Recently, the 6th Practice Week for the Radio and Television Directing Majors at the School of Culture and Media, Xi'an Eurasia University came to an end. A total of 378 students made great efforts to embark on a wonderful two-week creative journey.

The Practice Week for the Radio and Television Directing Majors at the School of Culture and Media is an intensive practice program based on Comprehensive Practical Creation. In compliance with the syllabus of the core course, the program introduces real projects and cutting-edge technologies in the industry through a project-based teaching method to reach industrial trends in real time; and introduces well-known specialists in the industry to broaden students' professional artistic horizons and guide teaching according to industry standards. It aims to comprehensively improve students' abilities in image content production, visual creative expression and digital virtual technology application, and cultivate interdisciplinary and application-oriented talent with an international vision.

Centering on the design concept of "TOP Enterprises, TOP Projects, TOP Output", this practice week has comprehensively upgraded enterprise attraction, project selection, implementation and delivery standards. Five workshops have been set up, including the directing creation workshop, the international bilingual workshop, the virtual production workshop, the commercial portrait photography workshop and the UAV flight operation workshop. Through participation in the whole process of industry courses offered at the university—industry project analysis—industry specialist guidance—industry standard evaluation, students' five core professional competencies of feature film creation, documentary creation, virtual animation application, image creation and aerial photography have been cultivated at an advanced level.

In the 2-week practice, 120 hours of courses were completed, and 4 school-enterprise co-construction platforms were set up. Under detailed guidance from 16 industry + school mentors, 378 hard-working students produced 20 feature films, 3 documentaries, 1 promotional video, 6 digital virtual scenario displays, and 450 commercial portrait static works, and 50 students participated in drone flight training and exams.

The Practice Week always strives to create a free and open space for creation, build an interpersonal relationship based on common interests, imagine a future different from the present, and shape a group of people with the desire to express and think.

01 Directing Creation Workshop

Zhang Lv

Famous director from Chinese mainland

"The theme of 'timing' is ambitious because it comes close to something common in filmmaking. A director's job is to wait and find the right time, and then make the right judgment and decision until the "right" choice is made for the whole team."

Zhang Lv, a famous director in Chinese mainland, won the Best Small- and Medium-Budget Feature Film Award at the 35th Golden Rooster Awards for his work A Long Confession (2022), and was nominated as Best Screenplay at the 35th Golden Rooster Awards. Director Zhang Lv, as the industry mentor at the Directing Creation Workshop, integrated his own perceptions of creation into the lecture and spoke gently and firmly about creation.

We collected a lot of facts that are left behind and hidden in the present, feelings, thoughts and words in daily life, and every inch of time. Focusing on the infinite suspicion in a limited space, Who Is He tells the psychological warfare of two persons questioning each other in a poky elevator. Focusing on animated narratives, The Prosperous Tang Dynasty reproduces the makeup of women in the great Tang Dynasty. Focusing on young individuals, I and "Me" explores their confusion and worries. Nowadays, when the movie industry is thriving again, these films stubbornly remind us that the vitality of creation is meeting with the will of freedom.

As Director Zhang Lv talked at the workshop, we want to present works with exploratory spirit or free and unfettered image imagination, or work on a sharp narrative attempt. In these films, the tingling issues of the moment and the unpolished or unfettered thoughts of the creators collide, resonate, and then crackle.

02 International Bilingual Workshop

With individual thinking and creativity, the International Bilingual Workshop explored confusion and persistence under the trend of globalization and anti-globalization.

The workshop guided students to mobilize innovative design thinking for real experience throughout the whole process of project introduction—project analysis—content planning—medium-term preparation—shooting and production—ex post packaging—production management. The works were packaged as products, and the thinking of project management was used as a communication medium to promote more tangible changes in different cultural exchange contexts.

As the promotional video of this practice week, Looking to the Future takes the integrated communication of diversified elements as its original intention, caters to the aesthetics of young people, boldly makes breakthroughs and changes, and explores the real feelings across cultures, languages and times. It is the first time for teachers and students to jointly become the main body of creation, converging sparks of individual creators into light, illuminating themselves and looking forward to the future.

As Mr. William said: "Our International Practical Week gave them an opportunity to express themselves in a way they haven't thought about in previous years. With one key word, a small group, and a camera, the students of Eurasia University were able to pull together available ideas and produce some fascinating and unique short documentary films."

Record of Creation Process of Excellent Works

03 Virtual Production Workshop

The arrival of the AI era has completely opened up an intelligent age of human-machine integration, and humans seem to be embracing an addictive technology without hesitation. In recent weeks, the GPT-4 series of large AI models that have made the world "excited" has been launched one after another and is being deployed and applied to a growing number of industries at an accelerated pace.

As a digital living space with a new social system, the metaverse uses scientific and technological means to link and create virtual digital humans, virtual spaces and virtual cities, provides competitive digital business service solutions, and is a catalyst for rapid explosion of new traffic. Based on the brand-new creative environment, the real purpose of the Virtual Production Workshop is to liberate artistic creation without limitation and redefine time and space so that creators can completely get rid of physical limitations. The curriculum system from top-tier enterprises in the front line and North America, including PBR 3D production process, physical lighting real-time rendering technology, etc., enables students to obtain new thinking of special effects planning and new technologies of special effects production from the top of the industry.

Seaside Abandoned Warehouse by Shen Tianli

Summer Forest by Chen Yiting, Gao Jinxiang and He Jiayue

The Virtual Production Workshop aims to create images, and transcend image itself.

04 Commercial Portrait Photography Workshop

In the era of boundless creation, "human" as an individual concerned has been mentioned and ignored countless times. Human beings should be frozen at every moment in their development process. The original design intention of the Commercial Portrait Photography Workshop was to integrate traditional portrait creation and fashion elements, take people as the main shooting objects, combine costumes, props, scenarios and other elements for shooting creation, and show the core of "people" as the subject. The workshop paid attention to micro-individuals in the trend of the times, and let the eyes and lenses return to the "people" themselves, so as to make thoughts more human and creation more pure.

Through the seamless fusion of portrait photography and creative expression, the film core is penetrated through movie characters to realize commercial portrait re-creation under industry standards. Commercial portrait shooting elements such as character images, performance contents, scenarios, costumes and props are used to present the creative standards of commercial portraits. The 10-hour professional comments from industry specialists perfectly match business standards with classroom standards.

We have seen and solved the common dilemma of students in creating commercial portraits, but also perceived that the problems faced by creators at different levels and the goals they aspire to achieve are actually very different, so the design of support schemes needs to be further personalized.

Drowning Knife by Huang Guixiang

The Killer Is Not Too Cold by Mao Jiayue

05 UAV Flight Operation Workshop

The workshop carried out in-depth cooperation with top enterprises in the industry to explore the update and iteration of aerial photography technology from two aspects: technology and aesthetics. Through the forms of understanding, entering, participating, learning, practical operation and experience, students could feel the development status of aerial photography, understand and learn the visual feast brought by UAV aerial photography technology as an advanced concept in the industry, immersively experience the operation law, current situation and future of UAV aerial photography, and feel the charm of aerial photography with a pure perspective from the cloud.

As the new spring approaches, we hope to bring up creation again. With the unique work samples collected by the Practice Week as a link, numerous creative communities with innovative temperament will be connected, so that precious ideas can breathe again, and discussions and imagination can be activated in the face of many exposed or hidden issues.

When the camera in hand starts to work, long-lost creations converge and the force of change germinates. As long as there are still young creators working hard, the Practice Week will light up their creations, provide supplies and safeguard the spirit of brave creation.

With the launch of the Youth Creation Support Program, the Spring Practice Week is about to usher in a new phase where efforts will be made to welcome creativity scattered on campus and continue to explore the possibility of future creation.

(By the School of Culture and Media)