On the second day of the 23rd Shanghai International Film Festival (SIFF), the "Master Class" welcomed its guest James Schamus, a world famous American screenwriter, producer and former CEO of Focus Pictures. He participated from New York via a live video interview, sharing his  life and work experience with industry insiders and movie fans.

In New York in 1991, Schamus along with Ted Hope formed a small film company. They named the company Good Machine, hoping for a good luck.

That year, Ang Lee, a graduate of New York University's film major visited them with two screenplays which had just won a prize in a film competition.

James recalled that Lee found Good Machine because he heard the company as it could make movies at lower cost. This visit was the beginning of a partnership between the famed director and Schamus for nearly 30 years.

In 1992, Good Machine launched the first feature film "Pushing Hands," and Lee later became a very famous director in the international film industry.

As a producer and screenwriter, James participated in the screenwriting and production of such films by Ang Lee as "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," "Hulk" and "Lust, Cution". Among them, "The Ice Storm" by James, an independent screenwriter, won the Best Screenplay at Cannes Film Festival. He's also produced other well-known movies such as "Brokeback Mountain, "Lost in Translation" and "Milk."

In 2014, James served as the chairman of juries of the 64th Berlin Film Festival. At that time, Chinese director Diao Yi'nan's film "Black Coal, Thin Ice" won the Golden Bear Award. His most recent encounter with Chinese films was as the script consultant for Chinese director Wu Ershan's upcoming mythical epic film "Fengshen Trilogy."

The most important ability of a producer is to 'know people and put them in the right position'

"There is no denying the importance of a good producer for a movie," he replied when he was asked what makes a good producer.

He advised that producers don't need to be "proficient" in all aspects, but have to know a little bit about everything, and the most important thing was to know people and put them in the right place.

When he first started his career, for a week he had to serve two crews at the same time.

The first producer left a deep impression on him, because the first producer could talk to the crew of various types of work, and he always seemed to be able teach other crews what to do. While the other was a TV crew producer, who looked like a fool, just standing there and doing nothing but making comments, James said.

However, he realized later that this was what he thought was the idiot producer is a real genius, because "he (the second producer) recruits knowledgeable people, so he doesn't have to direct people of various types of work and tell them how to do it."

Expressing independent opinions is more important than empathy

James said that until now, as a producer, his greatest concern is still finding people who have genuine original ideas to express. "When I first started, I was not guessing what other people want, but to find those who have genuine original ideas that I want to express, help them to express, and then I will find an audience who is willing to listen."

"Imagine that if you have a boyfriend or girlfriend, you wake up every morning and start to guess what you want, what would you want for breakfast, and what would you do in the morning...In theory, that sounds like to be a perfect boyfriend, but in facts after about three or four days, you'll probably want to kill that guy," he said.

So whether as a friend or as a colleague in a film crew, he would rather look for those who have independent opinions. Empathy is of course important, and willingness to understand your feelings is of course important, but being able to express an independent point of view is more important, he stressed.

When it comes to how to live in harmony with he the director about spending money, in the process of work. He concluded that prepare everything the director needs to realize his idea, of course, the condition is within the budget.

"If you have experience in production, you will know that no matter how big the budget is, it will not be enough in the end. However, as a producer, you can't always tell the director that you can't do this and that you can't, but you have to learn to be creative. Give the director some other choices.”

A producer who often says no to the director will soon become tired and unable to continue. Each director has different needs for each movie, he added.

"For example, I have worked with Director Ang Lee for 10 movies. His early needs and later needs are different, so we have to continue to learn to continue to meet the needs of the director."

Dare to show proactive ignorance

In addition to Ang Lee, James and Wu Ershan, another Chinese-language film director, have also started working together.James serves as a script consultant for dircetor Wu's "Fengshen Trilogy. "Prior to this, in addition to writing in English, James had more than 10 years of experience writing Chinese films.

He modestly stated that he initially"literally knew nothing" about the myth and epic film "Fengshen Trilogy", but he is the best audience and this was a kind of "active ignorance."

On the one hand, you have to express what you are amazing about this project, what you like, and what you are interested in; On the other hand, you have to boldly express the part that the project puzzles you and put your own emotions. This is called active ignorance, he said.

"I think the smart audience can some times be the ignorant audience. Not knowing is not stupidity. It's just not knowing. But you can still enjoy and believe and engage and have the genius experience of the cinema in the place of ignorance...it does not lessen the cinema, but understand the cinema differently."