Alicia Sing
Film Producer / Photographer / Film Editor / Graphic Designer /
Found her calling
https://www.aliciasing.com/
@aliciasing
Alicia currently works as a creative film editor. She’s assisted in producing a handful of films but the one that caught my eye was ‘captain beanie’, a wonderfully shot and executed short documentary made for Channel 4 in the UK. She aspires to one day be a film producer though she never went to film school, or studied it in high school. Instead, she graduated from university in 2019 with a degree in business and management from Kings College London.
I contacted Alicia because of my fascination in her leap into the world of art. How did she make that jump? Why didn’t she pursue this path earlier on? How was she so confident with her passion? These are all things I struggled with myself. I have never pursued photography in any serious manner, was never sure of my images, and I never really took a leap into pursuing this passion of mine as a source of income.
The location Alicia picked was the West Kowloon cultural district. Sunsets have had a great affect on her, they gave her an overwhelmingly positive vibe and remind her of her trip to Morocco. A It was undoubtedly a very good trip. She had seen on the web of this spot which has a beautiful view of the city and of the setting sun in the west Kowloon cultural district, so off we went.
Alicia is a very pleasant person, soft spoken, but assertive simultaneously. Admittedly I was not in the best headspace as I had almost went insane spending the last 8 hours trying to fix a lens I had deconstructed (it is fixed now). She pressed hard on my vision and that was extremely helpful with the direction I wanted with the shoot. Not going to lie, her questions really pressured me to refining my ideas for the shoot. She just really wanted to know how to best execute my vision and that’s when I thought to myself “wow she’s going to be great producer”.
So why didn’t she pursue film production earlier? Well, like many others in Hong Kong the pressure to pick a subject that was “useful” really got to her. She had only started getting into the film scene because her flatmate told her to take a leap and pursue her passion.
She started by going to events, cold calling people, and talking to anyone that would get her a position that was film related. And that’s how she met her mentor Roxy Rezvany, and got her a role in being an assistant producer in the wonderful short documentary Captain Beany. Additionally, Roxy helps Alicia stay motivated and passionate towards film production, and to continue growing along this path.
I asked Alicia where “she got the balls to just go out there?” She’s tells me that’s in part attributed to her time in a competitive business school which made her more assertive as that’s what business school demanded of her. She tells me that it’s helped her say things with full confidence. I thought “I guess faking till you make it does work!” That’s also about when she brought the point up of having different personas to face different situations.
It’s her ability to face different situations with such adaptability that has helped her make such a drastic change from business grad to film producer. — just a thought, but maybe there should be an easier way to make transitions from what people deem as ‘desirable’ subjects to seemingly less desirable subjects in school? Perhaps more ways for more people to take the leap as Alicia had. Or maybe perhaps we should convince others that there is no more or less desirable fields or subjects.
As the sun made its exit from the scene, Alicia asked me “have you heard of the idea of ‘the calling’?” She proceeds to tell me about the things she learned in a work psychology course she took in university but the main point was: it’s that feeling you get when the work your do no longer feels like work, it brings you happiness, and time flies by while doing it. Film production was her calling.
