Biography

Hello, I'm Gene Sung a Los Angeles based Cinematographer and Director. Aside from watching and studying a massive amount of TV and films, my two biggest artistic inspirations are skateboarding and music.

I started skateboarding at a young age, which formed a one track mindset from practicing the same trick repeatedly for months on end. I take this same ethos for all my artistic projects: You gotta pull it off and make it Super Good! Before skating, I had terrible little kid taste, like I only listened to trendy pop music. Skate culture introduced me to everything that's precious in my life - video, graphic design, illustration, magazines and great music. I remember asking my little skater friend John Phillips if he liked Top-40 and he said: "I don't listen to that crap, I listen to Punk." His words changed my entire trajectory and my music world exploded wide open.

Strangely, music has the biggest impact on my filming and visual style, as I watched a truly insane amount of MTV growing up. Every time I hear a good song, I see images. On stuff I get to personally direct and DP, the general style is lush, dense and pretty pictures. I'm always thinking what images my music heroes like Joy Division, New Order, Bauhaus, The Sex Pistols, NWA, Tupac, Wu Tang Clan, The Knife and Karen O would want for their music? I'd love to someday film in the rainy British countryside, like a romantic, dreary and never ending video for The Smiths as I'm a huge Johnny Marr fan.

Thanks to a lifetime love of skateboarding and surfing, I'm a bit of a travel nut and have been to 51 countries and counting.
- IMDb mini biography by: Gene Sung