"How did you think of this story?"
"Where did the funding for shooting come from?"
"Are you still making movies after graduation?" In the "Pingyao Corner" unit of the Pingyao International Film Festival, many students from major film and television universities across the country gathered here to raise their doubts during interactive exchanges.
These problems are not concentrated at the Pingyao Film Festival. It can be said that these are the puzzles and problems that the current film and television college students have been lingering in the stage of film creation.
"A Corner of Pingyao" is the educational module of the Pingyao Film Festival. Every day, it arranges to show a collection of excellent short films shot by students of a certain film and television university, and provides a venue for students to communicate freely after the screening.
Seven film and television colleges and universities participated in the event this year. Taking this opportunity, we met with film director students and lecturers from different schools at the event. In interviews with them, we could vaguely spy on the directors of domestic film and television universities. Development status.
has benefited a lot from learning film technology, but still confused.
The majors of domestic film directors are mainly distributed in three types: film professional colleges, media colleges and Sino-foreign joint colleges. These different schools have different teaching methods for film creation.
For example, Zheng Yue, director of the Directing Department of the School of Drama, Film and Television of Communication University of China, introduced after the screening that their director course will integrate the training of drama, television and film. The Directing Department of Beijing Film Academy is divided into three directions: film director, documentary film director and film editing. The founder and director of the festival, Jia Zhangke, is the dean of the Shanghai Vancouver Film Academy. He introduced at the event that the director major of the academy is to use an international teaching model to strengthen students' practical training on the set.
Students Huang, Yue and Xu’s graduation short films were all selected to come to Pingyao this year for screening and exchange. They came from different schools and all studied director majors. When it came to the school’s teaching model, they all agreed that they learned the most It’s the film’s technology and techniques, which has benefited them a lot:
” movies have an industrial system, and they need to learn technical skills. They are not free to play, and they can shoot well if they want to shoot. In addition to stories, You need to master editing, photography and other technical means to make a good movie. The school mainly teaches the technical level, and then you can do free creation and expression."
Jia Zhangke also said that now creating movies is very free, and the equipment for shooting movies is also very convenient. , But after mastering the technology of film shooting, you have to improve your own cultural and humanistic qualities to improve the level of your work.
", we will all be confused ", almost every student interviewed mentioned their period of confusion, but they were confused in different places. Some people like movies at first, but after learning movies, they find that they are insufficient and give up halfway. Some people just want to get a diploma at the beginning, and some people encounter expression difficulties in their creation...
Teacher Zhou Xinxia told us these phenomena Among the students she has taught are everywhere:
"There is a big distance between hobbies and majors. From high school to university, it is a different leap. No one in the university is staring at you. You must use hobbies to inspire you. In freedom Under the learning environment, some people can't find North all at once.
Watching movies is very interesting, but studying movies is very boring. profession requires learning skills, not all at once. When he When he really knows how to create with these skills, he will feel happy. But in the boring stage of learning, they often can't get through it. "
lacks creative experience, and the money for the final set basically depends on the parents
to master the movie. After the professional knowledge and technology, many students also encountered many practical problems in the process of creating movie scripts.
Student Song, who studied directing in Shanxi, has come to the Pingyao Film Festival for three consecutive years. He has many questions about writing scripts, such as whether to make a short film a complete story or a simple event. The school teacher did not give him one. Very good answer. However, after consulting with Qiu Yang, the director of this year’s "A Corner of Pingyao" opening film "Southern Girl", he said that he was a little confused..
This actually reflects the students' lack of experience in film creation, and another question commonly raised by students interviewed also reflects this situation. They say that when writing scripts, they are always inaccurate in their understanding of characters other than the protagonist. " may use its own logic and worldview to shape it as it writes, and it will conjecture some unrealistic information for these characters. It seems very unreal ".
Zhang Yimou said in the master class of Pingyao Film Festival that suffering is the source of their previous creations. Teacher Zhou Xinxia also observed that she believes that students now have better living conditions than in the past, and their understanding of a theme or role cannot be grasped as tightly as in the past. Although
is not mature enough, the current student-directed works are richer in themes and types than in the past. Judging from the series of short films screened this time, most of students like to focus on personal emotional expression in their works. , About their restless youth love, life closely related to students, and the affection between father and son. Even though
looks a bit rough in terms of production, these works are based on their own authenticity, trying to dig out the softest emotions in their hearts.
mentioned the specific shooting and production. The interviewed students said that the behind-the-scenes team is not the main problem. Student Xu told us, “Since the freshman year, we have cooperated with other departments on small homework, and the teacher will deliberately connect our partnership, such as recording classes. The students of ”must cooperate with the students of the director’s class once, so by the time the filming is completed, the team is relatively mature. The most difficult part of is actually funding. Although the school will provide part of the budget support, most of it is still by the students Find a way to raise it yourself. ", I thank my parents. These hundreds of thousands came from ." Yue said directly at the post-screening exchange meeting that his graduation short film was entirely funded by his parents.
It is understood that the production cost of joint graduation short films of major domestic film and television college students is roughly 100,000-150,000. Such a large amount is basically supported by family members, and many students receive many projects during school to make money or The students borrow money from each other.
" is a film major, it's very expensive ", said one student interviewed.
90% did not work as a director after graduation, waiting for the opportunity in the film and television industry
After the graduation work is completed, do the director students directly enter the profession? The reality is not so ideal. A student Zhou from a media college of
revealed that “nearly half of the students in our class at do variety shows, shoot commercials, and make vibrato after graduation. Very few people insist on making movies.” Some graduates continue to work in movies. Industry work, including literary planning, editor, project development, publicity and distribution, etc., but far from the core director work.
Teacher Zhou Xinxia also provided us with a data. In a certain term of , 90% of the graduates of the Beijing Film Directing Department she led were screenwriters . She believes that now that the Chinese film market is getting bigger and bigger and the demand for talents is getting higher and higher, students graduating from the Directing Department do not have to be directors. She often encourages students not to lock in to the future right away. You can spend two or three years to find it, but it can't take too long. Several Beiying students who graduated from
this year also told us that the employment rate of graduates is very high, and there are many opportunities in the film industry. It is easy to find a job, but it is difficult to directly work as a director.
They also revealed that if they invest their scripts in the venture capital units of major domestic film festivals, the success rate of the final execution is not high, so they should first sign the film company to help the first-line creators and silently wait for the director's opportunity. .
For these young people who are aspiring to be a director, Mr. Zhou also gave some suggestions. She advocated that you can talk to several film crews and understand the various departments of the film. "Film directors need to have the ability to organize and deal with people. , I have worked with director Chen Kaige, , even a big director like Chen Kaige, said that he carries seven or eight "fire extinguishers" every day and puts out fires every day. The movie is the creation of many people, and as a director, you must lead them If you don’t understand their major, it’s hard to get that smooth. ”
Among the director students interviewed this time, they all have the dream of being a film director and making feature films, but most people still treat it with a normal heart. As one of the classmates said, " can't workUrgency is to keep passion, make money first, sharpen the script first, accumulate first. "
