lighting
& other works

Hwei Chen is a gaffer, studio electrical technician, lighting programmer, and writer—and telling stories by night while working on set by day is their first love.

After graduating from Orange County School of the Arts with a creative writing concentration, Hwei went to University of California, Los Angeles, then Hollywood CPR’s Entertainment Artists, Crafts, & Technicians program to IATSE Local 728, Motion Picture Set Lighting, for an intensive training in the technical arts of lighting and electricity.

From the start, Hwei fell madly in love with the crazy locations, the teamwork, and the craft of filmmaking. Some of their fondest memories—torture in the moment, unforgettable in retrospect—include hauling generators across snowy mountains, wrapping massive lights and cable for hours on end in the rain, and toiling across the toxic desert wasteland known as Salton Sea.

As a queer Taiwanese American creative, Hwei is passionate about telling sapphic stories within the global histories of revolution and liberation. Their works are often inspired by their own tribulations working in rugged locations as well as lived experience.

Currently, Hwei is working on season two of a television series on the Universal Studios Backlot. They live in Los Angeles with their partner and four (chaotic) kittens.