And therefore is wing’d cupid painted blind

Director of The Shoe Fairy, Ms Robin Lee

Born in 1972, Robin Lee graduated from the Taiwan University majoring in Animal Studies. She joined the film industry in 1997 as an assistant director for a television station and has since worked in the film industry for many years, from continuity to assistant director, in projects such as Lin Cheng Sheng’s “Betelnut Beauty”, Leon Dai’s “Twenty Something Taipei” and Chen Kuo Fu’s “Double Vision” She began writing her own scripts in 2002 and has since completed two feature length scripts both of which won the annual screenplay awards in Taiwan.

In 2004, she wrote and directed the short film “The Magical Wash Machine” which won Best Short Film at the Golden Horse Film Awards. FOCUS: First Cuts will feature Robin Lee’s first full-length directorial effort.

Director's Statement

There are some things in the world I just don’t understand…

Why do witches have to die?

Why does the little mermaid have to give up her voice for the prince?

What happens after happily ever after?

What if the little mermaid pierced the prince’s heart instead of her own?

Maybe happiness doesn’t come from a prince.
Maybe it’s the glass slippers that bring the happiness.

What is true happiness after all?

And so I decided to make “The Shoe Fairy”, a film about a little girl who cannot walk, who grows up listening to cruel fairytales about meeting witches, trading with witches, killing witches…etc. When the little girl grows up and gains a pair of feet, she becomes obsessed with buying shoes. If she can’t buy more shoes, even the shoes start crying!

The Shoe Fairy, like many women I know around me, looks for happiness in her little heaven of material goods. And so this is how the character Duo Duo is conceived. Then, lady luck smiles upon her and, she meets Prince Charming, and they start living a happily-ever-after life. But is true happiness so easy to achieve? In her momentary bliss, Duo Duo forgets the witch’s curse, falls under the temptation of a pair of red shoes, and cannot walk again. (So she’ll never wear all those beautiful shoes again.) But maybe, just maybe, after losing it all, it’s time for true happiness to arrive?

“The Shoe Fairy” is shot in the style of a fairytale. Duo Duo travels between well-known fairytales, looking for happiness, and finally learns to appreciate what she has.

Like her, I also traveled between my present and past stories, looking for the answer to happiness. Will it be shoes, or princes, or children? Will it take one, or two, or three people?

Due to the fantasy elements of “The Shoe Fairy”, the film is shot on HD-24p. The HD format, compared to traditional celluloid, offers more creativity in post-production. Using the HD format, we can combine images with CGI shots more freely and audaciously, such as making shoes cry tears, or grow teeth, or tap dance…etc.

We can manipulate colors and let images re-combine like a kaleidoscope, thereby adding another creative layer to the film, in the final goal of creating a world that looks and feels as dreamy as the fairytales it tells.

[Courtesy of FocusFirstCuts.com]

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Technorati Tag
The Shoe Fairy
Robin Lee
人鱼朵朵