Interviewee: Ru He, Cinematographer
At last year’s Tribeca Festival,āyí really stood out. Most films there went for high contrast, dramatic lighting, big camera moves – you know, the usual. But āyí was different. Quiet, restrained, almost like you were just watching life happen. No forced drama. Just natural light, everyday textures, and a lot of heart. We sat down with cinematographer Ru He to talk about his approach – how he balances realism with poetry, how he works around tight budgets, and why he thinks human stories will always matter, even with AI taking over.
Q: So should we call you Heru or Ru He? Which one do you prefer?
A: If we translate my Chinese given name directly based on its pronunciation, it sounds like Heru. In Chinese naming conventions, the surname comes first followed by the given name, so the official and formal English name is Ru He. I stick to Ru He for all formal occasions and professional credits.
Q: At Tribeca last year, āyí caught our eye right away. A lot of films try to hit you hard with emotion – big contrasts, flashy camera work. Yours felt completely different. Super quiet, very observational. You didn’t try to impress us with visuals. Instead, you let little things – a room’s details, a small gesture – carry all the feeling. Was that the plan from day one?
A: Yeah, absolutely. The director and I locked that in early. The movie is about regular people and their real lives. Their struggles aren’t loud or dramatic. They’re hidden in cramped apartments, repetitive chores, lonely moments no one sees. That kind of quiet pain doesn’t need exaggerated camera tricks.
So I stayed away from anything that felt staged or formulaic. We shot almost entirely with natural light, handheld, to keep that raw, unpolished feel of a real city. We were just observers. We didn’t want to make the suffering look sadder than it is, or make everyday life look prettier than it is. Pure realism gives the story its backbone. And then, through tiny shifts in light and shadow, soft color changes, we tried to hint at what the characters were feeling inside. That’s always been my thing: realism builds the body, suggestion gives it a soul.
Q: A short film like this really needs the director and cinematographer to be on the same page. āyí has done well – not just at the Tribeca Festival, but also a Special Mention at the 40th Mar del Plata International Film Festival (that’s a FIAPF‑accredited Category A festival), and a Special Jury Mention at the Hainan Island International Film Festival (HIIFF). It was also selected for the Hawai‘i International Film Festival (HIFF) and a bunch of others. So how did you and the director find that shared aesthetic? And was this restrained, Eastern style something you deliberately shaped to win festival awards?
A: First off, no – this wasn’t some calculated style to chase awards. It just came from the story and the characters. The director and I both felt the same way from the start: this is about ordinary people and their quiet strength. Their emotions run deep, but they don’t show them. So the visuals had to match – nothing flashy, nothing over the top. Form follows content.
We talked non‑stop. In pre‑production, we threw out all the usual dramatic formulas and agreed on three words: real, restrained, empathetic. Every lighting choice, every camera move, every visual beat – it all had to serve the characters’ real lives and inner worlds. No showing off, no forced conflict. On set, the director focused on performances, pacing, and emotional truth. My job was to turn that into images – using tiny changes in natural light, quiet handheld shots that just watch, and all the rough, everyday textures to show the resilience, loneliness, and tenderness hiding in plain sight.
All that restraint, all those empty spaces, the minimalism – it wasn’t a style we put on top. It was respect for the story and the people in it. We never milk the suffering or pump up the emotions. We just record life as honestly as we can. And the fact that āyí has been recognized at so many festivals? That tells me that what really moves people across cultures isn’t some market‑friendly formula. It’s human storytelling that stays true to the story and real people. The awards are a result of that honesty, not the goal.
Q: Another film of yours,So Long Mom, was selected for the Cannes Film Festival – Short Film Corner | Rendez‑vous Industry , as well as the New York International Short Film Festival and dozens of other festivals, and won several Best Cinematography awards. āyí is about the weight of everyday survival. So Long Mom is more about gentle connections in a regular neighborhood. Two very different tones, but they share the same approach: super real to build the world, delicate lighting to make it poetic. How do you pull that off in such small, plain, everyday spaces?
A: I have a simple rule: realism makes people believe the story. Suggestion makes them feel it. You can’t have one without the other. For So Long Mom, we had serious limits – tiny space, one location, barely any gear. I didn’t try to pretty up the place or rearrange things artificially. I kept all the natural mess: worn‑out equipment, little piles of stuff on the counter, the cramped feeling of a small shop. Those unpolished, real details build a world that feels true. Once the audience buys that, the simple everyday story can really sink in.
On top of that real base, I avoided strong contrasts. I used soft, warm, diffused light to wrap the whole space, smoothing out harsh shadows. Then, through really subtle changes in light and slow camera movements, the unspoken bonds between people just quietly live inside every frame. Real cinematic poetry never comes from expensive gear or fancy shots. It comes from finding warmth and beauty in the most ordinary, unglamorous reality.
Q: You’ve got a really distinct style among up‑and‑coming cinematographers – solid documentary roots plus a real cinematic feel. A lot of people pick one lane: either documentary or fiction. But you do documentaries and narrative shorts. How has working across all these fields shaped your signature look?
A: My documentary background defines my entire shooting style. My broadcast journalism training laid my core creative foundation: respect for truth, unobtrusive observation, and a focus on authentic people and moments. I always let the camera serve reality rather than chasing empty, flashy visuals, keeping my work grounded and sincere. This mindset was honed through my documentary work. I’ve shot multiple projects for CCTV, covering intangible cultural heritage inheritance, Chinese solar terms, the bond between land and seeds, and the China-Chile diplomatic cherry story. These cultural and real-life stories taught me to capture genuine texture and subtle, touching details. I also filmed a large-scale Mango TV documentary documenting China’s decade of development, which taught me to frame grand social changes through an authentic lens. Additionally, shooting the humanistic interview show Thirteen Talks greatly shaped my people-focused cinematography. I mastered natural light, restrained camera movement and simple framing to capture people’s true emotions and inner worlds, without overdone styling or dramatic effects. My film academy studies equipped me with solid skills in lighting, spatial storytelling and emotional pacing, while commercial and short film work made my techniques more flexible. Still, documentary authenticity is always the core of all my creations, no matter the genre. These diverse real-life shooting experiences showed me that core human emotions like perseverance, dignity, hope and solitude transcend cultural boundaries. Combined with learning from master cinematographers, my style is now distinct: calm, precise, people-centered, and always substantive over flashy. Every choice of light, lens and camera movement aims for one thing — presenting real scene texture and genuine human depth.
Q: You’ve shot commercial campaigns for many top-tier brands. A lot of creators struggle with balance — they feel commercial shooting compromises humanistic and artistic creation. Do these two types of work conflict for you?
A: I don’t see them conflicting at all. To me, commercial creation and humanistic documentary creation complement and empower each other perfectly.
I’ve shot brand commercials for many mainstream automotive and lifestyle brands, including Mercedes-Benz, BYD, and ARCFOX, as well as product campaigns for Huawei, Li-Ning and Samsung. These commercial projects have strict market standards, precise shooting requirements and diverse visual styles. Long-term commercial shooting has greatly polished my technical precision, on-site adaptability and efficient problem-solving skills. This rigorous commercial craft makes my humanistic and documentary creation more mature, refined and professional, letting me tell sincere stories with more polished visuals.
On the contrary, my core creation rooted in humanistic documentaries is the biggest advantage of my commercial work. All my accumulated experience in filming real people, capturing subtle emotions and recording authentic life textures keeps my commercial footage away from rigid, formulaic and cold industrial aesthetics. Instead of blindly pursuing trendy visual effects, I inject real human warmth, delicate observation and genuine emotional depth into every commercial frame.
So it’s a perfect balance. Commercial projects sharpen my technical skills and broaden my creative boundaries, while my humanistic documentary mindset guards my creative core and visual temperature. The two offset each other’s shortcomings and make my shooting style both technically solid and emotionally rich.
Q: A lot of young filmmakers are obsessed with big budgets, huge sets, and the best cameras. They see limits as problems. But your work shows you’re really good at making high‑quality, expressive images with very little. What do creative constraints mean to you?
A: I’ve always thought constraints aren’t chains – they’re what push you to grow and do something original.
When you have all the money, the best gear, and total freedom, it’s easy to lean on technical shortcuts and stop thinking deeply about story, light, and character. Tight constraints force you to strip away all the surface flash and formulaic tricks, and really dig into space, light logic, character movement, and rhythm. The tiny, one‑room location of So Long Mom pushed me to explore off‑screen storytelling, reflections, and very subtle light‑and‑shadow details. Those physical limits turned into a unique visual style that became the film’s signature.
The truth is, no film project is totally free of constraints. Budget, schedule, location, client notes, creative context – they’re always there in some form. A real professional learns to work inside those lines, using sharp aesthetic judgment, close observation of life, and solid technical skills to create deep emotion and tension with very little.
Q: These days, a lot of young creators are chasing viral lighting, trendy filters, and flashy moves. They go for surface impact but forget the real core: honest emotion and human depth. Based on your experience making films for international festivals, what advice would you give to young visual storytellers?
A: You can learn techniques, trends, and camera tricks fast. But watching life, feeling for people, knowing when to hold back – those are inner skills that take years. You can’t rush them.
Popular looks will always change. But real human emotion and the texture of ordinary life? That’s the forever core of filmmaking. Too many young creators focus on showing off their skills and piling on effects, forgetting what images are really for: to document truth, to share feeling, to connect with people.
Really great cinematography is never about fancy shots. It’s about capturing life’s textures precisely and digging into human depth carefully. My advice is always the same: get out of your studio. Go live real life. Watch ordinary people. Feel the everyday world around you. Only images that come from real experience can cross cultures and truly move people from different backgrounds and places.
Q: We’re in an age of visual overload. AI can now generate well‑composed, beautifully lit, nice‑looking images in seconds. More and more young creators are using AI to make their work. With technology making it so easy to create, what do you think is the one thing a professional cinematographer has that AI can never replace?
A: AI is great at making polished, standardized images quickly and efficiently. But the real challenge in image‑making today isn’t “how do I make a picture?” anymore. It’s “how do I make choices that are thoughtful, warm, and exactly right for this story?”
Algorithms can handle lighting, composition, color – all the technical stuff. But they can’t read real lived experience. They can’t tell what emotional tone fits a specific scene or character. Machines just recycle existing aesthetic templates. The cinematographer’s real value is in independent judgment and artistic choices based on years of watching life, feeling for people, and understanding human nature.
Technology can push creative boundaries, but it can never give an image its soul. What sets today’s professional image‑makers apart is that we bring a unique human perspective, real life experience, and independent thinking to cold, standardized visuals. That’s something AI still can’t do.
Q: Last question. Technology is moving fast, visual styles are splitting into a million directions. Where do you want to take your work from here? What will you stick to?
A: As technology gets more advanced and it gets easier and easier to make images, I’m actually going the other way: back to simplicity, back to truth, back to putting people first.
In the future, I’ll keep doing narrative films and high‑end commercials, always getting better at visual storytelling. And I’ll put more energy into documentary work – focusing on ordinary workers and overlooked people in cities, using a restrained, calm, East Asian humanistic lens to document how everyday folks live and hold on in this fast‑changing world.
No matter how the industry shifts or how tech evolves, my creative core stays the same: use realism to ground the story, use warmth to carry the human heart. Let every frame come from the most honest observation and recording of life.
In a film industry that’s always chasing bigger spectacles and newer tech, Ru He’s work offers something quiet and rare. He blends the understated restraint of Eastern aesthetics with universal human observation, and proves – through clear, cross‑cultural visual language – that the most powerful stories aren’t told with flashy technique. They’re told with sincerity, warmth, and a deep respect for real life.