Review of the Second film: the process and what I have learned Friday, Dec 12 2008

Set the topic

After I got the assigned topic of the second film Disaster Capitalism, I watched a lot of financial television programs to have a brief idea of what happened in the present market, and the most influential financial affairs.

 

After a period of research, I had chosen the Credit Crunch as the topic of my film, and got a few ideas to be chosen:

 

l        Illustrate the Credit Crunch:

After research, I was so happy to have some knowledge of the Credit Crunch that I wanted to make a film illustrate the process of Credit Crunch: how did it happed, developed, and the further influence.

 

l        About illegal immigration and Credit Crunch:

When I did research of the first film, I talked a lot with Ying, who was the owner of a small Chinese supermarket. As a shop owner, she told me a lot about the present local economic situation.

One of them impressed me was that: after two Chinese students had been killed last year, the British government had started to investigate the illegal immigrations. At the same time, along with the Credit Crunch, lots of Chinese restaurants had been close down. As a result, lots of Chinese illegal immigrations who were used to hide in Chinese restaurants as chiefs or waiters lost their job and home. As a result, on the one hand, the illegal immigrations had to keep hiding, because polices were searching them; on the other hand, the job less illegal immigrations had to get money. So that was or would be a serious social problem. And my point was they came to the Capitalism country to seek money, but their dream had been broken in their dreaming Capitalism country.

 

But after Nick showed us some experimental film on a lecture, I changed my mind, because the first idea was too educational, and looked more like a television program. At the same time, the way I wanted to make the film was to illustrate, which means the role of me in making the film was just an editor, and I didn’t have enough space to direct it. To the second idea, although I quite like the idea, but I didn’t think I have enough time to film it, and I had no idea of how to make a film on this actual affaire in a experimental way.

 

So I started to do some research on the Experimental style. At first, honestly speaking, I did not like the style and did not want to make a film following the experimental style, because I did not understand most of the film Nick putted on the blog at all! However, after doing more research, I understood that, films on the blog were just a few examples, and I did not have to exactly following the same way to make the same film. I told speak of what I thought, and he totally agreed.

 

While keeping doing research, a Chinese professor’s article impressed me a lot that as he stated, to the economic aspect, wall street was entitled to be called as a country, because the total assets of wall street was much more than American’s GDP. At the same time, with the new understanding of experimental film, I got a new idea, which was to split the screen into 2 pieces, the left one was to show the Wall Street, while the right piece was to show the American government. And the subtitles in the very beginning which are “On this continent there are two financial empires” combine the left and right part together showing the essence of Capitalism: both the financial market and the government did their best to make money.

 

Getting the footage:

Most of my archive footages were downloaded from the web site introduced by Nick called archive.org. It was so good that I got so many footages from it. Besides, I also searched my key words such as George Soros, NASDAQ in Youtube, and I found some other footage which not that formal but I do need. But I didn’t use the plug-in that Nick introduced, because I didn’t use Firefox. To instead of, I found a web site (http://keepvid.com/) which enabled me to download Youtube videos. All I need to do was to type the video’s web address.

 

Editing the Film:

During my first rough cut, I just simply split the screen and separately showed Wall Street and the White House on both sides to present their greed and they didn’t care about people. However, after I watched the first rough cut, I felt it was too disordered to show my original idea.

 

In the second rough cut, I divided the film into two parts with the subtitle “People are paying the price”. In the first half part subtitles were used instead of the former scenes in which businessmen were counting money and government staff were shaking hands. The second half part was remained that people were suffering from the wars and financial crisis.

 

By the reason of the technique problem, I had lost some data after the revision so that I had to reedit some parts of my film. At the same time, I was surprised by the video of NASDAQ’s screen wall. Images on the whole wall were changing continuously. I found that these images could exactly represent that Wall Street was so attractive that people were led to pursue money and got lost. Therefore I changed my plan again. I put the screen wall of NASDAQ on the left hand showing the fair appearance of Wall Street, and put the long take of Bush’s speech on the right hand to represent US government going his own way. Besides, the background music in Schindler’s List was set to go with the long take running through the whole film to create the feeling of sorrow.

 

Things I quite like in this film:

l        The use of long take

l        The background music set the theme.

l        Treating with the sound

 

Things I may do better in the next film:

l        The most terrible thing while I made this film was that I had not make a detailed script or story board before the second cut. I just wrote some brief ideas down. Because it was not detailed, at the same time, I got so many excellent footages, so I could not decide which footage shall I use, and I was totally leaded by the footage while I was editing. As a result, my first rough cut was rubbish.

l        I had not take notes of my footages. Although I had watched through all my footages, I could not find some beautiful shots while editing. Next time when I need edit other people’s footage again, I should rename the video as soon as I got it.

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Review of the first film: the process and what I have learned Friday, Dec 12 2008

Set the topic

 

Before I came to England, I watched a lot of TV programs made by Chinese TV stations introducing the life of Chinese people lives abroad. I’m very interested in that, because China is a relatively not that opened country, life styles in between China and western countries are different. By watching the programs, I got to know something new, and different. After I came to England–I live in “the different culture”, I can actually FEEL the feeling, and I want to make some video presenting the feeling. I think I can make it very good, because I have the experience, and I understand the feeling.

 

When I got the first film’s topic “Local to Global”, the theme of “Chinese people” came into my mind. I found it quite suit the assigned topic:

As English people’s (local) point of view, Chinese people is a global topic; while as a local resident, in my point of view, my Chinese fellow is a global topic.

 

Set the story:

As I have decided the topic, then I’m thinking about the story and the characters. These are the stories to be chosen:

 

l        The Illegal Immigration:

There are lots of Chinese illegal immigrations in the UK. Most of them are from Fujian Province (a province to the southeast of China). To come to the UK, they have to climb the snow-clad Himalayan Mountains, stay in the close containers… they suffered a lot. But after they came to the UK, they can not live normal lives because they don’t have passports and visas.

I wanted to make a film presenting the story of how they came to the UK, and what were their daily lives.

 

l        A Chinese Lady called Ru:

Ru lived with her husband and their two kids in a small town of Si Chuan Province. It was a happy family. After her husband passed on by a traffic accident, she was introduced to an English people used to work in China. Then they fell in love with each other. After she came to the UK, she didn’t have a happy life as she expected. She and her husband always quarreled about unimportant things. And her husband didn’t respect her because she was Chinese.

Ru’s story could present a group of Chinese people who married English people. A common point of the group of people wass they are not being expected, because they had been considered that they married English people because they could get a UK passport.

 

l        Window:

It’s a Chinese lady’s story. Ying has been lived in the UK for 8 years. Now she and her English husband were running a small Chinese supermarket. In her small supermarket, she saw a lot of people every day, and because she made friends of many of her customers, she knew lots of their stories. She was good at talking. From the interview she told me lots of stories of her customers and herself.

While our talking, an idea came into my mind: her shop liked a window, from the window we could know lots of storied of different customers in different positions. The still local shop could present global people and global topic.

 

At last I have chosen Ru’s Story. Because the duration of the film has been assigned in 3 minutes, and the style should follow Cinema Verity, which means I need to present series of long take in 3minute to make the story. The topic of “illegal immigration” and “the window” is very broad, and it’s not easy to focus on a specific point in such a short duration, while Ru’s story is easy to be focused and not hard to control the time.

 

Contact the character:

I knew Ru last year, and we just had met only twice, so I was very worried about if she refuses me filming her private story. Any way I just gave her a call. Unexpectedly, she said she would like to help and was ok to be filmed. Then we arranged a meeting on 17^th October at ICE.

 

The Interview:

I knew most people were afraid of camera, and showed nervous in front of camera, so I didn’t bring a camera when I did the first interview of her, because I didn’t want to shock her at the first time. Besides, there was no need to film because I didn’t know what I was going to film. My purpose of the first interview was to get to know more about her story and make our relationship closer.

 

Because we had just met twice and she knew she would be filmed, I could feel that she was very nervous as soon as I saw her.

 

To make she feel good, I used the following ways to take the interview:

l        Because her little boy was with her, I talked to her boy at the very beginning

l        Then recalled our meeting last year to remind the friendship

l        To interview her in the way like chatting with close friends and sincerely tell my experiences in order to calm her down and shorten the distance between us

l        Didn’t mention the film. Because as she agreed to be filmed, I didn’t need to talk about such topic which could make her feel nervous.

l        As she knew and agreed, I recorded our conversation by a tiny pen-like voice recorder, to remind me of the content she mentioned, instead of taking notes which could make people feel it’s not like a chat between friends

 

At the end of the interview, I got much information in a comfortable conversation.

 

Writing the Treatment:

After I got enough information, there came a problem: I could not make my decision. On the one hand, the information I had was enough to make many interesting stories in different angle. I didn’t know which angle is the best. On the other hand, even to a single angle, I couldn’t make the story well focused in just 3 minutes, because I was very happy with all the information I got, and I can’t make up my mind to abandon any of them.

 

Then I spoke to Nick and Ken. I told them that I had no idea of how to make this film, and was afraid I couldn’t make it focused. I wanted to shoot the daily life of a Chinese woman who came from countryside and married an English people. By presenting her a well-off life with spiritual extreme void, I was going to make audiences think about that what kinds of life was so called good life. As I expected, because different people had different evaluation, so their results may vary, but my purpose of making this film was to make people think about it. The progress of thinking was my expected outcome. However, Ken said that I was not a teacher, and I couldn’t use a film to teach the viewers. He asked whether I had worked in the TV station ever before as it showed a kind of TV-stylized thought. He made me know that the purpose of films was to show the reality, but not to teach others. What I should really focus on was what’s happening about her life. No Debate, No Teaching! Just presenting the character is all. And Nick also gave me lots of suggestions about the image and the style. Because we were not allowed to use director’s voiceover, Nick suggested me that let the character tell the story by herself. And while she’s talking, use the picture or image to let audiences see what she’s talking about, instead of just use shots of character’s face. Both of Ken and Nick suggested that I should forget all my previous TV style, instead of, thought more about how to present the film VISUALLY!

 

Amending and Writing the Script:

After talking with Ken and Nick, I started to realize that, I should put more emphasis on my character herself. I listened to the record of the interview for many times, and finally I could use one single sentence to describe why this character impressed me—-she gave everything she had to her children.

At the same time, I was thinking about representing “the everything” which I have mentioned above by using montage to present time.

 

 

No.	Transition	Scene	Sound
1.		Black scene	Black scene with Ru’s voiceover describes what a happy family Ru had. The couple lives in the countryside, they has two children and a truck, which the driver is Ru’s husband making life for the family. But things have been changed since her husband’s death, which is caused by a traffic accident.
2	Fade in	Ru’s C.U.	Ru’s voiceover “I was introduced to my present husband, we fell in love… You know I couldn’t speak and English more than I love you. Then we’ve married, I came to Coventry with him…
3		Series shots of objects with English characters like Ads, street nameplates… fast cut with Ru is drawing a map	Ru’s voiceover “life is hard to a people who can not speak English.
4		Ru’s C.U.	Ru’s voiceover “after Little Jack’s born, I told him I want to bring me and my previous husband’s two children to Cov.
5		The boy and girl’s room and stuff, and image (if possible)	Ru’s voiceover “everything has been changed. He started to hit me…
6		Series shots of women are hit by men in films	Ru’s voiceover “eventually I called the police…
7		C.U. of the tissue on Ru’s hand	Ru’s voiceover “now he is okay, sometimes even very kind to me
		C.U. of Ru	Ru’s voiceover “life comes down, it’s peaceful now
8		The clock’s C.U. (7AM)	Alarm of the clock
9+++	Cut to   Cut to   Cut to     Cut to     Cut to   Cut to       Cut to     Cut to   Cut to   Cut to     Cut to	Ru’s cooking for Little Jack   Slow down of a drip is dripping from the tap   Ru takes Little Jack out for a walk.   A couple of lovers are kissing on the road   Ru is blaming her daughter   A bottle of beer has been finished and the empty bottle being fell on the table   Ru is gently touching his son’s hair by his desk A burning cigarette’s tight C.U.    C.U. of Little Jack’s crying face   C.U. of the words “ best before 19th October” on the wrapper of flowers’ seeds   Ru sits by the window thinking on her own.		Ru is taking care of all her three children heart and soul as time goes by, when people are enjoying their lives. <MONTAGE>
10			D=Director     R=Ru   D: Are you working? R: No, I don’t have time to work. You know housework and taking care of the three problems…   D: What are you doing in your spare time? R: walking around, talking with my Chinese friends, if I got spare time.	Interview (Optional)
11			D: I can still remember the first time when I called you, when you answered my phone, you said “Wei (Chinese language when people answering the phone) instead of “hello”. So how can you know it’s a Chinese people? R: No English people calling me.   D: why? R: because I can only speak a little English, so all my friends are Chinese.   D: but you live in England. R: I will go back home, to my village.    When my children grew up.   D: if you miss your hometown, why not going back now? R: I have to wait another 18 years until all of them benefits from UK’s advanced education.   D: So how old are you after 18 years? R: 56	Interview
12	Fade in	The wrapper of flowers’ seeds: Zoom out from best before 19th October to L.S. with flowers.
13	Fade in	L.S. big trees by the road, which with lots of yellow leaves falling down to		Or
14	Cut to	The clock’s C.U. (7AM)	Alarm of the clock
	Fade to black

 

 

Filming:

On the filming day, every thing went well, but there was one problem that our interview had always been interrupted, because Ru had to leave to other room taking care of her kids.

 

Then my nature reaction told me that I should take my camera following her to see what happened. Then I did that. While I was filming the so called interruption, I started to consider that, the so called interruption was her real life! It just represented “the everything”! Comparing the montage scenes I have designed, this was more natural, and this was the reality! I could not design her life, and I did not have to design the film. What I was going to do was to record the interruption and show it to audiences. They would feel Ru was so busy taking care of her kids that she even didn’t have time to do the 3 minutes interview! It’s just the style of cinema verity, isn’t it?

 

Then I did follow the new way of filming and decided to amend the script—- I removed the montage part, instead of, using the shots of we had been interrupted for three times.

 

 

Editing and Amending:

As I was very happy with my new understanding of cinema verity and amending the script, I used the three times’ interruption instead of the montage scene I had designed while edited it.

 

I brought my rough cut to see Ken (Nick was out to filming). After watching my film, he mentioned:

l        Ken asked me whether I used jump cut purposely at the beginning of the film. I said no. He said it could be acceptable if I remain to use the unique style in the film, so that it would become my own style. But if I just use jump cut in the very beginning for quite a short time, it looked like a flaw.

l        The shot of which Ru turned back was not steady.

l        Ken said he couldn’t understand why Ru’s husband beat her after she just gave birth to their little son. Viewers might be caused a misunderstanding to this scene as well.

l        Ken suggested me to use several pictures at the beginning. It could impress viewers visually, by showing the picture of the person who was being talked about.

l        Ken was not happy with my subtitles, because the English was so poor. He told me to have the subtitles printed out and gave him, and he would amend it for me. It really helped me a lot!

 

Then I did my final amending:

l        Put Ru’s husband’s picture in the very beginning to gave audiences a visual impression.

l        Put the series shots of the goldfish representing Ru and her husband used to love each other, and cover the jump cut.

l        Removed the un-steady shot

l        Reedited the scene of Ru’s husband beat her, which explained her husband beat her because her two Chinese kids did something wrong.

l        Amended all subtitles.

 

 

 

After amending, I showed the final cut to Nick and Ken, both of them seem happy with it.

 

What I have learned by the process of making this film:

l        Cinema verity style

l        The use of long take

l        I should keep all the film in the same style, which includes framing, rhythm of editing…

l        Script is just a few piece of paper, leave it when I got something better

l        The great change from television style to film style

l        A new understanding of camera: camera can be used to educate people, it also can be used to just record life

l        Think a lot is good, but always think a lot makes me can not do anything.

 

 

The End

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Lost (a Kai Fan film of disaster capitalism) Friday, Dec 12 2008

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