Behind the Shot: Jane Macedo Yang

Jane Macedo Yang is a cinematographer based in Atlanta, GA, where she was born and raised. 

Wet met Jane and her sister/filmmaking partner Jennifer through Brown Girls Doc Mafia, a community for women and non-binary filmmakers of color. Instantly, we connected over our love for documentary storytelling and our immigrant family backgrounds.  

She and her sister recently started a production company called Mazu Films and are currently in production on their feature documentary Parastoo.

Jane was kind enough to be our first guest on Behind the Shot, a new series about cinematographers we love and the stories behind their favorite frames.  (Thank you, Jane!!) 

Our conversation is below.

How did you get into cinematography?

I've always wanted to be in film since I was really young and watching these big, epic movies like Lord of the Rings and even Harry Potter and Godzilla. I'd always wanted to be a part of the film industry in some way.

It took me a long time to realize I wanted to be a DP. It was back in the end of 2018 where one night I was just having an existential crisis and really thinking about my place in film and documentary. And I just was like, wait, I really love cinematography. I really am drawn to the visual language of films. That's what I focus on every time I watch a movie. 

I also enjoyed being able to be behind the camera and help make those choices visually with the cameras being used, the lenses, the lighting, and the framing and composition. It just sort of all came together in a way. And yeah, it just sort of made sense for me to go into cinematography. 

You shared with us this beautiful still from your documentary short Boyhood. Can you tell us a little bit about the project and take us into the scene you were trying to capture?

A still from Boyhood (2023), Mazu Films

This shot is from a short documentary we filmed back in Malaysia from 2017 to 2018. The story is about a family of Rohingya refugees, specifically focusing on this young boy, who's 10 years old, named Kamaruddin. In Malaysia, people typically go in hopes of being resettled to a third country like the US, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand. And so for someone like Kamaruddin, who is Rohingya and whose family has faced generations of genocide and cycles of trauma, they fled to Malaysia with the hopes of being resettled. 

The story really explores those hopes and dreams in the context of being in a place like Malaysia, where they are seen as undocumented immigrants and have very little rights, no proper education, and no legal right to work. But it’s also a story of joy because we see a lot of scenes with him and his brother just being children living out their lives, running around, playing on a soccer field, things like that.

For this particular shot, we had had a couple of meetings with the family and understandably they were all very shy in front of the camera and not really acting naturally. But at the same time Kamaruddin and his brothers were all very boisterous and really fed off each other’s energy. And so Jennifer, my sister and the director, had this really fantastic idea one day to bring a bunch of papers and pencils and basically have them write and draw whatever they wanted. It was this incredible change of personality. They suddenly were very focused, and it was this quiet moment with the boys that felt really natural and authentic. 

In terms of the actual frame, there just so happened to be this very beautiful, natural light coming in through the window of this living room, touching the walls, creating these shadows, that I thought really beautifully fit the tone and the personality of the boys in that moment. There also happened to be wind coming from a window or a fan on the left side, and some of the papers on the wall were slightly blowing, and so it just created this very beautiful kind of natural movement to it. 

And so, yeah, I'm really proud of the shot. I know that Jennifer is also really proud of the shot, especially because of her fantastic directing and just capturing these kids reflecting and drawing and just being kids.

For the gear geeks out there, what did you shoot this on?

We filmed with the Sony a7S, which is a very small mirrorless camera. We wanted to use something smaller for budget but also because we wanted to be as unintimidating for the boys as possible. I think the lens that we used was a 35mm Canon prime lens, which is slightly wide so you can get a little bit more of the space.

We had a tripod, but we wanted it to be slightly lower so we stacked a couple of books and then put the camera on top of that so we could be aligned with the boys sitting on the floor.

I love it. Resourceful. What’s your favorite piece of gear?

Probably my favorite piece of gear is my Easyrig, just because it provides really great handheld footage as well as not breaking my arms or my back, especially because I'm a smaller-framed person. I have an Easyrig Minimax, which is fantastic, and I'm able to use that for multiple hours. And then right now I'm using a Canon C300 MkIII, which is awesome. Beautiful color science.

What are you currently working on?

I recently launched a production company with my sister called Mazu Films, which focuses on original and branded documentaries. And then outside of that I’ve been working on Parastoo, another documentary that we filmed in Malaysia from 2017 to 2019 that focuses on an incredible group of Afghan asylum seekers and refugees that live in Kuala Lumpur.

Who are some of your favorite cinematographers?

One of my favorites has always been Chivo (Emmanuel Lubezki), a Mexican DP who’s worked on a lot of films with Terrence Malick, whom I also really admire and respect. Their collaborations in particular have always been inspiring to me. A lot of their work is grounded in nature and setting, which is something I've always been really drawn to. It’s partly why I love Southern stories about places that you don't typically think of, places that feel like characters in a film. And so capturing that on film, and capturing the personality of that place is really important to me. 

There's a DP named Rina Yang, who’s incredible. She’s an Asian woman, which is really inspiring to see. Just to see how far she is right now, it really solidifies that it's possible for someone like me to one day get to that point. Hopefully one day I can shadow someone like her on set.

Speak it into existence!

Yes, exactly.