Who loves Shanghai Calling? These guys do!

THANK YOU to everyone who made the theatrical and online premiere of Shanghai Calling a success! Small films like ours rely on fan dedication and word of mouth to spread awareness, so my gratitude goes out to all our friends, fans, and film festival partners, as well as a special group of ladies known on Twitter as #TeamHenney.

Now that a good number of people have seen the film I’m finally able to blog the answers to your most frequently asked questions! I will also field any additional questions you may have as comments below, on our Facebook page, or our Twitter feed (@shanghailicious), and I will answer them in the next post.

QUESTION #1: Was censorship a big obstacle to filming in China?

This question has been coming up a lot recently, possibly due to the media hype surrounding Hollywood’s interest in the Chinese film market. Just Google the words “Hollywood” and “China” and you’ll see what I mean.

Any domestically produced film in China (including US-China co-productions such as Shanghai Calling) must get the script approved by SARFT (the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television) in order to get the filming permit. Later, the finished film must be submitted to SARFT so they can see if you listened to their script notes, and to get more comments before they grant the public exhibition permit.

Our script had two main problem areas:

A) The “legal story” within the film, which was about technology piracy. In the original script, Sam (DANIEL HENNEY) offers legal advice to his client (ALAN RUCK) which results in a new mobile phone being produced illegally by another manufacturer.

The groundbreaking new mobile phone featured in the film SHANGHAI CALLING.

Because piracy and other illegal activities are not allowed to be depicted in Chinese films, I had to rewrite this story to make it more of a business misunderstanding that was still the fault of Daniel Henney’s character.  By making this change and striking the word “piracy” from everywhere in the script, we got the filming permit.

B) Comedy scenes that the censor’s didn’t “get.” Shanghai Calling is funny. But comedic tone is difficult to convey on paper, especially when your story was written in English, translated into Chinese, and then sent to a government bureaucracy composed of (what I imagine to be) very serious people. They’re not reading the script and saying, “Ha ha ha! Oh man, that’s going to be so funny when Daniel Henney gets lost in the taxi. I can’t wait to see this on the big screen!” They’re reading it and worrying about the movie leading to an uproar or a riot that will destabilize the government and get them fired. Producer JANET YANG and I made the conscious decision to stick to our guns and film the comedic scenes as intended, so that SARFT would see the tone as intended.  Sure enough, the comedy notes went away after they watched the film.

Obviously not all movies can get through the censorship process as easily as we did. It depends on the story, but it also helps if you understand Chinese culture well enough to make changes that are palatable to them, and are able to read your SARFT notes in Chinese. I read our notes in Chinese and English, but the English version of the notes didn’t make any sense. A lot gets lost in translation.

QUESTION #2: How did you find your actors? 

We hired two terrific casting directors who did most of the heavy lifting for us. LESLIE WOO was our US Casting Director, who helped us get our US-based actors: DANIEL HENNEY, ELIZA COUPE, BILL PAXTON, and ALAN RUCK. Leslie and I actually grew up together in Chicago, so it was a real pleasure getting to work with her on my directorial debut.

DANIEL HENNEY and ELIZA COUPE at the Los Angeles premiere of SHANGHAI CALLING.

Our China Casting Director was POPING AUYEUNG, who is extremely well known to Hollywood producers for being the “go-to” casting director when you need bilingual actors in your US-China co-production film. Because we only brought the four actors above from the US, Poping had to cast the vast majority of the parts in China, from Fang Fang (played by ZHU ZHU)…

ZHU ZHU at the Los Angeles premiere of SHANGHAI CALLING.

…to Jensen (CHARLES MAYER), the rival lawyer Sam meets during the movie.

Actor CHARLES MAYER in a scene from SHANGHAI CALLING.

Charles is a really talented actor and was a joy to work with, plus he plays his role with such vigor that I can’t imagine anyone else having done it. Thanks for finding him, Poping!

QUESTION #3: Where can I buy that phone?

You mean the transparent, touchscreen phone that you can feel the keys on?

You can’t buy it, it doesn’t exist.  The phone is a prop created by production designer YU BAIYANG, enhanced by the excellent visual effects work of NATE WHITSON.

Interestingly, we’ve been getting many tweets and emails about a transparent phone that is currently in development and may be on the market as early as 2015. But the Shanghai Calling phone is still cooler, because it has tactile feedback, something that real-world engineers haven’t figured out yet.

That’s all the answers for now. Send me any and all questions you have about Shanghai Calling by commenting below, on our Facebook page, or to our Twitter feed (@shanghailicious), and I’ll answer them in future installments.

In the meantime, keep telling everyone you know to watch Shanghai Calling, on demand everywhere including iTunes!

@danielhsia

SHANGHAI CALLING, the romantic comedy about American expats living in modern day China, has been praised by top critics including The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, NPR, Rex Reed of The New York Observer, Variety, Mick Lasalle of the San Francisco Chronicle, Clayton Davis of AwardsCircuit.com, TrustMovies.com, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and many more!

Now playing on demand and digital download, SHANGHAI CALLING made waves during its first week of release by placing as high as #10 on iTunes Movies Comedy chart, #4 on iTunes Movies Indies chart, #2 on iTunes Movies Romance chart, and breaking into the Top 30 of all iTunes Movies!

In addition, SHANGHAI CALLING returns to SAN FRANCISCO today for a 1-week SPECIAL RETURN ENGAGEMENT at the historic Presidio Theater in the Marina district.  Click here to buy tickets.

For more viewing options including Amazon Instant Video, Google Play, Vudu, and all cable / satellite on-demand services, please visit the SHANGHAI CALLING “Where To Watch” page.

The producers of SHANGHAI CALLING would like to thank all of the incredible fans for their support of the film!

Not only did SHANGHAI CALLING perform extremely well in our two main theaters (Laemmle Playhouse 7 in Pasadena and The Quad Cinema in Manhattan) we also managed to stay on the Top 10 iTunes “Indie Movies” list all week! It’s clear to us that your word of mouth is what’s driving our success. We couldn’t have done it without you!  Keep spreading the word!

As a token of gratitude to our fans, I’ll be using this blog to share some inside, behind-the-scenes info that I couldn’t write about before the movie was released. For my first installment: HOW TO FILM A BICYCLE CHASE.

For those of you who haven’t yet seen the film: SPOILER ALERT! At one point in SHANGHAI CALLING, our lead actor DANIEL HENNEY climbs onto a bicycle and chases  something. (This probably isn’t that big of a “spoiler” since we show you this in the trailer, and also there’s a shot of him riding a bicycle on the poster. But still.)

So, how do you film a bicycle chase? Bicycle chases aren’t the most common type of scene in movies, so Director of Photography ARMANDO SALAS had to come up with a creative way of shooting this scene, in China, on a shoestring budget.

We accomplished this by combining shots of Daniel Henney actually riding the bicycle with “process shots” of the Daniel sitting on top of the bicycle as it was being pulled by a camera car. In this case, the camera car was not an actual car, but rather a gas-powered ATV called a Gator.

The "Gator" setup for filming the bicycle chase in SHANGHAI CALLING. Daniel Henney is on the bicycle. DP Armando Salas is on the camera. I am in the passenger's seat with my back turned, watching on a video monitor and shouting at Henney.

The grip department built a rigging that allowed us to safely attach the bicycle to the rear or forward end of the Gator (so that we could film the actor from in front or behind) while traveling at reasonably high speeds through alleyways and parks. Notice that the bicycle wheels are not actually touching the ground, which allows Henney to pedal without worrying about how fast he’s actually going.

It’s a pretty complicated camera setup, and not something you want to be testing while filming. So a few days before the start of production, Armando traveled to the equipment warehouse to examine the rig and give input on how to attach it. The grips clamped the bicycle onto the rig and Armando shot this NEVER BEFORE SEEN test footage on his iPhone, with an actor who MAY OR MAY NOT BE DANIEL HENNEY!

On the day of filming the bicycle chase, the setup worked very well with one exception: The pedals kept coming off of the bicycle. I had told the prop department to get me a new bike and make it look old, but I’m pretty sure they just got me an old bike. Luckily, we got what we wanted, and Daniel had a great time filming this scene.

Thanks again to all of our fans! More insider info on the making of SHANGHAI CALLING to come!

@danielhsia

SHANGHAI CALLING, the award winning romantic comedy about American expats living in modern Shanghai, is NOW PLAYING in Los Angeles and New York. The film is also available ON DEMAND and DIGITAL DOWNLOAD on all platforms including iTunes, Amazon, Vudu, Google Play, DirecTV, Comcast, and Time Warner Cable.  Check our WHERE TO WATCH page for full details!

Praised by The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, NPR, The New York Observer, Variety, San Francisco Chronicle, and many other nationally recognized media outlets, SHANGHAI CALLING stars DANIEL HENNEY (X-Men Origins: Wolverine, “Three Rivers”) as Sam, a hotshot New York attorney who is unexpectedly sent to Shanghai to open a new office for his law firm. Upon arriving, he immediately stumbles into a legal mess that could end his career. But with help from a beautiful relocation specialist (ELIZA COUPE, “Happy Endings,” “Scrubs“), a well-connected foreign businessman (BILL PAXTON, Twister, Titanic, “Hatfields & McCoys“), a street-smart legal assistant (ZHU ZHU, Cloud Atlas, The Man with the Iron Fists), and an unassuming journalist named Awesome Wang (GENG LE, Spring Subway, Restless), Sam may just discover romance, save his job, and learn to appreciate the many charms that Shanghai has to offer.

SHANGHAI CALLING won prizes for Best New Actor (DANIEL HENNEY) and Best Screenwriter (DANIEL HSIA) at the 2012 Shanghai International Film Festival, as well as prizes for Best Actor (DANIEL HENNEY) at the 2012 Newport Beach Film Festival, and Best New Director (DANIEL HSIA) at the 2012 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival.

SHANGHAI CALLING Director Daniel Hsia will take questions from the audience tonight, Saturday, Feb 16 after the 7:10PM show at Laemmle Pasadena Playhouse 7.  Buy tickets here.

Praised by The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, NPR, The New York Observer, Variety, San Francisco Chronicle, and many other nationally recognized media outlets, SHANGHAI CALLING stars DANIEL HENNEY (X-Men Origins: Wolverine, “Three Rivers”) as Sam, a hotshot New York attorney who is unexpectedly sent to Shanghai to open a new office for his law firm. Upon arriving, he immediately stumbles into a legal mess that could end his career. But with help from a beautiful relocation specialist (ELIZA COUPE, “Happy Endings,” “Scrubs“), a well-connected foreign businessman (BILL PAXTON, Twister, Titanic, “Hatfields & McCoys“), a street-smart legal assistant (ZHU ZHU, Cloud Atlas, The Man with the Iron Fists), and an unassuming journalist named Awesome Wang (GENG LE, Spring Subway, Restless), Sam may just discover romance, save his job, and learn to appreciate the many charms that Shanghai has to offer.

See you in Pasadena!

@danielhsia

SHANGHAI CALLING, the award-winning romantic comedy about American expats living in modern-day Shanghai, is NOW PLAYING at the Presidio Theater in San Francisco!  Click here for tickets and showtimes.

The San Francisco Bay Guardian calls SHANGHAI CALLING “undeniably entertaining,” while San Francisco Chronicle film critic Mick LaSalle has bestowed SHANGHAI CALLING with the coveted “man sitting up and clapping” score.

Screening in competition at the 2012 Shanghai International Film Festival, SHANGHAI CALLING won prizes for Best New Actor (DANIEL HENNEY) and Best Screenwriter (writer/director DANIEL HSIA). The film also stars ELIZA COUPE (TV’s “Happy Endings”), BILL PAXTON (Titanic, TV’s “Hatfields & McCoys”), ZHU ZHU (Cloud Atlas) and Alan Ruck (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off).

SHANGHAI CALLING expands to theaters in Los Angeles and New York on February 15.

For this installment of my blog, I’d like to introduce you to one of the first expats I met while researching the film in Shanghai: JIM RICE, an “old China hand” who has been in Shanghai for a couple of decades now, has headed up a number of American and European corporate offices in China, is highly involved with the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham), and a good friend who I fondly call “the real Mayor of Americatown.”

Left: Jim Rice. Right: Bill Paxton

I posed a few questions to Jim over email; below are his responses.

DANIEL HSIA: Hey Jim! Why don’t you tell everybody how we first met?

JIM RICE: I met Writer/Director Daniel Hsia many years ago when he started writing the screenplay for SHANGHAI CALLING. He was exploring China and meeting real live expats to hear their stories of work and play in Shanghai. We spent an afternoon together where I spun yarns about my time in China. I have been living in China continuously since 1991 and, therefore, have collected a lot of war stories. More than a year later I met with Daniel again, when he told me the screenplay was finished, going to production soon, and oh yeah… there is a character based on me played by Bill Paxton!

I’ve since followed Daniel through the process of making the movie, read the script, and learned a lot about the long and arduous process of making a movie. I participated in what’s called a table reading where all the actors sit around a table and read the script out loud as if they were in the movie; this is actually shown in one scene of the movie “Argo” where their characters are even dressed in costume.

DH: American companies frequently reach out to you before they send people to China to negotiate business deals or open joint ventures. What kind of advice do you offer them?

JR: American impressions of China are always wrong, especially if they have never been here.  That’s why I encourage friends and colleagues to come to China to discover what a fabulous and dynamic place it is! When I have visitors coming to see me in China for the first time, I always give them a list of movies to see in preparation for their visit including Empire of the Sun, Eat, Drink, Man, Woman, and now SHANGHAI CALLING.  This is a good introduction to the history, culture, and business environment that make up today’s Shanghai.

SHANGHAI CALLING is fun, entertaining, and shows off our city well, but there are good business lessons in the movie too: the art of listening, paying attention to culture differences, the value of a business contract, and that everything is negotiable.  And then there are the business networks of us “Old China Hands” like the character played by BILL PAXTON.  People like us have lived and worked in China for years, and we have a wealth of knowledge that often readily available to newbie’s that are always arriving in China!

DH: When we premiered in Shanghai, the American audience applauded when you appeared on the screen. What was it like to do a “cameo” role in the movie?

JR:  I had no idea the amount of work or professionalism that goes into production of a feature film. Of course, I have no acting experience and would never have imagined playing anything more than a dead person on “CSI”… let alone having a speaking part in a feature film!

I arrived on set around 2:00 in the afternoon for the shooting of a scene that would be four minutes in the movie, and we didn’t finish until midnight!  That’s because every scene is shot from different angles and each angle shot many times, each of these shots requiring a complete re-set of lighting, sound, camera, and people which takes more time than the actually filming. I learned a day in the life of an actor is really long periods of waiting interrupted by total panic when the camera is on you! And, that looking so natural and being the character is a hundred times harder than you would imagine. I learned a new respect for acting, which is truly an art form; great actors really do work hard to be great at what they do.

DH: What would you like to say to American movie audiences who have never been to China but are thinking about watching SHANGHAI CALLING?

JR: The best part of SHANGHAI CALLING is that it’s real. Expats in China pretty much lead this life. We encounter construction noise, tough Chinese competition, unclear rules, conference calls to headquarters, and invalid contracts. On the other hand, we have hard working and loyal Chinese co-workers, networks of friends who can help, and a good sense of humor that helps us enjoy living life in the center of the world and working in the new land of opportunity!

SHANGHAI CALLING opens TODAY at the Presidio Theater in San Francisco.  I will answer audience questions after the 6:20PM show.

The film opens February 15 in LOS ANGELES and NEW YORK, and will be available On Demand beginning February 12.

@danielhsia

SHANGHAI CALLING Writer/Director Daniel Hsia will make an appearance at the Presidio Theater in San Francisco this Friday, February 8, following the 6:20PM showing of SHANGHAI CALLING.  (Changed from 7:00PM.)

Ticketholders to this show will have the unique opportunity to meet Hsia, ask questions about the movie, and hear behind-the-scenes stories about the experience of filming in China.

SHANGHAI CALLING opens in San Francisco on February 8 and expands to Los Angeles and New York on February 15.

SHANGHAI CALLING will be available on-demand and digital download on February 12.

If you’re like me and have never released a movie before: IT’S A LOT OF WORK.  EVEN MORE WORK THAN MAKING THE MOVIE ITSELF.  Nobody warns you about this in film school.

Yes, we’re extremely busy preparing to put SHANGHAI CALLING into theaters in SAN FRANCISCO on FEBRUARY 8, LOS ANGELES & NEW YORK on FEBRUARY 15, and EVERYWHERE ON DEMAND on FEBRUARY 12.  That on-demand date is just in time for Valentine’s Day, hint hint.

Part of our preparation involves GIVING AWAY TICKETS and a bunch of “I’m Awesome Wang” T-Shirts through our FACEBOOK SHARE CONTEST!

Click here to go to Facebook and follow the instructions about how to share the image and shout out how YOU plan to watch #ShanghaiCalling.  You could win great prizes!  Hurry, the contest ends this Friday, Feb 1!  (Before I go crazy with too much stuff to do.)

And finally…

Because no blog post is complete without a photo of our star DANIEL HENNEY, here’s a pic of Daniel and co-star SEAN GALLAGHER.

This photo is from a deleted scene in the film, which is probably just as well because the t-shirt Sean is wearing is a joke that 99.99% of our audience will never understand.  From a comedy writing point of view, this is the worst kind of joke to put in your movie.  But while filming in Shanghai I became convinced it would work because I was surrounded by people who spoke English and could read pinyin (phonetic Chinese).  

UPDATE: Within minutes of this post going up, @Joyta correctly tweeted me the meaning of the joke. Which is, of course, that Sean’s character loves Puxi, which is the half of Shanghai that lies west (or “xi“) of the Pu river.  OBVIOUSLY!

@danielhsia

The location is breathtaking — and yet I have NEVER seen it in a movie.  So I wrote it into the script, as a location for a scene between Sam (DANIEL HENNEY) and Amanda (ELIZA COUPE).

Here’s how we got one of the most gorgeous shots in SHANGHAI CALLING.

Director of Photography ARMANDO SALAS and I scouted the Bund, armed with Armando’s still camera and accompanied by our production team.  The challenge was to show off the grandeur of the location while framing our actors in a cinematic fashion, rather than san image from the pages of Lonely Planet.  Now, the Bund is crawling with photographers, most of whom point their cameras to the east or west.  Armando, on the other hand, pointed his camera to the south and found a far more interesting frame — a long-lens shot with an original composition and a lot of depth.  This is why Armando earned the big bucks.  (Not true, they didn’t pay me much at all. -Armando)

After seeing Armando’s framing, I got an idea about how to stage our actors, but I needed to see it in a photograph first.  So we grabbed two of our local crew members, Stefan and Taylor, put them on marks, and had them wait there as Armando swapped a lens and snapped this shot from about 50 meters away:

Our stand-ins Stefan and Taylor. Stefan is not as tall as Daniel Henney, and Taylor is not as blond as Eliza Coupe.

After several more weeks of pre-production (and permit delays — ask me about that another time), we returned to the Bund to actually film the scene.  Now, there’s a lot of stuff on a director’s mind during filming.  You have to communicate with each of the department heads, constantly re-explain things to your extras, deal with costume and makeup problems, worry about finishing the scene in time…

It’s also a good idea to tell your actors where the camera is.

I had forgotten that Daniel and Eliza weren’t with us on the location scout (actors never come to location scouts… there’s something about spending all day in a hot van full of sweaty crew members that doesn’t appeal to them), so after setting up this shot and putting the actors on their marks, I hiked down to video village, sat down in my chair and looked at the video monitor, where the actors should have been — but they were gone!

“Uh, Daniel?”  I turned around — Daniel and Eliza were suddenly right behind me, looking very confused.  “Where’s the camera?”

Apparently, after I put them on their marks and left them, Daniel and Eliza glanced around and couldn’t tell what angle they were being filmed from, because the camera was sitting on the ground, in total darkness, fifty feet away.  So they followed me back to video village to figure out what was going on.  I realized my mistake, took them back to their marks, and we rolled the shot.

Momentary confusion aside, it came out pretty well.  Go to our PHOTOS page for a downloadable, full-size version of this still:

@danielhsia