Changyi is an award-winning director, cinematographer, and gaffer for narrative,  commercial, and music video.

Unlike those who chose filmmaking at a young age, she decided to be a director in during a sudden sleepless night in high school. Afterward, she started watching films like crazy, and have now accumulated a watchlist of over 7,000 movies that she has seen. Then she grabbed her camera and started to shoot some short films with friends. It was at that time that she realized her passion for cinema.          

She started to create her own stories and being largely inspired by Literature. Nabokov, Faulkner, Dostoyevsky, Haruki Murakami, and Fitzgerald are some of the great writers that influence the scripts she writes.

She believes in “auteurism”, a French New Wave term distinguishing anyone who controls multiple aspects of collaborative work. The French New Wave has influenced her the most as she sees art as a way of expressing oneself. Jean-Luc Godard is her favorite director and he makes her realized that the importance of breaking rules and telling stories in a creative way. All her stories reflect her thoughts and philosophies. She likes to explore relationships between individuals and the relationship between the individual and the world. She is attracted to the extreme loneliness of human beings. No amount of fame and success can eliminate the spiritual loneliness and confusion of self-existence.

After coming to LA, she found another love within cinema — cinematography and lighting. In her opinion, the story is the most important part of filmmaking. There are many ways to tell stories, and cinematography is an indispensable element. She prefers to use the camera to explore the deeper meaning of a story than to take unnecessary cool shots. Tied in with cinematography, lighting is also indispensable. Gaffers are the second pair of eyes to the cinematographer. Through experience, she has come to love being a gaffer. She is always eager and excited to work with all kinds of lights and grip equipment. There is no better feeling than working on set. So far, she has worked for various features, TV series, commercials and music videos.