Personal details
- Professions: Cinematographer, Camera and Electrical Department, Director
Sheldon grew up in the San Gabriel Valley, right outside LA, in a Cantonese family where movies were always kind of in the background. But things really flipped for him when his uncle handed him a Criterion Collection DVD as a teenager. That’s when the whole “films are art” lightbulb went off. He got hooked—hard. After college, he jumped right into making a short doc about his dad, which ended up being way more than just a family project. Through that, he learned the wild story of how his parents escaped Vietnam after the war and made it to the U.S. That whole experience? It really locked in his obsession with telling stories that hit close to home. Sheldon didn’t stop there. He went all in, snagging his MFA from NYU Tisch—yeah, the fancy film school. His camera work’s been all over the globe: Cannes, Sundance, Toronto, Venice. Not too shabby. He’s got some serious credits, too—he shot "Nafi’s Father," which was actually Senegal’s pick for the Oscars, and “Nigerian Prince,” which snagged a win at Tribeca. Oh, and “Summer Knight” got Best Film at Tokyo. The guy racks up awards like they’re Pokémon cards: the Arri-Volker Bahnemann Award, fellowships, mentorships with legends like Larry Fong. He bounces between massive crews and scrappy guerrilla shoots, chasing stories that punch you right in the feels. As a director, his shorts have landed at Slamdance and on Omeleto’s YouTube channel. No matter where he’s filming, Sheldon’s chasing those stories that actually matter—the ones that linger long after the credits roll.
referencennEarned an MFA in Film from NYU Tisch School of the Arts, which, if you know film schools, is basically the Ivy League of making movies. Not just some random certificate either—Tisch spits out legends, so getting through that program means you’ve had your brain rewired to think in shots and scripts. It’s the kind of place where you’re rubbing elbows with future Oscar winners or, at the very least, people who can argue about French New Wave cinema till sunrise. Projects get torn apart and rebuilt, professors don’t sugarcoat, and the workload? Forget sleep. But hey, you leave with this weird confidence and a reel that actually means something. The Tisch stamp isn’t just a line on your CV, it’s a whole vibe—instant street cred in the film world, plus a phone full of contacts who’ll probably end up running half of Hollywood.
Konidela Ram Charan