Preproduction

1. Brainstorming for ideas individually

Every film begins with an idea and a lot of behind-the-scenes work, which is where preproduction comes into play. Once we had chosen our groups with which we would be filming (I will be working with my very hardworking editor, Kunal, and the talented Ashwin, my cinematographer).

Before we can collectively brainstorm, however, it's important to know you yourself what you like and don't like, your tastes, and what inspires you.

That's what the rather large and confusing brainstorm on the left is: me figuring out what it is that I like and dislike.

I realised that I really like the following: intertwining/several characters/plotlines, handheld camera, non-linear narrative, narration, neorealism, Wong Kar-Wai and films with a strong Hong Kong atmosphere and flavour.

2. Brainstorming for ideas collaboratively

Afterwards, it was time to work together to come up with an idea. We familiarised each other with what we liked and created a collected brainstorm of ideas, elements we liked (from visual style to editing techniques), and possible inspirations and research texts. I learnt that both of my partners also like formalistic and imaginative films, which was good to find as common ground. Kunal liked a more romantic plot, which worked for me because Wong Kar-Wai, my main inspiration, often looks at relationships. Ashwin was interested in psychological horror.

3. Individual idea proposals

We then had to put forward our own idea proposals. I wrote two; one about a lonely woman who tries to play matchmaker on the MTR (influenced by the narrative of Amélie) and one which was a drama with a modern sci-fi twist about suicide and mental illness. You can read both below!

Proposal One

Student Role: Director

Film Name: Matchmaker of the MTR

Film Tagline: How much can you know about a stranger?

Treatment (100 word summary of entire plot): Ming, a Cantonese woman in her late twenties, is fascinated by the lives of others. She rides the MTR frequently for the sole purpose of observing the passengers and inventing stories about their character and their lives from small details; their attire, what they’re doing, their mannerisms… However, she is frustrated by how little the passengers interact; she sees them as each in their modern, isolated bubble. She thus manipulates those around her– a push here, dropped note there – into forcing her fellow travelers into interacting. Ming fails time and time again, causing annoyance, awkwardness, and sometimes no reaction at all. However, she finally succeeds, and as she watches the victims of her efforts talk and laugh, the MTR pulls into a station. She pauses over the seconds the door remains open; she takes tentative steps towards the door and considers abandoning her hobby after this success, but an interesting figure enters the train as she is about to leave and she can’t resist… The train doors close and the MTR whisks away.

Contextual points: (Genre, director influence, film movement): Wong Kar Wei, Hong Kong Second wave, drama-romance.

Proposal Two

Film Tagline: What if mental illness was visible?

Treatment (100 word summary of entire plot): Aidan is shopping at a musty, dark, cluttered pawnshop (or ladies market/other Hong Kong shop if we cannot find a pawnshop) looking through random objects, trying to find something worth buying. He comes across an ornate, beautiful magnifying glass. He picks it up, turns it over, and for no real reason takes a peek through it at another shopper. To his shock, when he looks through the glass, the shopper’s face looks completely different to how it looked before: it is painted blue. When he looks at the shopper without the glass, her face is back to normal. Aidan can’t believe his eyes; he buys the magnifying glass and tests it out on the street (or MTR if not too difficult!). Most of the people look the same, but every now and then he sees a face painted a bright, solid, colour. Aidan goes to meet his friend Dean at an overpass/rooftop (haven’t decided on location – visually stunning, high up, neon, nighttime) and tests out the magnifying glass on him: his face is painted with splotches of black and white. Desperate to find out why some faces are coloured and some aren’t, Aidan asks Dean question after question, to which Dean’s replies are increasingly defensive, irritated and unresponsive. Aidan gets frustrated by Dean’s uncooperativeness, tells him angrily to forget it, and walks away.

After having left, he stops and shakes the glass in frustration; a slip of paper falls out of the handle. He unfolds the paper and sees that it says “yellow = anxiety, blue = depression, black/white = suicidal.” Aidan runs through all the painted people he saw in his mind, remembering that they were all yellow, blue or black and white. He then realizes in panic that Dean’s face was black and white and he races back to where they were talking, yelling, “stop!” when he sees Dean standing at the edge. He runs to Dean and tells him that he won’t let him do what he’s about to do, that he’ll get him help, and that’s he’s there for him. Dean is stunned and then breaks down. They embrace. It could be non-linear narrative format: start with Dean’s perspective of being about to commit suicide, and hearing “stop” yelled but not seeing Aidan, then back to beginning from there. White symbolizes death in Asian culture, black symbolizes death in Western culture – couldn’t decide.

Contextual points: (Genre, director influence, film movement): Drama/fantasy, Wong Kar Wai, Hong Kong Second Wave.

4. Choosing an idea and creating a pitch

We all presented our ideas as a group and we decided to work with my second proposal idea. However, we hashed out more of the minor details together to make sure everyone was involved in making our pitch, which we did to the class. Find our presentation below!

5. Researching my own role

Firstly, directors must direct the actors. It is my job to ensure that the actors have their script well in advance of shooting so that they have had adequate time to familiarise themselves with their lines and to have thought about how they are going to portray their character. If I notice that an actor is moving or speaking in a way that seems unnaturally stil, overexaggerated, or simply not appropriate, it is my job to make sure that they correct this. This is also related to casting and ensuring that actors and well chosen and suited to the role, and that thorough screen tests are done to confirm that the actors are comfortable in front of the camera.

At the most general level, it is the director's job to interpret the script and bring it to the medium of film in the optimum way. In short, this means exploring the creative potential of the script and thinking about what style of storytelling would best portray the idea at hand. This in turn ensures that the film is a cohesive piece of work because the director makes sure that the story is told in one way, not in several or in a confused way (unless that is the intention).

The director's primary job, practically, is to coordinate, coordinate, coordinate. The director is the bridge between the entire cast and crew, including editor, cinematographer, actors, and costume/location/prop elements. The director needs to ensure that each of these groups is clear on their objectives and roles, that they all remained up to date at all times on any progress that could implications for what they need to do, and that they can all work together with minimal trouble to smoothly colloborate in making a good film. This feeds into overseeing and providing input on technical aspects. Any choices made by other departments, such as the cinematographer's decision to use a handheld camera, must be run by the director to ensure that no problems of miscommunication arise later, and to make sure that these decisions are in line with how the director has decided to tell the story.

6. Screenwriting/scripting

We had dismissed my idea about a matchmaker on the MTR because it was highly impractical to film in such a public place - imagine needing a retake - of course you wouldn't be able to keep continuity, because all the people there would have changed! We thus made a pitch for the second idea, about suicide. From here, I started to script with input from my team, because as director, my role is closest to that of screenwriter.

To the left is the first draft of our idea with the magnifying glass, "A closer look".

To the right is the same script but with our teacher's annotations and feedback.

Below is thus our second draft of the same idea. As you can see from the annotations, we were a bit concerned about using a magnifying glass as it seems very unrealistic. We explored different objects we could use and from there, very quickly our plot had greatly changed.

However, I really disliked this second draft because I felt like it was straying from our original concept and aim of portraying mental illness, and becoming more convoluted, cliche and dramatic (for the sake of being dramatic).

I thus wrote another script. I went away and looked at Chungking Express, one of our inspirations, and I looked at how he told the story, the kinds of characters that were created, and the narrative stucture, and tried to make a script that was less "from my own head" and more inspired by a known auteur. Thus, the first draft of "Paper Crane" on the right.

Our teacher then gave us some annotations and feedback, but he liked our basic storyline which was great. Mostly, we made some corerctions to ensure that we weren't "copying," just being inspired by, Chungking Express, and that our dialogue sounded realistic and naturalistic. Viewable on the right is the copy of our script with annotations, and then our final draft (in red)!

7. Location scouting

For our locations, we need: an apartment in a busy area of Hong Kong, preferably low-down, small and not too affluent-looking. We also need a lift/stairs adjacent to the apartment, a 7-11, and a dai pai dong (Hong Kong style restaurant). At each location, we need a photograph and sound recording of how noisy it is so we are aware when planning for sound.

I went to Sham Shui Po, because as one of the poorer areas in Hong Kong, I thought it would have plenty of Dai-pai dongs, smaller-style hotel rooms that we could rent to make our "apartment," and the right atmosphere. However, even though I found many dai pai dongs, the one above's owner even agreeing to myself filming and taking photos inside, they were very small and cheerful. If we filmed there it would cause a big disturbance and many of the patrons would look at us, ruining at the illusion of the filming. Additionally, the walls were slightly pink and the overall atmosphere was very cheerful and homey, not suitable for our film about loneliness. As you can see, even the markets were filled with bright lights and colourful flowers! Much more Ann Hui style than Wong Kar Wai.

I also went to Lang Kwai Fong to find a dai pai dong, because after doing some research, I found that almost all of Chungking Express was filmed there and in Central. However, after finding one of the most famous dai pai dongs in LKF that had not changed since its opening in 1959, they would not let me take photos or film there.

However, third time's the charm! I stumbled onto the perfect dai pai dong right in my neighbourhood, Ho Man Tin. It's quite large as you can see below, with plenty of corners where we could probably film unobtrustively. It's large enough and public enough that we probably won't have to ask permission for our actor for the character "Hiro" to pretend to work there and clean tables.

We visited this canteen area mid-afternoon, which is when we will be filming. We took a sound recording which is below (when I figure out how to attach it. One of the photos above is also my editor Kunal sitting at a table that, if free, we think would be perfect for being Ji-an's table.

At this point, however, we still need to find a hotel, and from there find a 7-11 that is big enough and conveniently close.

8. Equipment

It is important that we have the necessary equipment booked/found in time so we can achieve our goals. We want to use a handheld camera, so we needed to make sure we had a working shoulder mount to have shots smooth enough to be comprehensible. On the left was the video in which we tried it out!

We also really wanted to have a fisheye lens, firstly because Wong Kar Wai often used one, but also because it would work well for our final effect when Hiro sees Ji-an as black and white. We tried one lens for DSLR but it was very expensive, and the effect wasn't that drastic.

Instead, we bought a fish-eye clip on lens for the iPhone! The quality is actually quite excellent, as the video below demonstrates! Since there will, however, be a quality difference between our DSLR and iPhone, we will justify this by saying that the slight blurriness will add to the "magic" sci-fi effect, and the strangeness of the fisheye viewpoint.

Finally, with more "special" equipment like shoulder mounts and fisheye lenses sorted, we now simply needed to make an equipment list stating whether or not it had been booked and what shooting days it would be needed for.

9. Treatment

A young Cantonese woman, Ji-an, feels very lonely, depressed, and is suicidal. She thinks often about killing herself, but finds ways to stop herself, by attempting to reach out to people in unorthodox ways.

One evening, she goes down to a 7-11 to buy the weirdest combination of foods possible, because in her mind this will get her noticed by the 7-11 clerk. She buys dried squid, cards and pocky, but the clerk doesn't particularly care. She walks back to her lonely apartment, defeated, where she falls asleep after an evening of eating the squid and talking to her household objects.

The next morning, she dies her hair because changing her hair is yet another way she tries to get people to notice her. She heads out to her favourite dai pai dong, where she often sits all day, hoping someone will wonder about her or notice her. It turns out that one of the young men who works at the dai pai dong, Hiro, does look at her - he's quite bored by his repetitive work and so he spies on the costumers, her being one of the most interesting and strange ones. Ji-an, however, has no idea. When she leaves behind her change to pay, she also leaves behind one of her folded paper cranes, which Hiro keeps.

That evening, at dusk, Ji-an sits at her apartment window, throwing paper cranes she has folded out onto the street, again hoping someone will see one and look up. As usual, she fails and is this time deeply upset.

Morning dawns the next day and Ji-an tries desperately again to get someone to see her by throwing down more paper cranes. They fail yet again and she says goodbye to her household objects and her remaining crane quickly before leaving the house.

She heads to the usual dai pai dong and as she eats her dessert, she promises herself that if by the end of it, no one has looked at her, she'll go home and kill herself. Hiro has noticed her, meanwhile, and walks towards her to give her back her paper crane when he realises that she looks black and white to him, magically, because he is holding the crane, which means so much to Ji-an as her cry for help. He can also hear her thoughts when she thinks to herself about killing herself. He exclaims out loud when he hears this, and returns her paper crane. Ji-an is touched that he noticed who it belonged to and that she returned, and they look at each other for a moment, wondering what will happen next.

10. Casting

Because both Ji-an and Hiro are local Hong Kong people, they needed to be Cantonese. They're also both in their mid-twenties at least, which meant that fellow high school students as actors would not suffice. Thus, I contacted some university students for the role instead. Below is the final casting documentation.

Flora's even a film student with lots of experience in the area!

11. Screen testing

To make sure that our actors are well suited to their role and comfortable on screen, we did a screen test. Our film's a bit unusual in that it relies a lot upon voiceovers; there's hardly any dialogue between two or more characters. Thus, our screen test was a bit different: I had both Flora and Chris simply do something that they would do in the script on screen, and then had them read some lines from their voiceover to go on top. This made sure that their screen presence and actions suited their character, and that they could read their lines confidently and with good intonation.

Chris' screen test

As you can see, Chris was very good physically - he wipes the table with energy and he looks like he really could work in a dai pai dong! As the director, I just need to make sure that we can see his face every now and then. In the real thing, I'll direct him so that he's sort of looking over at Ji-an every now and then.

In terms of the voiceover, that was his first try and the rhythm was a bit off and too slow. I'll need to work on that with him.

Flora's screen test

Again, Flora also had a great screen presence physically; she's clearly comfortable and calm in front of the camera. Her tone was also quite good in places.

However, as with Chris, I'll need to work on the voiceover with Flora. It sounded a bit flat and lacking in rhythm. I'll need to mark up the script and make notes for the voiceover. I could even send them a recording of myself saying the lines in advance, or just work with them on it when it comes to recording.

12. Notes and research on research texts

Before I can annotate the script as the director in eights, or look at my cinematographer's storyboard, it's really important that I look at our two research texts in depth. I've already looked at WKW's Chungking Express a little bit further in order to write the script, but I need to make notes on the acting and cinematic style as well before I annotate, so I know what to be on the lookout for.

AMORES PERROS, Inarritu

This film's editing and handheld camera movement are our inspirations, and we hope to emulate Inarritu's bold brand of mechanical realism. However, how exactly is this film so unique in terms of mechanical realism? What are the conventions/techniques we can borrow from his film...? I noticed effective use of:

sound bridging between tense moments and calmer ones
POV-style shots - not completely POV but similar enough that it immerses you more in the story.
following the character from behind other people eg. in a crowd. Adds a sense of realism - why would you be able to be right behind the main character? Adds a sense of spectatoriship, being among the crowd
tracking shots from the front and back
the camera is always moving. In one instance, a man turned from facing away from the camera to face behind the camera, and the camera moved with him, and it was incredibly subtle but effective. When I annotate the script with my cinematographer, I need to think about blocking - how the actors will be moving in a shot and how the movement and shot type need to use and suit the movement well
moving around in a tracking shot, going from low to high levels in a tracking shot
mix of mostly close-ups and mid shots, fewer long shots but when used, they are used to give context, make sense of the situation and convey something
pans used occasionally for tension
often blurry shots shift into focus just as something important happens: the information is given/image made clear at the crucial moment for tension
camera stays put while actors leave frame and return
"obstructing" foreground elements, always always always - the shot is hardly ever perfectly clear
the sheer number of shots used in one short scene, the sheer number of slightly different angles and compositions between objects and people

The man turns his head and the camera compensates, always fluid.

The occasional long shot for context.

The angle is POV-like and close up.

Look at the way the character's proximity says so much and is so symbolic of the relationships between the characters! The brother and his brother's wife have their faces close together because they are starting to love each other, while the wife is trapped, visually, by the arm of her controlling husband. Both of these shots were extremely quick and there were many more like them. So much was conveyed by the composition, so many different angles, foreground elements, and prximities used in rapid succession in a short scene between characters with complex relationships to tell the story in ways more than just what's said. Brilllllllliiiant.

CHUNGKING EXPRESS, Wong Kar Wai

This film inspired the narrative and the narration style, and we hope that it will also greatly influence the cinematography,

storytelling, and atmosphere of our film. So, what can I note about acting/voiceover, mood, cinematography or just the general way the story is told that could help us when shooting? I noted... (and the screenshots below illustrate...)

the actor's facial expresions are very important: the story is often told through the eyes and through looks
there's a nice variety of shot types; similarly to Inarritu, mostly mid shots and close ups, with the occasional longer shot
the shots are very long but the camera is always moving
foregound elements and interesting placing of actors within the mise-en-scene
shots often begin moving, starting off somewhere that isn't of interest, then panning past things like food to get to the actual character/point of interest
light and dark
obstructing foreground elements

13. Annotating the script in eighths

I have now finished annotating the script in

eighths. I colour coded and highlighted for all the script elements I could think of first, making note of anything important to do with locations, costumes, props, special effects, music, makeup, or sound. I then, as the director, went through and annotated the script in terms of instructions for the actors: what I wanted to see them do onscreen or in a certain shot, the emotions I wanted to see at certain points, the mood I wanted to create... I also wrote some annotations that related to cinematography; I had some ideas about shots I wanted to see or how the camera could complement the blocking (movement) of an actor in a scene, for example, as Hiro cleans the table back and forth, I would like the camera to follow him and sway back and forth in a dizzying, energetic way (WKW does this in Chungking Express but with a mopping motion). Thus, below is the PDF of my annotated script!

14. Organising the making of sound

Certain genres of film really require sound. Like horror films, which aren't at all terrifying until you have tense music in the background that chills your spine and explodes into high-tension chase music when it needs to. Myself and my team learnt that the hard way when making our thriller/horror chase scene,

because we neglected sound until towards the end of production and ended up having to borrow music from the film "Friday the 13th" after first attempting (and failing) to get a hitchcock-like violin piece. Yikes. Since none of us officially have the role of 'sound editor', it's easy for us to forget about sound. That's why even in pre-production we need to be thinking about sound early on. However, luckily for us, we're making a drama film, and as I was annotating our script for sound and music, here is what I noticed: our script would probably be just fine without any music whatsoever. Our sound is mostly diegetic and to be recorded with a sound recorder while filming. We also have a lot of voice-overs throughout the film and music might even distract from that. Thus, for the moment, as long as we are diligent about using the sound recorder while filming, we should be alright. I've made note of non-verbal, high-tension/emotion scenes that might potentially benefit from some subtle music, and so if in our rough cut, we feel like these scenes are a bit empty and missing something, then we'll know to find some music.

I looked a bit at what kind of music WKW used and to be honest, most of it was very moody, atmospheric 60's-90's pop/jazz/rock - a very classy, relaxed, suave kind of sound. There was a repetitive flute number that was a recurring motif in the first half of "chungking express" but it was used for tenser moments. The two moments I've filed away for maybe needing music, the moment when the main character cries in frustration after no one notices her paper cranes and the ending of the film when Hiro and Ji-an meet, and Hiro gives her back the paper crane, have a more sad and ambiguous mood to them. Wong Kar Wai did use a sort of wail-y, bluesy guitar that might work for the sad scene, but again, it's more sultry and self-pitying than suicidal and depressed.

Amores Perros, on the other hand, had a gorgeous little repeating motif that is quite pensive without being an overly cheesy piano piece, and its simplicity means it would be easily imitable. We could get something like this with minimal effort and try it out - no need to use it if it doesn't bring the right atmosphere.

15. Location scouting and set-up, part 2

We still had not yet found somewhere that we could use to be Ji-an's home. We had tried going to Mong Kok, but the hotels were tiny and they looked very hotel-like, not very home-y. Instead, we decided to book an apartment on Airbnb for 3 days, that way we really were renting a home! We explored in different neighbourhoods and price ranges and stumbled upon this apartment, which from the pictures looked perfect. We then booked it!

We still had to go through the process, however, of making the apartment looking like a home. Thus, we went the afternoon the day before shooting and we brought an entire suitcase of our own things to arrange there. We documented the process!

Here are also some close ups of the apartment so you can get a closer look at how we set it up.

Before

After

Left: food props for 7-11 scene, right: the hair dye our character needed (I spent ages running around mong kok to find a temporary spray!

Now that we had all of our locations, I compiled the sound recordings of each one into a video so we know what the audio/sound will be like at each location!

The box of 150 paper cranes I borrowed from a friend to scatter around the apartment!

16. Pre-production paperwork (last step!)

Script

Storyboard

As I mentioned earlier when taking notes about our research texts, we needed to annotate our scripts for ideas, in eighths. I noticed when looking at Amores Perros that the cinematography and hand-held camera movement was always almost “choreographed” – the camera used the movement of the actors (called their “blocking”) to their advantage. I did some research and saw that a good director makes a note of the actor’s blocking and how this should effect shot types and cinematography. So, I annotated the script in eights, and though I course took note of props and costumes (which I then later organised, finding the hair dye and cranes and so on and so forth) and blocked the script into scenes depending on the location and time of day (which helped me organise filming days, costumes for continuity, and so on), I especially paid lots of attention to the actors and their movements, and how I would direct them to enhance their performance, and what emotion I wanted them to portray in that moment. I then took notes of how I thought this could effect cinematography; and some of my ideas went into the making of the storyboard. For example, Hiro is often vigorously wiping the table, so his blocking was a shifting back-and-forth movement. I noticed in Chungking Express that the camera followed the main character when she was mopping in a dizzying, dance-like way; so this influenced me in my annotations.

I also took note of how long each mini voice-over/monologue was, roughly timing it out loud so that we had a guideline of how many seconds of footage we needed for each part. The annotated script is attached here!

For the storyboard, we met up during the holidays two days in a row and, using the initial planning of the cinematographer and my annotations from the script, as well as the editor’s ideas, we drew up the storyboard together. Normally this is done solely by the cinematographer, but as a group we prefer to do it more collaboratively to produce a more cohesive film and to use everyone’s ideas. We ended up with 14 A3 pages double-sided for our storyboard (100+ shots) which we were happy with because in the past, we had had issues with not enough shots and not enough variety, which gave us continuity issues and repetitiveness. I’d also noticed in Amores Perros that to keep the pace of the film brisk and interesting, although some shots were longer and lingering, in many parts, there was a huge variety of quick cuts from several slightly different angles to make sure that the film wasn’t static.

My drawing isn’t very good, but we did annotate the shots to explain facial expressions/blocking in the scene, and we used a key to annotate for camera movement, zoom, canted angles, tracking, shoulder mount vs. handheld, pans, and any special editing needed, as well as open form (which we used quite consistently throughout, in a hopefully playful way). A PDF scan of the storyboard is attached here.

Production schedule/call list

This schedule is sort of a mix of a call list and schedule and props list all in one. This schedule does not include any shoots that involve re-takes, because we will have to go through initial production and editing first to see what re-takes we need. We will try in the shoots to check our shots before we leave so that we can avoid re-takes as much as possible.

PAPER CRANES.