TELEVISION MANAGEMENT ACROSS BORDERS

Shengrui Wang

MS television management

Career Path

Shengrui Wang started her career in 2008 with an internship at the Centre City Film and Video, Philadelphia. As an aspiring newcomer she took the initiative to grasp her activities of handling research on a variety of topics relevant to production. She transcribed, labeled and logged tapes for postproduction by collaborating with other interns to accomplish assigned tasks. With this experience she went on to work on a project as a production assistant in the Philadelphia 48 hour film known as “We’re All Gonna Die”. Here she carried the responsibilities of preparing set props for the movie, assisting with the music and talent rights clearance as well as facilitating communication between different groups of the production crew.

While she was gaining experience outside the campus, the university decided to give her a major project called the ‘Ink not Ink’, which was a Chinese contemporary art exhibition on world tour. As the lead producer, write and correspondent for the event, Shengrui was able to act as a liaison with officials from the Chinese embassy and she was able to conduct on-air interviews with all major participants.

Shengrui had a dream to change the Sesame Street for her country people. She believed that the Chinese children were not portrayed in this television series effectively. By expressing this view, she landed the greatest opportunity to work in the Sesame Street Workshop in New York during July 2010 to February 2011. Working under the Sesame Street Chinese section she rewrote the lyrics of Sesame Street songs into Chinese, she provided voice direction and accent correction for voice talents, assisted the development of the 2-year curriculum and also provided scripts as well as test voice-over for animation and games.

In a coproduction with Sesame China, she was involved as a translator for Sesame China team at the Henson Workshop and provided cultural consulting and language assessment for content review.

She also translated and voice recorded for the Sesame Gala video and conducted on-air interviews with all major participants for the Sesame International Licensing.

With this wonderful experience absorbed and nurtured in the United States, she moved back to China with her confidence level boosted and filled with aspirations to reach greater heights. She joined the Sesame Street China in Shanghai as she always wanted to and worked there between the duration of March 2011 to June 2011. Here, she was involved in providing consultation and feedback on Sesame Street Chinese production matters, including collaboration with Executive Producer. She shot video footage while in China for possible use as pilot and to help determine future approach, and as reference media for Sesame Workshop within the lesson plans for Sesame Street Chinese. As a liaison for Sesame Street Chinese while in China she executed creative, production, and administrative assignments as requested.

Shengrui currently works as a Production Assistant at Shanghai Artown Entertainment Co., Ltd since May 2011. Her duties in this job include providing scripts for plays of the Le Guo Children Theater. This venture was a continuation of her Sesame Street dream and she created activity plans for kindergartens. Conducting a research on educational media, she translates the Sesame scripts into Chinese for subtitles and also provides English voice-over for various projects.

Thesis
"Integrating Chinese Culture Into Sesame Street” (2011)

Production
"Ink Not Ink"
PDF: INKnotINK