An Improvised Adventure Created in the streets of Shanghai, China

(Click above image to play movie.)

This 17 minute video short features Lauren Muney (as Charlie Chaplin) and was created at the Kimtom International Clown Festival in Shanghai, China in October of 2007.

I shot the footage using my Sony consumer miniDV camera and edits were done in iMovie. Using my improvisational camera techniques, this was shot spontaneously following the actor improvising scenes with spectators around Shanghai as we went from our hotel near Century Park to a restaurant in the Hongkou District where there is a life size statue of Charlie Chaplin which commemorates Chaplin's visits to China in the 1930's.

By pausing the camera in between recorded footage, panning in and panning out, most of the edits were created "on-the-go." So as the actor improvised in real time, I took footage in real time, running in front of the actor, along side, or shooting from behind as I saw interesting shots emerge. We went back a few days later and shot the scenes in the park to add a beginning to the piece and the makeup sequence at the end. Then we added Chinese subtitles with the help of one of our Chinese translators at the Kimtom International Clown Festival.

In total, Chaplin Returns to Shanghai was shot with less than 45 minutes of raw footage which is interesting to keep in mind when viewing the piece. In iMovie, I mostly went through and cleaned things up between edits and added some basic effects and title cards in the old silent film style imported from Photoshop. Our sound man at the Kimtom Festival, Andy Rinehart, lent us some appropriate music tracks that we imported including "Jeannette" by Gus Viseur and "Hommage A Gerard Lajoie" by Rejean Simard.

We held off on rendering any footage to black and white until Charlie enters the gates of the Hongkou District where, in his mind, he is going back in time to visit his memories of Old Shanghai. Lauren's identity as a woman is also not revealed until the very end of the piece where we rendered a reverse makeup sequence. Also, this was my first ever chance to work on a story line concept which I found to be refreshing after capturing so many straightforward 'live' events.

More information on Lauren Muney is available at:
www.snakeoilproductions.com

More information on Kimtom is available at:
www.kimtom.cn