Shi Qi（right side） Director
I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Broadcasting and Television Directing from Communication University of China. I am currently pursuing a master’s degree at the School of Television, Communication University of China.
Wu Yixuan Director
Graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Radio and Television Directing from Communication University of China and currently work at Kantianxia Magazine.
Synopsis
The protagonist of the story is a young man from two small towns in Xuanhua District, Zhangjiakou City, Hebei Province. They are not the students who have successfully entered university according to secular impressions, but rather college students. The film tells the story of their gradual integration into society within a year after graduation.
Why did you guys think of filming this subject ?
Wu Yixuan：I think it’s just fun. College students are a large group, but they are often not seen by documentary filmmakers. I think it is an interesting question about their post graduation living conditions under the blessing of the epidemic and in the context of difficult employment. Also, it was taken near my home, which is convenient and cost-effective. At first, we didn’t think many people would like this film, but the more we filmed, the more fun it became, and the more we filmed, the more interesting it became, and we received a lot of support. I started filming in my junior year and spent over a year doing it. Then, in my senior year, we cut it into a final design.
The director has a guiding question in the later part of the film: “Do you think you are miserable?” Is any design here?
Shi Qi：In that shot, the protagonist verbally said he was miserable and couldn’t do it, but still in a very free state under his feet. He went to that frozen place and said he might know he was going to fall, but he was still skating. If 80% of people are asked, “Is your life tragic?” Their answer is all tragic, because humans are not self-sufficient beings. What’s particularly interesting is that you think they’re particularly miserable, but in fact, they’re not that miserable either. First of all, you think he is miserable because he can’t find a job that people can say is very respectable; It’s not that miserable, which means it hasn’t reached a pitiful level yet. He can at least sell his energy to find some jobs with a monthly salary of two to three thousand. This feeling of being miserable is actually the current situation of most people. In some special perspectives, giving him some meaning may lead to seeing different things.
Wu Yixuan：Teacher Fengrui also said that you must have deliberately made everyone feel that he is miserable, but in fact, he is living quite spiritually.
Shi Qi：They attempted to create an upward leap, but they failed. He wants to say that becoming a rapper overnight and making some money. But after various reasons led to his failure, he may still live in the small town like his parents for the rest of his life, without saying that he succeeded. Whether it’s getting ahead or becoming wealthy, at least living a better life than one’s own parents. But for such a goal, they actually don’t have such strong determination, so strong demands on themselves that I must do something. In the final state, they may feel that the current situation is also quite good, feel that their life is very happy, and they feel that they are like fish in water. Go to the internet cafe every day, smoke and play games with friends. This kind of life is satisfying for them. Their mentality is different from that of us bystanders.
Wu Yixuan：This world is unfair, they are in an unfair place, but they are not trying to reverse this situation.
What was the division of labor between the two directors during the filming process, and did your relationship change after the filming ended?
Shi Qi：The division of labor is like this. In the early stage, it was Wu Yixuan filming. Later, towards the end of my junior year, when I was preparing for my graduation project, I said that this topic was quite good. In the end, we continued it together and filmed, conceptualized, and edited it into our graduation project.
Wu Yixuan：Yes, it’s probably because Shi Qi is the boss and I am an employee. He asked me to take photos, so I took photos. He didn’t let me take photos, so I stopped taking photos. (Laughter)
Shi Qi：That’s not what I mean. I think Wu Yixuan is a relatively free person. I feel like there’s a lack of one paragraph like this, one paragraph like that, and we may have some difficulty editing it. I also hope to see some paragraphs, and then we’ll find a way to shoot them.
Wu Yixuan：Yes, he is quite supplementary because I mainly had a playful attitude when filming this film, and sometimes it was too relaxing. Shi Qi provided me with some more serious and rigorous perspectives, otherwise the final film would be much harder to watch.
Regarding the changes in our relationship, I think the most interesting thing about the process of filming a documentary is that we not only have deeper contact with the subject, but also that you and your friends or collaborators will have a deeper understanding. Unlike making movies, we need to constantly examine the relationship between the subject and ourselves, and then examine the relationship between the two of us. You can guess anything he wants to say during filming because he knows the other person well, so communication is very easy.
How do you search for shooting subjects and communicate with them to shoot?
Shi Qi：At first, Wu Yixuan simply wanted to record the living conditions of the two of them. I think this is very interesting because the three of them have been playmates from childhood to adulthood for many years. Many people tell us that these two characters were chosen too well because they are sufficiently authentic, even exceeding 100% authenticity. Many people become unnatural when they see the camera and start performing, but the two of them have no trace of performance. They won’t stop living normally just because of the presence of the camera. So in this film, the audience can see many natural daily scenes, even if it’s sneezing, swearing, smoking and drinking, these everyday actions are all displayed in front of the camera.
How was the dual storyline of the film conceived?
Shi Qi：They are actually a microcosm of two lifestyles. Look at Wu Fan, he is a relatively pragmatic person. He will look for a job on his own, knock on the doors of each store, and say whether there is a shortage of people here, whether they are recruiting or not, at least in the movie. However, Su Bono is a man with a free hand. He will think about some things, such as money laundering and rapper. Sometimes he suddenly wants to say whether we should build a Tiktok account and take his own short video to make the whole money. One of them lacks imagination and action, while the other lacks imagination but action. But the outcome for these two people is the same – they can’t find a job, and their starting point is the same – they both graduated from a computer science major and have the same family background. The two lines develop parallel for most of the time and sometimes interweave together.
Did the film meet your expectations after it was released? What are the joys and regrets?
Wu Yixuan：I personally feel that every time I take pictures, I exceed my expectations. Because I am personally pessimistic and may not have good expectations for many things, but every time my expectations are low, I feel happy every time I take a photo of something and do it. This is a problem with my thinking habits.
Actually, my favorite thing is the ice skating scene. It was also a sudden inspiration at that time. If I were to ask that question, it would definitely be very interesting, and I didn’t expect that the effect would be quite good.
The most regrettable thing for me is that after starting work, I really don’t have many opportunities to shoot such pure content anymore. It’s very urgent to produce a topic film in three to five days, during which it’s difficult for you to have in-depth communication with people. Even if you have deep communication, they are not likely to make you willing to take photos, and everything becomes very realistic. The documentary environment is different now, and they don’t need you to express yourself. They can make short videos themselves. The boundary between short videos and documentaries has become very blurred, making it difficult to operate.
Shi Qi：For me, this film is a recognition of our four years of undergraduate studies, after all, we chose to create a documentary to graduate. But I didn’t expect many teachers and senior students in the college to like our films. I submitted to the Mid Summer Film Festival with a try and see attitude, but I didn’t expect to win this year’s Mid Summer Best Documentary in June. This is an incredible thing for us because I think there is still a slight gap between us and the works that have won this award in previous years. Therefore, I really think it is a very, very unexpected thing. Later on, we invested in China Europe, which is an international platform, and being able to win awards also gave us greater recognition. Because when competing on stage with works in different languages, it feels very interesting. Just like what Wu said, we may no longer have the time or energy to make such a pure content oriented documentary in the future. But when we graduated from our undergraduate studies, we were very satisfied and happy with submitting such a test. Thank you to the China Europe Youth Film Festival for recognizing our documentary and giving us a dream like feeling.