LAS students curate glimpses into Chinese culture through “Looking China”

Documentaries can take months and even years to produce, usually involving several weeks for each stage of the process.

A handful of UCCS students each produced one within three weeks last summer.

Through "Looking China," five students from the College of Letters, Arts & Sciences visited the coastal Chinese city of Xiamen, in the Fujian province, during July of 2024 to film and produce short documentaries on various topics of Chinese culture. The program concluded with a closing ceremony and screening of a few of the dozens produced. Students Jaxon Fox, Haden Gillespie, Will Leech, Cameron Loghry and Vita Rasl joined Assistant Professor Jay Hubert for the all-expenses-paid intensive program.

"Each group of ten students is supervised by a filmmaking professor from one of the universities participating in the program," explained Hubert. "I supervised the Beijing edition of this program in 2017 when I was working at the University of Hawai’i, and when I reached out to Looking China last year requesting to send some of our UCCS students to the program this summer, they accepted my offer to supervise again. Initially they invited us to send two of our students this summer, but on the same day I sent out the call for applications to our students in February, Looking China reached out and asked if we could bring five students instead. I of course said yes."

Travel took over 30 hours, with several layovers and red-eye flights, but upon their arrival after midnight, the Xiamen University group they'd be spending the trip with were waiting to welcome them. Along with the five UCCS students, Hubert's group of ten had three join from Los Angeles, plus one from Slovakia and one from Fiji.

"Some of the Chinese students had made signs for their partners, including one that Will’s clever partner made for him that said ‘Willcome to Xiamen,'" Hubert said.

Each student was paired with a Xiamen University student studying film, media studies, TV broadcast, communication or a similar program, who helps translate the local language, produce the film and generally acts as their partner throughout. The partnership is a key part of the process, as the international students are relying on the Xiamen students to translate their questions and act as local guides.

"They had been doing pre-production for the films before arriving in Xiamen, and in the free time they had our first few days on the ground," said Hubert. "For the next five days, each international student worked with their Chinese partner to get as much footage as possible for their given topic. The topics for the films were gathered by the Xiamen University students in the spring, and they wrote up a summary of each topic that I shared with the ten international students to choose from a month before the trip."

Though they had five days allotted to film, not every location allowed for that, making a tight production schedule even more challenging for some. Cameron, one of the UCCS students, was featuring Quanzhou Shaolin Temple in his documentary and the temple permitted one day of shooting only, while other shoots were located hours away from Xiamen. These weren't the only obstacles to to contend with - another UCCS student, Will, was featuring street vendors who operate their stands without a formal license and were subsequently reluctant and nervous to be interviewed.

"Students woke up the next morning believing the hardest part was over, only to head over to the editing facilities on campus and realize how difficult it would be to edit and polish their films in only six short days," Hubert said. "While all of the students in the program had some editing experience, very few of them had ever edited a documentary film, and didn’t realize how much more time consuming and exhausting it can be than a narrative film, where the story is already laid out for you in a script."

Despite the time limitation, each student had their films completed by the end of the editing stage and were soon on their way to Beijing to attend the closing ceremony. With so many films to choose from, the ceremony can only show a few and presented six out of the hundred that were made. One of those six was "Rescued," by UCCS's very own Vita Rasl. The piece highlights the work done with Chinese white dolphins at the Xiamen Chinese White Dolphin Wenchang Fish Nature Reserve Management Center through an interview with Zhou Qing, one of the center's leaders.

Each film delves beautifully into an aspect of Chinese culture, summarizing years of tradition and customs in a succinct narrative. The compilation of UCCS students' work, which can be viewed here, includes "Carving Culture" by Haden Gillespie, focusing on artist Shen Xiren and the art form of porcelain carving that is passed down through generations; "Harmony in Motion" by Cameron Loghry, showcasing the ways of life for Shaolin monks at Quanzhou Shaolin Temple; "Rescued" by Vitezslav "Vita" Rasl, on the Chinese white dolphins; "Food on the Run" by William "Will" Leech, which explores the Xiamen street vendors and the complexities of selling their products illegally; and "Jimei: Architecture through the Ages" by Jaxon Fox, a view into the old and new architecture of the city of Jimei and how it ties into the city's history.

"Since we were one of the last three groups to finish, the program flew all of the international students to Beijing the day after the final screening in Xiamen to attend the closing ceremony for the entire Looking China program," said Hubert. "This was a huge added bonus in a program that had already given the students such a great opportunity, but the only catch is that the students’ Chinese partners/producers weren’t joining us. They all accompanied us on the bus to the Xiamen airport, and we were all in tears as we went through the security check after having to say goodbye to our new friends. They had worked tirelessly at our sides for three long weeks, and gone above and beyond in showing us the most beautiful aspects of Chinese culture and hospitality."