How a short visit became a new life

The purpose of the film was to show my relationship with China so creatively we had to come up with a method to not only show that, but the passage of seven years in just over three minutes. The focus we choose centered on the one constant during the entire seven years I have been in China, and that has been that every experience has been a new experience for me and I believe that is why I found my time here so enriching. I have been constantly learning. Through my students and colleagues, through my travels in China and through day to day living and I hope that truth is reflected in this film. We used a variety of methods to reflect these experiences beginning with narration, then footage of me learning to use apps, followed by green screen to show my travels. My academic activities were then realized through shots of students, graduations, festivals and then images representing the stories my students had written. An opening day speech concluded the film because student creativity is what runs the school.

Dean Burns: Vice President of Education, Head of Writing Department at Shanghai Vancouver Film School

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