What We Talk About When We Talk About Lights, Camera, and Action is a satire of ourselves as young filmmakers. It is a story about a young aspiring filmmaker returning to China to direct his first feature. He struggles against the rest of the cast and crew, trying to pitch his new screenplay as the production starts to fall apart. The film won New York Film Awards’ Best Acting Ensemble and Best Student Film (Honorable Mention).

《骑驴找马 – 当我们谈论电影时在谈论什么》是一部自嘲我们年轻电影人的短片，讲述了一位新人导演初次回国拍片的经历，男主演炸组、场地毁约，事情渐渐失去了控制，迫使导演另辟蹊径，甚至不惜与制片方和其他剧组成员发生关于商业性和艺术性的激烈冲突。

ROLE:
Director, Original Story,
Title Designer
导演、原创故事、片头设计

TIME:
2019 – 2020

PRESENTED BY:
New York University
Tisch School of the Arts
& New York Film Academy
纽约大学帝势艺术学院
纽约电影学院

DURATION:
14 Min

FEATURED AWARDS:
NewFilmmakers Los Angeles, Official Selection
New York Film Awards, Best Acting Ensemble
New York Film Awards, Best Student Film, Honorable Mention
新电影人洛杉矶，入选作品
纽约电影奖，最佳群戏表演
纽约电影奖，最佳学生导演提名

SPECIAL THANKS:
Shelby Zhang，Producer
Helen Cao，Producer
Yifan Wen，Cinematographer
Ruochong Wang，Writer
& the rest of cast and crew
张梓琪 曹方达，制片人
文一帆，摄影指导
王若冲，编剧
以及所有剧组成员

Links:
IMDb Movie Review

Poster Design

The literal Chinese translation of the movie title is “riding donkey seeking horse.” When designing the title, I hid the Chinese letter standing for “seeking” to let the audience seek it because the movie tells a story of seeking the desired outcome: a film crew tries to make a good movie. The design intends to raise awareness of such an unexpected and struggling process of seeking.

成语骑驴找马里“找”这个字值得琢磨，作为电影人我们努力去寻找脑海里所谓的完美故事，影片里新人导演被剧组成员反复唾弃的剧本，制作完成首映后居然大获成功，马虽然”找”到，但在残酷和荒诞交织的现实中，每个人“找”马的过程各有不同，或许是情愿的，或许是被迫的。我希望通过影片的视觉设计，让观众努力去寻找“找”本身的意义。