Two shorts films – fruits of nine months of hard work by students and teachers from TNUA's Department of Filmmaking and Chapman University's Dodge College of Film and Media Art – were screened through video-conferencing on April 20.
Apart from screening “The Innocent Desire,”and “A Sick Plant,” the video-conference between the TNUA and Chapman sides also showed behind-the-scene clips of the making of the films, and opened to discussions.
Attending the screening were: Prof. Wang Tung, chairman of the Department of Filmmaking, as well as Prof. Lee Daw-Ming, Prof. Chang Chan and Prof. Jim Shum and students from TNUA; and Prof. Michael Kowalski from Chapman.
Both sides also decided to sign another memorandum of understanding at TNUA in October to turn such exchange into a regular joint filmmaking project every two years.
“The Innocent Desire”is a 28-minute film by the TNUA team, while“A Sick Plant”by the Chapman crew is 14 minutes long.
The filmmaking processes show how different cultures affect the teams' approaches and choices of subject matters.
For example, the Chapman team, working in an environment with an advance film industry, observed strict work rules: no more than 12 hours a day and anything unfinished would be left finished when the time was up.
The TNUA side started their production with a traditional prayer session, and shooting would never stop until the director decided it was a good take. It was like 24-7 work.
The joint filmmaking exchange activity between TNUA and Chapman started in 2009. The two films screened last month were results of their second collaboration project.