Zhibin:Text on Method

Introduction

Before this master, my works were mainly related to the graphic design and communication design, the research methods I built up are more about transferring ideas or stories into images or visual material. Designing the CIS (corporate identity system) for different companies as commercial projects offered me lots of experiences on this skill and it helps me to go further on trying different possibilities of visualization methods. Meanwhile, collecting all kinds of information related to the research and generate them into a whole new story is the major practice before the design starts. Overall, I was focusing on storytelling skills by gathering data and visualize them into clear and straight to the point visual material, and I want to further these skills and methods in my master in PZI. Therefore, all my works during the semester 2017-2018 are mainly related to two aspects, one is about the movie script writing, another is about camera skills improvements. My current movie project is a documentary about situations of Chinese people from different backgrounds living in Holland as a citizen, as my first documentary, I think it is necessary to review all the video projects I have created so far before I do it.

Current practice

Slow in Firenze
Rome

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fl3-VgHdF4c&list=PLlGUzclkWY9_aHOh549gILOjxuw0UY7Px

I went to Italy in March for 5 days, I was fascinated by the idea about identifying the well-known cities from my own perspective, so I choose Firenze and Rome as my destinations, despite all the impressions I had from the book or social media about this city, I start looking for my own story. It was a journey that I gave myself completely freedom, without any travel plans, without maps, without any limitations, I was just wandering on the streets and following the feeling the city gives to me. I only open the camera when I feel necessary. Meanwhile, it was an experiment that making a story by following the audio in the environment instead of Image as the key storyline, especially the movie, Slow in Firenze, the sound of weather, the sound of the people, the sound of the street, guided me to shoot all the footages. The reason why I did this project is because I can easily get lost in the movie making process, I needed to find myself and identify myself first. I was not only the director, but also the script writer, the photographer and the editor for the 3 movie projects I have made before. Each of them has their own weak points, but one in common is that the story line is ambiguous. Hence, instead of pushing myself to do bunch of complex works and figuring out the balance between each other, like write a good script, draw the shots and set up different sceneries, I think there is one thing I have been ignoring is observing the environment and connecting with it.

My respond to The Air Addiction Project

The Air Addiction: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlGUzclkWY98QJFt_8HSljjbigB0srCqN

The Air Addiction is a series of videos about the smog issue in China. The videos were created in 2016. This project is based on my personal experience of living in smog for years and it is a red alert for all Chinese people, the government and environmental protection agencies that we have to implement strict regulations and address this issue as soon as possible. The project includes three parts. The first part named Holding breath, tells my panic and helpless reaction When I first realized the danger of inhaling the particulate matter. I lock myself at home and practice the length of holding breath because I do not know how to avoid inhale polluted air. The second part is called Protection, which describes my daily routine with different types of protective face mask after living in the smog for a year. I feel more depressed and sad instead of fear and panic, it seems like I surrendered. The last part is an imagnation of my future life called Illusion. Breathing easily could be a luxury consumption, like taking drugs, if the smog keeps blanketing the whole country, it creates hallucination and makes people get addicted. All videos are shot in heavy smoggy days in Hubei and Hunan provinces during October and November in 2016, there is no image that has been edited by any special effect.

I have different perspective and ideas when I look at those videos now, my emotions were complex and Multilayered, my camera skills were fancy and flexible, but the main point of the movie is not strong, since those camera tricks and editing skills are overwhelming . From the conversation with the tutor David, he mentioned that the image I shot is very beautiful, even one frame of the video is good enough to tell the story, but the way I mixed them is confusing and overloaded, I was focusing more on the effects but missed the main purpose of the air pollution, the fear of people and the worries form myself. So, I am trying to go through all footages from 2 years ago, and edit a new version of the Air Addiction.

Documentary about Chinese people living in Holland
I am planning to make a documentary about Chinese mainlanders who are currently living in a good life in Holland, the way they fulfil their dreams and their attitude towards their current lives, especially compare the time in China. I am curious about how do they deal with the balance of two different culture and how much will they adopt into this society. There are 4 people in my list now, who are in different ages and come from different background, none of them knows about this documentary yet, and I am also not sure if they want to join this project, but what I am doing now is observing their daily life through social media, like Wechat (the Chinese main online social app), see their posts and respond to some of them. Observing them can help me to get familiar with their rhythm and personalities, then I know what should I focus on each one of them when I start filming.

Relations to my previous works