What choice did I make between projects

ZB's Thesis Intro and First Chapter

Introduction

In the first year of Piet Zwart Institute, I have been making films by learning photography, editing skill, effect design and narrative approaches etc, I made different types of film to understand the value of each aspect in filmmaking. In the second year, my plan is to strength those skills and develop a cinematic language of my own.
In this thesis, I would like to talk about my works through three questions: what steps have I taken over the past 2 years to make a more personal filmmaking practice? What kind of films influenced my work? Why do I focus on the personal experience in my works?
In the first part of my thesis, I will analyze my previous works from the narrative approach, style, motivations and the movie form, how are they connected to each other and what guided me to make the present film. In the second part, I will talk about my interest in camera language, the metaphoric approach, the structural film, a selection of structural filmmakers, for example, Hollis Frampton, Michael Snow and how their works affect mine. The last part will be a reflection on my works and an evaluation of my research during the graduation year.

Chapter One

Air addiction

Video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWP7G5Ca-c4&list=PLlGUzclkWY98QJFt_8HSljjbigB0srCqN

This is a video based project shows my reflection on air pollution disaster in my hometown China, it is a message says that no one can escape from this disaster if there is no sufficient way to governance the environment immediately. The project includes three videos, the first video is named Holding breath, which shows my panic and helpless reaction when I realized the danger of inhaling the particulate matter for the first time. I lock myself at home and try to practice the length of holding breath so I can do the grocery shopping from the closest supermarket. The second one is called Protection, which describes my daily routine with different types of protective mask after living in the smog for one year, I gradually become numb and speechless. The last part is my imagination of the future, which is called Illusion. Breathing easily could be a luxury consumption, like taking drugs, if the smog keeps blanketing the whole country, the fresh air may create hallucination and people may get addicted to it. All videos were shot in heavy smoggy days in Hubei and Hunan provinces, China during October and November in 2016.

First of all, I wrote scripts based on the experience of living in different major cities like Shanghai, Tianjin, Wuhan and my hometown. Meanwhile, I had a few interviews with people who live in those places, for example, the model from the first video, Mingjie, she lives in Beijing where is one of the most polluted cities in China, her impression about the thick layer of smog rolled into Beijing and turned skyscrapers into shadows inspired me on the script writing. I invited her to be my model and discussed the shooting together.
Secondary, to visualize feelings and reflections related to the smog in the film, I went to the food market to observe animals struggling to breathe while they were slaughtered by a butcher. I joined local people to dance with the mask in the park to experience the difficulties of inhaling while doing excises. I also went to the sightseeing platform in the city to observe the movement of thick yellow clouds.
Last but not the least, this is my first video-based project, I learned how to shoot with different cameras, like Nikon D300s, Sony video camera and iPhone; how to record sound and how to edit them by software.

In cities across China, everyone is suffering from the polluted air, the increasing severe lung disease patients are mostly children and elders, they are more susceptible than normal adults to the PM 2.5. I am depressed and angry especially when I see my own family members are suffering from it, my initial motivation for making this project is to share my fear and get responses from the public. When the government has restricted driving in an effort to staunch air pollution from cars and the number of coal factory under construction has tapered off, Meanwhile, hundreds of new coal factories were approved to build up, the ambiguous relationship between governing environment and developing economy is very complicated and frustrated. I want to get attention from people in charge in the government, shows how people really think on this issue and how people really feel about their life at this moment and in the future. I was working as a commercial designer for a long time, this is my first video-based project which is relatively critical and independent. the transformation of focusing on the commercial case to social problems proves the desire of me being a critical artist.

I made a number of decisions when I made this work: Technically, I deiced to have more dynamic shoots and colourful images in this film, a futurism and technological background story. Comparing to the Air Addiction, Intersection is a fictional film which aims to have a better narrative and more clear storyline. Instead of pointing the topic directly, I wanted to use a metaphoric way to define my understanding of utopia.

Video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiCXzwOZgP4&list=PLlGUzclkWY99L4rlrXlc82s8WNDjYngDq
Intersection

It is a short film about a guy who can create a special fruit which has the power to make people experience an organism without any external body contact. one night, this guy comes across with a girl. In the beginning, the girl is so confused because the guy is running away from kissing, touching and body contact. but later the whole atmosphere changed after she eats the magic fruit, she sees colourful fruits dancing and gradually she feels hot, with power goes stronger, she reached the climax. at the end of the film, she meets this guy in a time tunnel again. my initial motivation of making this film is to respond the sexual violence, and as a utopian world, people can have a better sexual experience by eating the magic fruit, but unfortunately, I did not find a good way to put this information in the film.

I made a number of decisions before making film Slow in Florence

Due to the unsuccess experience from the previous film, I decided to make a new style without any struggle on storytelling, I want to know how a film looks like if I only focus on camera skill, image quality, cinematic colour tone and transition effect, leave the script to be made on the way while I was travelling at somewhere. So I went to Italy Florence, This film is going to talk about the possibility of making a good film without a dominant script, meanwhile, it is an experiment of visualizing my personal impressions and shaping my own cinematic language.

Slow in Florence

Video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fl3-VgHdF4c&index=1&list=PLlGUzclkWY9_aHOh549gILOjxuw0UY7Px
It is a film shows my memory of Florence in the winter of 2017. Florence is considered the birthplace of the Renaissance, this city is noted for its culture, art, architecture and monuments. As a place with a high level of awareness, it is not easy to break the stereotype impression of it. I am trying to show my first impression of Florence In this film, on a raining and snowing day, the temperature drops to minus 2 degrees, people are waiting to get inside of the Florence Cathedral, the fog blanket the whole town which reduces the visibility. People are walking very carefully on the ice road, It feels extremely quiet and cold. Some people say the atmosphere and the view in this film remind them the Florence during the Second World War. The city is covered with ice Everything happens close to the Cathedral in the centre; visitors struggle to stay dry and to sightsee. People climb to the top but are frustrated, there is nothing to see. There are two fires in the film; they provide a little contrast to the coldness and wetness of the film overall; the single figure walking alone through the streets [is it you?] is in contrast to the crowd of tourists.

I went to Italy alone and booked the tickets one day before leaving, I did not decide the length of this trip and also not check the weather, the sight spot and the hotel. The reason for being unprepared is for the fresh reflection and private memory I can get from this trip. I try to capture the moment which I think is private.
The sound of this film is specially designed. From the raindrops to human footsteps are all generated on the computer, I highlighted these sound based on religious music as the background. Meanwhile, I designed some dramatic transition sound on the connecting frame between two footages. The image is rendered to a cinematic style which has a high contrast effect on objects and a gloomy atmosphere. The sequence of the film is arranged by the travel schedule. I want to guide people into a nervous atmosphere and an uncertain situation which perfectly pictures my memory of Florence.

I am lack of good narrative approach in filmmaking, so I want to make up with good images.
The reason why I went to Italy to do this experiment is the curiosity about few questions I came across: what is the power of image, how a non-narrative film looks like, how to visualize a feeling by images, how to make people feel what I felt without saying a word. I put a lot of efforts on this film, especially the rendering, sound design, effect design and sequences because I tried to describe my memory, my emotion and my feeling from those details, a sudden transition may hide my anxiety.

After a few conversations with tutors about my works, they suggested me to slow down on making new films and have a good reflection on what I had already. I have good eyes to find beautiful things by the camera but lack of good narrative in words. Looking back on my first film. I decided to pick up a few footages from that project and try to focus on scriptwriting, especially focus on personal experience and feeling during the smog days. The purpose is to give the audience more space to imagine the environment and situation from the details of my story, focus on the process of a story but not the result.

Walk slowly
Video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJWsis5wfsU&t=27s

It is a short film tells a story based on a conversation between me and my mother while we are climbing the mountain in the smog. I ask my mother to walk slowly to avoid too much-polluted oxygen to be inhaled, somehow at that moment, I remembered her concerned words for me to walk carefully when I need to go to school alone. In this film,
a sweet reminder changed into a strict order because the reason behind It changed dramatically. Through a small story from my daily life to point out this environmental phenomenon and people’s desperate attitude, this is an experimental film using the metaphoric narrative approach to tell a good story.

The script of this film comes from the conversation when my family were climbing the mountain during the spring festival in 2016, I read the script with the native language and used the sound as the voice-over in the film. The image of this film comes from the previous project, The Air Addiction, I picked up few footages, for example, in the low visibility atmosphere, people walk and slowly disappear on road; the woods in smog day and the view from the cable car. I edited all footages in the slow motion.

This film responds to the feedback from the tutors of PZI about my previous project, The Air Addiction, which talks about my reflection on air pollution issue in my hometown China.
The suggestion for The Air Addiction project is that describing the result of living in smog may limit the imagination for the audience to picture the situation of the polluted place. Meanwhile, too many information with an unwell organized narrative strategy causes confusing in the story. In terms of narrative approach in the film Walk Slowly, the reason of role switching in the conversation between my mother and me about reminding each other of carefully walking becomes a strong point to tell the seriousness of the pollution problem. it is a good parabolic way to learn to.

From the last assessment of the first year in PZI, I get good feedback on my new film Walk Slowly, both the narrative approach and the image design, so I want to go further on self-experience based filmmaking practice. I decided to have an overlook at my first year of living in Holland, ask the question like: how do you feel, what do you like and dislike, what is the most difficult thing of living aboard and imagine the future. Based on the answer to those questions, I want to visualize them in the film.

Video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAwE96SmT94&feature=youtu.be

After living in Holland for one year
It is a short film tells my impression after living in Nederland for one year. As the main role in the film, I set the camera on the first person perspective, I sit on the stairs and look at the view from the small windows on the door, I have a long cable in my hand, which connect to the locker of the door, I pull the cable carefully, feeling nervous but also exciting to open the door. After a few times of trying, I made the door open, I walk to the door and hide behind it, observing the view on the street. Later on, I closed the door and go back to where I was sitting, have the cable in my hand again and made one more pull in the end. The film accompanied by a voice-over of mine, reading a simple self-introduction in Dutch, the fluence of speed and pronunciation of reading is getting better after few times repeating. This film shows my anxious and curiosity while studying and living in this country for a year, I did not know the position of myself in this society. when in Rome, do as the Romans do, so I tried to live like a local.