Working

It's been a trial working here. It takes extraordinary patience and cunning to get anything done, but many places in the world are like that. The real difficulty comes to trying to do original and creative work where the established aesthetic is so deeply ingrained. Even when compelled to think outside the box, the work is still “box-shaped”, as a Chinese friend I met here describes it. Any question that doesn't have an absolute right answer freaks them out. It seems that students here are most challenged when they’re asked for their opinion. You get a blank stare… “buffering” my friend calls it.

Coming from the Hollywood school, most of our stories involve a character’s personal struggle. The Chinese faculty, however, have encouraged us to make our pieces about society, because one person’s story is just not that interesting.

My partner here is absolutely adorable, and we've become good friends. She’s very motivated, and interested in crafting a deep personal story about our subject, but doesn’t know at all how to go about it. She's kind of a country-mouse in the big city. She’s stunningly beautiful, but speaks really loudly, chews with her mouth open, sits on the floor, but she's really good at getting people to talk, getting access and getting the producer things done. We mostly understand each other, but i've taken to using some of her colorful phrases so she understands me better... my favorite - "deeply things" = "emotionally deep content for our movie". When we uncovered a juicy piece of information yesterday that exposed our subject’s more devious side, she took it very personally herself. As if our subject has broken her heart as well.