Hello there! My name is Jakob Montrasio, and I am a freelance videographer / camera operator / director of photography in Shanghai, China. Enjoy my blog!
I took this photo in 2007 during the shooting of the movie JOHN RABE at the Huangpu river, where we had the boat backdrop.
I have shot and edited this image for the ‘China Prophecy: Shanghai’ exhibition in The Skyscraper Museum in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Due to the limited space in the museum, only a dozen of images are showcased. This is one of the ‘lost’ images. You can order prints from this photo here.
Discover Shanghai from a sideways look, seated in the side-car of a classic motorbike.
Enjoy an incredible cruise through the city and avoid traffic jams. We make you feel the pulse of this fast changing city and take you from modern Shanghais futuristic look to the heart of the 1920s French Concession. Tours follow a ready-made route or tailor-made to suit your interest.
With Shanghai Sideways, you enjoy the company of a foreign guide and driver who is a long term Shanghai resident. Although our classic motorbikes are antics, they all are perfectly maintained and monitored to guarantee your comfort and safety.
Version 0.3.
Shot with a Sony Cinealta PMW EX1 and edited in After Effects and Final Cut Pro.
In October 2007, I had the chance to join the JOHN RABE movie team in Shanghai and took it immediately. What followed were almost 4 months full of excitement, pain and so much learning and experience. It was the best time of my life. And now, the movie finally started running in german cinemas. It will probably also start running in China on April 29th. I can’t wait to see it.
I started working in the VFX department under the command of Joachim Grüninger. He taught me an insane amount of things and gave me many chances to learn how shooting a movie works, what the rules on a set are, and, and, and… Thank you so much, Jo!
The rest of the crew were super nice people, too… The director Florian Gallenberger was very nice and calm, the assistant directors were very nice, too, and the rest of the international crew also. We had germans, french, chinese and japanese working in the team. And our 2nd unit director was from India, how cool is that. I love it when so many cultures work together.
Now that the movie has opened and many people will hopefully go and see it, I think it’s time to publish all the photos that I took during the shooting of the movie. Some were censored, due to contracts and stuff, but most of them are online now. I hope you enjoy them and the look behind the scenes that they offer.
We shot the movie in Shanghai, Wuxi, Baixian, some photos in Wenzhou… My wife and I were also working as Extras in some scenes - in one scene with John Rabe himself, played by Ulrich Tukur, and in another I was sitting right next to Steve Buscemi, who plays an doctor in the movie. I have no idea if they made it into the movie, though - I only now that my name should be listed in the credits at the end of the movie. Yay!
If you have seen the movie, please leave a little comment about it and how you liked it. Thanks.
My passion for movies started back in the December of 1986. At the age of four, my dad took me to see Disney’s The Great Mouse Detective in a cinema. Seeing an animated mouse on a big screen was more then fun, it was a groundbreaking experience for me. I became a flick addict that day.
