Q&A With 'Dark Heavens' Screenwriter Joan Xu Ahead of Aug 20 Sanlitun Talk
Aspiring artists often get stereotyped as starry-eyed romantics, as sentimental and passion-driven, and adverse to cold, hard, right-brain activities. Then there's the likes of Joan Xu, who defies that cliche entirely, a Harvard alumna working in the finance sector with long-held ambitions of screenwriting feature films. As her bio online puts it, the American born Chinese expat “has work experience in finance, tech, and consulting, as well as extensive youth leadership experience. She is a Global Shaper of the World Economic Forum, was a speaker at the 2016 Annual Meeting at Davos, and frequently represents a youth perspective at global political forums.”
It’s a stark change in fields, to be sure. More surprising still: Xu she says the artsy process of working on scripts requires the same mental muscles as crunching numbers or developing a cut and dry financial plan, occasionally even requiring a few of the same tools and applications.
Ahead of her Aug 20 Beijing Women’s Network (BWN) female-only talk at In & Out, she tells us about realizing her dream of working on the screenplay for the Chinese film Dark Heavens and the Chinese web series The Circle (described by The Hollywood Reporter as "Entourage meets Mean Girls").
How did you get involved in screenwriting?
The short and nerdy story is, I always wanted to be a filmmaker but was too chicken to pursue it full-heartedly. Lightning struck when I did an internship in consulting where I conducted a macro analysis of the Chinese film industry. I looked at the numbers spelling out exponential growth of the Chinese movie market but the relative scarcity of creative talent and realized that I’d regret it forever if I didn’t give my dream a shot in this moment of opportunity.
What were some of your favorite films when you were younger that helped you realized the importance of good screenwriting, and made you daydream of becoming a screenwriter yourself?
This is kind of embarrassing to admit, but the film that impacted me the most was definitely Titanic. It made my little 8-year-old heart burst with more feeling than I’d ever felt before and left a lasting impression! The power of being able to make others feel as much as that is still very seductive to me.
Plus, isn’t the giant-ship-tiny-rudder-iceberg metaphor about human hubris so amazing and apt? And think about the global reach and influence of that movie!
Does your background in finance inspire your screenwriting in any surprising or unique ways?
Films are a highly structured product. For the conceptual work, it’s not unlike financial modeling where one is building a framework. Within a story, all the causality has to make sense. Occasionally, I still use Excel spreadsheets to see things more clearly.
Of course, there’s also an intuitive and feelings-based side to creative writing. Admittedly, this is the part I find hardest at the moment. This is partly why action adventure is my genre at this stage of my skills-building and wisdom-gaining, as opposed to stories that require more character intensive work.
What was it like to work on the Chinese show The Circle?
Very thrilling. It was my first paid project and the first time I proved I could actually do the job and could begin to call myself a screenwriter. I’m really grateful that my first steps were taken with a very supportive (and women-lead) team.
Tell us about working on Dark Heavens.
Dark Heavens is based on a fantasy-action novel series by Australian writer, Kylie Chan. I was hired to adapt the first novel into a movie. The best part of working on this project was getting to collaborate with an experienced screenwriter in LA. I learned a lot.
How does it feel to be speaking at this event, sharing your story for a female only audience? It seems like a unique setting that could offer plenty of inspiration to attendees.
It feels kind of scary because I definitely haven’t “made it” yet and am still very much mid-struggle figuring things out myself.
But I’m also grateful to BWN for this opportunity to share with other women. There are few existing blueprints for how to be a modern woman and it’s not easy to feel things out in the dark. I’m a little concerned this might be a case of the blind leading the blind, but then again, maybe the point is to find community with your fellow gropers in the dark.
Joan Xu will speak at the Beijing Women’s Network Monthly Spotlight Dinner on Aug 20 from 7pm-9pm. The event is restricted to female attendees only. For more information, clicks here.
More stories by this author here.
Email: kylemullin@truerun.com
Twitter: @MulKyle
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