Worth the wait: Andrew Thomas Huang practices patience

By Hongtao Hu     7/10/25 10:33pm

Andrew Thomas Huang says that patience is essential to being an artist. His proof? A film that has spent a decade in production, a career shaped by years in the music industry and a lifelong commitment to exploring queer identity and environmental themes — the kinds of stories, he said, that take time to tell right.

“One of the best pieces of advice that I found was that our passion projects that are the most personal to us, that are most important to us, are never urgent,” Huang said in an audience Q&A June 27.

As the music video director of songs by KATSEYE and Yaeji, Huang came to Rice’s Moody Center for the Arts as part of HTX MADE Presents, a series showcasing creatives “looking to authentically engage with the Greater Houston Community.” 

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In the Lois Chiles Theater, nearly 100 attendees viewed a selection of Huang’s music videos, followed by a panel discussion and audience Q&A segment. He touched upon topics ranging from his experience in the music industry to his relationship to “queering art” during the audience Q&A segment.

Huang said that his own inspiration comes from his college years. Huang began his journey as a film major at the University of Southern California, producing student films in his dorm room to circumvent the fact that upon producing a film in the program, the university owns it. 

“I approach every project that I do like a student,” he said. 

Two viral sensations during this time during and after USC advanced Huang to where he is today: in 2008 on the three-year-old Youtube, which provided him with commercial work, and in 2012, when a Vimeo video caught Bjork’s attention. 

When collaborating with high-profile artists, Huang’s direction choices are motivated by his student-like research and impression of the artist, he said. Still, how much authorial control musicians want over the project varies. During a photoshoot discussion with Charli XCX, Huang asked her what intent it should have. 

“She was like, ‘Whatever babe, it’s not that deep,’” Huang said. 

 The music industry is “broken”, he said, and salaries for individuals like him are low because musician’s salaries are too. While Huang makes a living off of music videos, he doesn’t own any of them. 

“I take a personal authorship in my work, but monetarily, I don’t see any royalties. When a video is done, the label owns it,” Huang said.

While still producing music videos — the most recent being KATSEYE’s “Gabriela” — Huang is applying this expertise to short films. 

“Working in music videos is kind of like Kumon for indie filmmaking,” Huang said. 

During the screening, he showcased “Kiss of the Rabbit God”, a short film blending Chinese and gay culture, and “Tiger Girl,” a feature-length movie set in 1960s LA centering Chinese American teenagers that is currently 10 years in the making. 

This long production process was caused by budget difficulties. Huang said that while he wants to tell diasporic stories, the “corporate shackles of filmmaking” are a constant concern. 

“It takes money to make fantasy and world-building, and so it boils down to the allocation of capital to independent filmmakers,” Huang said.

Huang chooses to work with artists deliberately based on his own style, and his works have a firm commitment to narratives that reference romantic poets and contemporary events alike. Take the case of Mike Hadreas, better known by his stage name Perfume Genius. 

“Hadreas has a lineage of videos that feel like homages to queer cinema,” Huang said. “I am responding to the zeitgeist. We made [the Perfume Genius music video] literally a few months after Trump was elected in his first term — the villains, you know, they have red hats.”

Huang said that even when he acts like a “chameleon” to better mesh with artists he works with, he tries to maintain his individuality. 

“I think people often, when they think that as an artist, you have to find your voice,” Huang said. “They mistake that for style choices. But I actually think finding your voice is more about finding the process…the workflow, rather than the aesthetic result.”

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