Sean-David Ta

An aspiring episodic television director for hire, Sean-David Ta, is known by fellow University of Arizona TFTV alumni and faculty as an experienced grip, sound mixer, editor, and sound designer. Thei ...Show More

An aspiring episodic television director for hire, Sean-David Ta, is known by fellow University of Arizona TFTV alumni and faculty as an experienced grip, sound mixer, editor, and sound designer. Their interpersonal and industry skills stem from their 9-episode directorial debut: #LiveGolden (2018), which they worked on from late 2018 to early 2019 during their senior year of high school.Since then, they've continued to develop and improve their skills as a lighting and rigging technician, production sound mixer, and assistant director by working on a mix of student and professional productions, including films with festival and award-success like Tesoro (2020) and Fallacy (2021). As a passionate re-recording mixer and certified editor in Premiere Pro, they have also spent their college career working on improving their post-production skills by assisting Katherine Skjerping as a Class Preceptor for her FTV 318 Editing Fundamentals class, and then translating that experience into their work as the ACLU's Digital Multimedia Intern (primarily their 2022 WeTestify Storytellers Series) as well as successful comedy shorts such as Ghosts(?) (2021) and Steal Your Heart (2022).Building off of their experience from working in those various departments, Ta decided to use that array of knowledge to produce I'm Just Trying to Help (2022) and Guadalupe's Last Chance (2022) with the main goal of fostering a safe and comfortable working environment that never exceeded 10 hours of work per day. Guadalupe's Last Chance (2022) has been described both publicly and privately by frequent collaborators, Melanie Moreno and Trinity Rosales, as "one of the best sets I've been on," (quote from Moreno's The Daily Wildcat article) and "the most friendly, open, collaborative and pleasant working environments in the history of student productions." Ta has since been recognized for their producing work on I'm Just Trying to Help (2022) with an Excellence in Producing Award presented at I DREAM IN WIDESCREEN by a panel of jurors that includes Claudette Godfrey (SXSW Director of Programming), Paul Pennolino (Director of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (2014) & The Problem with Jon Stewart (2021)), and Jeff Yanc (Program Director at The Loft Cinema).As Ta approaches their final year of undergrad, they find themselves currently in production on their final thesis film which will be a stop-motion animation short produced by Kaila Hines, written by Elisa Gonzalez, with cinematography by Danielle Hunt. However, they are also in the process of directing a number of other projects in various stages of development. The most notable projects being the work they are making in collaboration with Kaila Hines as a part of the student production organization that the two of them are founding called: PAMFA (Production of Art, Music, Film & Acting), which is an inter-disciplinary club focused on providing students of all majors the same production and collaboration opportunities that Ta and Hines have experienced during their own undergrad tenure. They cite Ava DuVernay, Malakai, Misha Green and Quinta Brunson among the many strong influences on their work, emphasizing that anything the club produces should have the purpose of being true to the wants of the creators, so that it can more easily and effortlessly be inspiring, entertaining, and informing. Hide