User:FrostFairBlade/sandbox/An Autumn's Tale

An Autumn's Tale is a 1987 Hong Kong romantic drama film directed by Mabel Cheung and written by Alex Law. It stars Chow Yun-fat, Cherie Chung, and Danny Chan.

Conception

 * For her University of New York thesis project, Cheung and her boyfriend, Alex Law, had successfully funded her first film, Illegal Immigrant (1984)
 * She was able to persuade Shaw Brothers producer Mona Fong to give her HK$1 million to finance the project
 * Illegal Immigrant went on to earn a box office return of HK$5 million, and won Cheung a Best Director award at the 5th Hong Kong Film Awards in 1986

Writing

 * While living in America, she befriended an illegal immigrant nicknamed Wrinkled Lemon, whose kind generosity left an impression on Cheung and ultimately inspired the character of Figurehead

Development and pre-production

 * Despite the success of her first film, Cheung struggled with finding financial backing for An Autumn's Tale
 * Under encouragement from fellow alumnus Chan Koonchung, Cheung sought out D&B Films founder John Shum to see if he was interested in the script
 * Since they could not get American cinematographer James Hayman to come to Hong Kong with the rest of the film crew, Shum asked David Chung to step in as cinematographer
 * The film's production budget was HK$4 million (approximately $500,000 USD), with salaries for the three lead actors adding up to less than HK$600,000

Casting

 * For the role of Figurehead, Cheung only had Chow Yun-fat in mind; howevver, production companies balked at Chow's then-reputation as "box office poison"

Filming

 * The film crew was arrested and fined for putting red paint on green tree leaves
 * Chow had to film a scene where he runs after Chung's character over the course of fifteen days
 * The indoor scenes were shot at a mansion in Kowloon Tong

Post-production

 * The film was edited by multiple people in the editing department at D&B Films; Cheung recalled that any editor who was available would help edit a portion of the film

Design

 * Art director Yank Wong recalled that the limited space inside the Kowloon Tong mansion forced the crew to creatively divide the space to resemble different locations
 * Because the corridor in the mansion wasn't long enough, they placed the camera in the centre, and filmed each half of the corridor as if they were two different corridors
 * Wong changed the mansion's bottom floor until it resembled a basement apartment, installing higher windows and filming the location from above
 * To get a shot where the cameraman follows an actor down the stairs in one shot, he had to uninstall the railings in order to make space for the camera
 * For the outside party, Wong decided to use Christmas lights; he explained that it would be more appropriate to make the place look visually tackier
 * He designed Chow's character's apartment with beaded curtains to highlight the character's transient occupation; the things at his residence are second-hand

Awards and accolades

 * An Autumn's Tale received three awards at the 7th Hong Kong Film Awards for Best Film, Best Screenplay (Law) and Best Cinematography (Hayman and Chung)