"Ding Dong of Spring Water"
Author of the article: Shi Xiaohua (director of "Ding Dong of Spring Water", "Life Matter", "Doll Restaurant" and other films)
" The "Cultural Revolution" was a dry period for Chinese film creation, and children's films were no exception. With the exception of "Shining Red Star", almost no works specifically targeted at the children's market were released.
In the 1980s, children's movies gradually revived. Although they did not completely get rid of the inherent concepts and dogmas, they made great strides in opening up the situation. During that time, there were two things worth remembering. One was the establishment of Beijing Children's Film Studio in 1981; the other was that in 1984, children's films had their own awards - the China Children's and Youth Film Tongniu Award.
"Ding Dong", released in 1982, was a representative of children's movies at that time. Although "Ding Dong of the Spring", which won the Golden Rooster Special Award, is not as magical and interesting as the later "Little Hedgehog Sonata" and "Thunderbolt Beibei", it shows the daily life of children in that period and describes from a side the difficulties faced by children from dual-income families who find it difficult to enter day care. Social topics, in addition to the joining of child star Fang Chao, also cultivated a big star Lu Yi in the future.
"Ding Dong of Spring Water" is the first feature film I directed independently. The plot of this film is very simple. It tells the story of a retired worker, Grandma Tao, who founded a small family kindergarten and had a very close relationship with her children. Pure emotions. The choice of this content has a lot to do with my personal experience as a child.
Before filming "Ding Dong of Spring Water", I worked as an assistant director on several films. Xie Jin is an old director I worked with. From "Youth" in 1977 to "Ah!" in 1979. "Cradle" happens to be youth films or children's films. I served as the assistant director in the team and was responsible for the organization of children's dramas. After the filming, Xie Jin said to me: "I didn't expect you to be quite talented in filming children's dramas. You should go to film children's dramas from now on!"
Wu Jianxin, the screenwriter of "Ding Dong of Spring Water", was a staff member of the Cultural Affairs Bureau at the time. He wrote a script about smuggling and submitted it to Shanghai Film Studio. However, due to various reasons, the studio felt that this subject was not easy to deal with. Later, this script was It didn't pass.
Wu Jianxin was also quite disappointed. Just then we saw a piece of news published in the newspaper, saying that after retirement, several wives of professors at Fudan University in Shanghai spontaneously set up family kindergartens to solve the problems of some teaching staff. Worrying about the future was also a social issue at the time. We all said that this subject matter was good and could be made into a movie. Wu Jianxin responded quickly and started writing immediately. So a book about a family kindergarten in the new era that had never been filmed was quickly released. The factory saw it and immediately decided to put it into production. .
The name was decided from the beginning as "Ding Dong of Spring Water". Everyone said that this name was particularly touching. This feeling is two-way. On the one hand, it describes the love of adults for children, and it also describes the love of children for children. Grandma Tao's love is as clear as spring water, very simple.
I was a young director at the time, and it was very scary to make an independent film for the first time. To be honest, I never dared to think that I could ask teacher Zhang Ruifang to play Grandma Tao. In terms of her acting career, qualifications and other aspects, she is a mountain that we look up to. The leader told me at that time that for the role of Grandma Tao, you could find a few famous old actors from Shanghai Film Academy to play the role. We were still a little frightened, but we didn’t expect that teachers Qin Yi and Zhang Ruifang were very supportive of us and agreed immediately.
Later Zhang Ruifang came and helped us revise the script, changing all the rather blunt and literary language into spoken language. We were filming in a small place in Fujian. Due to limited funds, we set up the interior scenes in a local warehouse. In the hottest and sweltering summer, Teacher Zhang Ruifang did not complain about "fighting the high temperature".
There are more than a dozen children in the film, Fang Chao because we are in "Ah!" I’ve known each other since “The Cradle” and I’m already very good at acting. Lu Yi was very beautiful and quiet at that time. In order to find young actors, we went to many kindergartens, and the children we found were very good. Our set was so busy, it was really like opening a kindergarten.
These children not only performed, but also went into the recording studio to complete the dubbing work of their own characters after returning to the factory. This work is very tedious for four or five-year-old children, but they are all very happy. outstanding.
This film won many awards after it came out, which was really beyond our expectations. We were even given a special award at the Golden Rooster Award, and also won film awards from Italy, Iran, India and many other countries, because At that time, the film bureau uniformly selected films and sent them to foreign countries for awards. We later read a lot of the award-winning news in newspapers.
What’s interesting is that most of the children’s films were made by female directors. Female directors such as Wang Junzheng and Qiqin Gaowa of Beijing Film Studio also made several children’s films at that time, including those who had not yet left school, Or the "fifth generation" filmmakers who had just graduated from school also made children's films such as "Red Elephant" and "The Substitute", so it was a period of comprehensive expansion of children's film creation.
Dictated by Lu Yi
"Ding Dong of Spring Water" was filmed when I was five years old. When I was a child, I was a literary and artistic activist in kindergarten. I was very cute and chubby. My hair grew late, so it was very soft and thin.
That year, the director of Shanghai Film Studio visited every kindergarten in Shanghai to choose child actors for "Ding Dong of Spring Water". I was in Shanghai West Street Kindergarten at the time.
I happened to be selected for the interview. I remember there were hundreds of people at that time, so I sang and danced for them. I sang Xinjiang children's songs. I seemed to be asked to recite a poem and do some exercises to see if my articulation was clear. Is the body coordinated? Later, they asked me to go home and wait for notification. My family seemed more anxious than me and kept asking me if I had any results. It took a long time before I got the notice that I was the only one selected out of the 200 people who went for interviews in our kindergarten. So I was called to live in the Shanghai Film Studio for a while to receive professional training. That’s when I started to get used to the feeling of leaving home.
I was very excited after being selected by the crew. Although I didn’t know what filming was about, the thought of seeing myself on the screen made me think it was fun and my enthusiasm was high. I probably started to be interested in new movies from that time on. Things are enthusiastic.
I remember that they gave me 50 yuan after the photo shoot. That was probably a relatively large amount at the time, which was equivalent to one and a half months’ salary for an adult. I didn't know how to use money at that time, so I handed over the money.
But I hid a bunch of mushrooms that the crew sent me. At that time, everyone in the neighborhood knew about Lu Yi's filmmaking. It seemed that my status had suddenly improved. I kept hearing people say that I could learn from Lu Yi and see how promising Lu Yi was. This sounded very beautiful to me.
Actually, when I was filming "Ding Dong of Spring Water", I was only a bit player, that is, an extra. In the end, the total of the scenes that included me in the final film did not exceed 5 minutes, but The filming took four months.
I remember that as soon as I said "I'm filming a scene with children," I had to run around behind me, but I was very serious from beginning to end, and I never thought about being lazy or anything.
The dozen or so children we selected at that time joined the children's studio group and went to the TV station for two days a week, so they had the opportunity to learn. Later, there were always two or three plays every year, ranging from the basic actors to the third male lead to the second male lead, but I never had a leading role until I was in the graduation drama of the Shanghai Children's Art Theater, and I was cast in "The Daughter of the Sea" Played the prince.