Life and Leisure

Made for each other

By Xu Lin (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-10-14 07:57

Ma Shiyu and Liu Yunpeng pose for their "love MV" at a cafe in Beijing. Photos provided to China Daily

Elaborate wedding shoots are passe. The latest trend among the post-80s generation of newlyweds is to go in for the 'love MV'. Xu Lin reports

Dong Liqian, a 22-year-old student of the Film School at Tongji University in Shanghai, is busy with something rather un-academic these days. She is writing a 5-minute music video (MV) screenplay for a newlywed couple.

She is one of the three freelancers hired by Youth Image Studio, a professional studio in Shanghai that specializes in recording personal love stories, dubbed "love MVs".

Basically a short music video on how the couple met and fell in love, such videos are becoming popular in some metropolises.

Dong says she found the freelance job on the Internet, and now takes assignments over the phone. She tailors her scripts to the requirements of her customers, which sometimes include bizarre requests such as setting the video in 1930s Shanghai.

"I earn 150 yuan ($22) for each screenplay," she says.

Her employer, Yang Dan, 28, opened the studio with a partner five years ago while still a at Shanghai University. It was while filming promotional videos for companies in 2007 that the idea of shooting music videos for young couples came to him.

"Everyone was talking of elaborate wedding photo shoots. Why not film a MV instead?" he asked himself.

The studio offers tailormade MVs, with the screenplay based on the couple's romance, for 8,800 yuan ($1,320). This price entitles the newlyweds to 10 sets of DVDs packaged exactly like an original movie DVD, complete with poster and still pictures.

During the long National Day holiday recently, which is traditionally a boom time for weddings after the May Day holiday, the studio received more than 20 orders within a month.

Making a "love MV" follows much the same path as a full-length feature film. Yang first gets to know the couple and their romantic history, and then comes up with a screenplay with inputs from his freelancers such as Dong.

"Most want to recount their campus romances. But I have just written a screenplay about love in this life and a past one," Dong says.

Yang's customers are all newlyweds belonging to the post-80s generation, who are open to new ideas. They want the video both to show at their wedding banquet and to keep as a memento of their youth.

"They (the couples) are just amateurs, but it is always easy to act yourself," Yang says.

Like many others, Ni Bin and Hu Qi were instantly attracted to the idea of a "love MV" when first introduced to it at a wedding expo in Shanghai.

"We wanted a record of our 11-year romance," Ni says.

Their MV shows how they met in high school, separated after being forbidden to be together by a teacher, and eventually reunited.

Ni wrote the screenplay himself, in accordance with Yang's advice. The couple waited until August, when the weather is perfect for outdoor shooting.

Choosing a weekend when students are off school, the couple, both 27, gathered several old classmates for bit parts in the MV.

To give the video an authentic look, Ni even bought school uniform-style white shirts and black ties for everyone. Even his high school teacher, who was responsible for separating them in school, agreed to play himself for the video.

The MV shows how they walked to class and took bike rides together. So touched were some of their classmates that they burst into tears after watching it.

"Wedding photos all look the same. I wanted to try something new," Ni says.

Copied from Taiwan, mainland couples spend anywhere between 3,000 yuan ($450) and 7,000 yuan for their wedding photos, which are usually displayed at the banquet and inside the bridal chamber.

"It is time to end the domination of wedding photos," Yang says.

Ren Ping, 28, the owner of a "love MV" studio in Beijing, could not agree more.

"Videos are definitely more appealing," he says.

His private studio Love Macchiato, which used to film advertisements for the Ogilvy & Mather Group, entered the "love MV" market in 2008, following the decline in advertising owing to the financial crisis.

The videos his studio brings out consist of three parts: the first encounter, the romance and the wedding.

Since MVs don't come cheap, most patrons are the well-heeled, with half being overseas returnees and art designers.

"It is very fashionable to shoot such an MV," Li Jifang, a 32-year-old customer from Harbin, says.

Li and his 24-year-old wife, Guan Hong, were not happy with the portrait photos they took in 2006.

"Those are outdated while the video is more realistic," Li says.

A "love MV" of Hu Qi and Ni Bin from Shanghai features the couple's 11-year romance, including their high school days.