Talks on Creative Journeys
Date: 7th August, 2022
Venue: Jao Tsung-I Academy Resource Centre
@Camp 2022
Mentor: Fruit Chan (Director)
Moderator: Rex Ren (Director)
“From the director’s perspective, adaptation means changing what the original author has into one’s own or playing it to the fullest.”
In the last sharing of the 2nd year’s Eye Catcher Creative Camp, Dir. Fruit Chan and his disciple Dir. Rex Ren visited the camp to share Chan’s unique experience of independent filmmaking. His early work Chao Zhou Xiang, the genre film Dumplings, and also Tales from the Dark Part 1: Jing Zhe were all adapted from Lilian Lee Pik-Wah’s novels. Chan and Lee were both serious about their respective works. How did they start to collaborate?
Following the ornamental quote, Chan said the collaboration is based on detailed discussions of characters, plotlines, and so on between the director and the author. Adaptation does not mean overthrowing the original work. The key point is to preserve and understand its cultural significance. Literature inspired imaginations built on language. The script is the like a manual and needs to be succinct and clear, with the delicate descriptions removed. The next step would be the script’s first draft, sometimes written by the director, other times by the original author. They went back and forth to revise it until it was finalized.
Dir. Rex Ren pointed out that Dumplings is a faithful adaptation of the original literary work, although it does not include some side stories. What Chan added to the story, however, strengthened the context of the narrative.
“This is what adaptation does with considerations of the scenes before and after, the positioning of shooting, and how to shoot better scenes. There can’t be too many characters. There’re brief descriptions of some details. It can’t be too long. It can’t tell too much.” More important is to think about how to intensify the genre film’s thrilling atmosphere and enrich the background and context of the characters through the scenes.
As for the low-budget production in the second half, they used Made in Hong Kong as an example. This movie only costed five hundred thousand, but it was an enormous success and was praised as “a miracle of independent cinema.” In the closing scene, a shot is taken from a high position of a broken kite on a wilted branch, with the sound of a northbound train nearby. There are no actors in this scene, but the crane shot was the most expensive in the entire film.
Ren thus concluded one of the key points of low-budget productions, “with a limited budget and time, preproduction research becomes absolutely necessary, and the director also needs to be well aware of where the budget should be allocated.”
The broken kite represents the three lost young lives, the northbound train symbolise the 1997 Handover. Accompanying with the voice out (VO) “This world is yours and it is ours. But at the end of the day, it is yours.” The ending scene basically points out the main theme of the film, where it is still saddening even when we revisit the scene now.
In the end, Chan admitted that although the local market is small, it may be critical for creativity to take off in the era of vacuum; adversity means that it is all the more worthy of being overcome, absorbing references into one’s own merits, and keeping being flexible and rebellious for an eventual way out.
創作大講堂
日期：2022年8月7日
地點：饒宗頤文化館資源中心
@創作營 2022
主持：任俠（導演）
分享：陳果（導演）
「在導演的角度，改編就是將原著作者的東西，變成自己的東西，或者把作者的東西發揮得更好。」
第二屆奪目創作營的最後一場大講堂，有師徒陳果和任俠導演，來到營內和大家分享陳果導演執導以來別樹一格的自主映畫經驗。由早期嘗試但最後未有面世的《潮州巷》，到後來的類型片《餃子》以及《迷離夜：驚蟄》，都是從李碧華作家的小說改編的作品。作為同樣著緊自己作品的創作人，陳果導演和李碧華作家的合作又是怎樣緣起？
導演承接開首那句話，表示導演和原著作者之間的合作，首先是建基於人物、情節等等方面的仔細討論。改編未必需要翻天覆地，但最主要是要保留、融會當中的文化內涵。因為劇本更像一本說明書，比起原著文本完全依靠文字建構想像，更需要簡潔清楚、減去華麗的描寫。下一步，有時導演會寫第一稿，有時則是原著作者，然後再互相來回修改、定案。
談及《餃子》，任俠導演就表示電影的改編其實相當忠於原著，只是沒有包含到一些比較屬於副線的原文內容，例如：主角艾菁菁在Boutique巧遇丈夫和小三試衫、墮胎師媚姨的初戀情人，一孩政策的著墨，她事敗後北上逃走吃了火腿蛋飯等等。而相對地，艾菁菁踩雞蛋、媚姨唱《洪湖水浪打浪》這些情節，就是陳果導演原創加入電影之中，用意進一步加強敘事背景。
「改編就是如此，要遷就前後畫面；拍攝上怎樣就位、怎樣能夠拍得更好看；人物太多又不行，有些情節只能簡單交代，不需要拖太長講太多。」最重要的是，要思考如何加強這些類型電影的恐怖氛圍營造，怎樣用畫面豐富人物的背景塑造，連繫上文下理。
下半部分的低成本製作，兩人就以《香港製造》為例，進一步講解。 這部電影當年的成本只有五十萬，後來獲得的成功被稱為「獨立電影的奇蹟」。結尾部份有一顆鏡頭，只從高處拍攝著掛在枯枝上的斷線風箏，不遠處傳來北上火車的聲音。這個鏡頭沒有任何演員，卻是整部電影最昂貴的一顆鏡頭——利用了升降鏡頭（Crane Shot）拍攝。更甚者，因為當時租借的起重機本來是用作整電燈的，拍出來的感覺很粗糙，那種raw的動感貫穿一整段，頭尾部份甚至搖晃得太厲害而不得不剪走。
既然如此，為甚麼還要花費如此多的人力物力，在只有幾個工作人員合力把器材搬上山，也要堅持完成、使用這顆沒有演員的畫面？「如果資源就只有那麼多，沒有任何金錢和時間可以浪費，事前充足的資料搜查就顯得絕對必須，而且導演要很清楚資源的投入重點在哪。」任俠導演如此總結到，關於低成本製作的其中一個要點。
斷線風箏代表著三個年輕人逝去的生命，北上的火車通往回歸。配合著VO那一句：「世界是你們的，也是我們的，但是歸根結底是你們的⋯⋯」結尾這一幕的點題，就算放到此時此刻重溫，仍然令人感到一陣唏噓。
最後，陳果導演亦坦言，本土的市場雖然很小，但在像這樣一個供應真空的時代，或許就是創意大起飛的關鍵時刻。身處逆境才更值得去衝破，把大量的參考融會貫通，吸收成自己的東西，保持靈活和叛逆，總能殺出一條血路。