Screentime: Joshua Frank, Videographer for Vice China

For this month's Screentime we sat down with Joshua Frank, videographer for Vice China (watch his grueling piece on this year's Dog Eating Festival in Yulin) and is one half of synth punk outfit Hot and Cold with his bro. Here's what he had to say about his life in film:

In the biopic of your life, which scene should be filmed in slow motion?
It’s a film within a film. I’m shooting a Thai tattoo festival at a Buddhist temple and at 120 frames per second you see me get knocked in the head by a running guy in a trance who thinks he’s a tiger.

What TV show or movie did you have to be coerced into watching but now readily admit that you love?
I never really got into Seinfeld until I lived in New York, but once you spend enough time in a stopped subway car underground things just really make more sense.

What was your favorite movie when you were a child?
Dunston Checks In, which is the beautiful story of a young boy befriending a mischievous orangutan in a five-star hotel and outsmarting a jewel thief. 

What’s your favorite film musical?
Hole, by Tsai Ming-Liang. It’s a film about an apocalyptic virus hitting Taipei and people beginning to act like cockroaches. Throughout the film there are lip-synced dance sequences with Grace Chang songs from the 1960s. Air Hostess and Wild, Wild Rose, which are original Grace Chang musicals, are also incredible.

Is there a movie soundtrack or score that you use to get yourself into a certain mood?
“Jungle Drums” from Wong Kar-wai’s Days of Being Wild is deep brunching music.

What movie are you sick of people saying to you: “What?! You haven’t seen it?”
I really should have seen Antichrist by now but either I’m feeling upbeat and don’t want to get crushed, or I’m already sufficiently bummed out. 

What is the slowest paced movie you still enjoyed?
I like a lot of slow movies; films by Taiwan directors like Tsai Ming-Liang or Edward Yang where most of the time it’s just two people silently eating durian in a gloomy apartment. Once you get into the rhythm everything clicks.

What’s the scariest movie you’ve ever seen?
Enter the Void is probably one of the most viscerally disturbing films I’ve seen, although I wouldn’t call it a horror film.

If you had your own reality show, what would be the title?
When is someone going to make a reality show about foreign “creatives” sharing a siheyuan off Beiluogu Xiang? If you’re the last to be voted out of the courtyard you win a work visa for a copywriting company and never have to go to Mongolia again.

Look out for Joshua Frank’s videos on Vice.com or keep an eye for Hot and Cold as they may, just may, be touring next year.

More stories by this author here.

Email: danielkippwhittaker@thebeijinger.com 
 

Photos: Mitchell Pe Masilun