Some cities you photograph. Shanghai you point a camera at and it does the work for you.
I flew in for three days in early March, a short scouting-and-shooting trip before a longer China visit planned for summer. Seventy-two hours is not enough for this city. It was, however, enough to understand why every cinematographer I know keeps coming back.
Day 1: The Bund at Dawn
I started at 5:40am on the Bund, before the tour groups and the wedding shoots. Across the Huangpu River, the Lujiazui skyline, Shanghai Tower, the Jin Mao, the bottle-opener silhouette of the World Financial Center, sits in morning haze like a rendering that hasn’t finished loading. The light between 6 and 7am is the shot. By 9am the riverfront is a crowd scene.
Day 2: Above the City
Shanghai from street level is impressive. From above, it stops feeling real. The observation deck of Shanghai Tower puts you 118 floors up, looking down on skyscrapers the way you normally look down on houses. I spent two hours just watching cloud shadows move across the city, a timelapse that needed zero color grading.
A note for creators: drone rules in central Shanghai are strict and enforced. Don’t pack the drone expecting to fly downtown. The rooftops and decks are how you get altitude here, legally.
Day 3: The Contrast
The best story in Shanghai isn’t the skyline, it’s the hundred-meter walk from a glass megatower into a lane of laundry lines, steamed-bun stalls and grandmothers playing cards. That contrast, old and hyper-new pressed against each other, is what I built my edit around. The xiaolongbao were research. Extensive research.
I left with full cards, a list of shots I didn’t get, and a booked return for June. Shanghai in three days is a trailer, not the film.
