
Just Keep Moving
Interview by Marie-Claire Marcotte
This interview originally appeared in She Said Notes.
I arrive first at the coffee shop and am excited to see that the only spot bathed in sunlight is unoccupied. I pounce on it. I expect Joyce to also rejoice in the fact that I found us a ‘sun spot.’ She shows up a few minutes later but doesn’t comment on the prime table I found us. We settle in with our coffees. I got used to spending twelve hour work days alongside Joyce when she was the director of Running With Violet Season 2. I’m looking forward to this relaxed chat as a change of pace from our working relationship.
So Joyce, what’s your relationship to calm and chaos? How do you see it?
I definitely lean more towards the chaos. Maybe it’s because of the film industry. Or it’s just who I am, I don’t know. There’s just so many variables involved in making film (and TV and webseries) that it doesn’t necessarily lend itself to a process that’s very slow and steady… because you want to do things in a way that’s really good but there are all these weird time constraints with so many people involved. You end up getting pulled in so many directions because you’re trying to keep all of it together.
Phew. We take a breath nodding.
So if it were up to you, would you rather create calmly and slowly?
At first Joyce has on her thinking-frowning face but that quickly dissolves into a smile.
Yeah.
And back to the thinking-frown.
I’m watching your facial expressions Joyce! Where did your mind just go?
I’m thinking of when I finished my last film. I was completely burnt out, but you’re supposed to have the next project ready to jump into — and be ready to jump into it immediately, right? Logically I understood that expectation, but for my mental state that jump wouldn’t have been that healthy.
So how long did you end up giving yourself to pause and rest?
A year. To be honest, the way I did my feature was not the normal way — I was working in that ultra-low budget range which is so much more stressful. Very little money.
Yeah, you worked magic with that.
But then sometimes there’s like a way that the chaotic intensity makes you extremely focused, and I find it pushes me to create really good work. Everyone has to exist in the now, in that intensity, because there is no time! I recently experienced that doing a short doc where the time constraints were very real.
Do you have an image that comes to mind when you think of calm or chaos? How do you see it? Do you see it as like… a bear or a colour or…?
When I think of bears I think of them as really cuddly, so… (Laughs) OK OK, I think calm is definitely somewhere in the blue spectrum. Chaos is going into the yellows and oranges. You know how if you live in a yellow room, it drives you crazy?
Does it?
Yeah, I think there have been studies. Or maybe I heard it in like a TV show? (We both laugh) But it’s been said, it’s not originating from me!
This makes me think of my first year in Toronto when I missed the sun so badly that I painted a bunch of papers yellow and taped them to my wall. Was I making myself even crazier?
So this yellow room theory might have been explained in a fictionalized TV show.
We both laugh again.
In terms of moments of supreme creativity, when do those happen for you?
It’s usually seasonal. For me pre-summer or post-winter are the perfect times for writing. They are the times when most of my productive writing gets done.
You’re primarily a director/writer. Do you feel like you’ve found your niche, or are there other things you still want to explore?
I don’t know… photography?
Makes sense given that you used to be a Director of Photography.
I still really like that work. I I feel like it exercises an important set of muscles. As a DP you’re trying to capture the chaos and you’re visually trying to bring order to the chaos.
How did you view the Running With Violet set in terms of calm and chaos?
I really liked the fact that there was a female energy on our set. I feel like there was this commitment to trying to figure things out and get things done in a very adaptable way, which was different from a lot of sets that are more male-dominated. In general, I feel like in film and TV there’s this idea that it’s supposed to be A-B-C, and when it’s not A-B-C, especially when it’s a lower budget, people freak out. That didn’t happen on our set.
Also, in terms of working with women in the creative process, you don’t really have to explain as much regarding your point of view. It wastes a lot of time trying to re-explain yourself to other people. There are just so many things that you already have to explain in film. You have to make sure everyone understands the creative, understands the vision, and then are working together towards the same tone. If you’re wasting so much time trying to explain essential point of view stuff — when crafting female characters especially, or female perspectives on male characters — it’s just a lot of time wasted.

I noticed that on set you have a shit-ton of stamina.
Joyce frowns and nods. I take this to mean she takes her shit-ton of stamina seriously.
Where do you think that comes from?
Crossfit? I don’t know. (Laughs) Seriously, I don’t know! I always grew up in some sort of team sport. I feel like actually, just from a health perspective, if you are working out regularly early in the morning you’ll have a lot more energy throughout the day, and then if you stop working out and you start filming, that same energy translates.
Right. So it’s just a different kind of exercise? Like an endorphin hit but from a different source.
The funny thing is over the last couple of weeks I’ve been recovering from my wisdom tooth surgery so I have had to stop working out. Now I can’t sleep because I’m so used to either working out or just being on set… maybe I just have way too much energy.
You’re making me miss crossfit. I used to do it.
I’m part of a cult!
No, no. Well maybe you are. (Laughs) Okay what about moments of stagnation? How do you experience them?
I grew up in a household where I was taught that stagnation is bad. You should always be moving. Moving forward is the goal. Though if you’re moving backwards it’s fine because — like a pickup truck — it’s cool as long as you’re doing the work (moving backwards!). The key is that you’re moving! If you’re not moving at all there must be a problem…
What would moving backwards look like?
You’re fighting for what you believe, but there’s pushback. I mean it could also mean you accidentally did something wrong and then you’re learning a lesson or something.
But at least you did something?
Yeah.
Wow, that’s… very active! How do you experience silence then — not moving? Do you give yourself such moments?
I think that’s why I like taking public transit. Those are the only moments in the day when I can just zone out a bit and do nothing.
Though you’re really doing something — you’re on your way to something.
Yeah, but not actively doing something. I’m just sitting there or standing.
Have you ever tried meditating?
No — I’m kind of curious but it seems like a lot of work. (Laughs) Because you have to find a place that does it, or maybe find a podcast that does it. It seems like there’s a lot of active work to go figure out how to meditate and be still! So I haven’t done it yet!
What if I told you it’s just breathing?
Well, I guess there’s a yoga class at my crossfit studio that I go to sometimes. Maybe I’m already kind of meditating.
We laugh and take a moment to sip some coffee in the sunlight.
You’re involved in a lot of exciting projects. Is your family excited for you? Do they support you?
Joyce puts her mug down and thinks for a moment.
I think it’s hard for families that aren’t in an artistic industry to understand how people make a living working on films for art. There’s a lot of effort put into trying to find some common ground.
With your family?
Yeah.
A bit of confusion?
Yeah, exactly. I think I’m just fine with it because no one in the generations of my family have been involved in film or art or anything like that so there’s no precedent I have to aspire to. It means there’s a lot of freedom in what I want to do and get to say.
You’re young, but if you gave advice to your even younger self, what would you say?
Hmm. Don’t worry as much. I think you can waste a lot of time with anxieties, but those anxieties actually become really inconsequential in the face of even more pressure that comes with more complicated projects. That kind of future pressure means that the anxieties you deal with in the moment actually don’t matter at all.
Do you have one specifically in mind?
More like a million… almost too many to say. I think what I’m really saying is that I just like spending time away from that negative anxious energy that can be super overwhelming. I’d rather be more like…what is the opposite of that?
Of being anxious? Meditating maybe?
Yeah. Maybe the advice should be, “Spend some time meditating.” Because it’s hard.
Or maybe instead of ruminating, make space for other things.
Yes! Also, I’d tell younger me to spend time absorbing stories from other fictional works — like watch more movies, read more books, listen to more music. There’s just so much out there in the world that you can experience. I would tell that younger self to do those things just for fun… because doing them truly makes you happy.
Finally, where do you go to create? Do you have a space?
Wherever really — though I really don’t like being in direct sunlight.
Like right now?
I now understand Joyce’s lack of excitement for the perfect ‘sun-spot’ I found us!
Yeah, right now.
We laugh.
Should we move?
No, it’s fine.
I half believe her.
I love working in cold basements.
Cold basements? (Joyce grins and we both laugh)
Ideally, there would be a window but there wouldn’t be direct sunlight. Working on planes is also good.
I love working on planes! Okay, do you have any closing words on calm or chaos?
(With a huge smile) Chaos is fine! There shouldn’t be any stigma around chaos because chaos can bring good things.
And with those closing words we gulp down the dregs of our coffees and head outside together. Another work day awaits us. Driving us forward — one of us into the sun and the other right out of it! Though after our talk I feel like following her words of advice and absorbing a story — reading a book or going to a movie. Just for fun!

Joyce Wong is an award-winning director and writer. She is an alumna of the 2008 Berlinale Talent Campus, the 2016 TIFF Talent Lab, named one of CBC’s 17 for 17 great Canadian filmmakers of the future, and described by the LA Times as “a major talent to watch.” Her debut narrative feature, Wexford Plaza, is a dramedy that screened in competition at Slamdance in 2017, was awarded the Comcast Best Narrative Feature Award by the Center for Asian American Media in San Francisco, nominated for the Toronto Film Critics Association’s Best Canadian Film Award, and nominated for the John Dunning Discovery Award by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television. She’s currently directing on the Baroness von Sketch Show and Workin’ Moms.
