Fashion unit: Formative feedback & East-West espionage research

Formative Feedback 

Production
Meetings and management are proceeding well and the group feel seems well organized. Despite potentially losing a group member the group have agreed to re-assign tasks plus will
delegate out to the absentee should they return.
 

Concept/Narrative
Overall the scene/setting is planned and working well. 

The concept needs contextualising through surface detail, architectural design and in particular casting. 

The group needs to establish where this location is placed, whether in a modern and subversive sense within the film noir / spy or commentary on tradition cinematic motifs. 

The group has identified the importance of conversing with the ‘edge’ of cliché.
Analysis and research of related themes and genre has taken place. However this must be more fully informed in every aspect of the project.
Discussion involved the need for and the notion of, the voyeur / the gaze. 

The viewer should be complicit as a third complicit character. Consider; Tarantino’s references to film noir /Watchmen window fight scene / Hitchcock’s windows & portals.
 

Casting
The group are following potential younger target age groups and seem confidently directed by marketing considerations. Current cast models are possibly a little young – they are
continuing casting and considering ethnicity and potential world affairs - China / Russia / East Europe.
 

Set Build
This is perhaps too nebulous and must be rigorously interrogated. The space must be ambitious and dynamic
 

Next steps:
1. Narrative – who are these characters and why are they here?
2. Expand casting and closely consider characterisation
3. Define location & semiotics therein
4. More carefully consider styling strategy/dress including use of key colour
Set build considerations - depth and layering / glass and rain

In our group I was given the task of investigating further into the conflicts between Eastern & Western cultures particularly to do with espionage in the recent years to back up our theme & characters. Therefore I began to look into news articles reporting on Eastern and Western spy conflicts; I've selected certain sections of two particular articles I found & made notes on them:

Chinese Spy Exposes CCP Espionage Network in Europe

July 5, 2005

LONDON - In order to gain competitive advantage in global commerce, the Beijing authorities have laid a meticulous industrial espionage network throughout Europe, which penetrated all levels of the key industries in Europe including national defense, aerospace, chemistry, heavy industry and communication. This spying has taken place for at least 10 years and is causing serious concerns to the governments in Europe; countries including England have already started to fully investigate it. 

Experts hold China’s recent advances in the sensitive Taiwan Strait military force is also the result of Chinese espionage against United States. It includes the new cruise missile system that mimics the American Tomahawk cruise missile and the coast defense system that was developed by stealing the blue print of the American Aegis weapons systems. 

A senior Chinese spy that has been dispatched to stay in Europe for long-term recently defected in Belgium and exposed the Beijing authorities’ plan of obtaining European advanced industrial information and dominating the global industry. The Belgium intelligence expert says the Chinese industrial espionage network in Europe is not only large-scale, but also very penetrating. 

As the defector has so far not been granted political asylum, he refuses to appear in public. According to intelligence officials, this defector is a full-time student, who holds a high-ranking position at the Chinese Students and Scholars Association of Leuven (CSSAL) in Belgium, and he is in charge of coordinating Chinese industrial espionage in Europe. (Note: the President of the Brussels-based European Center for Strategic and Security Studies (ESISC), Mr. Moniquet, said that this defected spy had been working at a European university and company for ten years. He is only an ordinary member of CSSAL and has not held any high-ranking positions.) 

Intelligence officials say that CSSAL helps Beijing officials to stay in contact with Chinese people in different social classes. Whether they are secret agents at embassies, post-graduate students sent to study abroad in Europe or private individuals, they have all independently worked for five to ten years. 

Intelligence officials say that thanks to the information collected by secret agents, China has been able to successfully become a partner in Galileo satellite navigation system.

Chinese spies have not only infiltrated Europe, they have also penetrated the United States. FBI officials in charge of counter-espionage said that China is rapidly weakening the United States’ technological advantages. One official said this was evident when China could produce something that would normally take a decade of development in just two or three years. 

This official went on to say that China’s intelligence work is used in every area, including personal business, industry, and institutional technological research; nothing is left out.

- Blueprints/ secret documents involved in espionage

- Stealing information including industry, aerospace, chemistry etc.

- The spy was a full-time student- young, clever- similar to the sort of models we are planning on using in our shoot

- Highlights how Chinese spies infiltrate Western countries- America, Europe. 

Taiwanese officer accused of spying for China

5 days ago  

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Taiwan's defense ministry said on Wednesday that an air force officer has been detained on suspicion of passing military secrets to China, the latest case involving the transmission of classified information from the democratic island to the communist mainland.

Taiwan and China split after a civil war in 1949, and, although their relations have improved significantly in recent years, they still mount extensive espionage operations against each other.

Many of the recent cases appear to involve military technology supplied to Taiwan by the United States, raising the possibility that Washington might be getting anxious over Taiwan's putative role as a preferred conduit for Chinese intelligence agents seeking access to American military secrets.

Local news reports says the detained air force officer passed to Chinese authorities information about Taiwan's early warning radar system and other secrets through a Taiwanese businessman working in China.

The Defense Ministry said measures have been taken to minimize damage from the leak.

Earlier cases also involved air defense, command and control systems.

Last August, Taiwan's High Court sentenced a Taiwanese man to 18 months in prison for spying for China, in what defense officials said was a foiled Chinese effort to obtain information on Taiwan's U.S.-made Patriot air defense system.

A month before, a Taiwanese major general was sentenced to life for his role in compromising a vital military communications network that uses U.S. technology.

Lo Hsien-che was recruited by the Chinese as a spy in 2004, when he was a military attache based overseas.

International relations specialist George Tsai of Taipei's Chinese Culture University said that while Taiwan was not the only recipient of U.S. military equipment and technology engendering Washington's suspicions over leaks, the latest rash of cases could result in more American scrutiny being directed at the island.

"Probably the U.S. will keep a closer eye on Taiwan, and watch for possible leakage," he said.

Despite shifting recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979, the U.S. remains Taiwan's most important foreign partner, furnishing the island with virtually all of its imported military technology and equipment. Over the past decade, American military sales to Taiwan have averaged more than $1 billion annually. 

Most analysts believe that the main reason for the American denial was fear of provoking a hostile reaction from China — which strongly opposes the supply of any foreign military equipment to an island it regards as its own territory — rather than any fear of sensitive military technology making its way to Beijing.

- Again stealing information although from Taiwan it was supplied by the USA

- Battle for classified information between Eastern and Western territories

- Hostility from china will be reflected in a shoot by the use of the gun, doorway to reflect invasion- power, opposition, aggression.