PROJECTS


CHASING LIGHT
2023



Some projects start with the answer, but this one started with questions. Why was a Manhattan neighborhood steeped in culture so misunderstood? How do you honor age-old traditions while celebrating new ones?

And most importantly — who’s that guy with the Leica taking a million photos of trash?

We set out to find common ground in Chinatown, New York with Chasing Light: a living portrait of business and culture, tradition and innovation, people and passion.



 


More than a place and or any one culture, we wanted to go below Canal Street’s surface by giving its residents the floor. But to tell a story of people requires the right person to tell it, and that’s where Wellington Chen came in — guy with a Leica and Executive Director of the not-for-profit Chinatown Partnership — who offered the all access pass and extensive photo archive to make this multimedia documentary possible.




With Wellington as our compass, and Sunday Afternoon as co-agency, creative partners and AR-leaders, we bridged old and new Chinatown in subject and execution: documenting residents across age and profession through archival and new photographs. With Sunday Afternoon as our partners and leading the charge, we were able to break the film into AR chapters that lept off the page of CANAL Magazine. We wove the collective story of the doc into a single large-format print magazine powered by AR. The modern medium revealed history in a new light through immersive stories that literally popped off the page.

“Chasing Light” made the cover of 2023 CANAL Mag – the portrait setting the tone for the Sunday Afternoon publication. The documentary was segmented into chapters spread across fourteen pages of the issue. With each turn of a page, a new video popped off the magazine to play the interviews, visual vignettes, and time lapses that make up the full film. The full documentary made its debut on NOWNESS as a part of their “Portrait of a Place” series.
The best place to advertise a film about what makes Chinatown special is what Chen himself describes as the “quintessential main street” – Canal. We designed and occupied two highly visible placements along Canal St: a large banner on the red Chinatown information booth, as well as a multi-poster campaign in the windows of a mid-renovation storefront.


Both placements created interactive opportunities for passersby to engage with the documentary and its AR capabilities, as well as appreciate the portraits and design.


GRAND CREW

DIRECTOR
Geoff Sean Levy

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
Ian Kaplan

1st AD
Eva Minemar

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY
Konstantin Lyubimov

STUDIO ASST/SOUND MIXER
Mariana Urrego

CREATIVE DEVELOPMENT ASST
Bella Savignano

ADDITONAL CINEMATOGRAPHY
Chris Tharp

1st AC
Sunnie Kim

GAFFER SWING
Adrian Reyes

PRODCTION ASSISTANTS
Maurice Guadalupe
Matthew Morales



FEATURING

Wellington Chen
Sio Wai Sang, 
Dr. Warren Chin, MD
Yanyun Kin & Jose Pacheco
Suemei Leung
Bayer Lee
Khanh Tran & Spencer Okada


POST PRODUCTION
Cross Cut Pictures

EDITORS
Ali Mao
Rill Causey

COLOR
Jared Rosenthal

SOUND DESIGN/MIX
Hansdale Hsu

ORIGINAL SCORE
Xander Rodzinski

POST PRODUCTION SUPERVISOR
Jenni Loo

CANAL MAG, CO-AGENCY
DESIGN AND TITLES
AR DESIGN + PRODUCTION
Sunday Afternoon

CO-FOUNDER AND PARTNER
Juan Carlos Pagan

CO-FOUNDER AND PARTNER
Ahmed Klink

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER AND PARTNER
Audrie Poole

ECD + PARTNER
Rich Tu

PRODUCTION MANAGER
Lizzie Brightly

SENIOR DESIGNER
Xiaoyu Xue

DESIGNERS
Aarman Roy
Kee Wei Chin
Simon Freour
Ruiqi Zhou
Yuan Zhang

INTERNS
Rand Rivera
Ariana Gupta

PHOTOGRAPHY BY
Geoff Sean Levy
Wellington Chen

ARCHIVAL IMAGERY COURTESY OF

Artbean Coffee
Bettmann Collection
CC Langill
Chinatown Bid
Dr. Warren Chin
Edmund Gillond
Getty Images (Bettmann, Archive Photos)
Inna Xu
Jami Gong
Lost Years Media
Museum of Chinese in America
Museum of The City of New York
New York Public Library
Paul Calhoun
Periscope FIlm LLC
Peter Van Wijk
Robert Iulo
Shorpy / Juniper Gallery
Wallach Collection
Wellington Chen
William C. Greene

SPECIAL THANKS TO

168 Centre Street
183 Centre Street ds
Cindy Loo
Chinatown Partnerships / Chinatown B.I.D.
Derong Li
Handheld Films
Jack Newton
James / haiPOWER
Phil Chong / Canal Street Market



GRAND CREW

DIRECTOR
Geoff Sean Levy

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
Ian Kaplan

1st AD
Eva Minemar

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY
Konstantin Lyubimov

STUDIO ASST/SOUND MIXER
Mariana Urrego

CREATIVE DEVELOPMENT ASST
Bella Savignano

ADDITONAL CINEMATOGRAPHY
Chris Tharp

1st AC
Sunnie Kim

GAFFER SWING
Adrian Reyes

PRODCTION ASSISTANTS
Maurice Guadalupe
Matthew Morales



FEATURING

Wellington Chen
Sio Wai Sang,
Dr. Warren Chin, MD
Yanyun Kin & Jose Pacheco
Suemei Leung
Bayer Lee
Khanh Tran & Spencer Okada


POST PRODUCTION
Cross Cut Pictures

EDITORS
Ali Mao
Rill Causey

COLOR
Jared Rosenthal

SOUND DESIGN/MIX
Hansdale Hsu

ORIGINAL SCORE
Xander Rodzinski

POST PRODUCTION SUPERVISOR
Jenni Loo


AR PRODUCTION
DESIGN AND TITLES
Sunday Afternoon

CO-FOUNDER AND PARTNER
Juan Carlos Pagan

CO-FOUNDER AND PARTNER
Ahmed Klink

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER AND PARTNER
Audrie Poole

ECD + PARTNER
Rich Tu


PRODUCTION MANAGER
Lizzie Brightly

SENIOR DESIGNER
Xiaoyu Xue

DESIGNERS
Aarman Roy
Kee Wei Chin
Simon Freour
Ruiqi Zhou
Yuan Zhang

INTERNS
Rand Rivera
Ariana Gupta

PHOTOGRAPHY BY
Geoff Sean Levy
Wellington Chen

ARCHIVAL IMAGERY COURTESY OF

Artbean Coffee
Bettmann Collection
CC Langill
Chinatown Bid
Dr. Warren Chin
Edmund Gillond
Getty Images (Bettmann, Archive Photos)
Inna Xu
Jami Gong
Lost Years Media
Museum of Chinese in America
Museum of The City of New York
New York Public Library
Paul Calhoun
Periscope FIlm LLC
Peter Van Wijk
Robert Iulo
Shorpy / Juniper Gallery
Wallach Collection
Wellington Chen
William C. Greene

SPECIAL THANKS TO

168 Centre Street
183 Centre Street ds
Cindy Loo
Chinatown Partnerships / Chinatown B.I.D.
Derong Li
Handheld Films
Jack Newton
James / haiPOWER
Phil Chong / Canal Street Market