Right after finishing The Dinosaur, the shooting of Fucking Love began. Two weeks before the shooting, Story already started the pre-production by arranging the locations, plots, costume, settings, etc. Everything was settled once Hong Chen got to New York.
Fucking love is unique because of the breaking performance of Hong Chen. In the MV, Hong Chen get rid of her the feminine aspect by bearing the local street American clothes, which have an obstinate feeling. Just by looking at the make-up of She can you feel the visual impact, let alone the storyline of the MV.
We usually take this natural yet strong effect as granted, however, the costume and make-up do need fine craft. In order to make this dress, Story invite Zoey, who specialize in American hippie style to design. Zoey beat up and down around New York City to choose different clothes and accessories while Story spend time out of her class to discuss with her. Hong Chen’s clothes need to be assistant with the setting, location as well as the plot.
The makeup is another thing more deliberate than clothing. An observant person can tell that Hong Chen’s makeup is changing with the plot. Starting from the light makeup at the beginning of the MV, to the thick liner, smoky eye and black lipstick, all this makeup was tried several times with Hong Chen before shooting. After settle down the makeup, it is handed to camera and production department for further discussion so that it’s in line with the style of the location. Story persist in this process through the whole weeks.
Exterior Scene
As said earlier, the natural looking of the scene demand the echoing of costume, makeup and location. Location is one key component of the MV. The exterior scene takes up the majority of the MV, and there’s lots of night scene also. Thus Story and the camera operator walked around every corner in East Village until midnight to find the best place for the scene and sound.
Brooklyn is home to many free artist, so it suits the style of the MV inherently. Although it’s filled with the same graffiti, each location in the MV differ sharply from each other in terms of the color, light and texture. The different time zone is also distinct from each other by the design of light, including other aspects such as the graffiti block, the green iron gate, the brick wall, the import workshop and also the triangle sign of the safety zone. Story took all of it into account so that the final project can be such variable and delicate. It’s hard to imagine that it only took one and half days to shoot the whole MV.
Production
The whole exterior scene is accomplished by Steadicam. As Hong Chen’s moving, not only the camera operator, but also the Gaffer, the camera assistant, the reflector person need to move together with her so that the light on her face is not faded. The details that outsider considered trivia were deliberately designed. There’s not much beautiful coincidence in the world, it’s all being designed up front.
Once the details have all been designed, the beauty becomes beyond language. When shooting the scene of the retro truck, it accidentally started to rain. However, Story seemed to be prepared as she adjusted the shooting plan and decided to shoot the mania scene when raining. The night scene after that was made powerful by the coming across of a train. When they finished shooting, it’s already 2am, showing the whole 12 hours of hard work.
Ice Cream
Details can show the personality of a celebrity. In the MV there’s a ice cream scene of Hong Chen. At that time it’s April in New York, freezing. Only wearing shirts, Hong Chen was already trembling, but she needed to hold tightly on the ice cream on shooting. She even took a bite of the ice cream although it’s not required in the script, showing her persistence and professional.
Ending
The dinosaur and Phucking Love had already been released recently. After viewing the projects on the screen, Story recalled the two weeks of efforts and communication. The appraise from the public gave Story the confidence to move on. She thought you need to have the attitude of making a big project no matter it’s film, shorts, MV or commercials. The audience can tell the difference between technique and art.
Here we attached the Director’s Cut of Phucking Love which is different from the official MV.
https://v.qq.com/x/page/a0347kxllrm.html