The self narration of a young filmmaker about movies

I majored in microelectronics in Peking University, but after four years, I still haven't cultivated my students' passion for "the beauty of circuit". When I was about to graduate from college, as an unprofessional fan who loved movies more than circuits, I applied for the master's program of film and television of Boston University with a chance, because it was one of the few colleges that did not require the submission of short films. There was no hope at that time, so when I saw the admission email, the first reaction was surprise, and then the second reaction was "I want to go", and I made the decision to change my career directly in my heart. Also from Boston, I started my own movie road.

I belong to people who have less desire to create, and prefer to help a director realize his idea. From the beginning of learning movies, I realized that my favorite is editing. When I was in high school, I worked in the school TV station. At that time, I cut videos. I learned some basic editing techniques. After contacting professional editing software, I will also cut some favorite games or animation videos and send them to the Internet in my spare time. During my graduate period at Boston University, we took turns to be directors for each group assignment, but no matter who was the director, I would offer to help them cut the film again. I remember that there was a short homework clip, because there was a dream in it. At the beginning, the narration of the version cut by my classmates was a bit confusing. When I cut it carefully, I would use sound effects, some transition lenses, and rewind to strengthen the feeling of the dream and make the clues clearer.

After some practice, I feel like a "pure clip" and I don't enjoy being a director at all. Because of my personality, it's hard for me to direct people to do things. When I shoot students' works, I often say "it's almost over, let's go." I'm sorry to bother them with another one. But there's no such problem when editing. Anyway, the materials are all there. It's only my own time. I can do my best. And I prefer to see the material. When I look for stories from the good pictures and materials, I will have a lot of inspiration. But if you let me guide the actors and photography on the spot, I will be at a loss.

Editing is an important type of work, but it is often ignored by many people. In fact, editing is not as simple as some people think as listening to the director's instructions. When I worked in the editing company in Los Angeles after graduation, I worked as a main editor and participated in the production of a TV series "being", which was produced by bet her, the largest black television network in the United States. Each gathering tells the experience of a famous African American singer or actor. In order to cut these documentaries, I will search a lot of information on Google in advance, their resumes, songs they have published, photos they have posted on INS, and even reports in entertainment tabloids, so as to fully understand the stories behind them. The main character of one episode is a female singer with a history of domestic violence. In order to tell her story, I took a picture of her from her ins several years ago: she looked gloomy in the mirror alone. I think this picture can reflect her mood at that time, so I put it in the film. How to tell a story with a picture is a process of continuous brain and hands-on attempt.

Every time I cut a documentary, I'll get to the top of my head. Because the documentaries are all real people, I always can't help thinking about one more layer: is this sentence I put on, what he wants to express? Is the story I told through the clip a true representation? Of course, there are no 100% objective documentaries, but sometimes the expression deviation will affect the life of a real person, so cutting documentaries actually has a big burden on my own thinking. But when cutting a long story, it's another mode of thinking.

In 2019, I edited and completed the movie summer Knight directed by you Xing, which tells the story of a family in a small town in Sichuan Province. This is my first feature film work, so when I first started cutting, I was afraid to look forward and lay a lot of information on purpose. The first version of rough cutting had more than 120 minutes. There is a play in the little man's house every day. We cut many scenes of dialogue with other families every day, trying to show the character relationship and the characteristics of each family member. But later, I found that because I was very familiar with the script and characters with you hang director, I had a preconceived idea. I thought it would be good to cut the lens repeatedly. But actually from the perspective of the audience, the film just played for 20 minutes, and frequent cutting of the lens would only confuse them and distract their attention. After thinking about this point, I simplified that part a lot, leaving the audience room to explore the relationship between the characters. When I cut to the last edition, I also let go of my hands and feet and deleted many dialogues that I thought must be kept before. Because in a movie, the information explained by dialogue is the weakest. The editing of the drama also makes me think about how to tell a better story. The fun it brings to me is pure.

At the beginning of my work, I had done Trailer editing for more than a year. Now, although there are few trailers, I will still pay attention to the films with excellent clips at home and abroad, and think about the reasons why they are well cut. On the whole, the pace of domestic trailers will be slower than that of foreign ones, which may be more suitable for Asia