Ryan Koo’s directorial debut AMATEUR is a 2018 Netflix Original Film starring Michael Rainey Jr. and Josh Charles. Vulture called the coming-of-age basketball drama “a scrupulously researched defense of player’s rights — that is, the rights of the working class.” AMATEUR debuted in Netflix’s Top 5 globally and has been viewed tens of millions of times.

AMATEUR began as a Kickstarter project, with Koo recording a campaign video of himself in his Brooklyn backyard prior to any producer, actor, or collaborator attachments. AMATEUR became the most successful narrative film campaign in Kickstarter history.

To show his vision for the feature, Koo made a short film version of AMATEUR, which he funded entirely with grant money awarded by the Tribeca Film Institute. The short won multiple film festival awards, was selected as a Vimeo Staff Pick, and got him into the Sundance Screenwriters Lab. Koo’s screenplay for AMATEUR was the recipient of Sundance’s first Asian American Fellowship, and garnered additional support from The Gotham and the Film Society of Lincoln Center.

Koo originally broke into film in the early days of online video by co-producing, writing, and directing an “Urban Western” web series, THE WEST SIDE. The zero budget DIY production — Koo was also the sole cinematographer, editor, VFX artist, and sound mixer — won the Webby Award for Best Drama Series and Koo was named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Film.

Koo founded the filmmaking website No Film School with a mission to democratize and disrupt the film industry. He had no experience running a website, no co-founder, and no financing—but also no startup costs. Koo blogged daily about filmmaking tools and techniques, as well as his strategies for trying to break into film as an outsider with no access, financing, or connections to the film industry. The site grew organically without any advertising or outside investment, and today No Film School is the world’s most popular filmmaking website, with over a million readers visiting every month.

Koo grew up in North Carolina as the only Asian at every school he attended. He didn’t look like anyone else, he didn’t look like a Hollywood filmmaker, and he certainly didn’t look like anyone on the basketball team. With a Chinese mother and a caucasian father, he also didn’t look like anyone in either family. As someone who never fit in, he has always forged his own path, and he finds himself drawn to fish-out-of-water stories involving complex identities. After stints in New York and Los Angeles, he now resides in Austin, Texas. He does not look good in a cowboy hat.