DGA Monthly

M A Y 2 0 2 5 I 1 9 On April 9, DGA members gathered in the Guild's Los Angeles Theater for the special event, The Craft of the Director: Jon M. Chu. Presented by the Special Projects Committee, the evening was the latest installment in this series of conversations with master filmmakers featuring in-depth discussions about the directing process, illustrated by clips from their work. Following a welcome by DGA Special Projects Committee Co-Chair Rachel Raimist, Directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller served as the moderators of the conversation where Chu discussed his personal directing process and shared how he approaches various areas of the craft, from pre-production through post. Chu started off the conversation by sharing how he learned the process of storytelling by listening and observing the lives around him growing up in his family's Chinese restaurant in Los Altos, CA. "It was a house of stories, so I got to absorb that. The sounds and the energy of people coming in, their lives and the good parts and the bad parts and their celebrations and their mourning … there's something central about witnessing that as an observer. And then I got a camera in my hand." He recalled the complexities of filming of In the Heights on location in the actual Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City. "Every day we were on that set, you're competing with people who have their radio on louder than our playback. And you put up cones and they just drive right through it. That kind of energy was fun and everyone there wanted to embrace it." For the Director of films such as Step Up 2: The Streets and Justin Bieber: Never Say Never, music and rhythm are through-lines that blend into his directorial style. He spoke about how he tackled the kitchen scene in Crazy Rich Asians that introduces Michelle Yeoh's character, Eleanor, the prospective mother-in- law, and establishes the tension between her and Constance Wu's Rachel, the prospective daughter-in-law. "I didn't storyboard that, but I knew what I wanted to feel. In the book, she's not introduced in the kitchen, she's introduced out amongst all the guests. I wanted it to feel like a jazz band in there, so all the cutting is to the rhythm of the song. I wanted that pace. I wanted that driving urgency that she had other things to do." Pivoting to the subject of his recent musical feature, Wicked, Chu revealed how he interpreted the "Ozdust" scene within the "Dancing Through Life" musical number and adapted it to differentiate it from the stage production. "This scene in the show has an emotion to it, but the way she [Elphaba] moves is comedic, and you're supposed to laugh. Then Glinda comes in and makes it sexy or whatever, and so she comes to the rescue. I think when you hire Cynthia Erivo, she's like 'I don't need rescuing. That's not who our Elphaba is if we're going to care about her.' So, a moment like this was about silence and stillness. Probably one of the most famous ideas in the Wizard of Oz lore is surrender. She's always being told, 'Control your emotions. Control your power.' She's trying so hard, but what she needs to do is surrender at some point. Stop trying to please someone else. The stillness allowed us to do that. And when you show it to the studio, the studio is like, 'Uh… isn't this supposed to be a musical number?'" On the subject of collaboration, Chu said, "That is my favorite thing in the world. It took time to be able to believe in myself to trust the process, to believe in others, to gather the right group. But also, to know you can always change it. I know when we're on set, if someone has an idea, this is not about me, we're serving a story I helped get into a place, but then the movie speaks back. And now, all the pieces are speaking back, and I better be listening, and it becomes way better. I understand that now. And that is very empowering to me, but it is scary. You have to repeat yourself a lot but every time you repeat your story, you're honing it. I'm telling stories to my editor of what I'm trying to get to there or to my composer of what we're trying to get to here. And that is my job – tell stories all day long. And then everybody else's job is to help tell the story that we're all working on." Speaking to what motivates him as a Director, Chu said, "We're all Directors. This is our life. How lucky are we! Storytelling is more important than ever in the world that we're in. People have stopped dreaming big because everyone's blaming each other or you're defending yourself. And movies have always set the horizons; set this idea that we can be bigger than ourselves. I love that about movies and that's why I think movies will survive everything because it is the only medium in the world where one weekend, no matter what a pundit says, no matter what people on the internet say, when a movie drops and it makes $167 million, fuck everyone else! To me, we need that in this world, and I love that we get to do that." A DGA member since 2007, Chu's directorial credits also include the features Step Up 2: The Streets and G.I. Joe: Retaliation; the television special Ken Jeong: You Complete Me, Ho; and episodes of Swiss Family Robinson, Home Before Dark and Good Trouble. He is perhaps best known for the worldwide phenomenon, Crazy Rich Asians, the first contemporary studio picture in more than 25 years to feature an all-Asian cast. His recent feature Wicked, earned a "Best Picture" Oscar-nomination and brought Chu "Best Director" awards at the 2025 Critics Choice Awards and the 2024 National Board of Review. As a film student in 2002, Chu was recognized by the DGA's Student Film Awards for his short film Gwai Lo: The Little Foreigner. Images: 1. Director Jon M. Chu discusses his approach to the craft. 2. Directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller serve as moderators of the conversation. 3. DGA Special Projects Committee Co-Chair Rachel Raimist welcomes the audience. 4. Chu directing Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande on the set of Wicked. See the video of this event online at www.dga.org. See more detailed descriptions, additional photos and video, where available, online at www.dga.org. DGA Events Roundup The Craft of the Director: Jon M. Chu A Special Projects Committee Event 1 2 event photos by Howard Wise 4 3

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