Some highlights from my career:

  • Creative Director of Jubilee, a media company dedicated to spreading empathy globally - which garnered 5,000,000+ subscribers and 1,000,000,000+ views in 3 years and created some of YouTube’s most viral shows like Middle Ground, Spectrum, Odd One Out, and more

  • Chief Creative of Mindset @ DIVE Studios, collaborated with artists Summer Walker, 6lack, Eric Nam, Julia Michaels, Slowthai, DPR, Keshi, WOOSUNG, Huddy, and more

  • Speaker at TEDxBerkeley, Princeton, Notre Dame, NYU, UCLA, and 20+ other colleges and events

  • Commercial director and editor for Fortune 100 companies and celebrities including Apple, Nike, NASA, Lindsey Stirling, New York Times, and more. Junk Mail garners 8M+ views. Edited a narrative feature film starring Miyavi (Kong) and Karen Fukuhara (Suicide Squad).

  • Executive Producer of Accepted, which premiered at Tribeca Film Festival and was released in theaters nationwide in 2022

  • Ode to the World’s Stories: winner of the highest Gold prize at the final/national round of the American Advertising Awards

  • Competed in the International Whistling Competition, ranked #11 whistler in the world, and Ditching School to Whistle accumulated 4.5M+ views

  • Tick Tock, a one-shot short film about a young man with seemingly 5 minutes left to live, goes viral and becomes Reddit’s highest upvoted film of all time, wins top prizes at the world’s largest student film festival.

  • Founder and Executive Producer of Nourish, a story design firm dedicated to telling and impactful human stories

Why I Do What I Do

When I was younger, I used to wonder why people don’t talk about the bigger and deeper questions in life more often.

Why don’t we talk more about how we’re all hurtling around a star at 67,000mph on a humongous floating spherical piece of land mass as self aware bipedal creatures that have taken hundreds of millions of years to evolve into? What is life? What are we doing here? Where is this all going? And WHY?

In seeking to understand the deepest mysteries of life, I studied diverse philosophies and religions, traveled 15+ countries, deconstructed my conservative Christian worldview, tried some acid, joined a cult, and much more. 

Dad and me, circa 1994

Ultimately, at the end of the day, I came to understand that there is an ultimate unifier behind it all.

People call this unifying ultimacy by many names: God, truth, consciousness, Allah, presence, awareness, the universe, Buddha nature, the way, mother nature.  Many great wisdom traditions call it that which cannot be named, “I am that I am.” 

If there’s an undeniable, inevitable reality that I have learned in my short 31 years of life, it is that we are all on a journey to understand, feel, and share with one another in this ultimate reality we call by many names.

Day by day, we are each becoming who we are. We are each maturing, becoming more nuanced in our understanding and awareness of life.

No matter how long it may take or how painful the process may sometimes, we are each expanding in consciousness and learning iteratively how to live in greater alignment with truth and our higher selves - towards ultimately realizing that we are all fractals of one greater indivisible whole.

Solo trip to India, circa 2013

Throughout my life, I’ve nurtured a resilient curiosity to explore and support this process of consciousness expansion within ourselves - to crystallize truth, humanity, and spirit into simpler entertaining forms of story for more everyone to participate in and enjoy, be challenged, united, and empowered by.

Growing up, my dad (a pastor) used to tell me, “Ien, if Jesus was born today, he’d be a filmmaker!” - because Jesus so often spoke through parables and stories that made wrestling with life’s bigger questions radically dynamic and captivating.

Like many before me, I have found immeasurable value in using storytelling and media to dive deeper into the oceanic mysteries of life - and help others do the same.

I hope that by exploring my work you’ll be challenged, empowered, or sparked towards greater expansion of life and of actualizing your deeper spirit within.

I am always seeking to connect with and support like-minded individuals. If you resonate with my journey or wish to collaborate in any way, feel free to reach out any time at ien@ienchi.com or DM me on Instagram. 

It is an honor to be doing life with you.

Sincerely,

   -Ien