Making of "Opera"
2021-2022 was the first time I experienced a complete school year at CalArts. I learned a lot during the process of making "Opera". Here is a brief journal about the work that went behind the film.
Credits
My greatest gratitude goes out to everyone who helped me put this film together
Solar Zhu
Joy Chan
Olivia Xing
Chengqing Zhu
Ying Xin
Joe Zhang
Anthony Paras
Qi Liu
Michelle Cheng
Yang Liu
Yuzhi Chen
Daniel Eaton
Chengyuan Chen
Synopsis
"A Peking Opera troupe performs in North America for the first time. Xutian, Maomao, and Chengyuan have different feelings about their upcoming performance."
Brainstorming
During my gap year, I watched Farewell My Concubine (1993), which was actually recommended by my life-drawing teacher, so thanks Steve! Its subject and story moved me greatly, and inspired me to want to make something involving Peking Opera for my second-year film.
It was also during this time that I watched a lot of martial-arts film, including Ip Man (2008) and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (2000). So my first idea for Second-Year film was to do a short but really epic fighting sequence....
Below were the early explorations. The "short" and "epic fighting" parts obviously got scrapped lol.
I also did a series of animation tests to explore the visual style. Here is one of them.
I never developed the idea beyond the visual level. And by the time I returned to school, I have not fleshed out the boards at all, which I had hoped to finish beforehand. What resulted was me putting this idea on hold, and just going with the flow of class temporarily.
When we began to pitch ideas during film workshop, I still wanted to do something involving Peking Opera. But realizing I seriously don't know enough about the subject yet to come up with a relevant story, I decided to binge 8 episode of CCTV documentaries on Peking Opera.
The documentary gets overly dramatic and one of the episodes was a little bit agenda-heavy if you know what I mean hhhh. But it was informative and gave me lots of places to start.
Development
The documentary brought up the old custom of 拜码头, which was a early 20th century practice of visiting local gang leaders before performing at the local theatres. So my first idea was actually set in 1920s Shanghai and tells the story of a young woman who disliked the custom.
You gotta admit that the aesthetic of that era was really appealing (those 良友 posters are so good UGH) and I was hung up on it for a good while.
I wrote my first draft based on the idea. But after presenting it during screenwriting class, the story turned out to be too convoluted. It needed way too much context in order to make sense of the plot.
I did pitch along another idea for film workshop, which was the basis to "Opera". The three main characters emerged along with a focus towards conversational dialogues. HOWEVER, the first script idea was CRINGE and I am way too horrified to present it. Instead, below are some early visual development, but even this causes me pain to look at.
The script went through around I think four different iterations (the boards went through even more), and near the end of it I was very frustrated and just decided to move on. I put out posters calling for voice actors and was ready to go with the draft I had then.
When I received the first few voice actor audition files for my film, I was overwhelmed with emotions. It was kind of surreal because my character suddenly felt like real people and this project became much more legit. It gave me new motivations, but also kickstarted some anxiety...
After that I had some panic re-writing moments. Thank you especially to Michelle, Wanci, Z, and Anya for reading my horrible early drafts and telling me what worked and what didn't. In hindsight, the script part of the film felt like the hardest. The dialogue often felt either too on-the-nose or incomprehensible, making it difficult to write.
On top of that, my Chinese has gotten worse, so my dialogue did not sound natural at all. Luckily on that front however, I met Qi through the voice actor audition. She and Chengyuan (not the film character) helped me fix the script to sound more like Beijing dialect. Thank you for the help!!!
(Also a funny thing: After the film was done, Qi and other online comments pointed out that most of the final voice actors actually had a more southern accent, lol I did not realize that at all).
Note: Final script is readable upon request. Email me for access.
Recording
I think the most fortunate part of the film was that I actually found someone who could sing Peking Opera (and Kunqu). During the audition process, I had the EXTREME fortune to meet Yang, who is actually part of Character Animation and generously offered her singing talent. LITERAL LIFE SAVER.
It was also around this time that I finalized my script and I had two whole extra characters (Costumer and Crew). Huge thanks to Anthony for willing to voice act for my film and tolerating my abrupt request!
I must admit, scheduling meeting and recording time for a big team of five actors was a bit stressful. Also prior to the first meeting I had a lot of anxiety (again), but everyone was very chill and supportive which made the table read very smooth and streamlined.
Unfortunately, there was another difficulty with booking the recording session (this whole film is just struggles at this point). Due to COVID, the recording room can't allow multiple people to record at the same time, unless everyone gets a negative test proof. We therefore recorded each person one by one. I am once again forever grateful to all my voice actors for being so cooperative and patient. Thank you to CQ as well for setting up the session in A112.
It was my first time recording inside A112 and the amount of setups awed me. It was also during the recording that I really felt like a director, directing people and giving notes on what I wanted. And I was particularly picky about Maomao's "Okay" lines....
Surprisingly we finished early and we had some extra time. Thanks Olivia for doing a 方言版 version of costumer. I still have the recording and perhaps one day I'll edit an alternate version of this film haha.
Production
After retiming the animatic to the voice recording, I headed into production mode. The whole film had a total of 42 shots and the work from here was very straight forward. What was different from first year is that after some animation experience, I found a process to work efficiently and consistently.
Thanks Michelle for being my grind buddy. You keep me sane.
Music and Sound
Yang introduced me to Solar, my composer, who then introduced me to Ying, my sound designer. Thank you all for making this film sound so spectacular.
What is special about this film is that there is a singing part at the end. Yang originally sent me her previous Kunqu recordings (which were incredible), but after reworking my animatic, the softness of Kunqu did not fit the mood, so we resorted to Peking Opera.
Yang also advised me early on that, considering I have both 小生 and 花旦 characters, it might be good to choose plays featuring those roles, such as 拾玉镯 or 白蛇传. On the other hand, there were a lot of specific timing needs for the music (It needs to be loud at first, then quiets down during dialogues, gets louder again, then it lasts through the credit and ends nicely, etc etc), which required compromise.
In the end, Solar chose a segment from 将相和. To accompany the choice, I inserted the character 廉颇 into one of the short sequence. But to conclude, yeah the characters weren't putting up a specific play, either that or it's like segments from different plays for the new audience.
If you look at the design....Chengyuan and Xutian were based on the Kunqu play 牡丹亭. In addition, I referenced heavily from the versions by 单雯 and 施夏明. Below are study sketches.
On the other hand, Maomao comes from a completely different play lol. I originally planned him to portray 法海 from 白蛇传, as vaguely depicted in this early animatic sketch.
I wasn't too happy with the design so midway I explored other options and changed him to 伽蓝. And to clarify another point, the makeups for Peking Opera are done layer by layer, so Maomao's half painted face situation is kind of inaccurate as well. I designed him like that at the very beginning and it just stuck all the way through. I am well aware my choices are arbitrary and I am sorry aaaaaaaaaa
Despite my pickiness, Solar did a spectacular job on the music. Yang and I went to her house to record a rough singing version. A few days later she fine tuned the score and we scheduled another recording session at A112. ( And CQ helped with set up again!)
Another note on 将相和, Solar did have to cut off half of the second sentence in order to accommodate the timing. But regardless, watching Yang sing was mind-blowing and probably the closest I will ever get to watching a live Peking Opera performance. Wow how are people so talented.....
After the recording session, Solar invited us to eat at her house. We went to Trader Joe's to buy ingredients and we ate hot pot. IT WAS AMAZING Thank you Solar for inviting me over aaaa
Also needless to say, Solar is a wonderful composer and she's looking for work. So if you need music, go commission Solar! (suolazhu@alum.calarts.edu)
Once Ying put together the sound effects for the film, that concluded all the work for the film. The final stage was sound mixing, and it was done within the A111 theatre by Daniel Eaton. Luckily my sound designer also was at the mixing session because Pro Tools was so confusing and I understand half of the technical language lol.
Right after we finished the session and export, I checked the mix file and realized that the dialogue did not export properly. Fortunately Daniel hasn't left yet so he stayed after to fix the file PHEW.
Also thanks Daniel for updating and sending me the newly calibrated mix, you didn't have to do it and I appreciate it a lot.
Open Show
It was a relief once I finally submitted my film. My head was empty and I am just glad I brought it to a finish. All that's left is to enjoy everyone's film at the open show.
It was my first ever open show and I felt a genuine excitement that had been missing for the past two years. I haven't seen so many of my classmates all together in one setting. The show was held outdoors this year, and it was cold on the first day, and I did have to run back to get extra jackets, but it was incredible.
What's special about the show is that you can hear people's audible reaction. After being numb to your film for so long, hearing people laugh at the right place and watching their reactions makes the filmmaking experience so much more meaningful.
Thank you again to everyone who helped me on this film, you are the true team behind the performance.
Extras
Silly little comics made for fun.
