yr studio is a city

shooting a film is an anal thing when it comes to privacy and exclusion from the real world. we’d rather keep the reel of the movie separated from the real of the world we are making a film about. this physical separation results in autonomous enclaves within the city, where you can only get in with a pass and an appropiate id.

taking the movie studio out of its exclusive surroundings and bringing it into the real world could generate a whole new way of looking at both film and the city. using the city not only as a visual element but also as a programmatic part of the process of filmmaking, thereby redefining the art of filming of and living in the city.

what better place to experiment with new concepts of visual urbanism than china? the cities of china are being built, destroyed and rebuilt at a pace only cinema could understand. the results are disputable, but what is certain is that cities like beijing or shanghai are undergoing a transformation that leaves their old urban fabric torn and indistinghuisable.

yr studio is a city looks both at contemporary china as well as at old, pre-capitalist china. the intricate structure of the hutongs, the old housing neighbourhoods, are adapted for modern times. their visually entangling physique is reconstructed, not only graphically, but also programmatically.

the city becomes a place where filming is no longer a separate, disjoint operation but something that will be as common as walking or eating your dog.