Michael Ziming Ouyang

Born in Pittsburgh, PA to Chinese (via Taiwan) parents, Michael Ouyang soon moved to New England, graduating from Lexington High School outside of Boston, MA. In high school, he was active in the nationally acclaimed policy debate program at LHS and co-wrote and directed a fairly unoriginal play "Justice", which featured Amanda Palmer. After graduating with a BA from Wesleyan University, Michael went to Shanghai, China for the first time, teaching ESL at the Sydney Institute of Language and Commerce at Shanghai University. As Hong Kong was "returned" to China, Michael left to attend graduate school at Stanford University. In 2004, he returned to Shanghai to conduct research on a PhD dissertation concerning the New Sensation school of writers from jazzy, murky 1930s Shanghai. Eventually Michael chose to forgo his studies and stay in Shanghai. Fully bilingual in English and Mandarin Chinese, he worked his way up the ladder, writing several work-for-hire scripts and taking low-level production jobs in TVC and feature film production. In 2006, he was hired as head story editor for an "America's Next Top Model"-styled reality show called "Fashion Star", where he met and worked with Adam Clark. Subsequently, TV proved more career-friendly, as Michael then directed and/or produced 5 nationally broadcast TV shows over the next 4 years, ranging a gamut from cooking shows to game shows to reality TV. In 2009, Adam Clark returned to Shanghai to film his award-winning short "Goodbye Shanghai", and enlisted Michael to produce. Adding his own creative input and local connections to the production, Michael and his production manager Peter Ge brought the production in on budget, which the team considers one of their finest moments. In 2010, Michael wrote and directed his own short film, "Pigs in Zen," shooting live-action on Canon 5DMkII and animating scanned watercolor paintings in Motion and Aftereffects with cinematographer and key animator Jakob Montrasio. In addition, he acted in and contributed writing and producing to Montrasio's underground kung fu/spaghetti western action feature "The Way of the Spur". Michael has played guitar and bass in several indie internet bands,including Duboce Triangle, sonofsupercar and early live versions of MC Frontalot. Michael has had hand surgery and cannot feel anything on half of his left ringfinger.