REFLECTION

Most thrillers rely on jump scares, but I used 'silence' as a weapon-like that frozen moment when Vesper grabs Cloe's wrist. No music, just neon lights and a ringing phone. Also, my 'hero' is a bartender, not a detective-that blurred identity makes audiences uneasy.

I think the essence of film noir is to subvert stereotypes.

Vesper is not a traditional tough guy - he bartends like a surgeon, and even from the outside he looks like an ordinary guy, but deep down he's got a beast of his own, and that's a much more disturbing contrast.

My film shows how people today

struggle with 'identity crisis' - through the spy who can't decide who he really is.

I focus on two types of audiences

One is the film noir fan: they're keen on 'detail mining', so I'll be hiding clues in many frames

The second group is the general audience: they need to 'get into the movie quickly' - so the script opens with lines like Black Glove and 'Find him now!'Lines like this open the scene.

I will promote and distribute through some social media platforms such as Douyin and YouTube.

The shooting process was far from easy. From actors struggling to hit the right emotional notes to sets that never quite matched the vision in my head, every day presented new obstacles. The lighting refused to cooperate, and our limited equipment meant many of the striking images I'd imagined simply couldn't be captured. Time and again, I found myself rewriting scenes on the spot, abandoning carefully planned shots when reality proved uncooperative.  

Yet these very difficulties became my greatest teachers. Through the chaos, I discovered what it truly means to direct - not just to dream up visions, but to steer an entire crew through stormy seas. Casting decisions suddenly carried new weight when I saw how they affected the entire production. Budget sheets transformed from dry numbers into the lifeblood of our project. Most importantly, I learned to see opportunity in every limitation, discovering unexpected camera angles and moments of beauty when forced to improvise.  

This baptism by fire taught me more about filmmaking than any textbook ever could. The perfect film exists only in theory; real directing happens in the messy, glorious space between vision and compromise, where accidents sometimes create the most authentic magic. What began as frustration became freedom - the freedom to create with what we had, rather than mourn what we lacked.  

There were a lot of difficulties encountered during the shooting process, such as the actors' performances were not on point, the sets did not achieve the desired effect, and the lighting was very difficult to control.The shots that I wanted to express were not expressed because of the limited equipment.So a lot of times it's just a matter of adapting to the scene and changing it to something that's easier to get out of the shot.