Guangzhou Huadu District Qixing Primary School has a world champion jump rope team, which has trained 33 world jump rope champions in 9 years and broken more than 10 jump rope world records.
This is a school where foreign children gather. In 2010, when Lai Xuanzhi, 24, graduated from the Wuhan Institute of Physical Education and came to Qixing Primary School, the school had only a dilapidated teaching building, a grassy playground and was facing the fate of being removed. Lai Xuanzhi's arrival not only ushered in the school's first professional physical education teacher in its 55-year history, but also helped many students at Seven Star Primary School "change their fate with a rope.".
"A Little Starlight" will be released on January 15.
In the 33rd Chinese Film Golden Rooster Awards Best Children's Film "A Little Starlight", this story was artistically restored. On January 11, under the guidance of the Propaganda Department of the CPC Guangdong Provincial Committee and the Propaganda Department of the CPC Guangzhou Municipal Committee, the children's inspirational film "Dotted Starlight" produced by Guangzhou Radio and Television Station held its premiere ceremony at the Guangzhou Bud Theatre, and the film will be released nationwide on January 15.
Film story: Bloody release, the troubled teenager changes his fate with skipping rope
The film begins with a monologue between twin brothers Jiang Hai and Jiang He at home, whose parents work in Shenzhen, and they can only stay in the mountains to live with their grandfather. As Grandpa's health deteriorated, his life became unattended, and the last pair of shoes that fit his feet was completely destroyed. The sole is completely separated from the upper, and the blood basin is opened, as if to swallow the last shred of peace in life.
With the idea of finding a new pair of free shoes, the twin brothers came to the jump rope team.
In the team, I met many friends who were similar to their situation. Fang Xiaoqin, the captain of the jump rope team, loves the jump rope career, trains hard day after day, and has outstanding achievements, but the family values sons over daughters, hoping that she will drop out of school and work as soon as possible; Ren Yuxiang is a genius, his mother went to Shanghai, he always looks up at the plane gliding in the air, believes that the people on the plane can see themselves, and hopes to see his mother thousands of miles away as soon as possible.
Ren Yuxiang, who always looked up at the sky.
Skipping rope is their chosen career and a weapon for them to face the difficulties of life.
Unfortunately, at first, this weapon did not have a strong combat effectiveness, and even a helpless move. Located in a mountainous area, the campus area is small, the ground is very muddy, and Teacher Feng, who came to support the teaching, resigned within a few days. In addition, the campus is not enough to carry out sports such as football and basketball, and can only choose to invest a relatively small amount of jump rope with low requirements on the venue.
Later, the school applied for funding, and the principal also issued an ultimatum: if the results could not be obtained, the jump rope team would have to be "changed" and changed to a basketball team. Du Weiqiang, a coach who was not good at jumping rope, faced a double-sided attack and had to study jump rope skills day and night, taking the children to "jump" to achieve good results, and Teacher Feng also stayed because of the pursuit and dream of the jump rope team.
Bend over when jumping rope, change the length of the short rope, replace the rope with a brake line... Du Weiqiang customized the most suitable training program for each team member, and slowly explored the mystery of jumping fast.
Unfortunately, on the day of the game, Jiang Hai, who had struggled to win the opportunity to play, fell down in the rain, and his arm was dislocated and he could not take the rope, and his younger brother Jiang He decided to replace him. Although he won the first place in the men's 30-second jump rope competition in the competition, after being discovered, Du Weiqiang still took Jiang He to cancel the result of the competition. This scene adds a touch of educational meaning to the film while adding dramatic conflict.
Twin brothers Jiang Hai and Jiang He in the film.
In the final innings, the jump rope team faced the jump rope championship that had won many consecutive years. The teacher kept pressing the timer, the rope flew quickly to catch no trace, Ren Yuxiang beat hard, and won the game for the team with the first place.
"When you jump fast enough, you can hear the rope speaking to you." Du Weiqiang said to the children. This also became the motivation for the children to continue training, and later they heard the rope "talking" as they wished, like an echo of fighting for their dreams.
In order to take his children out of the countryside and see the bigger world, Du Weiqiang also raised money everywhere to fight for the children to go to the world jump rope competition. Finally, he was forced by the pressure of his family to take a boat home to visit his wife and children, whom he had not seen for a long time.
At the end of the film, the moment before the children went to Dubai to participate in the competition, the group jumped off the car to the dock to send Off Du Weiqiang by jumping rope, and Du Weiqiang also learned the good news that the children had won the world championship abroad at home. Fang Xiaoqin's family no longer asked her to quit school, and Ren Yuxiang's mother also rushed home to reunite... At that moment, it seemed that they had really changed their fate with a rope.
Behind the scenes of the film: Ordinary people participate in the performance, and the script is created according to the characteristics of the child's personality
When exposed to the theme of the jump rope team of Seven Star Primary School, Xie Deju, director of "A Little Starlight", was also a reporter at Guangzhou Radio and Television Station. In 2017, he transformed into a public service advertisement and a micro-film, shooting a short film of about three minutes "Happiness comes from struggle" with the theme of jump rope team. The short film was also recognized by the Propaganda Department of the Guangzhou Municipal Party Committee, whose main leaders encouraged Xie Deju to turn the short film into a movie.
"'A Little Starlight' fulfills countless of my impossible dreams." In an exclusive interview with a reporter from Nandu, Xie Deju sighed that when he first entered the film and television circle, this film made him suffer from insomnia for two consecutive years, and he once wanted to give up the dream of film. "The most intense thing about filming is the creative period, and you have to write the script in a certain period of time."
The film was shot over a short period of time, with only 35 days from November 2018 to March 2019. However, the early script condensed a lot of Xie Deju's painstaking efforts. In order to find inspiration, he read a lot of books, such as the basic theory of screenwriting, artistic creation and literary aesthetics related books, and also read some papers to find inspiration.
Director Xie Deju is shooting.
The story is based on reality, and the children's true performance also brings a different feeling to the creation of the film. In the end, Xie Deju selected several children with relatively good acting skills from Seven Star Primary School to run into and create a script according to their own personality characteristics.
"Compared with the three-minute short film, the film pays more attention to the living conditions of the children, so that it can resonate with more people." Xie Deju introduced.
Filming spans the winter in the Qingyuan Mountains, often starting at 4 or 5 a.m. and continuing until 10 p.m. It was raining a lot of time, many of the children involved had a cold, and many of the directors were sick, and the conditions were very bad.
For this group of small jump rope world champions, making movies is much more difficult than jumping rope. Among them, the twin brothers who impressed Xie Deju the most were the twin brothers in the jump rope team. When the movie was finished, the twin brothers saw him again at school and took a detour, afraid of being dragged to make a movie again.
Although the performance is not a "professional army", the children learn quickly. At the beginning of the shooting, Xie Deju also had to guide with a line and an expression, and later the children fully learned to play freely. "At this time, I don't need to talk to them at all, just give a scene, and they already know how to do it."
The main creative team of "A Little Starlight".
Authenticity and nature are the presentation effects he seeks. There was a scene where two brothers were needed to rush out, but they accidentally stepped on the air and fell to the ground, and finally broke their bones. As a result, the child asked if he really wanted to fracture the bone. The child's true and false shooting reflection also gave Xie Deju a lot of inspiration, and the classic bridge section of "listening to the rope speaking to you" was also generated.
"Coach Lai's personality is particularly distinctive, and we will also design the scene according to his characteristics." Xie Deju said. Coach Lai Xuanzhi laughed and said that he was very excited when he first received the invitation to the film, but when he really filmed, what he wanted to hear most was the director's "card", "It's really too hard." In the future, if I talk about making movies, I probably won't agree. ”
Behind the story: After several years of sharpening a sword, the village primary school produced a jump rope world champion
Behind the story of the film is the true story of Qixing Primary School, a small rural primary school located in Huadong Town, Huadu District, Guangzhou.
In 2012, Huadu District began to vigorously promote the jump rope project. Since the jump rope did not occupy the venue and the equipment was easily available, it was very suitable for the Seven Star Elementary School, which had become smaller due to the reconstruction of the teaching building sports venue at that time, so Lai Xuanzhi decided to organize a jump rope team.
He let all the students take the rope to move freely, observed the students' interest in jump rope on the side, and selected more than 50 students and divided them into three echelons for jump rope training.
As a result, after a day of training, I encountered obstacles. Lai Xuanzhi asked students to train every morning and after school, but parents thought that this would affect their children's normal learning, and nearly half of the students withdrew from training. Lai Xuanzhi recalled, "Most of the team members left were children of migrant workers, and their parents were busy with work and did not have much time to take care of them."
From these students, Lai Xuanzhi saw the shadow of his own year. He hopes that these children can "jump" out with their sports expertise and find their goals in life. "I don't ask the children how much honor they get back, as long as they feel the joy of jumping rope and find their self-confidence."
Lai Xuanzhi. Nandu reporter He Yushuai photographed
But Lai Xuanzhi himself does not jump rope. At 1.82 meters tall, he was the only one who failed the jump rope test three times in the physical education teacher jump rope test stipulated by Huadu District.
Tall in the jump rope project is a disadvantage, coupled with no experience, at the beginning Lai Xuanzhi did not have a bottom in his heart. You can only look for various jump rope competition videos to watch and study other people's ropes and movements. He found that the half-squat jump method can speed up, tried to jump over and over again, and finally found the best action "golden point", and created a unique set of "bow waist half-squat jumping method".
But jumping rope has made earth-shaking changes to Seven Star Elementary School, starting with a brake line. One day, he pushed the broken motorcycle to repair the gear, and a brake line caught his attention, "The brake line of the motorcycle is soft and hard, the thickness is moderate, and it is a good material for making jump rope." ”
Lai Xuanzhi immediately found a few brake lines and cut bamboo to make a handle. Sure enough, as soon as I got started, the speed was much faster than usual, from the original 30 seconds to more than 70 single shakes to more than 100 times. Until now, the jump rope used in the race at Seven Star Elementary School has been assembled with improved brake lines.
Lai Xuanzhi teaches students to jump rope in physical education class.
Skipping rope for physical education classes. Nandu reporter He Yushuai photographed
Training without moving for more than two hours a day is prescribed. On the green mat in the training room, there were black marks, which were the sweat of the seven-star elementary school jump rope team members training.
The children's day-to-day training has also made the jump rope team better and better, winning multiple championships in the first World Student Jump Rope Championship in the United Arab Emirates and the World Jump Rope Championship in Sweden. In July 2019, at the 2019 WJR (World Jump Rope) Jump Rope World Cup held in Oslo, Norway, The Jump Rope Team member Cen Xiaolin also broke five competition records, and was called the "strongest thigh" from China by foreign netizens.
Poster of "A Little Starlight".
Written by: Nandu reporter Wang Meisu Cai Liyi Ye Ziwen
Photo: Nandu reporter He Yushuai (partly provided by the organizer)
Video: Nandu reporter Li Lin Chen Donghui Intern Cui Can Xie Qinfeng