ZHIWEI FENG

Video Journalist & Producer | UC Berkeley Journalism 23’

AI Art: And Art Was Never The Same

AI Art: And Art Was Never The Same is playing at DOCUTAH International Film Festival from Feb 29 to Mar 1 2024

Please get in touch with us if you’d like to watch it!

 

Quick Facts About Me

  • Based in San Francisco Bay Area, CA

  • Speak Mandarin Chinese and English

  • Come from a background in history and anthropology

  • Specialize in covering the environment (animals), history & culture, China and Chinese American communities

  • Skilled in HTML & CSS for webpage design and Python-pandas for data analysis and visualization

 

Professional Experience

  • - Organize and format interview transcripts for storyboarding

    - Establish editing infrastructure and create proxy footage workflow

  • - Provided consulting and advising services for documentary, photography and audio production

    - Provided audio-visual technology support for campus events

    - Managed professional equipment and designed instructional workflow

    - Produced, shot, and edited promotional videos

    • Retrieved and interpreted historical documents from U.S. National Archives and local libraries for the unpublished book project Stranger in the Land

    • Translated 19th-century Chinese litigation documents to English while providing detailed research reports

    • Investigated and fact-checked historical incidents of anti-Chinese violence

    • Managed, maintained, and troubleshot production equipment at NBC broadcasting studio in San Jose

    • Assisted in show producing and floor directing of morning news program Today in the Bay

    • Produced video content, bypassing aggressive government surveillance and censorship

    • Identified and secured permission to feature noteworthy UGC social media content

    • Co-wrote Reuters' internal social media investigation guide for mainland China

    • Provided 24/7 real-time emergency editorial and production support for coverage of climate disasters; secured access to flood victims in disaster zones

    • Investigated public and private archives to uncover data on Chinese Communist Party members, lab monkey breeding and experiment facilities, training and traveling schedules of Olympic athletes, and China’s resource depletion cities

    • Investigated historical litigations archives of Oneida, Ojibwe and Menominee nations

    • Selected and edited archival footage and rough cuts of essential scenes

    • Created call sheets and coordinated filming schedules with featured characters

    • Coded and built official website

    • Designed social media campaign for film promotion

    • Cultivated sources in Beijing's law enforcement units, prosecutors' office, courthouses, and law firms

    • Investigated the ban on sex education textbooks in public schools and reported on the current sex education program in underprivileged migrant schools

    • Produced social media videos using police archival footage and updated the newsroom's official social media accounts daily

    • Fact-checked and proofread story drafts while updating the content of China Review daily

    • Reported significant political events, including 2020 National People's Congress and the Chinese Political Consultative Conference, the passing of former Taiwan president Lee Teng-hui, and the World Peace Forum 2021

    • Specialized in covering academic conferences and interviewing international relations scholars

    • Produced hourly news updates and promoted customer engagement with Today's Headlines’ recommendation algorithm

    • Designed collaborative media projects on international events by coordinating the efforts of freelance journalists and commentators

    • Interviewed police officers, crime suspects, and victims in ongoing local criminal cases

    • Filmed and produced news stories for the broadcasting program The Rule Of Law is Ongoing

    • Assisted in designing, copywriting, and editing of television documentary The Collapse of the Zhang Yanchao Sinister Gang

Skills

 

Videography & Photography

Started as the president of my school’s photography department and trained in the intense production assignments at Beijing Television Station, I became the first-ever intern to contribute footage/stills at Reuters Beijing Bureau. I went on to advance my skills by learning from the award-winning filmmaker faculties at Berkeley Journalism.

Production Softwares

I am familiar with many common Adobe software used for audio-visual production, including Premiere Pro, After Effects, Lightroom, Photoshop, Audition, etc.

Coding & Data Analysis

Aside from video, I have been actively developing my skill set in coding and data analysis at Berkeley. I gained experience writing multimedia webpage using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. I have working knowledge of Python-pandas and Excel to pursue data-driven stories. I can create data visualizations with common tools such as QGIS and Datawrapper.

 

Backgrounds and special abilities

 
 

Thesis: Gendered Image of Chinese Immigrants in 1882 Chinese Exclusion

History

Academic training in Chinese history and anthropology gave me a vast knowledge base and constant awareness of historical context.

I am familiar with historical manuscripts written in classical Chinese.

My undergraduate thesis analyzed first-hand evidence from late 19th-century personal materials, governmental accounts, mass media, etc., and retraced the stereotypical image of Chinese immigrants through a gendered lens.

Zhiwei posing for picture at archeological site, Northeastern China,2018

Archeology

In 2018, I worked as a student archeologist in a rural village at Kharchin Left Mongolian Autonomous County. Our excavation of an Eastern Zhou dynasty(770-256 B.C.) site contributed to the national academic project Archaeology of Ancient Settlements and Town Sites in the Upper Reaches of the Daling River.

Lions in the wilderness, South Africa, 2020

International Experience

Neither China nor the United States is the center of the world. I have always sought travel opportunities to remind myself of the complexity of different cultures and the importance of standing against cultural stereotypes. Places I have lived in and visited include Taiwan, Hong Kong, France, Italy, Spain, Malaysia, South Africa, the United Kingdom, Mexico, and the United States.

⚽️ I also competed in and finished 5th place in Beijing Highschool Soccer Championships. I played left midfielder and delivered several assists.⚽️

After that, I kind of retired (at the age of 18), but I can still play.