cotton road 棉花之路

The main reason for this post is to let anyone know who is bothering to read this blog that the first 300 gigs of our film are on their way to Columbia, SC to be backed up. It’s nice to take a break from tracking cotton to tracking the film as it makes its way to the other side of the world.

Li Zhen and I have been working pretty hard for the past two weeks. We’ve had several really great shoots that I have yet to blog about, and we are continuing to work on translations from Chinese to English. We’re both worried about a number of things, too:  that this film is too big; that it’s trying to do too much; and that there are too many characters. We are also worried about our struggle to document the complexities of the global marketplace.  People are very reluctant to speak about things in this business that are considered difficult– such as the struggle to stay in business while continuing to meet production demands. Production costs continue to go up, while prices offered by companies for the production of goods continues to fall.  Nobody is really willing to discuss this. I want to give an accurate picture of the global marketplace and I also want people to feel good about the way they are represented. It’s an ongoing challenge.

自己放了个长长的假，终于又回来跟柯瑞嘉同学一起拍棉花啦。
假期过得很惬意。米国是个好地方。一到上海觉得春天突然降临：树都变绿啦，花也开啦，阳光天天都很明媚，风也脱去之前的寒意。一切都作欣欣向荣状，很美很温暖。于是心情大好。
不过我的假期也耽搁了《棉花》的进程，就像小柯所说，目前是我们片子的节点，我们有了大多数的联系人，现在是真的深入到各个环节中去跟那些工人们天天蹭在一起的时候了！
我们的计划满满的。然而，当我跟那些联系人重新再联系的时候却发现很多情况发生了变化。圆天现在订单超级的多，天天忙加班，工人们压力很大都不愿意接受我们的采访。五一节是个不错的日子，原来我们想要找个工人跟着她过节，最后竟然找不到一个人。觉得很对不起小柯，因为这个事儿感觉不难，但我打了N个电话，最后还是没有一个愿意接受我们的五一采访。工人们把拍电影特当成件“事儿”，是需要特别应付的，在现在繁重的压力下他们不愿意接受更多“外来干扰”。我觉得是因为我们跟他们还不够熟，应该早点跟其中一些人取得联系方式，进行更多的单对单的交流。
没办法，只有吸取教训，今后加大沟通力度。
我们开始对电影的形式开始一些思考。小柯想要加入自己的声音，讲述她的感受。这跟我之前预想的不一样。我担心这样会把许多东西说的“过于清楚”。不过她说的也对，棉花之路是棉花的旅程，但是又是她自己的旅程。这听上去也很对，只是关键在形式，分寸的拿捏。当然，我很相信小柯，觉得她会做出好东西来。