Lights, camera, action!

• Source: Global Times
• [04:02 September 11 2009]
• Comments

Eric Ransdell, director of FLY Films.

By Mark Graham

Moving to China–and changing his career focus–was the best professional move that 45-year-old Eric Ransdell ever made. Within a few years, the former war correspondent's company, Fly Films, has become hugely successful making corporate films, television programs and documentaries.

The often-glamorous world of film and television is far removed from the American's previous job, as a foreign correspondent for US News and World Report. It took Ransdell to wherever there was a breaking story on the African continent; as often as not to a place that was in the throes of war, famine or plague.

The danger and pressure took its toll. Ransdell quit to spend time in the less-life-threatening environment of laid-back California, covering the dotcom boom for a magazine. Restless for a new challenge, he took an exploratory trip to Shanghai in the early part of the century and decided the bustling port city was the place he wanted to live and work.

Ransdell, a self-taught cameraman, initially made a short documentary on divorce in China, which was a critical success. The next project, a 14-minute documentary on the restoration of Shanghai's historic Bund 18 building to its former glory, also received plaudits and acted as a great showcase for Ransdell's work.

A commission came from the Mori Corporation to make a feature on the construction of the Shanghai World Financial Center as it took shape over the Pudong skyline. At one stage it involved Ransdell filming from a crane above the 90th floor, with a scarily panoramic view of the entire city; the client wanted to document the installation of two Mitsubishi mass-tuned dampers, 150- ton computer-controlled counterweights that counteract the force of winds on the building.

"It was a blast, I was 400 meters above Shanghai," said Ransdell. "There is a 40 mph wind up there and people are walking about on iron beams! All told we filmed for nine days over two weeks, some days up on top of the building until two in the morning and some days starting before dawn."

The main principals of Fly Films are Ransdell, Norman Wong Kwok Sum, a Chinese-Canadian with a marketing background and producer Cain Wang (Wang Huanxia). The company says it offers a boutique film-making service that is of a higher quality than anything else available locally.

"I think we are one of the most creative firms here in China," says Ransdell. "At the end of the day you can still go to someone else if you want it done cheaper. And when people don't really care about the quality, that's what happens. We've been able to build the business by providing high-quality work that's done to an international broadcast standard. And the appetite for that continues to grow in China.

"But it's expensive to get it right and we're constantly being asked to give discounts. So it's this situation where people see our stuff, they know they want that level of quality, but they don't want to pay for it. Thankfully for us, most do in the end.

"We want to do in the entertainment space what Fly Films has done in the corporate, news and documentary space, which is to build a brand that is based on quality, creativity and world-class production values. But to do that with content that is only available from us. Then it's a whole different ball game."

Fly Films has made great advances in that direction of late. Shanghai Rush, a 12-part reality show for SMG's international channel in Shanghai was a success. The series – made in hour-long episodes – is described as something like The Amazing Race meets Big Brother, but all shot in and around the port city with expatriate residents among the stars. Ransdell brought in expert cameramen from overseas to ensure that the tight schedule – just 17 days, shooting up to 90 people in different parts of the city – could be adhered to.

"It was a success and garnered a big following, especially among Chinese viewers," says Ransdell. "The channel has already sold it overseas in Malaysia and is currently negotiating to sell it in Hong Kong. We are now talking with the channel about doing a second season next spring, which will be shot all over China and will be called China Rush.

"We also have a talk show called Asia Uncut in the pipeline that will go out to 59 countries on Star World. The host, Jon Niermann, wanted to move it to Shanghai and wanted to work with us, so we are going to be producing the show here and handling all of the creative on it. The show is pretty much like David Letterman but it's going to be Asia-focused. Jon's already had Brendon Fraser, James Blunt, Maggie Q and Ethan Hawke on the show and we are already starting to book some serious A-list stars for next season, with taping due to start in November.

"Basically, the big move for us is from corporate and news/documentary into entertainment television. With two TV series, this is turning out to be a breakthrough year for Fly Films."

The corporate side remains a money-spinner for Fly Films, with commissions that take crews to different parts of China and around the world. Current projects include work for the Shangri-la hotel group and the Remy Martin company. In the past Intel sent a crew on a trip to Ghana, India and Mexico to make a promotion film, with a London company commissioned a corporate film of their tree-planting project in Uganda.

Major corporate projects, which are charged at a minimum of 300,000 yuan ($43,925), are planned and executed over a number of months, involving up to 12 shooting days. The company, based in Shanghai, with an office in Beijing, now has a staff of 14, including six who graduated from New York University.

"All aspects of the business are challenging," says Ransdell. "For us it's really a question of what can we learn from each project and how can we push the creative envelope. This business is 90 per cent creativity and 10 percent staying on top of the technology. But that is a very crucial 10 per cent.

"With each job we always ask ourselves, what new tools can we deploy on this job that we can learn and then bring those skills into the company. Sometimes it's on the post-production side, like using 3D or new ways of color correcting our footage. On other projects it's on the production side, like using an advanced car rig, or a green screen or a TechnoCrane. In this way every project isn't just bringing in cash flow, it's also expanding our skill set as a company, which not only expands what we can offer our clients, but how we can conceive of the projects themselves. It's a constant learning process."