Nida, he also presented his films publicly and shared the philosophy behind his work, including History Repeating, his analysis of montage, color, archetype, symbolism, and cinematic systems.
