“I Filmed a Commercial in My College Dorm”: Forget the Crew, Ash Xu Does It All for You
Deloitte’s ‘The creator economy in 3D’ report, published earlier this year, found that “the average consumer follows five or more ‘favoured’ creators whom they actively seek out for new content and updates”. Spurred on by a ‘shared interest or desire to learn something new’, the power to influence consumer behaviours – previously in the hands of print media and television broadcasters – has been transferred to innovative content creators on social media. This revolution has paved the way for a new generation of commercial filmmakers and agencies are looking to these contemporaries for inspiration and guidance on how to effectively advertise to the masses.
One such example is Ash Xu a.k.a. @ashhasacamera. With 1.3 million followers on TikTok, Ash’s rise to prominence is compelling. Fuelled by a desire to channel her wide-ranging creativity during the pandemic, she began shooting self-made commercials at home. Quickly proving to be in possession of all the skills needed to be a one-stop-shop, she consistently delivers the whole gamut of content production, from creative ideation through to post.
Now, at just 22, Ash confidently dons many hats: content creator, filmmaker, marketer, social media consultant, etc.. She’s collaborated with global brands – ones that many of the industry’s most seasoned advertisers aspire to work with; Microsoft, Sprite, Olay, and Toyota. Oh, and she’s been invited to speak on a panel at Meta’s beach during Cannes Lions.
Impressed and inspired, LBB’s April Summers was eager to speak with the young filmmaker to find out about the ways in which she defies existing expectations of content creators, what creative direction she hopes to pursue, and how agencies can learn from her.
‘I’m Ash and I Have a Camera’
I first came across Ash when the algorithm decided I was a relevant recipient of her recent ad with Microsoft. In it, Ash addresses the viewer in selfie mode, looking directly at the camera and excitedly saying, “I’m 22 years old and Microsoft reached out to me, rather than an ad agency, to make them a commercial… AAAHH!?!”
Straight away, I’m told this is an ad. But I didn’t scroll past it like I normally do, because Ash’s ad felt different. What I learnt from that first interaction with @ashhasacamera is that her unique brand of content creation showcases a dynamic blend of creativity, storytelling, and technical skill. Each video often features visually-striking imagery and clever editing, captivating viewers from the start. Ash has a knack for weaving relatable themes and humour into the content too, making it both entertaining and resonant.
When I call Ash to discuss he work, she is every bit as normal as any other 22-year-old. She doesn’t gloat or brag like a lot of other popular ‘influencer’ types - but her talent speaks volumes. In fact, she doesn’t actually identify as an influencer, despite her large following. “I think that term applies more to lifestyle people and people who take pictures all the time,” she explains to me. “I think ‘content creator’ is a little bit more broad and artistic. The connotation is that you're a creative, an artist, you're making something.”
And she certainly is an artist. Ash knows how to paint, write, direct, edit, do SFX, music and sound – most of which she attributes to growing up a child of the internet, with YouTube as her “holy grail.” But I wanted to know how she got here and how it feels to be producing commercials for global brands.
“The fact that I get to work with agencies and brands is super surreal,” she admits, reflecting on her viral journey. Ash started making commercials at home the summer before her freshman year of college – it was 2020 and she was bored. “I had just graduated high school and I was making these little ads for fun, for free. I would post them to my TikTok and then they eventually started doing really well.”
She viewed these "little" homemade productions as practice – a way of getting a head start on her film major while covid-19 had shut down the world. “Some people perceive my story as entrepreneurial, but I wasn’t thinking ‘Oh my gosh, ads are so lucrative, I can make a lot of money with this’ at the time. Everybody was shut away, which meant I couldn't get together with my friends or do any collaborative projects. I had seen a couple people online making these self-made commercials and I figured it was something I could do by myself at home. I wanted to give it a go as a way to improve my videography. And it just took off from there.”
“I started increasing my production quality and trying to better myself as a videographer until eventually I did a commercial for a can of Sprite. Again, this was not paid – just literally for fun. And that video completely blew up.”
The numbers started coming in. “The Sprite video got like 20 million views on TikTok and that was the inflection point when brands started becoming interested in collaborating with me on a commercial spot.”
As well as creating clever concepts for ads, Ash executes her ideas in very inventive ways, often incorporating practical SFX techniques into her process. A particularly popular aspect of her videos, is her revealing the SFX process through ‘behind the scenes' footage and this, she humbly insists, is because “it shows anybody can do it.”
“The real marketing insight of my videos is the storytelling, and I illustrate this in the behind the scenes parts, which are popular. So, for example, when I show how I'm single-handedly using a fidget spinner to make a pen twirl, this raises the question of ‘what’s gonna happen next? What is she doing with that pen?’, which makes people more inclined to watch to the end to see the behind the scenes process.”
I ask about her predilection for traditional special effects, given that she is clearly so capable of VFX and motion graphics too. “I will always cite Christopher Nolan as one of my biggest sources of inspiration,” she reveals. “I watched ‘Inception’ when I was in middle school, and my mind was blown by the storytelling, writing, pacing, everything. I fell into a rabbit hole of watching behind the scenes clips of how they made the film, and it turned out he did a lot of practical SFX. In one video, they showed this huge tunnel that they spun on wheels in order to get that floating hallway scene. And I just, like, ascended. I realised this is exactly what I want to do as a job. If I could be paid to do creative things like this, to innovate on my feet and make these huge structures which look awesome on camera, and tell these stories that influence people, then that’s what I want to do.”
Ash’s passion for her craft shines through in every clip, creating a memorable experience that not only informs but also inspires and connects with the audience. The consistent quality and originality keep followers coming back for more, establishing Ash as a standout creator in the TikTok community.
Navigating the Industry
After the Sprite ad, the requests from brands and agencies started rolling in. Ash signed with a management agency who offered to help her wrangle brand deals and decide who she wants to work with. With them negotiating on her behalf, she now had the freedom to concentrate on creative briefs, going off and doing her thing.
More and more brands want to work with content creators like Ash, and when we start talking about timelines, it’s not hard to see why. “I think if I’m super locked in, it would take me around a week to deliver a video. Usually when I'm working with brands or agencies, it can take longer due to the approval process, with everything going through legal. But I would say all in, ideation typically takes two days, filming takes two to three days, and then editing takes another two days.”
On average, commercial campaigns might take anywhere from four to 12 weeks from pre-production through to campaign launch, with more complex projects or larger campaigns extending this timeline significantly. It makes sense that agencies looking to fast-track the process are engaging with Ash’s content by sliding into her DMs.
Given her experiences of the industry thus far, I asked her what she makes of these traditional production timelines. “It is so interesting because you would think for big production companies who have a tonne of hands on deck, the filming, editing and everything would happen so much faster. But sometimes a kind of a bottleneck effect happens when there are so many people with different schedules to coordinate and keep happy, which can take so much effort, that it almost puts a halt to production.”
Balancing Ambition and Authenticity
People leave comments on Ash’s video like ‘this is better than their actual commercials’ and ‘if this is what she does at home, imagine what she could do in a professional studio’. So, clearly, when you’re as talented as Ash Xu, the possibilities are infinite. I posed this to her, asking her how it feels to collaborate with agencies, and where she wants to take this in the future.
“Realising that these high-up agency people actually listen to me has been something that took a while to get used to. I mean, I was a freshman in college when everything really blew up, and then I would be in the meetings with the official marketing team at Olay – which is wild.”
I’m curious about her ambitions, given how promising her future is, are there any brands or agencies she’d love to collaborate with or work in-house for? “My dream brand, honestly, will always be Apple,” she answers. “Looking at its roster, the company works with such prolific artists and is very picky about who – it doesn't do a lot of influencer sponsorships. I have been lucky enough to make a small cameo in one of the brand’s commercials, but to collaborate with the team on a bigger campaign would be so awesome, because Apple commercials are my favourite. I love watching every single one of them.”
And what about technique? Being the Swiss Army knife that she is, I wonder if there is any particular aspect of the creative pipeline she wants to hone her skills in. “I love to direct and I love cinematography. One of my goals is to be part of bigger productions and part of a bigger team, in person. I eventually want to do production studio stuff, commercials and music videos sound super fun, and then eventually, I want to potentially break into Hollywood.”
She’s made it all happen for herself thus far, so why not?
