Film producer’s inspiration came from afar
Print Edition
WHEN she was 16, Zoe Chen was very attracted to Scarlett, with a tough mentality under her pretty appearance, despite the sharp differences between the world of “Gone with the Wind” and her very ordinary high school life.
Chen could not help but watch the movie over and over again with her friends. “I felt so connected though we led different lives,” says the Shanghai native. “I believe that’s probably the magic of cinema.”
As a producer for years, Chen was invited to be a judge of the MPA (Motion Picture Association) APSA (Asia Pacific Screen Awards) Academy Film Fund. She helped select four winners out of the 100 applicants, who got funds to develop their projects.
“Don’t do anything that you don’t have a feel for it. That’s my motto in producing,” says Chen.
Graduating from the Shanghai Conservatory of Music with a major in Western classic music theory, Chen got a position at Shanghai TV Station in the 1990s as it planned to initiate a number of music programs. Since it was a new type of program, Chen was given lots of leeway. The result was a successful trial, with some of her programs winning awards in the city.
“I liked the creative work and enjoyed talking with the guys who can help realize my ideas,” says Chen.
Though still quite fresh at the TV station, Chen’s work was well-recognized. Nevertheless, she quickly grew dissatisfied.
“Keeping making programs for higher positions was a steady career path for most TV station staff at the time,” says Chen, “But for me, a person in 20s, I wanted more than that — I wanted to see the world before setting my route.”
Chen went to London to study at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 1998, while getting internships at the BBC, Channel 4 and ITV. That was when she came to see the sharp differences between producing jobs in the West and China.
“Back in Shanghai, I didn’t have to worry about anything except bringing creative ideas to the programs, as other things like the budget were approved in advance. But in the UK, we had to get everything under control so that the program could be accomplished. The skills to negotiate and convince regardless of cultural differences were probably the biggest gain from my stay in the UK.”
The next step for Chen was to start producing movies. Working for the Ruddy Morgan Organization to co-produce the TV series “Flat Land” in 2001, Chen was recruited to a preparatory team for its Shanghai branch, tasked with exploring the Chinese market for commercial movies.
It was a difficult job at first, as China’s film industry was not yet very commercial, says Chen. Many directors cared only about the artistic value, while the investors wanted a strong box-office return. Chen helped build a bridge between some overseas producers and the Chinese market.
It was not until 2004 that she started to work as a professional associate producer on a Chinese commercial movie, “Perhaps Love,” by Hong Kong director Peter Chan.
“It was still an initial
period for commercial movies in China. As a business person, I had to balance between art creation and money-making,” says Chen.
It was set to be a musical, and much work needed to be done to help Chinese audiences accept the unfamiliar style. Setting the story line as a sad romance of Beijing drifters and keeping all the musical parts without interrupting the story were necessary to customize the product to Chinese audiences.
“We did not follow the general tide, but we also chose not to be too far ahead of the curve, lest we get blocked from the audiences,” says Chen.
With more than 40 million yuan at the box office, “Perhaps Love” broke the record for a Chinese artistic film in 2005.
Chen has continued to work on big productions such as “Protege” (2007), “The Warlords” (2007) and “My Kingdom” (2011). But foreign movies accounted for two-thirds of the box-office take in China before 2007, when the Chinese market for commercial films started to grow. Now the domestic market accounts for more than two-thirds of the general box office in most years.
“I believe that there are always some universal values that touch people everywhere, regardless of their cultural background,” says Chen. “Even though we target the Chinese market, the movie will get its access to the other market as long as it is a good one. It is just like the hundreds of Hollywood movies that once impressed us in childhood.”
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