Will JonesAs a writer, director, and producer, Michael Yu shares with us how he is using his experiences on both the creative and business ends to navigate the film and television industry.
Michael Yu on set for Taichi-ing (2025) (Neil Hui)
For artists in any field, creativity and commerce often feel fundamentally at odds—a tension that Yu knows well. After launching his career as a writer-director, Yu’s recent foray into the development side of the business has profoundly influenced his creative process. Though he admits, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows.
Yu’s passion for filmmaking was ignited early. He won his first film festival award at just 16 with a romance-drama short at the Covellite International Film Festival. Before graduating from college, he earned his first television credit with a series from one of Asia’s leading networks, ViuTV.
In those early years, Yu was driven largely by the act of making art. “I was just creating to create,” Yu recalled when discussing Out of Gas (2019)—a gritty drama he wrote and directed that follows the lives of a banker and a truck driver. The film screened at the Berkeley Film Museum and Pacific Film Archive and was a semi-finalist for Best Screenplay at the Los Angeles Film Awards. “I wasn’t thinking about who I was making it for when I made it… I just made it.”
But last year marked a turning point. Yu joined the content development team for a new film and television studio founded by former executives from HBO, Netflix, and Prime Video. For the first time, he found himself on the other side of the table—evaluating pitches rather than making them.
“I think the business side can see it so much as a business… and so little as an art sometimes…,” Yu noted. In search of new projects for the studio to board, he recently attended the Hong Kong Asia Film Financing Forum, the flagship event of the Hong Kong International Film Festival Industry Office.
This perspective has reshaped Yu’s own approach to filmmaking. “Now, I only want to make work that I know can reach an audience,” he explained, discussing his latest feature-length project in development, Mr. Cool. Inspired by the Academy Award-nominated Lady Bird (2017), his new comedy-drama follows a cool kid wannabe from Hong Kong navigating social circles at a sporty, fratty liberal arts college in the US.
Yu said his studio experience has “actually helped to hone the process even more” as he begins working on the screenplay’s second draft. “I’m like: okay, I know I’m making this for under-25 adults mainly… or people who are nostalgic about college, so, let’s make it college-y. They want to see that specificity brought to life.” With this focus, the creative process “doesn’t have to be this vague thing,” Yu adds. “You can keep it honed.”
Still, Yu acknowledges that weighing business considerations in the creative process is far from perfect. He has felt this most acutely when considering projects to come on board as a producer. “I tend to think more positively about material with sellable elements now.”
Reconciling the demands of both the art and the business remains an ongoing challenge. “Business is all about fear, whereas art is all about freedom,” Yu says. “It’s almost like I’ve got these two people in my brain now… when I’m working on the business side, it can be hard to let the artist in.”
As he moves into the next chapter of his career, developing more ambitious projects with his studio and independently, Yu hopes to find more answers. “I’m trying to compartmentalize. It seems easy to get lost in all the limiting factors: ‘like, oh shoot, that location is so expensive… how are we going to do that?’”
At the end of the day, Yu emphasized, what matters most is the story. “Let’s craft the best possible piece of art first, then go from there,” he noted in relation to the screenplay. “We can change locations later. It’s the core emotional part that really matters.”
Especially when helming projects as a writer/director, Yu remains true to his values. “I want my work to feel like it comes from somewhere real—emotionally, artistically.”
And when the curtains close, it’s authenticity that he feels will drive everything home. “I know that I need to keep pursuing whatever the heck my specific voice is… as I do, the audience will follow.”
Recently, Yu served as a juror at the 48th Asian American International Film Festival. He will be developing a number of thriller, drama, and comedy projects.
He wishes to thank his family, friends, and mentors for their continued support throughout his journey.