Editor's Note
The 37th Hundred Flowers Film Award Ceremony was held in Chengdu on August 4. Before the award ceremony, a number of projects were signed at the Science Fiction Forum and Chengdu Film Industry Special Promotion Conference. During this Hundred Flowers Awards, more than 120 film and television-related projects were signed and implemented, with a total investment of over 17 billion yuan.
The booming film and television industry in Chengdu is in full bloom. Film and television talents in Chengdu are also emerging one after another. Red Star News has launched a series of dialogues with the new generation of films in Chengdu. In Chengdu's film and television hotspot, these young film and television talents have grown rapidly, frequently achieved great results, and are moving towards the center of the Chinese film stage.
When he was 18 years old, Long Lingyun saw the sea for the first time. It was the North Sea, with an average environment, but looking at thousands of hectares of seawater might remind him of his childhood wish: to see a wider world.
The world he wants to reach is called movies.
grew up from a young boy who rented DVDs and watched movies and was obsessed with comics to a magazine editor, theater media worker, fashion video director, advertising director, and finally transformed into the director of a movie "Where to Grow" that will be released in theaters nationwide. He has spent nearly thirty years as a screenwriter and director.
Long Lingyun
This long and grinding trial, like fighting monsters and upgrading, will eventually lead him to his destined journey. If fate is a game, today's Long Lingyun is the warrior who defeated the first big boss. Where will
go in the future? Maybe it’s a commercial movie, or maybe I’ll try any type of film and television work. He told the Red Star News reporter: "I personally don't set limits on myself."
一
Long Lingyun is quite antagonistic to the popular internet meme "Long Aotian". But Long Aotian represents a certain kind of arrogance and arrogance; Long Lingyun is the opposite. His image and expression give people an irresistible sense of sincerity, which is very close to the word "good" in the Sichuan dialect context. This may be a trait nurtured by the soil and water of his hometown, Chengdu.
At first, he liked comics, especially "Ranma 1/2" and "Slam Dunk". When he was young, his ambition was to become a cartoonist. For this reason, after junior high school, he studied painting specifically. This process has trained him to have a certain kind of aesthetic "cleanliness", and he is particularly concerned about "the color of the picture or some compositions, some thoughts on the furnishings, and the modeling of the characters."
In addition to comics, it is also a movie. There was a video store near his home at that time. "The boss was very proud and said that there was no more comprehensive video store than his within a few miles." The boss often recommended movies to him. From here he breaks into the world of light and shadow.
With a vague understanding of movies, he entered the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts. The interest he had as a boy was still there; but as his horizons, experience and knowledge grew, he gradually realized that his obsession with painting might just be because he wanted to tell a story.
Long Lingyun, a short film selected from the first youth film exhibition
In college, his passion for comics transferred to magazines. At that time, "I decided that I must work in these two fields (films and magazines)." For Long Lingyun, who was in his early twenties, movies were still an unattainable dream. And print media is in its golden age. He decided to make a magazine first, from near to far. Soon, he joined the popular "Marie Marie" and "elledeco Home Gallery" as an editor.
" If I particularly like something, I don't want to just be a viewer ." He is a very typical activist who combines knowledge with action, and uses actual "action" to verify his "knowledge" - when he Being immersed in an industry, peeling off the flashy filter, seeing the true nature of things, and still enjoying it means that you can do it yourself.
"I quite enjoy making magazines." His "enjoyment" spanned ten years. In the meantime, I also went to Central Saint Martins College in London, England, to study for a master's degree in theater design and directing. Studying abroad this time was not an impulse move. First, I have accumulated savings after working for several years; second, my ambition to fly like a fish and a bird when I was watching the sea at the age of 18 has not yet been realized.
So, he hit the road.
Long Lingyun’s work photo
His major does not set restrictions on students. They can prefer directing, screenwriting, or try acting.Long Lingyun chose something that combines multimedia and drama, "It's the kind of interactive stage, and some immersive drama. I made a lot of related videos, and the instructors liked them very much." At the same time, he can also shoot and edit videos. , those "small works" have never been denied in the eyes of the instructor.
As soon as he graduated with a master's degree, he was recruited by his mentor to join the mtd theater company. He combined film shooting and live performance to create works that toured major universities in the UK. But he only stayed for a year. "My personality is not suitable for drama, because drama work is repetitive." He said that drama is a set of scheduled programs that are performed repeatedly, but movies are different, "almost every time Every movie is new."
After returning to China, he worked as a video editor and director for fashion magazines in Shanghai, and later shot advertisements for two years. Then, he felt some kind of loss or calling - at that stage, if you don't change careers, you may miss movies forever. " is because people are inert. Once a comfort zone is formed, it is difficult to break through ."
Long Lingyun's studio work photo
When he broke into the film industry with the determination to burn everything, he looked back and realized that in his thirties The ups and downs of life are actually a long process of preparation: painting to cultivate image thinking and aesthetic habits; reading to determine ambitions and improve motivation; studying abroad to make oneself confident and fearless in creation; working in creative industries such as magazines and advertising. Work, like the thinking of a movie producer, taught him in advance how to make an idea come to fruition under the trade-offs and trade-offs.
Everything is ready, just waiting for the east wind.
二
The so-called "Dongfeng" is the script, and it is also the "most roundabout road" that the project "Where to Grow" has taken. His process of writing the script is comparable to traveling to the West to learn the scriptures: going through hardships and dangers, step by step, it took five years to complete.
He said that although he had made short films, he did not dare to understand the script of a feature film, let alone pretend to understand it. So I resigned and signed up for a screenwriting training class at the Beijing Film Academy. It lasts for half a year and requires a complete script to graduate. Half a year later, "most of the classmates had written it, but I hadn't." He stayed at Beijing Film Academy, taking classes and writing scripts at the same time. Later, I completed "The Disappearing Sister", which tells the story of a sister who begins to explore the secrets of her family after her sister disappears.
Stills from "Where to Grow"
At that time, one of his female friends was in a state of depression. He usually chats with her to relieve her mood. One day, she seemed to have made up her mind and talked about the pain buried deep in her heart. When she was two years old, her father wanted to have a son and abandoned them. Her mother's love for her was very deep and extreme, and she would always "control" her by saying "Mom has paid so much for you."
Before this, he felt that favoring boys over girls, especially in Sichuan, was very rare; however, he did not expect that these things still existed around him.
At the same time, China suddenly announced that it would allow two children, and the era of the one-child era was over. These things had a "very strong impact" on Long Lingyun. He began to study the family relationships of only children, and imagined what a boy would think if one day he found out that his birth meant the dismantling of another family.
Stills of "Where to Grow"
The initial story, the changes of the times, and the experiences of friends prompted him to complete the first draft of "Where to Grow". Long Lingyun said that as a man, there may be a blind spot in understanding women's delicate emotions. Therefore, he invited his classmates when he was studying in the UK and his good friend Xingguo who had delved deeply into the family of origin and gender issues to join in the creation of the script.
Xingguo liked the role of the mother in the script. But she believes that this cannot be a "crazy mother". Under the extreme desire for control, there must be the ultimate love buried. She and her daughter are both victims of "love". The emotions of the script became more solid and rich as a result, which also gave Long Lingyun the confidence to take the script to participate in the Wu Tianming Film Fund's "Light of the Master" advanced seminar for young screenwriters.
Here, he met Liu Lei, the later producer of "Where to Grow". He affectionately calls her "Stone." Shitou is a staff member of Wu Tianming Foundation. The two chatted happily.After he sent her "this immature script", Shitou immediately decided to complete the story with him.
Long Lingyun and Shitou were in Cannes
The following year, their project was selected by the Shanghai International Film Festival Venture Capital Training Camp. Long Lingyun " began to truly understand the complete production process of a movie ".
In 2018, he returned to the Shanghai International Film Festival with his repeatedly revised script and was successfully selected for the Young Director Project Venture Capital Meeting. Among the ten selected projects, only he paid to shoot a concept short film to explain the theme of the film. This move, along with the script they had honed over the years, successfully attracted the first and third producers of the project.
’s journey of “learning from experience” is not over yet. In 2019, Long Lingyun participated in the Green Green Project, which specializes in supporting young film directors. During this period, another screenwriter Jin Junqi, who is good at creating genre films, joined. "He made some adjustments to the structure and finally adopted a parallel narrative method to advance the story."
The script is only truly completed at this point: 18-year-old boy Cheng Fei is rebellious and loves skateboarding, but is not accepted by his father. One day, he found a missing person notice in his father's room. The missing person is He Sheng, a netizen who has lost contact with him for two years. He pretended to be a tenant and moved into He Sheng's mother's home to explore He Sheng's secrets, but unexpectedly uncovered the inextricable relationship between the mother and daughter and himself.
Stills from "Where to Grow"
In the end, his project made it into the top five of the Green Green Project and received a 1 million yuan subsidy, so the project could be launched.
"If you are afraid of endless truth, you will be happy every inch you advance." What Hu Shi said is exactly the portrayal of Long Lingyun. From the training class at Beijing Film Academy, to the screenwriting workshop, to the Shanghai International Film Festival training camp and venture capital meeting, and the Green Green Project, he made progress step by step. After five years, he finally managed to keep the clouds clear, and he would also see a piece of the moon. bright.
三
"Watching movies used to be my way of life. When I really started making movies, I found that the dreaming process of movies is very specific, and every decision involves very specific time, space, people, and conditions . "
Long Lingyun's Dream Journey is scheduled to start filming at the end of October 2020; the location is chosen in his hometown of Chengdu. "It's my first feature film, so I might be better at shooting it in my hometown." When they were scouting locations, they searched all over Chengdu for suitable filming locations. Like the mental hospital in the film, "it really used to be a mental hospital." "Mother's" home was shot in Pengzhou. "There are many old factories there." , especially with a sense of age.”
The staffing is also quite ideal: as far as actors are concerned, he was very impressed by Aaliya, who played the role of the family planning director in "Everlasting", and took the initiative to hand over the script. "Teacher Ai really liked it after watching it." They chatted for a long time and quickly finalized it. Based on Teacher Ai's "mother" image, it was determined that the roles of sister He Sheng, brother Cheng Fei, etc. would be played by Shang Yuxian and Yue Xiaoke. play. The art team is composed of young creators who have worked together since the Shanghai Venture Capital concept film; music director Bell has participated in "你" and "The Silent Truth"; editor Matthew Laclau has edited "Destined" "The Gathering at Southern Station"; and so on. In terms of the cost and size of the project, it is very rare and very lucky to have such a reliable and experienced creative lineup.
Alia, the stills of "Where to Grow"
were filmed for more than a month, and were finally successfully completed in Pingtan, Fujian.
In 2022, Long Lingyun participated in the 16th First Youth Film Festival with his works. Aaliya won the Best Actor Award and "Where to Grow" won the Audience Choice Award. In 2023, he went to a bigger stage and held a film screening during the Cannes Film Festival. By this fall, the film will officially be available in theaters across the country.
Hai Qing , Long Lingyun in Cannes
Some viewers who have watched the film at the film festival believe that the film looks at the women who have been sacrificed by the times from the perspective of a teenager, but in fact it is a "trick" behavior in terms of original family, patriarchal preference and other themes. . In response, Long Lingyun said, “To me, these issues are just the background of the story.What I want to talk about more is, at this moment, reflect on what happened in the past, and then find your own future. "
Although Long Lingyun is not afraid of painting that era that is disappearing, he believes that those magnificent things, " is like fate sometimes, it is difficult to easily see the whole picture . "He would rather tell an individual story, manage and design a person's hair color, skateboard font, sense of age of the scene, dialogue lines and story succession, and the audience's understanding.
Long Lingyun's work photo
This gives reporters a sense of I feel that when the young man stood on the shore of the North Sea and was impressed by the vastness of the sea, there were two problems before him: first, how to express the sea. He would visualize a small boat or a flying bird, and avoid the entire sea. , as for whether the audience can see the sea, that is only their right and perception; the second is how to cross this sea, this question seems self-evident. He will improve himself, learn navigation skills, and then hammer and nail the sea. Build a strong ship, hang sails on the sea with your companions.
He is lucky. But looking at it, from the inspiration in 2015 to the release of his first feature film in 2024. , more than ten years of revision, polishing, training, learning, negotiation, filming, production, post-production, etc., have long diluted this luck to nothing. In the end, what is left is just a young man who has passed through many obstacles and overcome obstacles. The persistence and hard work of the filmmakers.
Long Lingyun, who has passed the first level, has extremely clear plans for the future. He is considering creating a companion piece to "Where to Grow" to examine young people from the perspective of the previous generation. story, or a purely commercial film.
Long Lingyun said that film festivals such as First are of great significance to young directors.
A gentleman can fly through the clouds, that's all.
Red Star News reporter Li Ruifeng and Zhang Shihao editor Su Jing
.