Original Article, Oct. 23, 2015, by Zhang Min
Introduction
Kobe Bryant, a prominent American basketball player who was awarded as the Best Basketball Player of the 21st century, once said, “I know how Los Angeles looks at 4 a.m. every morning.” Indeed, the reason why some people are smarter than you is that they work harder than you.
Post-80s Female Musician: Those who are smarter than you work harder than you.
China Youth Daily (Section 11, Oct. 23, 2015)
Readers’ Club of China Youth Daily
Yu Fei
As the music director and music editor of Go Away, Mr. Tumor, a popular movie this summer, Yu Fei, an Aquarian girl born in the 1980s, has drawn public attention in China. She has won twice the golden award of Recording Competitions of the Audio Engineering Society (hereinafter as AES), namely the 137th completion in Los Angeles in the USA and 138th in Warsaw, Poland, making her the first Asian who has won twice the golden award of this event. She served as music director of Chronicles of the Ghostly Tribe, and participated in music production for many movies with high box-office records, such as Tiny Times 4, You Are My Sunshine, and Let the Bullets Fly, etc. This year, working with Richard King, a Grammy Award winner, she recorded the latest 2015 album for Anda Union, an Inner Mongolian music band.
Yu Fei began to learn to play the piano since she was three. She used to think that she might continue her study of piano. It was till she was sixteen when she recorded a song for completion of the Xinghai Cup at Central Conservatory of Music that she realized that a sound engineer is able to change the sound quality through adjusting the position of the microphone and remedy the mistakes of playing through audio editing. She was obsessed with this cool profession. After the college entrance examination, she applied for the major of music recording and film music creation of Beijing Film Academy, which marked the first step of the pursuit of her dream. After her graduation from college, she went to work at the Postproduction Center of China Film Group, where she worked with many A-list directors on music editing. During three years of stable work, her eagerness for a career in music recording didn’t weaken. After three years working at China Film Group, Yu Fei chose to quit her job, and began to apply for the master program of Music Recording and Production of McGill University in Canada, and eventually she became the first Chinese student of the department since its establishment 35 years ago.
Readers’ Club of China Youth Daily
At the award ceremony, Yu Fei (left) poses in a photo with the chairman of AES conference.
“These work experiences seemed to be irrelevant to music recording. However, they were of infinite help to me to better study the international industrialized process of film music production. And my experience of working with film directors is also very precious,” said Yu Fei of her work experience.
“During my two years of overseas study, my sleep time each day was shorter than four hours. I realized the gap between me and others, and I had to work hard to catch up,” said Yu Fei, recalling her study experience. “During the past 730 days, except the 17 days off for Christmas vacation, I didn’t take a single day off. I celebrated no holidays. Especially on each Spring Festival, when I saw that everyone showed their New Year Feast on their WeChat Moments, while I had to spend at least 18 hours in the recording studio, my heart was full of envy.” Through highly intensive training, she trained her ears of the sensitivity to the sound proportion and balance, to develop her feelings for music. This persistent girl eventually proved her own ability with her accomplishments. She won the AES golden award twice consecutively, and became the first Asian awarded with this honor.
Yu Fei said that it was a pleasant and meaning experience to serve as the music director and music editor for the film Go Away, Mr. Tumor. The background music in the film when Doctor Liang enters the scene requires a perfect integral arrangement within 90 seconds, to let the musical climax combine with the laughing points for the best “laughing effects”. When editing this piece of music, Yu Fei made a lot of efforts. Without dividing sound tracks, she edited a stereo audio file, and eventually made the clip reach the expected effects, and the pictures and sounds had a perfect combination. Currently, producing original soundtracks, she edited The Story of Two Young Girls Keeping Flowers, a song by Bai Baihe, to mix with the same song sung by Xiong Dun, the archetype of the film, so that it could be achieved that Bai and Xiong could sing together as a duo. “What a meaningful thing!” said Yu Fei.
Deep down, she owns the strength of emulative persistence. Due to the highly intensive work pace and manual workload, as well as the dual physical and mental pressures, there are potential prejudices against women in the industry. However, with her precise work attitude and solid professionalism, she has gained the respect from her work partners. From her piano practice at the age three, to her application to the recording department, and to her resignation for the master program, her persistence on music drives her to march towards the goal of becoming a “top music producer” that others talk about in admiration.
“I think I am a person who may become stronger when faced with strong challenges and one who may become weaker if the challenges are weak.” She said that she is a person who is never satisfied with the status quo. “Other people’s works could be so good, why can’t I do the same? I believe that the more professional one is in the industry, the more necessary it becomes for them to work hard. I believe that those who are smarter than you work harder than you.”
