A Director Rising From The Depth｜广告也得拍出深意的导演

Over a year of closed borders in China continues to mean a lot of work for locally-based filmmakers. But with it, comes along a new generation of Chinese filmmakers, who are becoming more in demand. The market is so hungry for new talent now that it gives some of these new directors an opportunity to skyrocket their careers. We talked to one of these young directors, Adam Liu, whose works cannot go unnoticed, as well as his story.

中国实施边境管制已有一年，这一现状目前仍在为身居中国的外籍电影人创造着大量的工作机会。除此之外，不断成长的新一代中国电影人也正在变得越来越抢手。对部分新晋导演来说，市场对新鲜人才的渴求，给了他们事业腾飞的大好机会。我们采访到了他们中的一员，青年导演刘亚当，他的作品和故事，都让人眼前一亮。

Adam Liu

A Beijinger Adam Liu thinks Shanghai’s pace is too fast and especially in the advertising world, which is still relatively new to him. Having shot a feature film before, his career as a commercial director really only took off last year, when he moved to Shanghai due to a lot of demand. Learning quickly, however, paid off – in a short period of time, Adam has shot notable commercials for brands like Adidas, Nike, Alipay, Under Armour, BMW, Minsheng Bank and IKEA. “Last year, I didn’t shoot that much, only a dozen or so spots”, he shrugs off, “I want to shoot feature films in the future, but it doesn’t mean I’ll abandon advertising. I just want to shoot interesting, meaningful commercials. I’m not too much into traditional advertising, the era has changed. And in recent years, especially, we see a lot of ads with relevant topics, that have social importance in addition to advertising attributes. In fact, from the content and image expression alone, some of the ads I’ve seen are the same as the movies. For a creator, at least for me it’s all about having something to say, to share your views. In the end, it is still about the idialistic attempt- what will you have influence on, what will you change”, Adam shares.

作为一名北京人，刘亚当认为上海的节奏过快了，尤其是广告界。其实，广告行业对刘亚当来说还非常新鲜，虽然也曾拍过一部电影，但作为广告导演他的事业仅仅是在去年因大量的工作需求移居上海后才开始起步。不过天道酬勤，没过多久，刘亚当就为不少知名品牌拍摄了多部优秀的广告大片，比如阿迪达斯、耐克、支付宝、安德玛、宝马、民生银行和宜家等。“去年，我没有拍那么多，只拍了十部左右，”他耸耸肩说：“以后还是想拍电影，但这并不意味着我要放弃广告。但我只是想拍一些有趣、有意义的广告。时代不同了，传统形式的广告和一切不应该被束缚的一切模式都应该被释放。特别是近年来，很多广告除了广告本身的属性以外，也有更多的表达意义，有话题性和社会意义。其实单从内容和影像表达上来说, 我接触的一些广告和电影的表达是一样的。对于创作者来说，本质都是有话想说，或者有自己的理解想展示出来，至少对我来说是这样的。依然是“理想化”地试图影响什么，改变什么。”刘亚当分享到。

Client 客户：工商银行中国银联央视网

Production 出品人：新世相

Director 导演：Adam刘亚当

Adam’s very strategic about his career in the advertising industry, which in his words, gives him an opportunity to meet different DoPs, editors and other professionals, as well as the ability to shoot various genres in a short time. For instance, until he met his trusted editor Song Yang, Adam often did the editing himself. Not surprising, given he’s graduated from Communication University of China Nanjing with a Director/Editor major. When we ask about why he became a director, Adam instinctively turns to a joking reply, that his grades were bad, and that’s why he ended up studying filmmaking. “No, really, why did I become a director?”, Adam asks. He continues after a long pause: “Maybe I’ve watched too many movies as a kid. When I was little, there was a lot of pirate DVDs sold downstairs from a bicycle street vendor. I used to buy big piles of mostly Hong Kong movies, and watched them all the time”.

刘亚当对他在广告行业的职业规划非常有策略，用他自己的话说，这让他有机会去认识不同的导演，剪辑师和其他专业人士，还锻炼了在短时间内拍摄各种类型影片的能力。例如，在遇到他长期合作的剪辑师宋旸之前，刘亚当经常亲手剪片子。当然，毕业于中国传媒大学南广学院的导演与剪辑专业的他，剪片子没什么压力。当我们问他为什么会成为一名导演时，刘亚当本能地开起了玩笑说是因为自己的成绩很差，除了电影制作别无选择。“不，说真的，我为什么要当导演?”刘亚当也反问了自己一句。在沉思了一会儿后，他说：“可能是小时候看太多电影了。小时候，我家楼下有个推着自行车，沿街贩卖很多盗版碟的小贩。我那时候经常会买一大堆DVD看，大部分都是港片，没事就在看。”

Everything from his movie references, to his favorite directors and his insistent repetition that an idea must have a deeper meaning in advertising makes it abundantly clear that Adam is a film-oriented director. He explains he’s good at “commercial” filmmaking, which could be interpreted as mainstream and successful. He gives the example of “Forest Gump” to highlight this point. In Adam’s view, this classic movie is very commercial, but at the same time it is packed with deeper meaning, which gives people something more. In other words, shooting ads that are just ads, with nothing behind it and no impact on the audience is boring to him.

从他对电影的引用，到他最喜欢的导演，再到他坚持认为一个创意在广告中必须得有更深的含义，这些都充分表明了刘亚当是一个以电影为核的导演。他解释说，他擅长“商业”电影的制作，“商业”在这里可以被解读为主流的和成功的。他以《阿甘正传》为例，强调了这一点。在刘亚当看来，这部经典电影是非常商业化的，但同时它也充满了更深层次的含义，给了人们更多的思考。换言之，对他来说如果拍广告只是为了广告本身，没有任何深意，对观众也没启发，也就没什么意思了。

He can’t name his favorite director, but he admires works of Christopher Nolan and An Li. Though it doesn’t mean, Adam’s aspiring to shoot like them. “It’s not about a genre. Each of their movies is like a vessel to express ideas, provoke feelings and emotions. It can be a sci-fi or not, what matters is what these directors express”, the director shares. An Li’s name comes up once again, when we discuss the topic of Chinese style of advertising.

他没法选择最喜欢哪位导演，但告诉我们他很欣赏克里斯托弗·诺兰和李安的作品。虽然这并不意味着刘亚当渴望学习他们的风格。“重点不是风格或流派。而是他们的电影每次怕的只是不同的载体，不同的方式。不论是科幻电影还是别的什么，重要的是这些导演表达了什么，分享了什么，”刘亚当分享到。当我们讨论中式广告的时候，李安的名字又再度出现。

For Adam, advertising and feature films are intertwined, and he explains the lack of distinctively Chinese style in ads by the rarity of feature films telling a Chinese story. He regrettably notes: “Before, Chinese film culture was very strong, very distinctive. An Li’s “Eat Drink Man Woman” is one of the examples of a ‘completely Chinese film’. The past 20 years was not just the time of change, it’s a rapid change. A lot of cultural elements have disappeared. Films, same as advertising are lacking specifically Chinese elements. Sometimes even foreigners are shooting more characteristically Chinese spots, That’s bizarre!”. In Adam’s view, a Chinese story is not necessarily something traditional, or old. It could be a reflection of what matters today and what’s happening now in China. To further illustrate his point, Adam gives an example of Iranian movie “A Separation”— in his view, that story could only happen in Iran, and that makes it unique. The director believes, there are a lot of untold Chinese stories. And he would like to try his hand at expressing those, both in feature films and commercials.

对刘亚当来说，广告和剧情片是交织在一起的，他解释说，由于讲述中国故事的影片很少，所以广告中往往缺乏明显的中国风格。他遗憾地指出:“以前，中国电影的文化非常浓厚，非常独特。李安的《饮食男女》是“纯粹中国风格电影”的例子之一。过去的20年不仅仅是一个变革的时代，更是一个快速变革的阶段。在这一过程中，很多文化元素都消失了。电影和广告一样，都很缺乏中国元素。有时甚至外国人会拍摄出更有中国特色的镜头，这也太奇怪了!” 在刘亚当看来，中国故事不一定非得是传统的或古老的。它也可以去反映当今中国的重要事件和正在发生的事情。为了进一步说明他的观点，刘亚当例举了伊朗的电影《一次离别》，在他看来，这个故事只能发生在伊朗，这使得它很独特。刘亚当认为，有很多不为人知的中国故事正等待着被讲述。他想尝试用电影和广告的形式来呈现它们。

Client 客户：中国民生银行信用卡

Agency 代理公司：北京云途数字营销顾问有限公司

Production 制作公司：北京喜雨影视传媒有限公司

Director 导演：刘亚当 Adam

Coming back to his advertising career, Adam says one thing he wants to say to his past and future collaborators is “I’m sorry”. To him the result, a good commercial film matters over anything else. Adam elaborates: “I’m very considerate about the creativity. Advertising first and foremost is an idea, the story. I respect that a lot, as it’s other people’s work and I don’t interfere with that. But how to realize that idea, how to bring it to life with filmmaking— that I’m quite clear and determined about. Maybe, I don’t always express it well to other people, but in the end everything I insist on is for the result”.

当我再回到他的广告生涯方面，刘亚当说，他想对他过去和未来的合作者说一句：“我很抱歉。”因为对他来说，最终拍出一部好的广告片比什么都重要。刘亚当解释道: “我非常看重创意。广告它首先是一个想法，一个故事。我很尊重这一点，因为这部分是别人的工作，我不会干涉。但是如何去实现这个想法，如何通过电影把它变成现实，这是我擅长且决心做到位的部分。也许，我并不总能很好地把想法传达给别人，但我坚持的一切都是为了最终的好作品。”

Client 客户：BMW 宝马

Agency 代理：JUICE

Production 制作公司：MOD 上海茂田文化传媒有限公司

Director 导演：刘亚当 Adam