Production
Upon graduation from the Beijing Film Academy in 1989, Wang was initially assigned to the state-run Fujian Film Studio. Rather than beginning his tenure there, Wang decided to stay in Beijing in an effort to create an independent film. This process lasted nearly a year and ultimately collapsed when Wang failed to obtain proper financing. As a result, he began working at Fujian, writing screenplays that would never be made. His tenure at the Fujian Film Studio would be equally brief, however, and by 1992, Wang had returned to Beijing determined to make it on his own.
In the beginning, Wang, along with actor Liu Xiaodong and classmate Zhang Yuan attempted an extremely small-scale production that would eventually collapse. The effort, though a failure, galvanized Wang to begin again with The Days. Due to an extremely low budget, the production would prove to be arduous. The actors and crew, mostly Wang's friends, donated both time and money to the film. Equipment was rented and usually obsolete. Even obtaining film was a trial, as Wang and cinemtographer Liu Jie were forced to travel to the manufacturer in Baoding to personally request film stock.
Logistically, the film was also a difficult process as all the actors and crew had normal jobs. As a result, filming could only take place two days a week, on the weekends. Equipment would be rented on Friday and returned on Monday, the process repeating each week.
Read more about this topic: The Days (film)
Famous quotes containing the word production:
“An art whose limits depend on a moving image, mass audience, and industrial production is bound to differ from an art whose limits depend on language, a limited audience, and individual creation. In short, the filmed novel, in spite of certain resemblances, will inevitably become a different artistic entity from the novel on which it is based.”
—George Bluestone, U.S. educator, critic. “The Limits of the Novel and the Limits of the Film,” Novels Into Film, Johns Hopkins Press (1957)
“The problem of culture is seldom grasped correctly. The goal of a culture is not the greatest possible happiness of a people, nor is it the unhindered development of all their talents; instead, culture shows itself in the correct proportion of these developments. Its aim points beyond earthly happiness: the production of great works is the aim of culture.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“... if the production of any commodity necessitates the sacrifice of human life, society should do without that commodity, but it can not do without that life.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)