Huayu: A master director who debuted as a singer

Chapter 105 MV Shooting

Throughout April, Zheng Hui's life was divided into two distinct halves.

Halfway through, at the Ya Wang Recording Studio, together with the best musicians in Hong Kong, we completed the album "Half a Lifetime".

The other half was spent in the conference room of Universal Music, repeatedly refining the visual presentation of each song with several Hong Kong MV directors brought in by Zheng Donghan.

In mid-April, he even managed to squeeze out a day and a half from this packed schedule.

Accompanied by Lin Dashan, he returned to Macau for a medical examination (yes, a medical examination is also required for applying for the Joint Entrance Examination). Then he submitted the application form for the Joint Entrance Examination for Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and Overseas Chinese to the Chinese Education Association, and then rushed back to Hong Kong on the earliest ferry.

The recording process went smoothly. When Zheng Hui had clearly planned out the lyrics, composition, arrangement, and even the emotional tone of an album, all that was left was to execute it.

Zheng Hui knew what kind of tone was needed for the guitar solo in "The Nameless," and he also knew in which measure the string accompaniment in "Father" should subtly begin.

For several songs, Universal Music, following Cheng Tung-han's instructions, booked an entire string section of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra.

When Zheng Hui stood in the recording studio, watching the conductor raise his baton and the bows of more than a dozen top musicians move in unison across the strings, and the rich, authentic sound of the strings surged into his monitoring headphones through the mixing console, he knew that this album was a success.

It is no longer a bunch of cold data and MIDI modules; it has breath, it has warmth, and it has a soul that can penetrate people's hearts.

Meanwhile, the filming of the music video was also proceeding at a rapid pace.

In the conference room, Zheng Donghan said to Zheng Hui, "This album is not just for you; it's for all the ordinary people in the world who are struggling in life."

"I invited several directors in Hong Kong who are currently best at shooting documentary-style films, GG films, and emotional short films. They split into several groups and started working on the projects simultaneously."

All you need to do is control the final artistic direction and film the two or three songs where you're supposed to appear. Leave the rest to the professional team!

Zheng Hui was naturally happy to have some free time and readily agreed to the plan.

Therefore, the music video shooting took place simultaneously in Hong Kong and Beijing throughout April.

The film crew of "Drifting to the North" went to Beijing in April.

The director, a Hong Konger with a background in documentary filmmaking, didn't visit the Great Wall or the Forbidden City. Instead, he focused his camera on Beijing West Railway Station at six in the morning.

A surging crowd, faces still sleepy yet hopeful, carrying woven bags, poured off the green train and into this vast and unfamiliar city.

The camera follows a young man who has just gotten off the train. He squeezes onto the train and looks out the window at the tall buildings rushing past as the train lurches along.

He moved into a basement in Yanjiao, where newspapers were pasted on the walls and the only light source was the light bulb overhead.

He dozed off on the bus, wolfed down noodles with soybean paste at a roadside stall, and stood blankly on the overpass after being rejected for a job interview, looking down at the endless stream of cars.

All the scenes have a sense of realism.

When the last line of the song, "Are your family members alright?", played, the director didn't give the young man's face a close-up, but instead used an empty shot to transition to it—

The scene shows a small town in the south, a balcony with clothes hanging out to dry, and shirts swaying in the wind.

The camera then zooms in inside, revealing a dining table covered with a blue checkered tablecloth, with three sets of bowls and chopsticks on it, but no one is around.

The film crew of "Father's Prose Poems" found a construction site in Hong Kong.

The director had only one requirement: everything had to be real.

He found a real father who had worked as a bricklayer on construction sites for twenty years, and a child who had just started second grade.

There was no script, no lines; the cinematographer simply used a film camera to quietly record the scene.

It records how the father's calloused and scarred hands clumsily peeled an apple for his child.

The document shows a child holding his father's dirty safety helmet and wearing it on his head like a crown.

The document shows a child doing homework at a small table under dim light, while the father watches from the side, his eyes filled with a complex mix of love, guilt, and expectation.

The entire music video was shot on black and white film. After being developed, the images have a grainy and vintage feel, like a series of moving old photographs, quietly telling the story of a father's silent, unwavering love.

The remaining music videos, in which Zheng Hui doesn't appear at all, were creatively adapted by several directors.

"The Nameless Man" was made into a pure ensemble film, paying tribute to every ordinary worker.

The sanitation worker sweeping the streets at four in the morning, the female factory worker on night shift in the textile factory amidst the roar of machinery, the chef sweating profusely in the kitchen smoke and flames, the nurse rushing through the hospital corridor—

The faces of ordinary people flash by to the accompaniment of soothing music. There are no lines, but the focus and weariness on their faces are the best stories.

"The Nameless" was filmed as a rock-style street montage.

The camera rapidly switches between scenes on the street, at construction sites, in night markets, and in underpasses.

Gas delivery workers struggled to pedal their tricycles through the torrential rain, construction workers toiled on the scaffolding of buildings, a couple of night market vendors bickered while tacitly packing food for customers, and a street musician strummed a broken guitar and sang hoarsely into the empty passageway.

Every scene is brimming with the wildness and indomitable spirit of life.

"People Like Me" was transformed into a highly artistic black-and-white slow-motion film by a director who excels at shooting introspective monologues.

The camera slowly pans across the faces of ordinary people.

There are office workers clinging to the handrails on crowded buses and trams, their faces expressionless; there are housewives arguing with vendors over a few cents at the market; and there are elderly people watching others play chess alone in the park.

Their eyes held a mix of confusion, numbness, and despair.

When the song reached the line "How many people like me, who have accomplished nothing, have you seen?", the camera gave a close-up of a groomsman at the wedding, watching the newlyweds cry tears of joy while he secretly wiped away tears in a corner.

The music video for "Dad and Mom" ​​features countless heartwarming family scenes.

The mother's busy figure in the kitchen, the father's clumsy attempts to teach his child to ride a bicycle, the warm scene of the whole family gathered around the TV watching a show—

These scenes were all performed by ordinary people or unknown actors, without a single celebrity, yet they reminded everyone who saw them of their own home.

As for "Old Boy" and "Once Upon a Time," they include footage of Zheng Hui singing in the recording studio.

The music video for "Old Boys" uses a lot of cross-cutting.

One second, a few teenagers in school uniforms were running freely on the basketball court; the next second, a few middle-aged men with beer bellies were clinking glasses at a dinner table, their faces bearing professional fake smiles.

One second ago, the boy was riding a bicycle with his beloved girl on the back, the wind blowing her long hair.

The next second, a man was driving a car, with a crying child and an impatient wife sitting in the passenger seat.

The memories of youth and the realities of middle age are like two sharp knives, cutting back and forth in the hearts of the audience.

As these stark contrasts unfold, the scene cuts to the recording studio.

In the dark recording studio, only a beam of light shone on Zheng Hui. With his eyes closed and headphones on, he sang into the microphone: "Youth is like a rushing river, gone forever, before we can even say goodbye—"

He was merely a detached narrator, singing a dirge for this grand funeral of youth.

"Once Upon a Time in You" was filmed as a road movie.

The camera starts in Hong Kong and travels north along the national highway.

The bustling Victoria Harbour, the rural fields of Guangdong, the layered mountains of Hunan, the vast river of Hubei, all the way to the desolation of the Loess Plateau.

The scenery changed rapidly along the way. A silent man sat in the car, just looking out the window and occasionally lighting a cigarette.

At the climax of the music, the scene cuts back to the recording studio, where Zheng Hui sings into the microphone: "I once dreamed of traveling the world with a sword, to see the splendor of the world—"

His singing blended perfectly with the vast landscape outside the car window.

The music video for "Father" takes an emotional approach.

The director placed an advertisement in the newspaper, seeking real fathers and sons or fathers and daughters.

Finally, they selected three pairs.

The couple consists of a retired police officer father watching his son graduate from police academy and put on his uniform.

One couple consists of ordinary fathers who toss and turn in bed, unable to sleep, on the eve of their daughters' weddings in a tenement building.

There was another couple, a single father who drove a taxi night shift every day and could only catch a brief glimpse of his son as he prepared to go to school during his shift change in the early morning.

The music video captured their most genuine emotional expressions.

On the day his son left to report to the police station, the usually stern and unsmiling old policeman father, watching his son's back, couldn't hold back his tears as the door closed.

On the day his daughter was to receive the wedding tea, the father stuffed gold jewelry and a red envelope into her hands, then silently retreated to the outside of the noisy crowd, hiding in a narrow corner of the staircase, covering his face, his shoulders shaking violently.

The father, who drives a taxi on the night shift, hurriedly ate macaroni at a tea restaurant. He watched his son, who had packed his schoolbag and was about to catch the minibus, stuff a few crumpled coins into his pocket and repeatedly told him, "Dad needs to catch up on sleep during the day, come home early after school, and study hard."

These tear-jerking scenes are intertwined with the image of Zheng Hui singing passionately with his eyes closed in the recording studio.

The music video reached its peak impact when the lyrics "Time, time, slow down, don't let you get old anymore" were sung.

In this music video where the singer seems to be absent, only "Sorrow" and "The Wind Rises" require Zheng Hui to personally appear and perform.

The filming of "Sorrow" was scheduled for midnight in late April.

The location is a street food stall in Mong Kok.

The people sitting around were all extras that the crew had found in advance. In order to pursue a sense of realism, the director deliberately chose all unfamiliar faces.

Among them were construction workers covered in dust, who had taken off their shoes, sat cross-legged, and were eating stir-fried beef noodles with gusto.

There were young couples sitting in the corner, crying and talking on the phone, who had just broken up with their boyfriends.

There was a middle-aged man alone, who ordered a plate of peanuts and drank his sorrows away in a cup of wine.

The camera captured all of this with its lens.

Zheng Hui picked up his guitar and began to play and sing.

"One cup to the rising sun, one cup to the moonlight—"

His singing wasn't loud, just enough to drown out the surrounding noise.

The surrounding extras were initially performing their respective actions according to the script.

But gradually, some people unconsciously stopped eating, some put down their wine glasses, and their eyes were drawn to this place uncontrollably.

"One cup to my hometown, one cup to distant lands—"

Zheng Hui's eyes swept over the middle-aged man drinking alone.

The director immediately signaled to the cameraman to cut to a close-up of the man's eyes. Those eyes conveyed a sense of loneliness and weariness.

"One glass to tomorrow, one glass to the past—"

With his fourth glass of wine, Zheng Hui's gaze fell on the arguing couple. The girl was crying her eyes out, and the boy was at a loss, completely caught up in his emotions.

Eight cups of wine, corresponding to eight different people.

Every time Zheng Hui sang about a glass of wine, the director would cut the camera to an extra's expressive eyes.

The workers' exhaustion, the heartbreak of those who have lost love, the numbness of middle-aged people, the sorrow of small vendors—

The last shot of the music video slowly zooms out and rises.

The people at the food stall gradually dispersed, the tables and chairs were put away, leaving only Zheng Hui and the owner who was silently clearing away the dishes.

The city's neon lights appeared particularly lonely behind them.

The day after filming "Sorrow", Zheng Hui followed the filming crew and drove to the countryside in Yuen Long to film "The Wind Rises".

Gone is the hustle and bustle of the city; in its place are newly planted rice paddies and a gentle spring breeze.

Zheng Hui changed into a white shirt, looking like a college student returning from vacation.

He walked along a country road, with the camera following him closely, neither too close nor too far.

The wind blows across the paddy fields, creating green waves.

Several elementary school students, who had just finished school, ran past him laughing and joking, one of them even turning back to look at him curiously.

He passed by rows of old village houses, their walls covered in moss, with old men dozing at the doorways.

Zheng Hui walked slowly, looking around as if searching for something.

The first half of the music video is full of freshness and beauty.

The rhythm becomes more intense in the latter half of the music.

"I once poured my youth into her, and I once played the notes of summer with my fingertips—"

Zheng Hui stopped in front of a house at the entrance of the village.

He gently pushed open the door and went inside.

The yard was very clean, clearly someone cleaned it regularly. But inside, there was no one.

He stood in the middle of the courtyard, the wind blowing in through the open gate, ruffling his shirt and tousling his hair.

He raised his head, looking at the sky, his eyes filled with a mixture of bewilderment and relief.

The camera slowly pans from behind him to his face.

Then, the frame freezes.

April 28th, Hong Kong.

Inside the Yawang Recording Studio, when the master tape of the last song was finished, the mixing staff gave Zheng Hui an OK sign, marking the completion of the album titled "Half a Lifetime".

That same afternoon, in the screening room at Universal Music's headquarters, Zheng Donghan and a group of company executives watched the final edited versions of eleven music videos.

When the lights in the screening room came on, no one spoke.

Several veterans who had fought alongside Zheng Donghan for many years were even secretly wiping their eyes with the backs of their hands.

"Mr. Zheng," the marketing director began, "this album—if this album is released, people will die."

The "dead" he referred to wasn't sales figures, but rather its emotional impact on the audience.

Zheng Donghan stood up and gave orders to all the senior executives.

"From this moment forward, everyone in the publicity department, marketing department, and distribution department is canceling their vacations!"

"Contact the pressing factory immediately! I need them to operate 24/7! The initial order is one million CDs and three million cassette tapes!"

"To all media outlets, we are announcing that the Universal Music signing press conference on May 1st will not be a simple signing ceremony."

Zheng Donghan paused, his gaze sweeping over everyone: "It is a storm that will be recorded in the history of Chinese music."

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