Two Tibetan girls star in the short film Before the Snow Melts, shot at Tuiwa village of the Tibet autonomous region, at an altitude of more than 5,000 meters. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Using only a mobile phone camera, a film crew captures not only the unique lifestyles of the Tibetan residents in one of the world's highest altitude villages, but also its stunning natural beauty, Fang Aiqing reports.

To celebrate Losar, the Tibetan New Year, which fell on Feb 21, residents of Tuiwa, one of the highest villages in the world with an altitude of 5,070 meters, gathered at the frozen Puma Yumco Lake, in the dim light of dawn to cut through the ice and scoop the first ladle of its holy water, while praying for good fortune in the coming year.

Then, they joined hands, forming a circle to sing and dance.

A group of young filmmakers were on hand in the village, located in Nakarze county of Lhokha city, Southwest China's Tibet autonomous region, to record the scenes of traditional celebration and the villagers' reverence for nature with smartphones.

The 5-minute short film, Before the Snow Melts, depicts the landscape and culture of the rural village from the perspective, and through the narration, of a Tibetan young woman, Pema Yangjen.

It features her and a childhood companion collecting water from the holy lake, the aforementioned new year celebration, and her free dance against the backdrop of a grand natural scene in which she is at one with the mountain, lake and the wilderness, with flocks of sheep nearby and eagles soaring overhead.
 

The girls break ice to fetch water from the Puma Yumco Lake. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Attracted by the geographical uniqueness and well-preserved local culture of the village, while taking the high altitude, extreme weather and thin air into consideration, the team used iPhones to complete the work.

Gan Wei, director of the film, said that the phones have saved the team of 10 from having to carry heavy equipment and enabled them to shoot smoothly at-20 C in strong winds, while battling high-altitude sickness.

Speaking at a "Today at Apple" session in Shanghai on June 27, he shared the experience of the film shoot.

Gan recalled how the staff chased the sheep while they were moving, across the uneven ground with the phone in hand, to capture dynamic videos of them. He also described how they used the cinematic mode to shoot the young woman dancing against the backlight to create a soft, silhouette effect, and to produce close-ups on her face that highlighted her immersion in the dance.

These techniques imbued their work with the texture of a movie and hugely aided the post-production process, he said, adding that his heart rate could soar higher than 170 beats per minute after a period of filming.

Producer Zhang Jiajie said that the film shoot was full of unexpected situations. On one occasion, they were chased by a Tibetan mastiff and had to throw away their equipment to distract the hound.
 

A scene from the film shows a young actress holding a lamb in her arms. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Originally, they planned to focus on the village's well-known seasonal sheep migration, a long-standing, eco-friendly convention of the locals. Every winter, the herdsmen drive their sheep to the island in the middle of the lake, where the pasture is lush, and bring them back when the frozen lake is about to thaw.

However, Zhang learned on the way to the village that the migration had taken place ahead of schedule due to the warm weather. They shifted gears, deciding instead to record local life, which turned out to be a surprise.

It amazed him that in a place where there's no running water, the internet is accessible. During casting and shooting, they found that local children were well-informed about what was going on in the online world.

Similar to their city counterparts, locals browse short videos on platforms like Douyin and scan a QR code to pay for groceries. They have been promoting the village online, making it more visible to outsiders in a bid to develop tourism.

At the end of the short film, protagonist Pema Yangjen expresses her longing to see China's bustling cities, like Shigatse in Tibet and Shanghai.

Usually engaged in producing commercials for a living, in their personal projects Zhang and Gan have often sought to record the diversity of people, their different ways of life and regional traditions, much like Before the Snow Melts, the duo said.

Greg Joswiak, Apple's senior vice-president of Worldwide Marketing, said that young creatives — the most connected and mobile generation — can capture the ordinary people who can make something extraordinary. These people, with the aid of products like the iPhone, have a greater ability to do that than anyone, or anything, in the past.
 

Producer Zhang Jiajie shares the experience of the team filming in a Tibetan village at a June event in Shanghai. [Photo provided to China Daily]
 

Director of the film Gan Wei captures the migration of sheep. [Photo provided to China Daily]
 

Gan explains details of the shoot to the film's actresses. [Photo provided to China Daily]