Inspiring stories

Shao Jin made a special decision on the morning of Feb 12, the 21st day since the lockdown of Wuhan, Hubei province, the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak.

The 41-year-old film director shaved his head in solidarity with some medical workers who'd cut their hair short or shaved their heads to improve work efficiency in hospitals.

A native of Yangzhou in Jiangsu province, Shao has been in Wuhan, the provincial capital, since November to shoot his coming-of-age TV series, Manual of Youth Entrepreneurship.

As one of thousands of content producers for film and TV who are working in or based in Wuhan, Shao has witnessed the city's determination and efforts to fight the epidemic.

Last year, Wuhan's cinemas grossed 1.54 billion yuan ($219.76 million), the most in Hubei and eighth most among cities nationwide, according to the local newspaper Hubei Daily.

With its confirmed cases of infection much higher than other Chinese cities, Wuhan is forecast to take a longer time before the local film and TV industry recovers, some insiders contacted by China Daily say.

But most insiders, including Shao, who has joined a volunteer group to help locals, have transitioned from enduring anxiety in the early days of the outbreak to coping with the situation in a more optimistic way.

Shao says his crew of more than 130 members had started to shoot the TV series on Nov 26. The drama is about college students trying to establish a startup, with major scenes set in Wuhan, which has over 80 colleges, universities and other higher-education institutions.

"Wuhan has more than 1 million college students. They are vigorous, energetic and spirited, making the city one of the best options for a youth-themed story," Shao says.

According to the filming schedule, the crew would take a short holiday on the eve and first day of Spring Festival, which fell on Jan 24 and 25, respectively, and then return to shoot the remaining scenes in around two weeks.

A few days after the lockdown of Wuhan, the China Federation of Radio and Television Association, an industry body, issued a notice that required all film and TV crews to suspend shooting in the city.

Being self-quarantined in a hotel and having to eat instant noodles most of the time, Shao says he closely followed information about patients battling the virus in the most-affected areas.

Aside from editing the footage of Manual of Youth Entrepreneurship the crew had shot before the lockdown, Shao mostly focused on his volunteer work. He helped to organize donations of food for medical workers in Wuhan's hospitals.

"I'm now writing a film script inspired by my work as a volunteer. I hope it will tell people more about the volunteers and medical workers in Wuhan, who are ordinary people doing great things."

Some local filmmakers who had left Wuhan a few days before the lockdown are missing the city.

Dong Songyan, who has a film, TV and advertisement company, says his corporate partner's mother was transferred to an intensive care unit because of an acute lung infection on Jan 11 that was not diagnosed as a coronavirus infection then.

"His father later developed such symptoms as fever, cough and pneumonia. He was quite stressed, quickly isolating his children in another apartment," says 37-year-old Dong.

Considering it as a warning as well as hearing about suggestions from some of his friends who work in hospitals, Dong says his company placed importance on prevention earlier than most residents in Wuhan. "I purchased some face-masks and dispatched them to all people in my company, urging them to be cautious."

But it was still a shock when Dong heard Wuhan was locked down on Jan 23, two days after he'd returned to his hometown in Hengyang, Hunan province.

"My feelings were mixed. For a moment I thought I had betrayed Wuhan, which has seen my transition from a young college student to a middle-aged man. I got married, became a father and launched my own business there," he adds.

Dong graduated with a degree in animation from the Wuhan University of Technology. He has lived in Wuhan for 18 years. His directorial debut, The Best Summer, was shot there in 2018. Last year, he raised a big budget to shoot Forever Young at the No 14 Middle School of Wuhan and Wuhan High School, with more than 300 students as extras.

"The story is about a team of four students who overcome a series of challenges to win a poker competition. Personally, I have always fancied such coming-of-age themes," he says.

But due to the epidemic－all the country's theaters are shut－the film, scheduled to be theatrically released this summer, may take time to come out.

Zhang Xiaosha, a film director, predicts the epidemic will cause "a huge loss" to most investors and theater operators.

Living in Wuhan for over a decade before moving to Beijing several months ago, Zhang, who was born in Xiantao, Hubei province, shot his directorial debut, My Son Has Gone to Another Planet, in central Wuhan.

Zhang says the real-life stories occurring during this battle against the epidemic－hailing heroes or exposing problems－could be retold in cinema.

"It could be a duty of the people working in films and TV to record and produce such stories."