Produced by | Tiger sniffing young group
Author | Yangtze River Apartment
This article was first published on the tiger sniff young content public account "That NG" (ID: huxiu4youth). Here, we present the face, stories and attitudes of today's young people.
Zhao Ting once again made history.
Today (February 4), as one of the bellwethers of the Oscars, the nomination list of the 78th Golden Globe Awards was announced, and Zhao Ting was nominated for best director, the first Chinese female director in history to be nominated for the award.
In addition, her "No Man's Land" has also received three nominations for Best Film, Best Actress and Best Screenwriter in the Drama Category.
Stills from "The Land of NoBody"
The last time she made history was 5 months ago. Zhao Ting won the lion award at the 2020 Venice Film Festival with this film. After Ang Lee's "Color Ring", after 13 years, she became the first Chinese director to lift this trophy. Previously, Jia Zhangke's "Good Man of the Three Gorges", Cai Liangming's "Long Live Love", Zhang Yimou's "No One Can Be Less", "Qiu Ju Fights a Lawsuit", and Hou Xiaoxian's "City of Sorrows" have all won this award.
She is also a popular winner at the 93rd Academy Awards.
The 38-year-old Chinese director suddenly appeared frequently in the public eye. We were also curious in surprise, who is she? Where did she come from? What kind of story does she have?
Zhao Ting, born in Beijing in 1982, is the father of Zhao Yuji, the former general manager of Shougang, and the stepmother is the actor Song Dandan.
Seeing this, many people may think that this is a story of casual success of the second generation of stars, but in fact, on the contrary, Zhao Ting's entire film career has been exhausted most of the time to find investment and resources. At the hardest time, Zhao Ting, who was 170 centimeters tall, was only 88 pounds thin.
She was only 14 when she left home to go to school in London, and she described the experience as like she had suddenly gone to Hogwarts to report on it.
Zhao Ting grew up watching the American movies "Man Ghost Love", "Nuns Are Crazy" and "Terminator" on TV, and she also talked about the impact of Wong Kar-wai's "Spring Break" on many occasions, which almost changed her entire life. "My goal [of making a movie] was to put the camera in the body of the character." She said.
After getting her visa at age 18, she moved into a studio apartment in Koreatown, Los Angeles. In an interview, she said: "In the country, the best high schools are usually named after places. I flipped through the phone book and saw Los Angeles High School. I thought, then I'm going to Los Angeles High School. ”
After Zhao Ting received a degree from Monthorley York College, she continued her studies at New York University's Dishi College of Art on student loans. To earn a living, she worked as a bartender; bus drivers went on strike, and to save money, she bought skateboards to learn.
The debut film "The Song My Brother Taught Me to Sing" was originally planned to be filmed for $1 million, but in the end, the budget for shooting the whole film was only a measly $100,000. It's all from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, and The Little Devil's House director Chris Columbus's Young Directors Support Program at NYU. There were three shortlisted scripts that year, and Zhao Ting's "The Song My Brother Taught Me to Sing" was one of them.
At that time, Zhao Ting looked for actors in the barren mountains and wild mountains where Indians gathered every day, and the funds that said they would be in place always repeatedly broke the contract. Her mood every day jumped back and forth between the excitement of building a group and the frustration of running out of money.
But what really pushed Zhao Ting forward was not the luck that fell from the sky, but the bad luck.
One day, exhausted, she returned to her home in New York, only to find that all her photographic equipment, including computers and hard drives, had been stolen. Either abandon this path or just start shooting. Zhao Ting chose the latter.
She said to her photographer boyfriend, "We can't wait any longer, so I'll take that money ($100,000) to make a movie for the kids, but I can't pay you now." ”
When she was most poor, she did not ask for help from home. It wasn't until many years later that Song Dandan saw the report of the "Director's Gang" and sighed: I really didn't know that she was so short of money at that time. When I want to say that I am short of money to fund, she does not need it anymore.
From this time on, the motifs of Zhao Ting's films gradually surfaced: marginalized crowds, the empty and mysterious American West, and the arbitrary transition between fiction and non-fiction.
"Knight", which won the "Director's Bi-Weekly Best Film Art Film Award" at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, was also shot with non-professional actors at a very low cost. The story tells the story of how a competitive rider in the American West gave up his dream step by step after being injured.
The film was also shortlisted for the 2017 Toronto Film Festival Special Screening Section along with "Three Billboards." The latter star, Frances McDormand, after watching the film, asked the same question as many Hollywood producers - "Who is Zhao Ting?" ”
This directly led to McDormand's invitation to Zhao Ting as the screenwriter and director of "No Man's Land", which was the first time Zhao Ting invited a well-known actor to play the film's leading role.
At the same time, Marvel Studios invited her to become the director of the $200 million "Eternals" investment. It wasn't until Zhao Ting got these two film contracts that she completely paid off her student loan and got medical insurance for the first time.
Although "No One Land" has well-known movie stars joining, the investment is still only a million dollars. Zhao Ting's production team used the previous shooting experience of "The Song My Brother Taught Me to Sing" and "Knight", and found 50 people to record the video in advance, so that Zhao Ting could choose actors in it. In an interview with IndieWire, "A lot of times, when I get to the shooting site, I don't know who to choose to shoot. ”
This ability to achieve goals in uncertainty comes from the part-time work experience of the student years. In an interview with Hollywoodreporter, she said: "Being a bartender has only a tip (which is profitable), so if you want to make your customers feel comfortable, you have to talk to them." A lot of times, you'll meet some people when you're making movies. If you ask me how I get along with non-professional actors, I would say you have to listen to their stories. ”
There will be many people who compare Zhao Ting with the Chinese director Ang Lee. After all, they have too many similarities: they also graduated from New York University's Dishi College of Art, the same Chinese background, the same Golden Lion Award winner, and the same ability to control art films and commercial productions.
Even, Zhao Ting has the possibility of surpassing Ang Lee's career achievements - if she wins the Oscar for best director and best picture at the same time.
In this regard, Zhao Ting replied in an interview with GQ: First of all, I feel very honored. Second, there will be no next Ang Lee, only one Ang Lee, the only Ang Lee.
Other female directors also began to ask Zhao Ting about her successful experience. Her advice: As a young female director, you should make it a responsibility not to give up.
Now, Zhao Ting is in the heavy post-editing work of "Eternals", and in 9 months, the film will meet us on the big screen.
Zhao Ting's film path continues, and she is still in the middle of the story. As she said at the Venice Film Festival: See you down the road (see you on the road).