Entertainment: I am the peak

Chapter 192 The Old Society

Li Qiutang felt that he had some bad luck with movies.

The films that came to us were not good ones. If we wanted to make "Painted Skin 2", the conditions were not yet ripe.

During the week of Christmas, Liu Yifei went out for an event. As she said, "My boyfriend is so capable. He's making movies and running a company. How can I be worthy of him if I don't keep up with him?" These words made Li Qiutang happy.

The day after Liu Yifei left Yanjing, Li Qiutang flew south to Guangzhou again to attend the year-end seminar organized by the Guangdong Federation of Literary and Art Circles.

As an invited guest of the Federation of Literary and Art Circles, he will give a speech at the seminar entitled "The Role of Director in Film Creation", which is expected to last two and a half hours.

The Federation of Literary and Art Circles did not review Li Qiutang's manuscript and PPT in advance; there was no need for that.

"The class will start tomorrow morning, and you will give the first speech. There are four main associations participating in our seminar: the Writers Association, the Artists Association, the Calligraphers Association, and the Film Association."

"Then can the other three associations understand what I am saying?"

"There's nothing we can do. The Film Association alone can't fill up the venue." It's okay to say this in private.

Moreover, the Film Association is not composed entirely of directors. It also includes screenwriters, artists, producers, actors, and scholars.

Li Qiutang said that he tried his best to make his presentation interesting so that other associations could understand it.

"Anyone who hasn't seen the movie can always understand a few words."

At 9 a.m. the next day, after a brief opening speech by the vice chairman of the Guangdong Federation of Literary and Art Circles, Li Qiutang was introduced to the stage:
"Today we are honored to have our country's famous young director, Director Li Qiutang, give us a keynote speech."

The members of the Film Association in the audience have already started applauding, and most of them are applauding for Li Qiutang.

But the host smiled and said, "Many of our friends are familiar with Director Li Qiutang, but I still want to introduce him. Director Li Qiutang graduated from the 02 Directing Department of the Film Academy. His graduation work "The Night the Comet Came" won the Best Film Award at the 2006 Canadian Fantastic Film Festival, the Cultural Innovation Award at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival, the 2006 Busan Film Audience Award, and the 2007 Huabiao Award. At the just-concluded Golden Horse Awards, Director Li Qiutang's "The Sound of the Wind" helped Li Bingbing and Huang Xiaoming win the Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor awards. Director Li Qiutang's three consecutive films have exceeded 2.7 million yuan at the box office, and "The Sound of the Wind" has achieved a good result of million, becoming the champion of this year's National Day. Well, let us welcome Director Li Qiutang to give us a speech."

There was a burst of applause from the audience. Li Qiutang went on stage, sat in front of the podium, and opened his PPT.

First, I said, “I don’t dare to give a speech. Today I just want to share some of my experiences and insights so that we can learn from each other.”

Let’s ask the first question:
“What is the core task of a director in filmmaking?”

Li Qiutang heard several answers on the stage.

"Story? The story is the screenwriter's job, right? What does the director do?"

"Composition? That's the job of the director of photography. I'm asking the director, what does the director want to shoot? What does the director rely on to attract the audience?"

"Friends in this writers' association should also know that making a movie and writing a novel are often the same."

"I heard the answer. What is it? Yes, it's a character."

“A director’s first job is to create character.”

A photo of Charles was shown on the big screen. "This should be the most classic image in the history of world cinema. It has been 100 years since Chaplin's films. What people remember is Chaplin's stories? It is the image of the tramp Charles."

"The screenwriter's script is often very simple. The screenwriter will not tell you in the script what kind of character he wants to portray in this scene. All of this must be filmed by the director according to the script."

Li Qiutang spoke slowly, combining some movie clips and photos to illustrate his point, and also told two jokes to liven up the atmosphere.

"Many people don't know what a director does. There are people who do art, photographers who do filming, and screenwriters who do stories. What a director does can be summed up in one sentence: Please put the camera here."

This is a joke from the film industry. People from the Film Association understood it, but others almost didn't.

"…Are creators responsible for having the right values? I'm talking about art films here. Commercial films still have to follow the right values. They are irresponsible, right? Let's not talk about movies, let's talk about literature. A foreign novel I like very much is "Madame Bovary", which is about infidelity, but it does not affect its greatness at all. There is also "Lolita", which is also a great work. The same is true for movies, but if you want to make money and reach as many audiences as possible, then your values must be as consistent as possible with the public and cannot provoke the audience's existing cognition."

Li Qiutang criticized the behavior of some directors in his speech: "Some directors took investors' money and said they wanted to make commercial films to help investors make money. But I don't know whether it was due to incompetence or intentional, but they made another long and boring art film, which made no money when it was released. Investors lost a lot of money, but they themselves did not get hurt at all."

Li Qiutang also talked about some differences between the entertainment circles in the Mainland, Taiwan and Hong Kong: "I have been to Hong Kong and Taiwan in the past few months and have seen it. We used to call it the literary and artistic front, we were called literary and artistic workers, we were highly respected, it's different over there, they haven't gone through the revolution, they haven't been educated in ideology, no matter how big the actor is, he calls himself an artist, he has not improved to this extent, in his bones he is still the lowest class of the old society.

"They are not proud of doing artistic work. They think that I am just doing a job. I make good films and bad films. I am just here to work and make money. Their ideological level is not high."

Li Qiutang concluded about the Hong Kong and Taiwan entertainment circles, waving his hand: "It's all an old society."

The audience burst into laughter. Director Xiao Li is quite eloquent.

Returning to the topic of the speech, Li Qiutang went on to talk about the responsibilities of a director.

Li Qiutang did her homework well and her two and a half hour speech was lively and interesting. Li Qiutang even played films for the guests on the spot.

He played some clips from "Spring in a Small Town" and explained to the guests in detail why "Spring in a Small Town" was hailed as the top 100 films in the 100 years of Chinese cinema.

He also played some works by Akira Kurosawa and Yasujiro Ozu to explain to the guests who did not understand why they were both great directors.

"I didn't speak very well. If there are any mistakes, please criticize me and exchange ideas with me. Thank you for the invitation, President. I am very fortunate to be able to communicate with you here today. Thank you."

Li Qiutang was bid farewell with applause. The host came on stage and said a few words before announcing the end of the morning's activities.

The guests filed out one after another, discussing what dishes would be available in the restaurant for lunch and whether they would go to someone's room to play cards during the lunch break.

"Thank you for your hard work, Director Li."

"It's not hard," Li Qiutang packed up and prepared to go to the restaurant for dinner, "Your seminar is quite large."

"It's the end of the year, so let's hold a bigger one. You also have to come for the study tour the day after tomorrow." According to the itinerary, after the seminar, they will go to a scenic spot for on-site visit and study, which is euphemistically called post-conference study tour.

"I won't go to the research trip. I'll be back in Yanjing this afternoon. I still have some work to do in the company."

"Okay, okay, let's go and eat."

(End of this chapter)