A time that I said “yes,” despite the circumstances of not being prepared enough or feeling inadequate for the job is when I decided to create a film for the bike trip I’ve been planning for five years to do with my little brother. Honestly, I was tired of the outdoor media industry overlooking underrepresented communities, I never saw a bikepacking film with faces that looked like mine. So, I decided to make my own. I loved making films throughout high school but never considered it as a career path.
I was fully prepared to self-fund my project, spent money on the gear and self-taught the technical skills for a few months before starting on my bike trip. I was determined to make it work. But a month and a half before the trip started, things started to fall into place when I somehow received funding from a major bicycle company and it snowballed from there. I was receiving continuous support after all of the work I’d done to pitch my idea, make a deck and put my work out there, fearlessly. It was a dream come true, I pitched my project to someone I didn’t know and hoped that something would come out of it. All it takes is one.
With the funding, I could hire a friend to join us and be the videographer, support my 17-year-old brother financially and bring other Korean American creatives onto the project. It really became my passion project and I became fully invested in this film dream. Not only did we have a once of a lifetime experience on this 2 month’s bike trip. I have the honor to capture it and share it with the world with my own creative control. Who gets a chance like this, especially for their first film? So, just doing it and saying “yes” manifested all of this.