Once Upon a Time in Shanghai

Andrea Smith, Publicist National print and online campaign Social Media campaign Promotion through: www.daylightbooks.org

China is poised to become the world's largest film market, fed by an expansive state-supported movie and television industry. These photographs document the many larger-than-life outdoor film sets and the tourist industry that has developed around themChina, poised to become the world's largest film market, is home to an expansive state-supported movie and television industry. On an unparalleled scale, entire towns have been built around making movies. Given film censorship codes in China, period films provide a safe and familiar format to tell stories based around “official” narratives. The movie sets, rivaling real-world cities and monuments in their scale, have themselves become destinations for domestic and international tourists. Despite the fiction, they bear witness to a dynamic and changing China. Photographer Mark Parascandola, has spent five years photographing movie production sites and outdoor sets across China.