8-Day Media Literacy & Storytelling Leadership Camp

Afternoon — Arrival in Shanghai
Arrive at Shanghai Pudong International Airport, where your English-speaking guide and vehicle welcome you. You are transferred to your hotel for check-in and a chance to freshen up.

Evening — Settle In
Enjoy free time to rest and acclimate to Shanghai at your own pace after the journey.

Accommodation
Your hotel in Shanghai.

Morning — story before equipment
The workshop starts with a rule that most first-time filmmakers resist: the story is decided on paper, and the camera is a tool for collecting material to support it. Participants work in teams of three, and each team is asked to answer four questions before touching a camera - who is the subject, what do they want, what is in the way, and what changes by the end. Then they are given a shooting format: a three-to-four-minute film, at least two interviews, and no voiceover narration. The format constraint does most of the teaching. China's own film industry began in 1905 and its first studio era was in 1930s Shanghai, where Mingxing and Lianhua produced hundreds of features and the city became the centre of Chinese cinema before the industry moved.

Late morning — the interview
The second session is practical interviewing. Participants practise asking an open question and then saying nothing for five seconds, which is the hardest part; practise following an answer that was not the one they wanted; and learn the two technical basics that ruin most amateur interviews, which is shooting the subject against a window and holding the camera on the interviewer's face while the subject is talking. Consent and release forms are covered honestly, including what happens to the footage afterwards.

Lunch
An early lunch near the workshop, then the teams go out with their equipment and a shooting plan checked by the tutor.

Afternoon — field shoot in the old city
The shoot takes place in and around a Shanghai lane neighbourhood - a shikumen block, a wet market, a small workshop, a park where people gather - with the tutor moving between teams. Shanghai is a good place for this because the city is layered within a few hundred metres: a 1920s lane house next to a 1990s tower next to a new commercial street, with the same people moving between all three. Teams get roughly three hours of shooting and are expected to return with more material than they can use, which is the correct outcome.

Evening — rough cut and critique
Back at the workshop, teams assemble a rough cut on laptops with the tutor's help and screen it. The critique is structured: each film is watched once without comment, then the group names what they remember about the subject, then the tutor works backwards from that to what the edit should have done. The films are not judged on polish. They are judged on whether the audience can say who the person was and what changed.

Meals
Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Accommodation
In Shanghai.

Morning - Breakfast, the Shanghai way
Start at a neighbourhood breakfast shop with the city's four morning staples: dabing, a sesame-topped flatbread; youtiao, the long fried dough stick eaten with soy milk; cifangao, a steamed rice cake; and warm doujiang. Your guide explains what each is made from and how locals combine them, then you walk a few blocks to watch xiaolongbao being pleated by hand - eighteen folds is the benchmark a good Shanghai cook works to.

Late morning - The old city lanes
Continue into the lanes around Yu Garden, a classical garden first laid out in 1559 by the official Pan Yunduan for his parents. The bazaar and the City God Temple precinct around it have been a market for centuries, and the snack stalls here are the reason: shengjianbao, pan-fried pork buns with a crisp base; xie ke huang, a pastry filled with crab and roe; and small bowls of wonton and noodle soup.

Lunch
A table at a long-established old-city restaurant, with soup dumplings and Shanghai cold dishes.

Afternoon - Market walk and a cooking demonstration
Walk through a wet market to see freshwater crab, bamboo shoots and the soy and vinegar shelves that define Shanghai cooking, then join a short demonstration of how the soup in a xiaolongbao is set - pork skin and bone stock reduced to a jelly, chopped and folded into the filling so it melts in the steamer.

Evening - Dinner and the old city after dark
Dinner is Shanghai red-braised pork and seasonal greens, taken in the old city, followed by a walk through the lanes around the City God Temple once the lanterns are lit and the day crowds have gone. The evening finishes here rather than on the riverfront; the Huangpu is kept for the following night's cruise.

Meals
Lunch, Dinner

Accommodation
Day tour - no hotel night included.

Morning — Wukang Road
Start at Wukang Road, a cultural street known as the 'Boulevard of Western-style Villas,' lined with over 100 historic villas. Admire the iconic Wukang Mansion (formerly Normandie Apartments), a 1924 Art Deco landmark designed by architect Laszlo Hudec and a favorite photo spot. The plane-tree-shaded lane captures old Shanghai's elegance.

Afternoon — M50 Creative Park
Visit M50 Creative Park, converted from a former textile factory along the Suzhou Creek. Wander red-brick workshops housing over 100 galleries, design studios, and craft shops, and appreciate contemporary art, street graffiti, and creative design — the creative pulse of modern Shanghai.

Evening — French Concession Dining
Dine at a French bistro in the Former French Concession on classics such as foie gras, steak, and escargot. After dinner, stroll Anfu Road, lined with small cafes, bookstores, and boutiques, and enjoy the quiet romance of old Shanghai at night.

Morning — West Lake by Bicycle
Take the high-speed rail from Shanghai to Hangzhou (about 1.5 hours) and rent a bicycle at West Lake to ride leisurely around its shores. Pass famed spots such as Broken Bridge, Bai Causeway, Solitary Hill, and Su Causeway, enjoying lake-and-mountain scenery and the legends behind each site. West Lake, a UNESCO World Heritage site since 2011, is the heart of Hangzhou's beauty.

Afternoon — Lingyin Temple
Visit Lingyin Temple (Temple of the Soul's Retreat), one of China's most famous Buddhist monasteries, founded in 326 AD. Admire ancient Buddha statues, towering trees, and exquisite murals; burn incense and pray if you wish, and feel the profound Buddhist atmosphere. Stroll the surrounding scenic area's tranquil natural setting.

Evening — Music Fountain & Lakeside Dinner
Head to the West Lake Music Fountain Square for the evening fountain show, where water dances to music under colored lights. Afterward, dine near the lake on Hangzhou dishes such as beggar's chicken (baked in lotus leaves and mud) and Longjing shrimp (fresh shrimp stir-fried with tea leaves).

Morning — Hefang Street and a pharmacy from 1874
Hefang Street runs at the foot of the Wushan ridge and is the most continuous piece of old commercial Hangzhou left: Qing-dynasty shopfronts, a rebuilt street wall, and shops selling fans, scissors, ink and tea. The real subject of the morning, though, is the Hu Qingyu pharmacy museum a few doors along, founded in 1874 by a merchant from Anhui and still recognisable as a working medicine hall, with its counters, drawers, preparation rooms and the courtyard where the firm's own line of medicines was sold. It is a gift to a storyteller: one family, one building, a hundred and fifty years of a city's medical trade, and an archive of ledgers and prescriptions to film.

Late morning — interviews in the field
Teams conduct their first interviews here, and the coaching is on the same two points as always: ask about a specific day rather than a general practice, and let the silence run. A pharmacist who has stood behind the same counter for thirty years will give you a better sentence about the neighbourhood than any official will, provided you do not interrupt. Consent forms are completed before filming; where a subject prefers not to be filmed, the audio interview and a general shot are used instead.

Lunch
Noodles and small dishes in the old quarter, with the teams comparing what they have and what is still missing from their stories.

Afternoon — the Wushan ridge above the old city
The afternoon stays inside the old city and climbs gently onto the Wushan ridge, the low hill that Hefang Street runs beneath. The path up is stepped but short, and it passes the Chenghuang Pavilion, the rebuilt temple to the city god whose terrace gives the clearest view back over the rooftops of the old quarter. The subject for filming is the ordinary one: the walkers, the tea tables under the trees, the men with their birds, and the way a public hill is used by a working city. The group comes down through the reconstructed Song-dynasty imperial street, a long axial road of shops and workshops, and is back at the hotel in time for the edit.

Evening — edit session
Back in the city, teams assemble a three-minute cut and screen it. The critique focuses on what the audience could repeat back: if the subject's occupation and one problem they face did not survive the edit, the edit is the problem rather than the footage. Dinner follows and the evening closes with written notes from the tutor.

Meals
Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Accommodation
In Hangzhou.

Morning — into the tea hills
The day goes out of the city to the slopes behind West Lake, where Longjing tea has been grown for more than a thousand years and where the terraces climb away from the road in narrow, hand-worked steps. The village at the centre of it, Longjing, gives the tea its name; above it the Shifeng peak is the site of the eighteen imperial bushes planted in the Qianlong reign, which are still picked and still fenced.

Late morning — what a picker takes in a day
Teams work alongside a picking family for the morning and record the arithmetic rather than the ceremony: how much fresh leaf one picker takes in a day, what that weight becomes once it is withered, pan-fired and sorted, and how many kilos of fresh leaf it takes to make one kilo of finished tea. The ratio is the number that surprises everyone, and it is the number the story needs; the coaching stays on the same two points as every other shoot day, which are to ask about a specific day rather than a general practice, and to let the silence run. Consent forms are completed before filming, and where a picker prefers not to be filmed the audio interview and a general shot are used instead.

Lunch
Lunch with the family: local dishes cooked with the season's tea, longjing shrimp among them.

Afternoon — from fresh leaf to finished tea
The afternoon follows the leaf through the workshop: the wok, the hand pressure that shapes the flat blade, the sorting, and the tasting that decides grade. The price question is put to the grower plainly - what a day's picking is paid, what a first flush fetches against a second, and what happens to the whole calculation when the first flush comes in a fortnight early, which in recent years it has.

Evening — the edit and the closing notes
Back in the city the teams assemble their cut of the day and screen it. The critique works the same way as on every other shoot day: if the audience cannot repeat back what the picker does and what the price depends on, the edit has lost the story. Dinner follows, and the tutor closes the camp with written notes for each team.

Meals
Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Accommodation
In Hangzhou.

Morning — Hangzhou Grand Canal
Explore the Hangzhou section of the Grand Canal, a 2,500-year-old UNESCO waterway and the world's longest artificial river. Stroll Xiaohe Straight Street, a renovated historic district of cafés and museums, or take a short boat ride past traditional canal houses and working cargo boats.

Afternoon — Songcheng Park & Show
Step into Songcheng Park, a theme park recreating the splendor of the Song dynasty (960–1279). Dress in Hanfu, watch street performances, and see the “Romance of the Song Dynasty” show—a spectacle of acrobatics, dance, and holographic effects depicting ancient Hangzhou.

Evening — Departure
In the evening, transfer to Hangzhou Xiaoshan International Airport or Hangzhou Railway Station for your onward journey.