The director originally set out to tell the story of a music scene particular to the Vietnamese community in Southern California in the 1980s. But being from that community herself, she saw ways to insert her personal story into the film as well.

This film came to me as a rough cut. Upon first watch, the film felt like two separate stories. The challenge here was to find bridges between the larger New Wave story and the director’s personal story to merge the two. We experimented with match-cutting, musical transitions, and rewriting the director’s voiceover to make the film more cohesive.

About a month into the edit, I had playlists of New Wave music on repeat, whether walking, driving, or at the gym. It allow me to conduct a constant background search for the best pieces of music to incorporate into new scenes.