Category: Uncategorized

11/01/2023

That’s my memory of winter before middle school.

I always went to the unique public bathhouse in the north after coming home from school every Friday. Carrying a bag of bathing supplies alone, I would always deliberately step on all the snow that could wet the uppers of my shoes. The smell of damp wood was emitted in the sauna, and the water vapor was also of quality.

I liked to eat fruits at such times; apples, grapefruits, or sugar oranges that have been floating in the bathtub for a long time. The cold plant juice that slipped from between my fingers would mix with the hot water and flow through the skin on my chest, causing a slight shiver.

The bathhouse was always lively, filled with middle-aged women chatting loudly and children making noises, but my corner was quiet. I always quietly immersed myself in my imagination at such moments. Who wants me to see the sunshine coming in from that extremely high window? Who can embrace me in this water vapor? Who will watch my figure walking alone through the snow and capture the fragments of my existence?

When I was still young at that time, at any similar noisy moment, I felt that the corner I was in was private, because the corner of my thoughts only belonged to me.

Every sound, every smell, every sensation, they want me to feel. I close my eyes. They want me to feel.

 

09/16/2023

I had two cups of wine on my ANA flight home. It was the kind of wine that tasted really awful. Just like the low-quality alcohol you could drink at a wedding banquet in a small town during childhood, it was the kind of astringency and bitterness that can make your tongue instinctively remember, but the alcohol content is very high. So after drinking one cup, I pretended completely sober, and asked the flight attendant for a second cup calmly.

I am someone who likes to write nonsense words that only I can understand. I like to play word games with myself, I like to trap myself. All my existence is not about me, but my words are only about me.

It’s just like once I posted a moment on my Douban account a long time ago, “Why the fuck are you writing? Stream of consciousness is a fucking harm for fucking humans”.

 

11/01/2022

I have always had a feeling since I was little, maybe an illusion, but I can realize the moments in my blood that resonate with those connections. Often when I do a common action in daily life, I can’t help but wonder if there’s another person who’s doing the same action as me, in this world, at this moment. Maybe at 12 o’clock on one day in 2008, maybe at the same moment in countless different spaces, there are countless versions of me with different looks, different genders, and different ages, all tightened hard on the transparent fishing line at one end of my neck, but before the last moment came, we all calmly let it go as if nothing happened, and then turned around and went to our different destinations.

In fact, I am a repressed me. Repressed emotions, repressed desires, and repressed dark side. I longed for myself, killing myself, replacing myself. I long to use the dark side of everyone in the world, the dark side of the person I love, to destroy me, breathing me out like a sigh. I have been living below the surface of the lake. In front of everyone, I am just my reflection reflected through the surface of the lake. What is the real me like? What am I like when I have no restraint and no scruples? At that time, the fishing line may have broken through my neck, and peeled off my skin. I was the only one among the lives in the matrix that was programmed with the same details that deviated from the program. Because at that moment, the fishing line had broken in my heart. Therefore I have long ceased to be life.

I am me, I am no longer me.

 

10/18/2020

I remember that two years ago, I took a midnight bus to the Bund to see the Huangpu River at three in the morning, even though I had actually been there many times during the day. That may be the least crowded moment, but there were still sporadic people jogging.

The station of the transfer bus was very cold and only designated drivers still showed up at that time, pulling the folding scooter and waiting beside me in silence.

A cat looked at me from a distance for a long while and finally ran away.

I watched the floor-to-ceiling windows of the closed shopping mall reflect it running away. It was probably warm enough inside, but I don’t know where it ran to spend the winter that day.

I went to Lawson and bought two hazelnut chocolates, which seemed to be the only thing I could eat in a day and a half.

I lost my way on South Tibet Road, and then stopped at South Henan Road. On the way, I saw young people talking and laughing together in twos and threes at the entrance of nightclubs.

I don’t know what I went to see that day, or where I wanted to go.

Probably, I just wanted to see the lights above the Huangpu River, and there was no one above the lights.

 

01/21/2017

Life is so cruel. I don’t know what is fascinating at this moment, maybe it’s the dusk falling at the end of the railway, maybe it’s the silk blossom falling on your hair at that time, maybe it’s just you, all the unknown, the last grand death.

It reminds me of many things. In fact, I used to have short hair like Faye Wong, like a tomboy. As her in Wong Kar-Wai’s Chungking Express.

That man, he took pictures of me lying on the edge of the Brooklyn Bridge, and in a taxi late at night, when the whole blaze of red light from the side of the road hit my face through the window of the car.

He showed me the picture – my face was buried in the red light and shade, expressing a trace of unease and trance. Then I heard him muttering, “王菲 (Faye Wong).” With a non-standard Mandarin accent. I didn’t speak up, just smiled.

And then there was one day, with that unique buzzing belonging to an old air conditioner that echoed in the dim small room, he suddenly asked me, “Have you ever seen Chungking Express?” I looked at his face, but he was not looking at me; he just bowed his head and was busy cleaning up the tablet on his desktop, the golden hair slightly covering his eyes, “I really had a crush on her at that time.” Then he smiled, like some kind of self-teasing.

At that time, I didn’t know how to respond, and I didn’t know whether there was any connection between the two sentences that I didn’t respond to, throughout the time, indicating my delusional love.

I suddenly thought of his vision. Did he see the gold? In those blue pupils. Just like in Chungking Express, the piece of gold in front of the bar, intertwined with the blue and green, like a dream.

Bitter mint.

Smells always pop out endlessly, breaking up all my conception.

Today is a bitter mint scent. The bitter lead stayed on my cuff, pocket, and my palms. It also stayed on the tip of the pencil. Was it kept?

I do feel bitter.

Am I really like Faye Wong?

But I don’t have the key that can enter the heart of the one I love, and I will never have it.

I never said I recognized that comment.

“I haven’t seen Chungking Express yet,”

“And I’m not the one you love.”

 

__________________

Written on 2021/01/18

The Design: I sketched several small designs and decided among them. I finally chose the cat figure because it could make the best use of the size of the given board which was kind of small and thin. This is my original design inspired by my love and familiarity with cats. 🙂 I designed a hole to be the handle of the food tray, which also cleverly shaped the cat’s body and tail. The cat’s neck is also designed for hand-held ease. After I designed the design, I draw a full-size sketch on paper then printed it on the wood.

BS: I forgot to take photos for several beginning steps because my classmates around me were all busy with their own works when I started my work.

BS is for cutting the basic shape from the original board. I was kind of afraid to operate the BS in the beginning. But thanks to Steve’s help, I made it at last. The most difficult process was cutting the cat’s ear and neck, cause they had a lot of curves near 90 degrees which were hard for a beginner operator like me. I learned from Steve that every time instead of trying to continually cut following the sketch, we need to pull back the saw a little bit before cutting the curves; it helps avoid reaching the edge of the curve too much or even cutting into the edge.

DP: DP is for drill the handle hole on the board. I chose the 2.1cm diameter drill to drill the cat’s tail as I designed. I was too cautious while pulling down the DP, so the speed was kind of slow and made my wood get a small burn mark (I didn’t realize until I smelt the burning). I had to sand it after.

OSS: OSS is for doing some subtle sanding. For the curves near 90 degrees around the cat’s ears and head, I used the OSS with the 120g  and 150g sandpaper rolls to get them smoother. I noticed if you pressed your work onto it with too much strength and didn’t pay attention to when to move to another part, it might sand a corner too much and might ruin the shape. I got a tiny over-sanded corner on the cat’s ear, though I fixed it after to make it look natural, it really scared me and made me more cautious.

Belt Sander: The belt sander is for doing some efficient sanding. I used the belt sander to sand the big sharp curves (the cat’s body) that the BS didn’t cut smoothly. I paid attention to the position of my work on it (holding it against the sander’s left side) in case of the sander pulling my hand on it. And I felt the belt sander was way more efficient than the OSS, and I needed to really pay attention to stop in good time, or it might sand too much.

First hand-sanding: Hand-sanding is for the overall surface sanding and more subtle small corners’ sanding. I sanded the cat’s overall surface to make it smoother with different sandpaper. First I used a piece of 180g sandpaper, then 400g, in the end, I even used the 800g block. I spent a really long time on sanding (about 3 hours), its look after this step already made me kind of satisfied because it looked and touched well for me already.

   

Routing: The router is for shape a round edge for the inside or outside edges of the work. I found it harder to use than I thought. Because my cat’s design is thin, I didn’t route the outside edge of its figure, I decided to route the handle hole. I hesitated because I didn’t think it clear which direction should be counterclockwise before I started the router. It got my work two burn marks and I had to sand them off after.

   

Second hand-sanding: I repeated the first hand-sanding step I did for part 1. It took me a long time to sand again because though I didn’t want to use the router for its entire edge, I still wanted its outside edge to be smooth and slightly round. So I sanded the edge for about 2 hours, the final look made me satisfied.

Finishing: In the end, I oiled and waxed my work to make it smooth and shining. It was work about patience because it ran about 30 min long in total. After oiling and waxing, the wood’s color became darker (which looks much better than I expected) and its surface got very smooth. After I cleaned the wax, my final work actually surprised me. I never imagine I could make such successful work before I started and I really like my outcome.

            

Knowing what I know now, if I were to start over again, I wouldn’t change my design because my final product really made me satisfied, though I think I could definitely do the work better. I would tell my former self don’t be too nervous and hesitated, it might make your work harder; just work with patience and carefulness, the outcome will amaze you.

If I were to build a similar project, I would keep the same carefulness and patience with me. But I think I would challenge myself more, such as doing a more complicated design because my skills improved after this project. I would make a larger design so I could add more details to it. I think it’s more convenient if the food tray has a larger scale for the user to put things on.

Here’s a link to the film.

A. Concept and Story

The concept was born from a poem I wrote when I was 16, which expresses my depressing thoughts and feelings. I think it’s a topic actually related to everyone, about dark feelings and hard times. As for me, of course, this topic has another significant meaning. I want others to have a deeper understanding of how people with depression feel through my work, as this group of people is often misunderstood by others in daily life. There are already a lot of videos or short films released to the public, but from the perspective of a real patient, I feel many of the videos are still misinterpreting depression, which is a harrowing fact. Therefore, I want to do something for the group, more precisely to say, for us.

I’m not trying to make a film that has each scene corresponding to the imagery in each line of the poem but trying to make one that corresponds to the poem’s overall conception and emotions. In this way, this whole film is a visual metaphor for the whole poem. 

The video has two storylines: one is the character writing the poems, and the other one is the scenes she recalls when she’s writing the poem.

(The original poem and translation can be found here. If you are interested in the background when I wrote it, here is another prose written in the same period.)

B. Creation Process & Execution

I decided on the visuals I‘m going to highlight in the film based on my real experiences, and then I drew a draft of the storyboards. After determining the shooting site, I re-drew a version of detailed storyboards which basically correspond to every shot I plan to shoot (there’re a few scenes that hadn’t been drawn before shooting but I have them on my mind). The storyboards were also used as the function of a shot list and checklist on the shooting site. Inspired by the site, I also created a few new shots that were not in the original plan after the crew got there. (Storyboards can be found at the end of the documentation.)

I selected an Airbnb house as the shooting site, which had dark color composition and vintage style because these elements would fit the film’s heavy tone. And its layout generally fitted the scenes’ required setting in my storyboards. During shooting, because the site’s natural lighting was awful, I had to rely on artificial lighting which was totally artificial. I set an LED lighting tube outside the window to create a visual of the dawn and used flashlights from two cellphones to make elaborate lighting that was needed in several scenes. I also rented other two LED lighting panels in case of need but they weren’t used in the actual shooting. Because my camera operator (my only crew member for this project) barely had former experience in shooting and lighting, I needed to show her how to operate the camera and lighting equipment concretely for each shot, and then she copied my example. Though the process took a longer time than I thought, her shots gave me many surprises.  

The challenges during the shooting were mainly the battery problem. My camera only had one battery and it ran out three times during our shooting. I considered renting one more battery when mine ran out for the first time, but it was too late and there was no delivery anymore. The shooting crew (fortunately only two people including me) could only wait there till it got recharged. And sometimes the camera operator couldn’t achieve the visual effects planned in my storyboards, I just kept patient and led her to try more times to make the shots in the end. I would also adjust my way of acting based on the last footage. It was a work of practice. Moreover, there was a safety issue I forgot to consider for the bathroom scene. I arranged the scene to the end of our shooting because it was the most difficult and complex one. During the shooting, the floor got very slippery because of the water, and the camera operator needed to stand on a chair to shoot one shot. We could only make the shot as fast as possible in case of any danger. Even though, I still slipped on the floor for shooting this. I think one more assistant would be helpful for such scenes, and the crew needs to prepare our own firm ladder next time.

For the audio, I translated my poem into English to be the voice-over script and chose an Icelandic musician – Olafur Arnalds’ work to be the background music (Fyrsta – Olafur Arnalds). This music choice depends on its tone and pacing, which means its tone needs to be kind of heavy and its pacing should fit my storyboards’ pacing – their climax should basically start at the same time. The first recording of the voice-over was made before our shooting, it gave us a general idea of how long the film should be at the end. Our first recording’s left and right pans were not balanced and I adjusted them later. But in the end, due to the change in my poem’s translation, I re-recorded the voice-over after the video was basically done and tried to make the tone and intonation more proper.

The editing technique was mainly to fit the audio’s pacing and the visual’s pacing, making them harmonious together. The shots were numerous so it was a big project to make the final editing in the end. I’m glad I made it, though it really took a long time. I was already a kind of skilled editor and I didn’t use many new techniques in this video. One new strategy I used was to put different versions of clips in different tracks of video/audio on Premiere and then compare the different combinations multiple times, finally making the decision. The whole process of editing was one more valuable practice for me. 

C. Credits

I’m the director, screenwriter, and actor in this project. I’m responsible for designing all the shooting details and making artistic and technical decisions for this project.

My crew member Joy held the post of camera operator. She also contributed a lot during the shooting. I appreciated her assistance and her optimism, which really radiated me a lot. In the beginning, after we arrived at the shooting site and found that the natural lighting was really awful and couldn’t be used at all, I got kind of overwhelmed because I felt very insecure about making the entire video with artificial lighting, she encouraged me and told me there was certainly a way to work it out. Her optimism encouraged me and helped me face the shooting soon again. Even though she didn’t have much shooting experience, she never gave up and kept trying over and over again with me to get the best effects. Thanks to her, this film project could become a satisfactory work in the end. 

D. Aesthetic & Results

The shooting used Canon EOS R6, RF 24-105mm to produce this full-frame short film. The shots are mainly close-ups and medium shots, as they are “close” to the audience, which can build a connection between the character and the audience, raising the audience’s sympathy for her. Most of the close-ups are planned to be hand-held as the technique can create a sense of presence for the audience, making them better immerse in the scenes. 

For capturing the depressing emotions, I decided the environment setting needs to be dim for creating a repressive atmosphere. The overall color choice is also cold and dark for fitting the concept and story. Considering cinematography, our costume choice needs to have a little contrast to help the character stand out from the scenes. That’s why the costume is a white dress. The dark green and white work together, helping create a sorrowful tone.

For addressing the character’s mental problem, the outside of the window should be bright and the inside room where the character is living should be dark in the film’s design. In this way, the film can indicate that there is no difference between the outside day and night for the protagonist who’s mostly living in her inner world, showing that she’s shutting herself down in the room and feels the darkness is the only safe place for her.

I think the aesthetics of this short film are successful as it received plenty of positive comments. Though I would like to keep both two versions of having subtitles and no subtitles, for the reason that I always feel the subtitles somehow disturb the visual, in another sense, I admit the subtitles can help the audience to synthesize the word and image on their mind.

My inspiration is related to my own experience and my former works that explore similar topics.

 

Storyboards: