Lights, Camera, Action!

Susan’s landlord has been very helpful in connecting us with tickets to watch some shows at the Jiangsu Broadcasting Station here in Nanjing, and last week she called me with a request to help her director friend who has been providing us with the tickets. Upon her request he had written a script that had a part for a (barely) Chinese-speaking foreigner and was under a deadline to quickly find an actor for the part so that filming could be completed. I contacted the director right after she called and he asked that I come to the station as soon as I could, so I changed clothes and rode my bicycle to the TV station around 7:30pm for a meeting. Apparently I made a decent first impression and he decided on the spot that I would be perfect for the part. Filming would start next week! With the script in hand, I peddled back and reviewed the story: a young Chinese girl goes to America to study abroad and starts dating a foreigner who drops in for a surprise visit and sparks a huge uproar when the mother finds out. Scandalous!

Last Wednesday and Thursday we filmed at various locations in Nanjing for 12-13 hours a day—pure slavery—but I was fed and paid 400 RMB for my troubles. It was an incredibly interesting and worthy experience as I met some really neat locals and learned some phrases in the Nanjing dialect. According to the director, I performed “not badly” since all the actors were amateurs and 80% of my lines were in Chinese (although he repeatedly had to remind me that I needed to act like I didn’t speak Chinese and purposefully mess up my tones and rhythm).

It’s interesting to see Chinese media from the inside. The script was written in about two weeks, which is “slow” by Chinese standards. Typically a script is written in a few days, but since the director wrote it himself, the process took considerably longer. The filming, which is usually a three day process, was completed in two days so that the cameraman and director could attend a meeting with some foreign media representatives. What that all means is that an hour-long “short movie” can be dreamt up, written, filmed, and sent for processing in less than a week’s time. It felt like the fast food of TV mini-drama. I’m guessing that with the amount of “short movies” and TV drama’s I’ve seen on TV lately, this is the Chinese equivalent of the endless reality TV spinoff shows we have in the States. Some people have argued that Chinese TV isn’t that creative, but I’m pretty sure that the problem is that Chinese TV isn’t made for us (foreigners, youngsters, intellectuals, and whatever group “us” might fit into). Chinese TV serves that select group of middle-aged housewives that have time after doing dishes in the afternoon or late evening to watch an hour of two of some other family’s drama. From that perspective, it makes more sense that the majority of these shows are not like the typical shows coming from the States. The youth get on the Internet. Mom watches TV.

--The above was a journal entry I've written as a part of the Flagship documentation requirements for being abroad. I hope to be posting those on this blog as well as a way to keep up with anyone else (family most likely :P) that wants to know what I'm doing. Luckily, Mrs. Qiao was gracious enough to document the whole filming process and the links below point to her blog which have all the pictures from those two days. Enjoy!

Day 1, Day 1, Part 2, Day 2