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| May 2000 Movie masterminds Magicians at work By Janet Chan Article from the same
section: Directors do more than shoot films. In many eyes, directors are the ones who decide everything. But filmmaking is teamwork, and communication is most important. Considered an active commercial filmmaker, Joe Ma has participated in more than 30 movies as scriptwriter, director or producer in the past 13 years. He wrote his first script for a drama when he was still in Form 6. This was his first step in the film industry. This debut script later became a box office hit called Happy Ghost. In 1994 he directed his first movie, Over the Rainbow Under the Sky. In 1999, he set up his own production house. His latest project was Juliet in Love, for which he was the producer. Question: Why did you switch from scriptwriting to directing? Answer: I enjoyed writing script, but at the same time it was very boring. I had meetings with directors every day. Then I needed to immerse myself in piles of paper and wrote the script out. The job nature made me feel alienated. I couldn’t stand that any longer. Being a director is an ideal choice because he can contact everyone in the filmmaking crew. Q: Do you have any particular message in your movies to be transmitted to your audience? A: I just want to bring a good feeling to audience. That’s all. I will be delighted as long as I can make my audience happy and entertained. Also, I’d like to remind people of the innocence and naiveness of their childhood. That’s why most characters in my movies are very childish. Q: What are the criteria to be a good director in Hong Kong? A: Creativity is important. But having creativity alone isn’t sufficient. A director must know how to arrange and coordinate every little thing smoothly. Unlike Hollywood where a completed script is the pre-requisite of a production, most Hong Kong productions have to start before the script is totally completed. Also, there will be many sudden changes. For instance, a director may have expected eight hours from the actor but the actor may turn out to leave four hours early for a press conference. The schedule or even the whole story may have to be amended. Thus, a director must be flexible and adaptable. A good director can turn a bad script to a good story, and amateurs to professional actors. On the contrary, when a good script falls into the hands of a bad director, the movie turns into a disaster. Q: Could you make an analogy for Hong Kong movies? A: I think a movie can be everything. It can be a source of entertainment or a form of art. It can be something that makes you want to watch again and again, or something that makes you fall asleep. It can even be incomprehensible. There is no standardized definition of movies. Q: What do you think about your counterparts and colleagues in the industry? A: Some investors are really shortsighted and conservative. They won’t consider the genuine prospect of a movie except profitability. An “award winning” script with little chance to make profit would unlikely become a movie. Fortunately, thanks to some good scriptwriters, directors can still make good movies with a limited budget. Recently examples are Stanley Kwan’s Tale of an Island and Ann Hui’s Ordinary Heroes. They are the minority but they do make a difference. About my colleagues, they are very energetic and hardworking. They are passionate about movies. The actors are also quite professional. Most of them are punctual, obedient and willing to discuss things with directors. Q: Do you have any unforgettable experience in making films? A: Conflicts with actors are always unforgettable. I remember one time I asked an actor to beat an actress with a lash in a comedic way. However, due to the lack of communication, the actor felt very embarrassed and started to scold the assistant director and me angrily. Sometimes the crew may have to shoot from 7 at night till 6 in the morning. When the sun rises and we still have not yet finished the scheduled shots, we get so nervous. At that moment, breakfast is distributed among the crew. The atmosphere in the location becomes complex: worrisome, yet warm. An alternative director in the mainstream, as people refer to him, Stanley Kwan won many awards in the Hong Kong Film Awards and the Berlin Film Festival. In the late ’70s, he was working at TVB, where he met the “new wave” directors like Ann Hui and Tsui Hak. In the early ’80s when the “wave” was flowing into filmmaking, he joined them and worked as an assistant director. In 1984, he was given the chance to direct his first movie, Women. Q: Do you have any mission when working as a director? A: I don’t have my mission well defined. The responsibility would be too much for me if I had to make any mission the first priority. Rather, I enjoy the process of filmmaking because it helps me understand and identify myself better through the interaction with the crew. My open-minded colleagues are very important in this sense. As a gay with a Christian education, I underwent a severe struggle before I had the courage to come out. Q: How do you choose the themes for your movies? A: I do not decide the nature of a movie as comedy, tragedy or thriller in advance. Most of my past movies were developed from the personality of characters. I tried to get ideas from people around me and sometimes I might use them as the role models for my movies. I believe that after I’ve created the characters, their personality would naturally give birth to a lively story. I am more interested in the characters than merely attractive stories. Q: Is it difficult for newcomers to enter the industry as directors? A: It’s not as difficult as you might expect. Usually, being an assistant director is the starting point. With some agreement with producers, the directing job wouldn't be so remote. A producer may prepare a script and assign a new director to the movie with a very limited budget. The director may not have a say over the movie’s message, though. If his work is not too bad and the movie makes money, another script may be waiting for him. Sometimes, I face more obstacles finding investors than the newcomers do since I’m labelled as an “alternative” director. Q: Many people think that Hong Kong movies are only for entertainment, and thus insignificant. What do you think? A: True. But it is not restricted to Hong Kong. Movies are not pure art as sculpture. But I believe an ideal movie can be entertaining and at the same time provide audience with some stimulation or insights. Movies also serve as a kind of historical record. Before the Handover, some movies used comedy to express the anxiety of Hong Kong people, like His Fatal Ways, directed by Alfred Cheung. They drew a clear boundary between local people and Mainland immigrants, subconsciously projecting the worries about the Handover. While newspapers record and analyze current affairs in a factual way, movies do the same in a creative way. Movies reflect the reality. Q: What do you feel if others misinterpret the underlying meaning of your movies? A: As a director, I don’t mind how the audience interprets my movies. I can’t tell if the audience misinterprets my movies, as movies should provide plenty room for imagination. The same movie can be viewed from different angles to arrive at different conclusions. Sometimes the “misinterpretation” may be my subconscious thoughts and I’m glad to discover them. In fact, the individualized interpretation is the most interesting point of movies. Q: Some say Hong Kong movies have died. A: When Hong Kong people are “starved” from local movies for a long time, a really good local movie will make the filmmaking industry reborn. |
Mr. Joe Ma (Tom Ho)
Mr. Stanley Kwan (Tom Ho) |
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