SHP+ continues on the issue of minor representation of female filmmakers in China. Women’s Perspectives is a series of articles where we interview women filmmakers to give exposure to their name and their work, but also talk about their dreams, challenges and realities of being a woman in the industry.
SHP+持续关注国内女性影视创作者。在女性视角系列中，我们采访女性影视创作者，让更大的观众知道她们的名字，理解她们的工作，同时也谈论了她们的梦想、挑战和作为一名女性在这个行业中的现实。
Zorana 樱子
Getting up close with the in-demand production designer Zorana樱子 became one of the most unexpected interviews for SHP+. In her home, surrounded by Buddhist statues, with a gentle sound of chanting in the background, our conversation often detoured from the realm of professional into personal. Spirituality and a rock singing past seem to be inseparable from her career story, as much as sheer hard work. Zorana has been on the top of China’s production designers list for more than a decade, creating the style and looks for numerous commercial films from Mercedes, Haagen Dazs, Xianyu to Huawei, Midea, and Woolmark. But a career in production design wasn’t something she pursued from the start.
近距离地采访人气艺术指导樱子，绝对是SHP+最出乎意料的访谈之一。而采访的地点，就在Zorana的家里。整个采访过程中，我们被佛像环绕着，以柔和的诵经声作为背景音乐，访谈的内容常常从专业领域转入个人经历。说起樱子的职业生涯，精神领域的探索与摇滚歌手的经历和她不懈的努力一样，是绕不开的话题。十多年来她一直是中国艺术指导界的领军人物，曾为梅赛德斯奔驰、哈根达斯、闲鱼、华为、美的、Woolmark等众多品牌的广告大片塑造风格。但有趣的是，艺术指导并非是她最初所追求的领域。
“I didn’t find production design. Production design found me”,— Zorana jokes. To the people outside of the advertising world, she is more known as a “gothic” rock singer. Until 2016, for 22 years, she’s been the lead singer-songwriter of 秋天虫子（Autumn Insect) band. “Because I was in a band, I was cast in a small role in a famous feature film 《北京乐与路》(Beijing Rocks). The director Zhang Wanting was very kind to me, and knowing that I studied Art, suggested I could try being a production designer”, Zorana continues. She studied Art in university, but had no production design mentor or formal training in that field, so Zorana learned the ropes of craft by watching “thousands” of movies and doing the job.
“我并没有想要做艺术指导，是艺术指导找到了我，”—— 樱子笑着说。对于广告界外的人来说，作为一名哥特式摇滚歌手的她更有知名度。22年里她一直是“秋天虫子”乐队的主唱兼词曲作者，直到2016年。樱子继续分享道：“得益于我的乐队经历，我曾在一部著名的故事片里《北京乐与路》里扮演一个小角色。导演张婉婷对我很好，当知道我学的是艺术后，她建议我可以试着当一名艺术指导。” 虽然她在大学学艺术，但樱子并没有艺术指导领域的导师，也没有接受过这方面的正式训练，因此自学成才的她，通过观看成千上万部电影，脚踏实地工作，掌握了这门艺术的诀窍。
Early 2000
Zorana’s band albums
Before moving into advertising in 2006, Zorana worked on 5 feature films. With that experience, the dreams of big screen which so many advertising professionals harbor, are now off her list. She agrees that longer, heavier work like feature film gives more credit. Especially in China— if you’re in movie, your work is considered much more serious and visually powerful. It’s also incomparably more demanding. “A career in the film industry is too big of a commitment. You don’t have a life at all. Yes, your passion “fuels you”, but in the end, there’s no life. I’m a passionate person as well, I care about the script. I can think into the story, create a whole universe around it. But I’m not sure I can do it again soon. Maybe after several years ”, Zorana admits. Making a living with commercial films, on the other hand, also allowed her to put everything into her music. Though, in retrospect, juggling multiple creative roles couldn’t have been less demanding than working on feature films. Perhaps, it was also Zorana’s way to renounce a conventional, boring life.
在2006年进入广告行业之前，樱子曾参与制作过5部电影。通常，有了这样的经历，大部分广告行业的专业人士的梦想都是能登上大银幕，但这个梦想却不在她的名单上。樱子认为像电影这样更长、工作内容更繁重的工作的确更值得赞扬。尤其是在中国，如果你在拍电影，你的作品就会被认为更加严肃，看上去也更厉害。当然，对从业者来说，摄制电影的工作量和压力也明显更大。樱子坦言：“在电影行业工作需要承担相当大的责任。你根本就没有自己的生活。当然，你对行业的热情可以让你 ‘用爱发电’，但时间久了，自己的生活就会被完全牺牲。我也是个充满热情的人，我关心剧本，我操心剧情，我会为它们量身定制一个宇宙。但我觉得自己可能没办法很快地再全情投入地来一次。可能过两年会考虑吧。” 另一方面，靠广告谋生也让她可以全情投入到音乐中去。不过想想看，在不同的创意领域同时扮演多个角色，工作量和压力或许跟拍电影不分上下。也许，这就是樱子挣脱传统、脱离无聊生活的方式吧。
Brand 品牌：Woolmark
“Boring” appears a lot in her vocabulary. Uninspired storyboards— boring, obsession about how to create more fame, more money— boring. Doing one thing at a time— boring. “We know everything’s not permanent, though we behave as if it was. For most of the people around, money, fame are the most important things. There’s nothing wrong with that. But if every minute of life is just for money, what’s the point?”, Zorana asks.
“无聊”这个词经常出现在樱子的字典里。剧情乏味的故事板——无聊，天天想着怎么出名，怎么暴富——无聊，一次只做一件事——无聊。“我们知道万事万物都不是一成不变的，然而人们的言行却有悖这一点。我身边的大多数人，都认为钱，名气，是最重要的东西。当然这没什么问题。但是如果生命中的每一分一秒，都是为了赚钱，那有什么意义？”樱子问到。
Admittedly, after more than a decade in the industry, Zorana’s more selective with the work she does and people she collaborates with. Even though what attracts her to a project, what she considers exciting— is hard to put in words. She attempts to explain: “It’s about the depth of the project, a kind of touch, a vibe that makes me feel like I want to do it. I have to see it, to feel the thing in front of me”. Pinpointing the qualities she avoids in professional interactions, on the contrary, is easy. Despite how great the end result is, Zorana avoids working with directors who have an overblown ego, and “tormented characters” who are too emotional to handle an efficient, pleasant work process.
诚然，在这个行业工作了十多年后，樱子对她所做的工作与合作的人更加挑剔了。但一个项目吸引她的地方是什么，她认为激动人心的地方是什么，都很难用言语来表达。她尝试着给我们解释：“这有关于项目的深度，这是一种触觉，一种感觉，让我觉得非常想要参与。我得亲眼去看一看，感受一下。” 不过，若是谈及她在职业交往中，哪种情况会让她避之不及，倒是非常容易讲明白。不论项目的最终结果有多好，樱子都避免与那些过于自负的导演合作，也尽量不与那些过于“自我”，情绪化，无法高效地，愉快地处理工作内容的人合作。
Brand 品牌：华为Huawei
Surprisingly, several times Zorana mentions that she herself “used to have a bad temper”. It’s very hard to imagine this image of her, not only by just talking to her but especially considering she has such a positive reputation as well. Though in her career she didn’t face the same challenges as female directors and cinematographers often do, Zorana admits at the beginning, people often judged her by her young looks, giving little credit. But she always insisted on what she wanted to achieve. Perhaps, that so-called “bad temper” is what a strong personality is often perceived for, when it comes to women.
令人惊讶的是，樱子好几次提到她曾经“也是个暴脾气”。这让人很难想象，这不光是因为我们的访谈，还因为樱子在圈中的名声真的非常好。虽然在职业生涯中，她没有像女性导演和摄影师那样经常遇到性别方面的挑战，但当她刚入行的时候，樱子坦言，她常因为年轻的外表被轻视，也很少获得应得的肯定。但她对于自己想要实现的目标，从未放弃过坚持。也许，当涉及到女性时，所谓的“坏脾气”通常只是强烈的个性而已。
When we ask about competition, Zorana readily admits there’s a lot of good production designers. But she’s made a name for herself by working hard. “Everybody knows my motto in advertising: 皆大欢喜。For me it means trying to make everyone happy— the agency, the production house, the director, the client, and my team. It’s difficult and exhausting. But you know, there’s a type of production designer, who always wants to make the director happy. It often means going over budget, which, of course, not something neither a production house, nor a client would like. I think, money is not the key issue to make good works. If you put enough thought, you can make good work even with small budgets”.
当我们问及同行竞争时，樱子欣然承认行业里还有很多优秀的艺术指导。但她工作努力，踏实肯干是出了名的。“大家都知道我在广告行业的座右铭：皆大欢喜 。对我来说，这意味着努力让每个人都满意：代理公司、制作公司、导演、客户和我的团队。这不容易，也很累。但是你要知道，有一种艺术指导，他们总是努力让导演开心。但这么一来，就经常超出预算，当然，这不是制作公司和客户想看到的情况。我认为，钱不是制作好作品的关键。如果你肯用心，即使预算有限，你也一样能做出好的作品。”
Brand 品牌：海澜之家
Other work shot by Zorana and featured previously by SHP+：
Wong Kar-wai manufactures love for Mercedes 王家卫助奔驰“为爱奔驰”
Weekly AD｜「为热爱而闲不住」闲鱼 x Tianyukong 天与空 x HiCoolfilms
BAM Music Library Brings Edgy, Indie Sounds to Chinese Creatives
