Meet Dahae Lee | Film Editor & Colorist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Dahae Lee and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Dahae, why did you decide to pursue a creative path?
The reason for pursuing an artistic and creative career get you a fresh and new work environment and people to collaborate with who will become your family.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
Hi! My name is Dahae Lee, and I’m a young film editor and colorist from Seoul, Korea! My Journey for me to be here was like an adventure. I was born in Korea and lived there until I was 12. However, I spent most of my teenage years and college in China and in the US to meet and experience diverse cultures by meeting friends and working. I am most proud and excited about my work in editing and coloring especially there’s not a lot of woman filmmakers are interested in color grading. Before I was interested in filmmaking, I was into painting and graphic design. I never thought I would be part of filmmaking with incredible people in the film industry. I also think, my eyes and talents in seeing colors and knowledge in color space inspired me. big in digital coloring. And definitely, it was not easy. Even my parents who always supported ever first said no to filmmaking. Since they were not familiar with the career in the film industry and I brought to them in a short time to change my career path, they weren’t happy. Because of that, I always had to push myself harder to always prove myself to not only to my parents but to others. Because I started late and did not have the biggest talent, I doubled and tripled my work time and took on projects. When you know that you are the only person who stays late in the room and has no time to hang out with your friends, you recognize you are the only one who is heading farther away than others. I was that person, which was a lonely journey but I achieved and eventually got closer to my life goal which is getting an Oscar and Emmy award I am an Academy Gold member currently nominated for an Emmy award. The lesson that I learned along the way was you just got to keep running toward what you truly want to achieve. There are consequences but never give up or forget what you were going to achieve and you can be proud of for yourself.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
My favorite spot to show around and bring my friends and family would be Yosemite. I could have picked more like a city to go to nice restaurants and bars around LA but the scenery of Yosemite that I first went and made me feel healing and refreshing in a hot summer is something you can’t compare to anything. The endless tall trees, fresh air with cool wind on a hot summer, cold water from the glacier, and unreal-looking landscape made me wanna stay longer. The power of nature made peace physically and mentally. And you can also meet diverse people in Yosemite by connecting through nature. Last year, I got to meet a park wrangler friend who brought me and my friend to the cave at night to see stars, tubing at the river stream that was melted from the glacier, and nice villages around the park. It was amazing to meet diverse people through nature while you were tubing and hiking but also interesting to meet from all different cities and states to come stay in Yosemite. I would be going to bring my friends to Yosemite if they are visiting California.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Shout out to the crew and all the work and message behind that we got to share with the people and world of the documentary, “Just Jacob”. I met Halle Losordo a director for Just Jacob in my senior year of my college. And mesmerized by the story about Jacob who has Treacher Collins Syndrome and looking to graduate from school and into a journey for his career which is a big turning point in his life. I am so glad that I could be part of one of the key crew members as an editor to build the entire story and get to make the story to share. The proudest work “Just Jacob” taught me a life lesson through Jacob’s past and his mindset to be positive. Most people have had their most devastating moments or slumps in their life whether it was the loss of their job, failure in a relationship, or even their post-graduate career. When I was working on the documentary, I was also going through with a bunch of concerns about my career. Since I’m a very overthinking person, everything could have been the drawbacks of my mentality. However, Jacbo who is the hero of the documentary, actually helped me through all of that and eventually gave me the energy and power to think positively for any reason. Whoever can be harder enough than Jacob who went through all the hardship from when he was born to until he had to graduate and look for a job for himself. Even though he had a dream big and always looked far away to be positive, there’s no way I couldn’t be. Jacob and the documentary “Just Jacob” has been a huge motivation and still it is. I still see my work and get the motivation out of it. I’m so honored to be part of the project and luckily with all the effort, “Just Jacob” has been nominated to Emmy Television Awards.

Website: www.haedaling.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/haedaling/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dahae-lee-a03504239/