Qipu Lu FILM1

Tady se můžete podívat na můj první amatérský film, co má ještě co dohánět, budu mít ještě jednu šanci. Ty věci pod jsou kecy k tomu, ale třeba kdo nepochopí z obrazu (moje chyba, já vim, pochopí z textu.) POZOR poslouchat se sluchátky, jinak nejsou slyšet promyšlené beaty do jednotlivých střihů:) K.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/108497677/QipuLuFinal.avi

Project 2 Proposal

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I keep on thinking that the straight way of observation, especially in society that isn´t prepared to accept me as one of them at all, is not authentic. It determines the behaviour of objectives and distorts the picture of them. When you tell people they´re being shot they start to behave artificially.

I keep on thinking about means of observation in the way they wouldn´t be affected and due to this they could behave naturally.

In the first part of my project I tried to be invisible for my objectives, to take pictures hidden, so that they couldn´t notice me. It´s a kind of solution that I like but it is not very  fair to them.

The idea for my film is kind of opposite and I´d like to talk about it later.

The place of my interest is so called „fakemarket“, the one at Tiantong Lu subway station.

It embodies character of the whole city for me. It is madly chaotic in its even grid.

The huge number of very similar details that the man´s eye isn´t able to distinguish so he gets lost in it. Potemkin´s village, pomp in dirt.

I feel a great emptyness while walking through these crowded gloomy paths. Emptyness in full and upside down. That´s not only feeling of the space. I can see void in the vendor´s and shoppers´eyes.

I imagine the void in their minds. I can´t catch what they feel and think. They seem to play a role of somebody else or to wear a mask. They are all anonymous there. Anonymus units of mass. Like their goods. Just eager for money, bored and without aims or dreams. Empty shells of working-very well and harworking machines.

Supposingly they´re drilled to be so…at school, at home, via TV and internet…

 I feel really sorry for that when thinking about their real, original culture that could be developped and improved these days but it doesn´t happen.

I tried to draw my path while walking through that maze. Looking into the paper I thought it must be very simple to orientate there. But without – my compass – and that drawn track, I´d be lost anyway. There are no windows there or at least I didn´t notice them. And after a few turns I can´t remember my way. I only slightly recognise some places. While keeping on walking I feel like going in the circle. There´s no center, no heart. It´s not a labyrinth but a maze- thus much more creepy.

I don´t want to hide myself anymore. But I don´t want them neither wave into my lens nor turn their heads away. Maybe I should get somehow below them, so that they wouldn´t be scared of me.

I thought about having a mask…the same mean like they are using every day. It could be close to their way of thinking. Just buy some ridiculous things at fakemarket and wear it while shooting. They shouldn´t be scarried but rather have fun of me. Maybe I can see their teeth in the smiling mouths then, a piece of feelings.

Storyboard

_1 the overall view of people wraping the giant packages outsides aka working machines

_1a (+) titles

_2 the view from the highest floor, escalators down, still view of motion

_3 floor x: _a the atmosphere of axes, still long shots

   _b figurine portrays

   _c people´s empty faces portrays

_4 floor x-y:  the same schedule, higher speed, shorter shots, smiling faces if it happens? Can I change a thing?

_5 the path down via escalators, the speed inhanced

_6 the lowest floor: chaotic HELLLLLLLL, repeating_feeling of being in the circle

_7 title

Project 2 Essay

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QIPU LU Clothing Market

I think I ?only? partly achieved the goals I had thought about before going to film people in Qipu Lu fake market.

It is not surprising, actually. I could had thought about that kind of reactions that I have seen there before. But accidentally it hadn’t come to my mind.

It was a great fun and I enjoyed it very much. I was wearing a mask while filming. I was wearing big corns on my head, strange clothes and lots of sports’ protection on my elbows, knees and shins. Actually a lot of people wanted to buy or exchange it for thousands of stupid fake toys. Aneta was helping me all the day. I was very pleased but my only requirement was that she must have worn a mask as well. So she was wearing a huge paper head of Steve Jobs on her head. It was a great attraction, too.

So what did we experience and what we didn’t?

I started shooting the film in the highest floor of Qipu Lu. It is supposed to be the most expensive part with the highest quality of goods. In this floor there were lots of cops, they are in each floor, actually. I experienced the biggest resistance here. The cop wanted to kick me out and tried to or at least pretended to call someone else on her walkie-talkie. I tried to ignore her and shooted what I wanted. But actually it wasn’t such an atmosphere I was looking for, the tidy shopping axis and orderly stalls, so I left her in her rage and went one or two floors lower. I found a children’s clothes floor there. It was very pleasant there, all the children loved us and we made a small show for them. I was happy that even their parents had fun and actually didn´t mind camera in my hands. Supposingly they thought about us like a part of Qipu Lu, a kind of organised event which was strange but good for us. The only thing I was missing was a real view of Qipu Lu how I felt and saw it. For me it was - too positive. So we must have kept on moving to lower, more hellish parts of fake market.

It happened a few more times that we had to avoid annoying cops always asking us to leave. And we also experienced a few vendors’ negative reactions on our camera. But mostly we met with positive reactions and I think our masks helped a lot to pull the borders between me and them down. Maybe not fully but at least partly.

For me my mask was a rail to hold so I was able to come closer to them. For them it was a thing they had to pay attention on. It divided their thoughts between my camera and my corns. Often they liked my corns more and let me take some shots of them. Sometimes they really had fun and laughed at us and wanted to try our masks. At that time my goal was almost fully achieved.

 Actually I experienced kind of reactions that I didn’t expect and maybe I had to. I wanted to record fakemarket itself in its own nature first…in contrast with fakemarket influenced by a kind of strange funny parasite. The second part happened with a great success, much more than the first part.

I had thought that some people would have found stupid what I was doing and they wouldn’t have paid attention on me at all. But mostly it didn’t happen and I had difficulties find such kind of footage for my postproduction. We were even able to take a cop’s heart and laugh with him and a group of people around.

Maybe it was the first time I felt free among them. But on the other hand I feel I was always a thing for them, an object rather than a person. We are still so far away from each other. The question is if it is possible for me to cross the borders while I am staying here only a half of year which I find a very short time. Actually for me it would be a success to make one real chinese friend because I find all friendships here somehow very cold and maybe even artificial.

I know that behaviour of Chinese is affected by long history as well as our – my – europian behaviour. And it is a matter of the same amount of time or effort to put these two attitudes to life together. And the question is if we really want to put them together or if we rather like this diversity, the stupid, funny or desperate situations when we don’t understand each other? I prefer obstacles than harmony. But concerning the whole world it is different, it shouldn’t be a question of fun.