Katarina Zhu’s Guide to Directing Your First Feature

Words: Jenn Lehwald | Guide: Katarina Zhu

Make it stand out

For Katarina Zhu, the decision to move onto features didn’t necessarily come from a feeling of being ready to take the leap, but a necessary step driven by both encouragement and a discontent that pushed her to make a change.

After directing short films such as Silver Lake Cleaners and Shrub, she decided it was time to make the jump to direct her first feature. Bunnylovr - which she wrote, directed, and starred in, tells the story of a cam girl, Rebecca, navigating a toxic client relationship while reconnecting with her estranged father.

For Katarina, though, it wasn’t just about directing a feature - it meant writing, acting, and editing as well. This kind of all-in approach is common for first-time filmmakers, who often have to become jacks of all trades to bring their vision to life.

From making Bunnylovr, Katarina has picked up all the skills needed to bring a concept to screen; here’s Katarina Zhu’s guide to directing your first feature film.

You’re Never Going to Feel Ready - Do it Anyways

I transitioned more to writing and directing from acting, and it was very much a way for me to take creative control over my career, because as an actor, you don’t have a lot of autonomy. You’re just waiting for someone to put you in something - it’s just not empowering, and it feels very frustrating. So I started to write stuff for myself, and then I made a couple of shorts.

Making the leap to direct a feature was a combination of things - but mostly, I don’t think you’re ever ready. It just felt like a necessary step. I was encouraged by Rachel to make the jump from shorts to a feature, but I was also in such a deep state of discomfort that I felt like I had to change something in my life.

I think I was pushed to a point where I just needed to break out of whatever I was in - to feel something other than the dissatisfaction I had around my career and life in general.

Let Go of Doing Everything Yourself

With shorts, I was wearing 50 different hats - I was ordering lunch, directing, acting, costume designing, production designing, I was doing everything. And because of that, you’re across every single part of it all the time in a very hands-on way. But with a feature, we had department heads for each department who were amazing at their jobs and really relieved me of so much responsibility. There’s this difference where you actually have to be comfortable delegating and trusting that people are professionals who know how to do their job - and that you’ve prepared enough that they understand the vision you’re trying to execute. I think what that really does is it frees up space in your head to focus on what you’re actually supposed to be doing, which is directing.

Trust the Casting Process to Lead You to the Right People

The casting process feels very magical to me - like the pieces of the puzzle just come together somehow, and it ends up being perfect. We went down a traditional casting route with Bunnylovr and had amazing casting directors, but then everybody else sort of came through different channels. Rachel was an organic decision because of our friendship, Perry Yung, who plays the father, was suggested through a financier, and others came through friends and collaborators - it all just found its way.

Lead With Emotional Intuition

I feel like there are directors who are like, ‘This is the way that I work,’ and as an actor, you mould your process to that. But for me, it’s about being emotionally intuitive - understanding when you might be pushing someone’s boundaries too far, when you’re starting to lose someone, or when they’re maybe just not understanding something.

Be Purposeful With Structure

Directing a feature, I was more focused on structure. With a short, it feels simpler in terms of beginning, middle and end. Whereas with a feature, you’re tracking so many different storylines over a longer period of time. I think you have to be more purposeful with structure, or at least for me, I had to be much more strict with myself about there being parameters around everything. 

Build the Ship as You’re Sailing It

With indie film, it’s always as if you’re building the ship as you’re sailing. Financing the film was not easy. We didn’t get our last piece of financing until the day after we wrapped - we were at the wrap party and my producer got an email being like, ‘Alright, great, we can finish the movie.’ I mean, you’re cobbling together like $10,000 from your mom’s old family, or like $25K from your best friends’ parents. That was very much how we were able to get the financing together.

Don’t Let Festival Buzz Define Your Expectations

I think your perception gets kind of coloured by Sundance and the expectation that you go there and it’s a big deal - that you’ll get 10 million dollars for your first film or there will be a bidding war. So I think after Sundance you’re a little bit disillusioned. The distribution process has been really tricky, but I feel really lucky that Utopia was a supporter of the film from day one and came in early as our international sales agents. We’ve found what feels like the perfect home. Still, the distribution process was tricky for sure.

Surround Yourself With a Creative Community That Feeds You

You need to experience life and then surround yourself with a creative community that really feeds you. I think that’s something I was thinking about when thinking about this guide - that a movie is the essence of someone. Every movie someone makes is just an embodiment of themselves in some way. I think you have to experience things, go through stuff, and then eventually you meet people who are creatively aligned with you and support you. And I think after that, anything is possible. You can make a movie with your iPhone - you just need some life experience and friends who care about you, who want to support you, and who are creative.