line of best fit
ansel tan’s creative portfolio
watch my demo reel.
who are you?
The internet has stripped us of niceties, and it feels vaguely self-aggrandising to just start telling you who I am without saying hello. So, hello! I hope you’re having a great day, and I would love to get to know you. :)
I’m Ansel, a Vancouver-based director of photography, videographer, journalist, and author. Filmmaking is my first love, and I spend most of my waking hours in search of stories to tell, whether that means writing, shooting, and editing my own films from the ground up, or stepping onto someone else’s set to help tell yours.
I work across the camera and lighting departments in whatever capacity a production needs, from DP to camera operator to 1st or 2nd AC, but I also shoot practically anything for hire: music videos, concerts, events, weddings, corporate work… if it involves a good story, you can bet I’ll be interested. And when I’m not behind a camera, I’m writing essays, stories, and dispatches on my publication, Line of Best Fit, or for my book American Delusion.
But really, none of that is separate from the rest of it. I tell stories because they make sense of everything I do and everything I am. Find me a story worth telling, and I promise you I’ll show up with all my heart.
If that sounds like the kind of person you want behind the camera — or if you just want to make something for the gosh darn awesome sake of flinging it out into the great glimmering world — I’d love to hear from you. Get in touch, and let’s figure out what we can make together.
film & video
click on each card for more information about each project!
CONTRADANCE
Narrative Short, 2026.
CONTRADANCE (2027)
The empire is collapsing. The stars are dying. And in the middle of it all, a girl builds a spaceship in a field and falls in love, or else.
An APOLUNE feature film.
dir. Britney Kam & Ansel Tan
dp. Ansel Tan
story. Ansel Tan & Alicia L’Archevêque
prod. Alicia L’Archevêque & Sye Perry
BetterBeings
Narrative Short, 2026.
BetterBeings (2026)
When an apathetic employee is stranded at a store that manufactures customisable human beings, Charlie is forced to confront a fundamental question: who are we built to be?
An APOLUNE short film.
dir. Britney Kam
dp. Ansel Tan
story. Kim Pamintuan, Britney Kam, Olivia Li
prod. Olivia Li
Checkered Out
Narrative Short, 2026
Checkered Out (2026)
Two hands brush in passing. A lovestruck, amateur stalker is born as Red spirals into eclectic and painfully obvious obsession. Will she continue to wait and watch, or shed her grandiose disguise and get the girl?
An APOLUNE short film.
ORNOASIS
Narrative Short, 2026.
ORNOASIS (2026)
A birdwatcher is blindsided by the eccentric
endeavours of an unconventional nature retreat.
An APOLUNE short film.
Angel Liberty
Narrative Short, 2026.
Angel Liberty (2026)
A saint falls in love with an angel she’s only ever seen through a screen. Kiera Bellwood, famous for an irony she no longer believes in, finally gives herself over to real belief, and has to reckon with how much of the Dream she invented herself.
An APOLUNE short film, in pre-production.
Slowburn
Music Video, 2025.
Slowburn (2026)
A music video for Vancouver, BC band Luxury Sport Sedan, made with borrowed gear and zero experience, in service of a song about the same thing: just being yourself, and meaning it.
An APOLUNE music video.
Luxury Sport Sedan
Band Client, 2024-
Luxury Sport Sedan
Vancouver, BC based alternative rock band — one of my recurring clients.
Wishbone
Band Client, 2025-
Wishbone
Vancouver, BC based alternative rock band — one of my recurring clients.
Wild Goose Chase
Narrative Short, 2026.
Wild Goose Chase (2026)
Twenty minutes before the most important job interview of his life, Matt has to track down the baby his flaky brother lost somewhere on campus, and prove, to absolutely no one’s surprise, that he’s still not as employable as he thinks.
An original short film.
Five Stories
Web Series, 2025.
Five Stories (2025)
An eight-part episodic art film about what we find when we leave, and what we carry when we do. blending montage, spoken word, and experimental forms, Five Stories drifts through border towns, ferry terminals, and all the in-between places we pass through in search of someplace to call home.
An original web series.
IN THE LAND OF THE LIVING
Narrative Short, 2025
IN THE LAND OF THE LIVING (2025)
…it’s keeping on the road that counts.
A short film created in association with Camp Studios to promote the release of Baron Ryan’s feature Two Sleepy People. IN THE LAND OF THE LIVING traces a personal narrative of becoming and explores the magic of creation through a distinctly internet-age cinematic lens.
LIVE FREE OR DIE
Documentary Short, 2025.
LIVE FREE OR DIE (2025)
An indie documentary series chronicling a four year adventure across North America. each episode consists of autobiographical vignettes that together form a linear storyline about home, memory, and motion.
Vault of Heaven
Documentary Short, 2027.
Vault of Heaven (2027)
A trip to document the last holdout of the Soviet Union becomes something else entirely — a confrontation with a war on the horizon, and an uncomfortable reckoning with what it means to travel toward someone else’s collapse.
SoundGuys & Android Authority
Video Journalism, 2024-
SoundGuys and Android Authority
Some of my favourite projects I worked on for the SoundGuys & Android Authority YouTube channels, two of the largest consumer tech publications in the world.
Puddy Waters
Documentary, 2026.
Puddy Waters (2026)
A documentary about whether a band can make an album without each other becomes, almost by accident, a documentary about whether its filmmaker can make anything without them either.
THE ENGLAND NOTEBOOK
Documentary Short, 2026.
THE ENGLAND NOTEBOOK (2026)
A notebook made to hold a trip through England becomes something else entirely: a record of a man tracing home across every place he’s ever left, trying to figure out what the word even means when leaving is the only thing he’s ever been good at.
An original documentary.
original writings
stories, essays, poetry, books
THE LINE OF BEST FIT
dispatches from the long road to liberty.
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Watchman, What of the Night?
– I. The Burial of the Dead – And so I asked him:‘Watchman, dear Watchman, what of the Night?What is left of the Light? My sight? I’d rather dreamOf snow-sprinkled dawns and little wooden…
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Borne Back Into The Past
The American Dream in Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence and J.D. Salinger’s Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut. Thomas Jefferson and the Founding Fathers of the United States of America were not merely engaged in a…
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Slouching Towards Bethlehem
Modernity’s Second Coming in Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan and Friedrich Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morals. A cursory examination of the ideas in Thomas Hobbes’ and Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophies leaves one with the impression that…
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British Columbia Highway One
Sarcastic beams of light reflected in the rearviewImposing intermittent vignettes on sprawling golden fieldsAnd bumpy asphalt (with no hard shoulder)Languidly stretched across the heart of the continentAnd a dark red car with no front…
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Transatlantic; or Seattle When the Sound Kicks Out
We were little paper aeroplanes off across the seaLike fireworks on rooftop ledges when you were here with meWe’re reactionary pyrotechnics, we flutter violently in the wind But at transatlantic distances, we’re practised, permanent,…
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Obstacle 1
A Short Story. It came upon him suddenly, swiftly splitting through his chest and stomach, seemingly in the absence of reason. Its asphyxiating invisible hand dug into his neck and tore him from his…
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Inherent Limitations of My Writing
Writing has always been a central aspect of my life. Ever since I acquired even an elementary grasp of the English language, I have felt a constant urge to express my thoughts and feelings…
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Stephen Avenue – The Heart of Calgary
What does Calgary have to offer? What value does a tiny, fledgling city in the heart of Alberta bring to a prosperous Canadian nation and a bustling world stage? Many would answer this question…
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No Sacrifice Too Great
A Literary Analysis. What does it mean to love? Ernest Hemingway once wrote that the essence of love lies in the willingness to serve, do things for, and ultimately, sacrifice oneself to benefit the…
AMERICAN DELUSION
my book!
‘The last rite of my birthright is to believe in the dream that my rational self knows is a delusion.’
American Delusion is a raw, unvarnished collection of short stories, essays, journals, and scripts born of the ‘academy’ – four years pursuing a degree in Vancouver, British Columbia while learning the hard lessons of becoming, belonging, and home-making.
From poetry born of cross-continental expeditions to travel essays mapping the ‘isotopic weight of shattered belief,’ American Delusion explores the cost of heeding Liberty’s call. It is an exercise in admitting defeat and surrendering to the beautiful, messy reality of a life that cannot be wrangled into a perfect story. Instead, it’s better left as it was lived: Liberating. Confusing. Full of wonder.
In a world where every point of arrival is merely another point of departure, American Delusion invites the reader to burn their boats and go on bravely into the great white dark.
digital and analogue photography
