I decided to reedit  my first film after watching it together with Miko and Vince.

This film was shot in 2006, the first summer vocation of my collage hood. It took me about a week to shot it and almost a year to edit it, of course, during that year I spent too much time wandering in Hangzhou city.

I got the idea to film this short as early as I was in high school. It is a true story happened on my friends and me, of course some part is fictional. It is not until the first year of my university did I met my partners Chenyang and Yawen. We deicided each of us was going to make a short, we need to share equipment and had to help each other. So, Chenyang was one of the camera men in my film, but later we just got too much fight because our ideas were so different, and i decided to shot it by myself. For me, I helped Yawen found an apartment for her short and also acted in her film. That summer, in order to collect money for my first short, I taught 6 kids English for 20 mornings, and earned 3000 RMB (about 450 C$). My mom helped me a lot in this short. She found me the old house near the sea, drove us to the seaside, cocked for us, entertained my actors by playing Mahjong with them and also acted two characters in my film.

For a long time after I finished it, however, I did’t want to watch it, and I just shared it with a few of my very closed friends, because I thought this was such a bad film. I hated my sound effect, in some parts I ignored the light, and people’s faces are too dark, also, I never check the balance of my tripod, I even didn’t know what was white balance nor focus.

Years later, I became a film major student, beginning to work on films with other friends. I wrote detailed sub lens before shooting and adjusted focus, shutter speed and aperture; I envy all those fancy equipment, shooting and editing techniques, and I try to make up a lot of fancy stories, so that I can use these fancy technical methods on it.

That day, at Vince’s place, after we spent two days to shoot 1.5 films, I decided to show them my debut. It turned out they like it, and interestingly, I found I didn’t hate it any more, but I love it! I dare not make a 20-minute film nowadays. And I suddenly realized, are those things, the equipment, the filming and editing technique I am pursueing now important to film making? And did I or we,  ignored the most treasured part to a good film– to tell a story devoutly from the bottom of your heart with patience?

I like my first film. And again, my actors, my friends, thank you so much! I still feel so moved when I watching you guys in this film, even 4 years has past.