In the blink of an eye during the Ghost Festival, where did the Golden Earl trophy come from? How to design ticket stubs? Cinema | Bright | Trophy at the 30th "Light" Annual Exhibition
On June 9th, the 25th Shanghai International Film Festival is about to open. On the morning of June 6th, the reporter had not yet walked into the historic Daguang Cinema and could already feel the atmosphere of the film festival. The huge layout chart at the entrance, with this year's poster as the background, features popular shows such as "Gone with the Wind", "The Last Emperor", "The Godfather", "The Dog God Family", etc., prominently labeled with the word "full". Climbing up the stairs, a themed banner is placed on the right side of the escalator, with the names of the Best Picture and the Chairman of the Jury for each Golden Jubilee at the film festival.
On that day, the "Thirty Years of Light - Shanghai International Film Festival Thirty Year Exhibition" was officially launched at the Shanghai Daguang Cinema. Numerous official and fan collections from the Shanghai Film Festival awakened fans' memories of the relationship between movies and this city.
The Five Dynasties Golden Earl Trophy Gathers Together
In 1993, at the Shanghai International Film Festival, the first audition was held. At that time, the chairman of Jin Jue was the famous director Xie Jin, and the best film was "Silent Hill". In the past 30 years, this only A-class international film festival in China, which has grown from scratch, has gone through a period of growth. You can explore it from the exhibits at the Daguang Cinema.
After passing through a themed banner, we enter the fan salon on the second floor of the Great Bright. In this relatively small exhibition space, the theme posters of previous Shanghai Film Festival are arranged in a row, with cultural value collections such as badges, commemorative cards, film festival ticket stubs, and commemorative stamps silently telling the 30-year development process of Shanghai Film Festival.
The most eye-catching thing is undoubtedly the gathering of the 5th generation Golden Earl Trophy in the display cabinet. The staff at the initial stage of the Shanghai Film Festival introduced that there were many plans for naming the "Golden Jue Award" back then, including the Pujiang Cup and the Shenhua Cup. Finally, they drew inspiration from the Book of Songs and chose the iconic "Golden Jue Wine Cup" from the Bronze Age of China, reflecting the traditional cultural connotations of ancient Eastern civilization. The design of the first generation Golden Earl trophy can also reflect the creativity of that year - the initial idea of the Shanghai Film Festival was to wrap film film under the Golden Earl trophy, but unfortunately, due to the film not hanging properly and the poor effect, it was finally decided to use a metal film to shape the base.
The current fifth generation trophy, from the base to the cup, has undergone many optimizations. The concept of the Jin Jue Cup originated from the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties, but the design of the wine cup used was based on the Ming Dynasty's Supreme Jue Cup as the master version. The latest version of the Jue Cup was simplified according to modern techniques, while the base was designed with the concept of crystal stone, meaning "native gold" in the Five Elements. On the one hand, it symbolizes that "the art of film and television is the result of repeated carving and hard work", and on the other hand, it is also convenient for the winner to hold.
Following the principle that the Shanghai International Film Festival is a "people's festival", the "Thirty Years of Light" exhibition placed fans in an important position at the beginning of its planning and creativity. The exhibition is themed "SIFF and I" and aims to collect collections and stories from a wide range of fans. The ticket stubs, posters, souvenirs, and signatures exhibited today all originate from the collections of Shanghai cinema fans. "After the collection activity was launched, fans actively participated and provided thousands of collections, each containing a love for movies," said the staff of the Shanghai Film Festival.
72 year old veteran fan collects ticket stubs from previous film festivals
The reporter saw at the scene that a large photo frame hanging on the wall had all the ticket stubs from the first to the 24th Shanghai Film Festival, which were collected by veteran fan Mei Haixing. In 1993, when the Shanghai International Film Festival was first established, the ticket stub had not yet printed the words "Shanghai International Film Festival". Mei Haixing watched at least 5 movies in a row at the Victory Art Cinema at that time, and he kept the handwritten film list at that time.
Mei Haixing is 72 years old this year. When the first Shanghai Film Festival was held, he worked at the Maritime Safety Bureau and his workplace was at the Bund Customs Building. He lives on Miyun Road near Tongji University. He still remembers that on his way home from work, when he turned his bike to the Victory Cinema near Zhapu Road Bridge, he saw the cinema pulling out a banner that read "The First Shanghai International Film Festival". At that time, propaganda was not as overwhelming as it is now. Newspapers such as the Liberation Daily published some news, and I didn't pay much attention until I saw this banner and remembered it, so I bought a few tickets. The ticket price was 10 yuan per ticket, which was not much different from the 8 yuan and 10 yuan movie prices at that time. The tickets for the first edition were regular movie tickets, while the tickets for the second edition were exclusive to the Shanghai International Film Festival. However, the tickets for the first to eighth editions did not indicate the title of the film. Later, the title, director, lead actor, and screening time on the tickets were all available, becoming more and more specialized.
Mei Haixing left behind a ticket stub, which was collected for decades, and for the following 30 years, he never missed any film festivals. In his collection, there are particularly precious first film festival opening commemorative covers, commemorative stamps, and newspaper front page headlines; There are also historical film schedules and citizen viewing manuals, which are collected and contain a thick collection of 15 books, making it a chronicle of the citizen version of the Shanghai Film Festival.
The most memorable character of Mei Haixing is Italian director Maurizio Chara. In his 10th Shanghai Film Festival collection, there is a photo of two people together, with the ticket stub of Wanda Cinema from Wujiaochang on June 22, 2007 attached below the photo. "The screening was of the Italian film" Kletzsche Sonata ", and the director talked to over 200 audience members for 40 minutes about the social phenomena, marital and family relationships involved in this family ethics film. Laughter was constant during the meeting, and the director patiently answered questions from film fans. His seriousness deeply moved me." Now retired Mei Haixing has moved to Songjiang for retirement and has frequently watched movies in Songjiang in recent years. ". "Watching movies at film festivals, I see old age from middle age, and as I watch them, I become younger. Watching the growth of film festivals brings new ideas every year, and fans have endless fun."
In this exhibition, Zhang Zhiming, who has served the Shanghai International Film Festival for more than 20 years, provided a rare blank ticket version of the festival. He is the director of Shanghai Baoshan Translation Printing Factory, which provides film ticket printing for the festival.
Zhang Zhiming remembers that in the 1990s, all movie tickets in Shanghai were printed at two printing factories designated by the film regulatory department, and the translation factory was one of them. "Large cinemas like the Great Bright Cinema printed movie tickets here. Back then, there were no computers, and the ticket versions used by cinemas were all manually typeset. Each movie had to create a separate template containing hall, row, and seat information and put it on the printing machine." At the beginning of the second edition, the tickets of each exhibition cinema were labeled with the name of the film festival. Starting from the fourth edition in 1999, we began to cooperate with the film festival to print special movie tickets for the Shanghai International Film Festival. We had to proofread seat information more carefully because it was manually typeset at that time, and we had to avoid any possible "duplicate numbers" and prevent errors. "Zhang Zhiming said. The computer printing of movie tickets, which is now commonplace for audiences, first appeared at the 9th Shanghai International Film Festival in 2006.
After the evolution of movie tickets to only require printing a blank background, Zhang Zhiming began to pay attention to the cultural elements on the ticket surface. The ticket designers have started to design based on the main poster elements of the film festival, giving it a clear cultural identity. For example, the 22nd edition of the ticket is very special, with the main poster element of the Monkey King lifting the curtain on the bottom plate, and the festival lettering has changed from a traditional horizontal row to a vertical row, which is very cultural. Nowadays, the ticket version of the film festival is very particular, not only to look good, but also to have anti-counterfeiting functions. "Ordinary movie tickets are 80 * 85mm in size, while movie festivals are 80 * 200mm in size. Initially, 237 grams of thermal paper were used, but after collaborating with ticketing platforms, in order to facilitate self-service ticket machines to dispense tickets, they were replaced with 140 grams." Zhang Zhiming revealed that if movie fans want to collect thicker texture movie festival tickets, they can choose to print them at the counter using 200 grams of thermal paper.
Welcome to the Film Festival, Da Guangming Cinema previews ahead of schedule
For the Shanghai International Film Festival, the Shanghai Daguang Cinema located on Nanjing West Road also holds special significance. This landmark cinema, designed by Hudak and with a history of nearly a century, has witnessed the decades long development of the Shanghai International Film Festival.
Hu Chen, Deputy Manager of Daguang Cinema, introduced that during the Shanghai Film Festival, Daguang will restart the popular film and poster exhibition of the festival, which was once interrupted during the epidemic. As a reserved program of Daguang Cinema, it is a classic check-in spot in the minds of many movie fans.
Like many movie festival theaters, the screening equipment and subtitle machines at the Daguang Cinema have been debugged and repaired, and any problems found have been replaced in a timely manner. Regular hardware equipment such as ticket machines are also regularly maintained. It is worth mentioning that Daguang has a unique "Thousand People Hall", where many premiere films of the Shanghai Film Festival hold their meetings. "This year is the first year of resuming offline international exchanges. Currently, the itinerary of international filmmakers is still being finalized one after another. We will actively coordinate and cooperate with the organizing committee of the film festival, and do a good job in organizing the meeting." Hu Chen introduced that cinema meeting meetings usually judge the passenger flow based on the popularity of the main creative guests and make safety preparations in advance. "Considering the high attendance rate of the films, it is easy to create a flow of people during the closing ceremony. It is necessary to evacuate the flow of people as quickly as possible, and some special protection personnel will also be invited to maintain order. Currently, the Daguang Cinema has conducted on-site rehearsals to address these situations.".
Da Guangming Cinema has been involved in the first Shanghai International Film Festival and has grown together with the Shanghai Film Festival. In the past 10 years of working at Daguang, what impressed Hu Chen deeply was the change in ticket purchasing methods. In the first few years, it was mainly offline, and the ticket purchasing team was several tens of meters long, extending from the entrance of the cinema to nearby McDonald's. In recent years, the main battlefield for movie fans to grab tickets has shifted to online, with fewer people queuing up offline. Instead, it has been replaced by the urban legend of popular movies disappearing in seconds. "In the era of offline ticket buying, the enthusiasm of movie fans can be more intuitively felt from the crowds queuing all night. Nowadays, it is shocked by the tens of thousands of tickets issued in just a few seconds, which makes people cannot help but marvel at the rapid development of the times and the increasing convenience of the Shanghai Film Festival."
One after another, the premieres of the film festival left shining footprints for the bright future. "There are many world premieres at the film festival, and many international stars often come here to exchange ideas with Shanghai audiences, such as Sophie Marceau, Brad Pitt, Hugh Grant, etc." Hu Chen remembers that during the 17th Shanghai International Film Festival, British actor Hugh Grant held the world premiere of his new film "The Story of a Screenwriter" in Shanghai, and the meeting was held at the Da Guang Cinema. Interestingly, since Hugh Grant himself had not watched the entire film, after the pre screening communication, everyone thought Hugh Grant had left, but in fact, he quietly stayed in the cinema and watched the movie with the Shanghai audience.
"We found a slightly off location for him on the second floor, and the audience was immersed in the movie. No one noticed that he was also there," Hu Chen said. The interval between the two movie watching events in the cinema was very short that day. As the screenwriter's Love Story was nearing completion, many viewers of the latter film were already waiting at the entrance. After the film ended, the bodyguard led Hugh Grant straight out of the lobby. As he walked through the crowd and passed by with many fans, everyone had not yet reacted. Seeing him get into the car, a commotion erupted in the crowd. "Is that a famous British celebrity who just walked past?" "Is it Hugh Grant?!" Hu Chen still remembers the faces of the movie fans in the crowd. Their expressions changed from confusion and surprise to excitement, and in an instant, they burned into her mind like light and shadow on the screen. "At the Shanghai International Film Festival, you can only see so many international stars and meet so many unexpected people."
Xie Jin, Sun Daolin, Tom Hobber, Gong Li, Nuri Bigg Ceylon, Huang Jianxin... Walking up the steps of the Great Bright Cinema, passing by the names of the chairman of the Golden Earl Awards and the best films one by one, the significance of the Shanghai Film Festival to ordinary fans is evident at this moment.
The reporter recalled interviewing Jin Yuxi, an old friend of the Shanghai International Film Festival, who devoted her life to cultural exchange between the East and the West and invited many internationally renowned film stars to the festival. She exclaimed, "This colorful Shanghai culture is the true China!" For her, the festival is of great significance. She is planning to include the Shanghai International Film Festival in the cultural section of her new program "Meet Me In China" to tell the story of contemporary China to audiences around the world.
