Bei is a young Shanghai man who has had a fever for the better part of a month. He has little red dots all over his body and feels run down. Worried that he has contracted HIV, he tells his friends Kika, Fifi and Casper. Frightened, the four spend their time getting high on cheap drugs, hanging out in KTV rooms, and wandering down to the Bund, Shanghai’s famous waterfront, to ruminate on life and love in their city. As they come to terms with the possibility that Bei may really be sick, the foursome comes closer together, sharing stories of attempted suicide and betrayal, and united by their rejection of fear. Later, the plot resembles a love story between Bei and his friend Jie. They grew up together and are very puzzled by their sexual orientations. Bei denies he is gay, while at the same time trying to persuade Jie to have sex with him, and he is very threatened by Jie’s sexual interest in girls. Andrew Cheng: “I’ve never experienced such a social downturn in such a short period in any of the cities I’ve lived in. As in the 1840s, when opium use was rampant, drug use has swept through almost every club in Shanghai and stands for a fashionable Western lifestyle, like eating Kentucky Fried Chicken during the 1980s. Mianmian’s novel ‘We Are Panic’ says exactly this about this generation, and I finally persuaded her to play a leading role in the movie adapted from her own novel. Mianmian is accurate in portraying the realness and coldness of Shanghai’s lost young people. To reflect that realness and coldness, I think docudrama is the best film format for Shanghai Panic.“ [aus dem Forumprogramm]

1 How would you describe the aesthetics of your film?

Sort of Docu-drama.

2  Why did you choose to shoot on dv?

Firstly, it would be impossible for young Chinese filmmakers to get funding from the government to create non-propaganda works. Secondly, I don’t want to wait much time to go through complicated funding process provided by some international fund bodies for uncertain results. And actually I prefer to start a project only with a rough plot, not a detailed script, because in the field-shooting and post-production periods, much could be altered and added, and the result might be quite different from the script. This would add more difficulty for me to get fund . DV’s low cost and it’s unique virtue in filmmaking could make me finish my project quickly, and without compromising, as there is not much commercial pressures.

3 What was special about shooting in dv (e.g.compared to 35mm, was it your first time with dv or are you used to it)?

I began to use DV with a Sony VX1000 in early 1997 when I was still a student in Sydney University, and at the same time I bought a Pinnacle’s DV300 DV card and set up a PC workstations to start experimenting non-linear editing. Over the years, starting from learning premiere4.2 in 1997 with a 586 computer, till today which I have been getting quite familiar with other high-end editing and effects software like digital fusion/maya fusion, combustion, commotion pro, and after effects, in a much powerful PC.

I am evolving together with the World’s digital revolution in filmmaking. I feel because of this digital revolution like the emerging of DV, a kind of new wave is spreading all over the World. It is as important as the invention of film by French which occurred a hundred years ago. It would definitely question the norms and grammars of established 35mm film productions. It would arouse the question to film critics, producers, festival directors, as well as the audience: What is DV? Could we use our accustomed 35mm standard to judge or value DV works? If so, we are trapping DV and forcing DV to fake itself being a cheap choice to replace 16mm or 35mm, rather than using DV’s unique virtue in creative filming making. It would eventually put DV towards a deadly ending road, as no matter how good the DV’s picture resolution is, it is a no compare with 35mm film. But lower resolution is not DV’s fault at all, picture resolution quality by no means is the only standard to value a creative work..

Bearing those in mind, I chose DV to shoot “Shanghai Panic” without hesitation. And I determined to fully experiment DV to my usage and as my tool. The result might be risky, as the completed film would be against every rules of traditional 35mm filmmaking. But under that circumstance, if given 1 million US dollars, I would still use DV to shoot “Shanghai Panic”.

Firstly, I want to portray the realness of Shanghai and China’s unique siblingless city generation who was raised in China’s most dramatic changing period, who is the by-product of China’s “One-child per family policy”, who is encountering the problems the earlier Chinese generations never experienced. I decided to find non-professional actors who shares the similar background. If I put those non-professional actors in a normal 35mm film production settings which includes heaps of production personnel, they would be nervous and impossible to perform. With DV, I could be photographer for “Shanghai Panic” myself. Since DV camcorder is small, I can bring it whenever I was with the actors in anywhere, to let actors get used of the cameras .And gradually we are very good friends, they regards me as as their brother and regards my camera as me. In actually shooting, whenever the actors feel like to talk with me, they talk with my camera. Whenever I feel like to comfort them, I get close to them , using my camcorder to wrap them, cry for them, and leave shadows on their faces, as I feel my camera stands for me, I myself is an actor as well. Since the production process is so personnel and changing so instantly by the actual situations, sometimes even I don’t know what is my next shoot, when I should raise my camcorder, which angle the camera should go. During the two week shooting period, I am on-hold every moment to get the non-scheduled shots and plot. Till the end, we don’t know whether we are making a movie, or showing our own stories, because we are crying all the time, and there are so much unhappiness around us. This kind of DV filmmaking is non-repeatable. Given me the same crew, same story, same location, to reshoot “Shanghai Panic” in DV again, it would be another different story.

Using DV rather than 35mm gives me the conveniences to shoot in actual surroundings, rather than in a set up locations. Because DV camcorder is small, people would think we are not professionals, we might be home-video hobbyist, they don’t take us seriously, and they don’t look nervous, they look quite themselves in the camera. To let actors act in the natural surroundings, not only saves much money in setting up scenes, but give audience sort of realness which I want to portray in “Shanghai Panic” in order to smash some faked images of Shanghai faked by some fake Chinese directors who is wealthy enough to sit in cafes everyday nagging about their artistic elegance and looking down upon their “poor” DV peers.

Shooting in DV rather than 35mm saves much money in post-production. I edited “Shanghai Panic” in my 1000 dollars computer. In one word, DV makes me technically finish “Shanghai Panic” by myself, a one-man band.  With the DV, filmmakers could, for the first time like writers, rely on oneself to finish a movie thoroughly. Artistic idea won’t be blocked and compromised by other hands.

4 Which camera and which editing software did you
use?

Sony PDF150P

5 What was your shoot-edit ratio?

20:1

6 Would you have preferred to shoot in another
format? If so which?

No.

7 Does using dv mean that you are considering other
means of distribution opposing the established? If so which?

No, distribution never occurs in my mind when I start “Shanghai Panic”. We still did not find a distributor.

8 One good word about dv (or two):

Economic, freedom

9 One bad word about dv (or two):

None