Xu Qi’s profile

Xu Qi was born in Jiangyin, Jiangsu Province and spent his childhood in Shanghai. Because his family was poor, he was unable to continue studying in junior high school after graduating from primary school. His eldest brother happened to be newly married and his sister-in-law's family was well off. Fortunately, he was brought to Shanghai and enrolled in Shanghai Junyi Middle School. Two years later, the family moved to Nanjing with his eldest brother and sister-in-law, and transferred to Sanmin Middle School in Nanjing to continue studying. At this time, he gradually became interested in Nanjing Fine Arts College. In 1931, Xu Qi was admitted to the specialized course of Nanjing Fine Arts College. Two years later, he entered the Department of Traditional Chinese Painting to study as an undergraduate.

When Xu Qi was studying art, the teachers who had the greatest influence on him were Gao Xishun and Chen Zhifo. Under the guidance of famous teachers, he was able to achieve success.

When the Anti-Japanese War broke out in 1937, Xu Qi’s family fled to Wuhan, then went to Hong Kong via Guangzhou. Later, forced to make a living, he returned to Shanghai in 1938, which had become an "isolated island" at that time. 21-year-old Xu Qi went out to find a job in order to reduce the burden of supporting the family on his brother and sister-in-law. Entered a film company where his second brother Xu Ming worked as a photo-processing apprentice. Later, this company was merged into Xinhua Film Company, owned by Zhang Shankun. Xu Qi not only did photo development and printing work in the company, but also worked as an assistant for photographer Xue Boqing. Xu Qi's first film at Wenhua Company, which was also the first film produced by Wenhua Company after its establishment, was "Unbreakable Love" written by Zhang Ailing, directed by Sang Hu, and starring Liu Qiong and Chen Yanyan.

"The Love" received a good response after its release. Wenhua Company then started filming the second major drama "Fake Phoenix". This drama was directed by Huang Zuolin, and it was also the first film that Xu Qi and Huang collaborated on. Huang Zuolin and Sang Hu are the heads of the creative department of Wenhua Company. After the filming of "Fake Phoenix" was completed, Huang spent his own money to subscribe to a movie magazine published by Hollywood in the United States for Xu Qi. The subscription lasted for three or four years, until after 1949, American magazines could no longer be imported. This was of great help to Xu Qi. His experience of studying Chinese painting at the Nanjing Academy of Fine Arts helped him with composition and handling of light and shadow. However, he has never been to a film school, and half of his knowledge of film was learned from actual work. , the other half is self-study. There were several film schools in Shanghai at the time, and Xu Qi managed to get various teaching materials to teach himself. In addition, the professional articles in the magazine that Huang Zuo ordered also had a great impact on him. For example, he learned that when photographing a European, the light should not be too sideways, because Europeans' faces have larger undulations. If the light is too sideways, there will be There are very heavy shadows; but on the other hand, if you are photographing Chinese people, the light can be set to the side, because Chinese people have flat faces, and if the light is not set to the side, they may appear lackluster. But if there is too much light on one side, the other side will be dark, so you have to use a reflector or fill light to prevent it from turning into a black and white yin and yang face.

Huang Zuolin trusts Xu Qi. After "Fake Phoenix", "Nightclub", "Form", "Corrosion", "Ideological Problems", and later "For Peace", "The Cuckoo Cry Again", "San Mao Learns Business", " "Stories of the Huangpu River" were all shot by Xu Qi as the photographer.

Since the film "Biao", Xu Qi has basically started to make films independently, and his cooperation with director Huang Zuolin has become more tacit. When it came time to shoot "Ideological Problems", Xu Qi had greater autonomy, and the director did not come for some scenes. The most successful film between Xu Qi and Huang Zuolin was "Corrosion". The film gathered the strongest lineup of Wenhua Company at that time, with actors including Shi Hui, Danny, Cui Chaoming, Cheng Zhi, etc. Xu Qi believes that China's film shooting conditions have always been very poor, from lighting, scenery to other technical aspects. This forces photographers to use their brains and find ways to make the people and objects in the scene more realistic and more in line with the natural form of life under such poor conditions. For example, in the past, the light source for indoor scenes was usually an oil lamp or a light bulb. At this time, the photographer had to consider whether the lighting met the requirements of the plot. If it's too bright, it's obviously not realistic for that oil lamp.

For example, when filming "Unbreakable Love", there was a scene in the room where Chen Yanyan lived. The plot required a power outage, and Chen Yanyan and Liu Qiong lit candles in the room. After a while, the electricity came on again. They blew out the candles and the candle light turned into electric light. At this time, you should consider that the brightness of candle light and electric light are different, and the direction of the light source is also different. How to express this difference depends only on the photographer's experience and light processing skills. Scenes like this may seem simple now, but at that time, under such conditions, you had to use your brain to shoot something real and natural.

Xu Qi believes that the use of light is also a means of expressing character. In the past, Chinese movies always divided characters into two types: positive characters and negative characters. Generally speaking, the light for positive characters should be flatter and not have too many shadows, while the negative characters should use bottom light and the shadows on the back can be heavier, so as to express their character. Insidious and ugly. When he was filming "Corrosion", he used a lot of contrasting techniques like this. But sometimes it's also used in reverse. For example, when Danny stole the list of informants from Cui Chaoming's drawer in the middle of the night, she used bottom light to show her inner panic.

When Cui Qi was filming at Wenhua Company, she also learned how photographers work with actors. The actor's performance depends on the photographer to use the picture to convey it, but the photographer cannot hinder or interfere with the actor's performance in this process, but should think about how to express his performance and the character's personality in the most accurate way. come out.

This problem was not easy to solve in the past. For example, if you want to take a close-up of an actor, it is not like now when you can shoot from a long distance with a long focal length lens. The lenses at that time were not so advanced and could not meet this requirement. The camera had to be very close to the actors, which would inevitably affect the actors' performance. Therefore, he always tries to stay as far away from the actors as possible and shoot with the longest focal length; on the other hand, sometimes the photographer has to help the actors shape the characters, reveal the characters' inner world and personality traits, and use the camera to make up for the shortcomings of the performance itself.

While filming "Corrosion", Cheng Zhi had a scene in which he threatened Danny. He always felt that it was not interesting enough, but he could not ask the actors to perform it with their teeth and claws bared and shouting like on the stage. Xu Qi used a wide-angle lens at that time, so that the actor's face was deformed and distorted in the picture, making it appear more vicious and ugly. Cheng Zhi's performance was a faint smile, but once this sinister smile was placed in this distorted composition, it was Magnified, highlighted.

Xu Qi believes that a photographer must be good at handling the relationship between the camera and the scene. In the past, some scenery photos were very rough and looked fake, and they would look fake if you were not careful when taking them. The main reason why "National Beauty and Heavenly Fragrance" was unsuccessful was that the scenery was not filmed well. Later, when I was filming "Legend of Tianyun Mountain", I gained more experience and no longer suffered this kind of disadvantage. Part of the location of "The Legend of Tianyun Mountain" was in Jiuhua Mountain, Anhui. There was a scene where the mountain shape in the background was very good, but some of the houses looked nondescript and the angles were unavoidable, so Xu Qi used some bonsai like pine trees to block these houses, and the resulting picture was not good at all. Can't tell. There is another scene, which is a small bamboo forest with only a few clumps of bamboos, but the photo was shot to give people the feeling of a deep and wide bamboo forest, and a similar technique was used.

In general, Xu Qi believes that photographers must learn to add and subtract on the picture. Addition means borrowing scenes and using scenes from one place to another place to make up for the difference in composition of the real scene. The shortcomings; subtraction is to use the scenery on the scene and the depth of the front and rear scenes to block unnecessary objects. A photographer is not passive in front of the scene. He should use the ready-made scenes to serve his own picture conception instead of just passively recording the ready-made scenes with the camera. Regarding Chinese cinematography, Xu Qi feels that it must have a national style. Therefore, when dealing with picture composition, light and shadow, and even color, Xu Qi pursues a natural and subtle effect, and generally does not push, pull, or throw easily to avoid strong impact effects on the picture. It’s best not to let the audience feel the presence of the camera. This style is implemented more thoroughly in "The Legend of Tianyun Mountain". There is a scene in the film where Luo Qun was beaten as a rightist and became seriously ill. Feng Qinglan dragged him back on a cart. This scene was shot in a snow scene in Tonghua, Jilin. When filming this scene, director Xie Jin was not present for a while. So it was not easy to reshoot this scene. The two actors performed very naturally. Luo Qun was lying on the cart, snowflakes fell on his face and turned into water droplets, and Feng Qinglan pulled the cart. She accidentally slipped and fell. She got up, turned around, and wiped the water droplets from Luo Qun's face with her hands. Luo Qun also took off Feng's glasses and wiped away the snowflakes that splashed on them for her. These actions were not planned in advance, but were completely improvised on the spot. Feng Qinglan's fall was also a real fall by the actor. The photographer's task was to capture the scene and record the actor's real performance with the camera.

When I saw the actor falling, I felt it was very real, so I quickly captured the action with my camera. Some photographers may not do this. When he sees the actor falling, he thinks that this action is not in the script. No, he has to do it again. If so, the realism and vividness of the scene will be lost. How do you organize and rehearse a scene like this? If we do this, the scene will be covered with footprints, the snow scene will be ruined, and the close-up of the rut marks will no longer be able to be photographed. When filming this scene, the on-site camera and actor scheduling was very complicated. The machines used at that time were very bulky and inconvenient to move. It was impossible to follow and shoot with lightweight machines like now. It's impossible to use tracks on snow, so it all depends on careful scene planning.