Becoming a director, making real movies, burying in my heart like a seed, but suffering from not being able to find the opportunity to sprout, who would have thought that this wait would be ten years.
In the early days of advertising in 180, I was also a director, responsible for shooting commercials, and after shooting a lot of film and television commercials, I still felt almost something. The advertising content is quite different from the film I want to make, although it is all a video work, but the characteristics contained in it are not the same. The similarity between them is the language of the shots, and in terms of process, the script, storyboarding, editing, mixing, and use of the venue are very close. The fundamental difference is that advertising is more about expressing commercial logic in content, while film is more inclusive of art.
Despite this, the experience of advertising director has helped me a lot. From a creative point of view, a film and television work needs insight, and this insight for advertising is based on the connection between products and consumers. For movies, it is the connection between movie content and ordinary people's lives, why does it resonate when we watch movies? That's the magic of connectivity.
Since leaving in 180, I have been determined to be an independent director.
(Du Zhongkun in the play)
Now many people know me because I shot a promotional film for the Shanghai Film Festival, and this collaboration is also very interesting to say, and it is inseparable from advertising. In 2018, I cooperated with the advertising agency W Shanghai to shoot a short documentary film, which won the highest award in the exploration section of the Shanghai Film Festival, and it was based on this that the Shanghai Film Festival Organizing Committee approached me and hoped that I could shoot the promotional film of the Shanghai Film Festival.
The promotional film's bride is not as clear and specific as the commercial film, more of an expression of partial intention, the market at that time was still a pure film and city relationship, but the epidemic came, and all the plans were disrupted. Cinemas can't open, the industry as a whole keeps a wait-and-see attitude, and we thought, it's better to make a connection between "me" and the movie.
With the theme of "You gaze at the light, you are the light", this promotional film expresses the mood of "when we watch the movie, we will also see ourselves in the movie", and looks forward to the audience who has been away from the screen for a long time to enter the theater and reunite with the "self in the movie". The entire film uses black and white tones, two men move a mirror into a silent woods, he lies behind the mirror and plays the harmonica, all kinds of people come to find the sound, whether it is the lover who takes the wedding photo, the frolicking child, or the tourists, security guards, and gardeners in the park, all of them gather in front of the mirror and stare at the picture in the mirror. At this moment, the mirror seems to transform into a big screen, reflecting the world.
The part of the script is from me, and I hope to express that no matter where we are, as long as we still have a desire for movies in our hearts, it can be a movie as far as the eye can see. At the end of the film, I also added a series of content related to film history, and I feel that the relationship with the film will be closer. In the nearly three-minute video, we also paid tribute to many film history classics such as "Two Men and a Wardrobe", "The Shining", "Labyrinth Tan", "Scenery in the Mist", "Night" and other film history classics through clever techniques, showing a strong fandom complex.
Although the results are very good, there are still many difficulties encountered in the shooting process. Due to the epidemic, the shooting site is difficult to find, and we do not want to show too many regional characteristics in the film, we want to find an environmental background that integrates the East and the West, and under a limited budget, we are very satisfied with the final effect. Another point that interests many people is the film's shooting equipment, which uses Apple's mobile phone throughout the whole process and has no external lens. As a director, I must sincerely say that the difficulty of mobile phone shooting is very large, the color and depth of field are a little thin, as a novel sense of experience, it is still worth trying.
When we have a passion for movies, we can feel its light wherever we go. This sentence is my understanding of this film, in a sense, it is also my belief on the road to chasing dreams. Many times we will vaguely see the life we yearn for from the mirror of life, but when we find that this is a dream and we are forced to return to our respective lives, who will continue to insist? We keep seeing our dreams in our lives and holding on until one day, the dreams will shine into reality.
I'm happy with where I am, I'm working on my own film, and the next long script is planned. Although the scope of work is still shooting commercials, I am very happy. Some people say that being a director is very hard, and the cold and heat are running for the filming, and some people say that being a director is cool and can make cool films. But in my opinion, I am just doing what I wanted to do a long time ago, and it doesn't matter whether I am bitter or not, whether it is cool or not.
I've been on the film path for 10 years, and almost all the work I've done during that time seems to be paving the way for me to become an independent director, and now I can finally say that when it's time for that seed to germinate, I'll cultivate it well.
Produced by Modern Advertising Magazine
Text | Jiang Xue
Typography | Vankemin