Chapter 642 Full of Vigor
In middle age, I suddenly had the opportunity to become a director.
Because of this opportunity that suddenly came his way, Wu Chi even went to have his fortune told to see if his birth chart would become tougher in middle age.
every dog has his day.
For Wu Chi, directing for the first time with only a production budget of two million, was still a lot.
He had never seen so much money in his entire life, more than enough for him to use.
His apprentice, Li Chao, became his deputy.
On set, the director was in complete chaos.
"When exactly will Jiang Yue arrive?" Wu Chi asked, looking annoyed.
Li Chao said, "We're on our way, about three more hours."
"Oh dear, the whole team is waiting for her! Why couldn't she have come sooner?!"
"I didn't expect that she would suddenly have to make an appearance in this scene," Li Chao said. "How about we shoot it first, and then find time to reshoot it when she comes back?"
Wu Chi looked completely bewildered.
Everyone else was watching them.
Everyone on the crew knew that he was a novice director.
But no one expected that this "newbie" would be so skilled.
My daily efficiency is too low.
The actors worked hard for a long time, only to be told at the end that all the shots they filmed were long shots, and they needed close-ups tomorrow.
The actors must have felt like vomiting blood just hearing that.
Not to mention other technical departments, because they don't receive clear instructions, they don't know how to do a lot of the work, and when they arrive on site, they are dissatisfied with everything and have to start over.
Of course, Wu Chi himself was the most troubled. He knew that many situations were caused by his actions, but he didn't have the ability to fix everything. A director isn't someone who can just sit on set with a megaphone and give instructions.
He not only needs to make demands, but he also needs to make precise demands.
However, he didn't understand the actual filming process. No matter how much he pondered his ideas, he couldn't execute them because he hadn't considered the actual situation.
They kept tugging and pulling at each other while taking pictures.
-
This is the situation that Lu Yanhe and Chen Siqi encountered after arriving at the film crew.
Wu Chi only received the news an hour before Lu Yanhe and the others arrived, saying that they were coming to visit the set.
Everyone was dumbfounded.
Wu Chi's first thought was whether he should quickly hold a short meeting with everyone to put on a show and prevent so many problems in the production team from being exposed to Lu Yanhe, otherwise it would make him seem incompetent.
Although this is also true.
Wu Chi felt that it was perfectly normal for him to encounter problems since he was just starting out.
Give him some time, he'll adjust.
The problem is that things haven't gotten back on track yet... The overall condition of the crew can only be described as terrible.
Wu Chi was on high alert.
-
"Did you know that Linghe has a new movie released this month called 'The Sea, Oh My God'?"
Huang Kairen asked Xin Zixing.
Xin Zixing nodded, "I heard about it. Apparently, when they were collecting scripts for Jumping Theater, they received a script along with some footage that the director had previously edited. They decided to sign him and support him in making his first film. That's it."
"This name is a bit strange," Huang Kairen said.
“Yes, but since they took a liking to it, the script must be pretty good.” Xin Zixing rolled over, got out of bed, walked barefoot to the table, and got herself a glass of water. “However, this movie has basically nothing to do with Yan He. Linghe probably wants to do some projects that have nothing to do with Yan He. It was the same with ‘Roommates’ before. Oh, right, they have a new project called ‘2 Broke Girls’. This time, Yan He only provided a story idea and didn’t write the script himself.”
"2 Broke Girls?" Huang Kairen was taken aback, then immediately realized, "You mean that new sitcom?"
“Yes.” Xin Zixing nodded. “After Hu Siwei arrived in Linghe, it seems that he intends to focus on the sitcom genre, from ‘My Own Swordsman’ to ‘Roommates’, and now ‘2 Broke Girls’.”
Huang Kairen: "He is the only producer in China who can consistently produce good sitcoms."
Xin Zixing: "The second season of 'My Own Swordsman' will premiere during the Spring Festival next year. You won't be able to rest. Will you have to go back to work and start promoting it on the second or third day of the Lunar New Year?"
"Pretty much." Huang Kairen nodded. "Yuehu TV will start rebroadcasting the first season before the Lunar New Year. Everyone wants to see if the second season can take advantage of the Lunar New Year when everyone is at home, making this show a show that the whole family can sit together and watch on TV. The publicity will also focus on this point. If it is successful, this show can become a national comedy."
“It sounds like it’s important to you too,” Xin Zixing said. “You’ve always lacked a bit of public recognition; older people basically don’t know you.”
For a celebrity to gain widespread national recognition, it truly requires the right timing, location, and people.
Some celebrities have been famous for seven or eight years, but their popularity among the general public is still just so-so.
Huang Kairen said, "Yes, it's probably because the box office success of 'Even If I Fake My Death Is Not Acceptable' made the industry see the box office potential of romantic comedies. In the second half of this year, I received no less than twenty romantic comedy film scripts. Previously, they were all scripts in the style of 'Rouge.' I've heard people say that in the eyes of many film companies, there are very few male actors who are capable and handsome enough to play romantic comedies. I benefited from 'My Own Swordsman,' and everyone thought I was a good fit for comedy, but in terms of appearance and performance, there aren't many that can be found."
Xin Zixing nodded.
“Look at how many actors I met while working on ‘The Birth of an Actor.’ Many of them are very talented, but there’s a serious problem with their acting style. If you ask them to act in serious dramas or roles with deep sorrow and hatred, many of them can do it,” Xin Zixing laughed. “Our entertainment industry doesn’t lack actors who can act well in good dramas; what it lacks are actors who can act with ease and grace in less serious or less dramatic roles. Take Chen Bige, for example. You can only play roles like those in ‘Love Letter.’ If you ask her to act in ‘Friends,’ she absolutely cannot draw the audience in. There are many roles that don’t require that kind of acting skill.”
Huang Kai-ren: "That makes sense. So, do you think I'm suitable to play a role in 'Friends'?"
“To be honest, I think you can only achieve the same effect as Yan He at best,” Xin Zixing said. “The best actor in Friends is Yan Liang. This is also related to the fact that Yan He wrote the script based on him. He didn’t feel like he was acting at all. If you look at Yan Liang’s performance in Friends, and then look at Gold Rush and The Summit, his state is completely different. In Friends, he just speaks and acts normally and in a very natural way.”
Huang Kairen: "There's more or less a bit of that actor's tone and mannerisms, right?"
“Yes,” Xin Zixing said. “Especially for the male lead in romantic comedies, it’s even more difficult. He has to be handsome, have no inhibitions, and be able to blend into the light comedy style of the film. It’s very difficult to strike the right balance. Generally, for these kinds of movies, unless the character setting is right, it’s very difficult for established male actors to perform particularly well.”
Huang Kai-ren: "Could it be that actresses could do it?"
“It’s the same, it depends on the character,” Xin Zixing said. “Take Chen Bige as an example. If the female lead in this romantic comedy is a powerful female CEO or a similar high-ranking woman, then she can play the role, and the comedic effect might even be very good, because the audience’s impression of her is that of a goddess or a movie queen, so there is a contrast. But if the female lead in this romantic comedy is a naive and innocent girl or a common, ordinary girl, then her playing the role would be a disaster. No matter how plain you make her look, the audience will still immediately realize that she is Chen Bige when they see her, and the audience will not be able to identify with her.”
Huang Kai-ren: "You mean, I can play a handsome, rich, and domineering CEO because it fits everyone's impression of me, but I can't play a crazy, neurotic, and flamboyant young man like in 'Even Faking Death Is Not Allowed'?"
"That's roughly the idea," Xin Zixing nodded. "But I'm not being absolute. Many actors' careers have experienced a second spring because of a performance that completely exceeded everyone's expectations. Just like before you acted in 'Rouge,' no one thought you could play such a role."
"Only Lu Yanhe thinks I'm capable." Huang Kairen shook his head. "Are his eyes different from ours? Can he see things we can't?"
Xin Zixing rolled her eyes at him.
Huang Kairen: "I acted in two movies this year, one a suspenseful crime film and the other a low-budget art film. I don't know how well they will be received."
Xin Zixing: "Relax, you have 'My Own Swordsman' to back you up now. You can try different things until this show finishes airing."
Huang Kairen nodded.
“Actually, you should make more movies in the next few years and stop making TV series for now,” Xin Zixing said. “With the Best Actor award you won for ‘Rouge,’ in the current entertainment industry, you should try to establish yourself in the film industry first. There are only a handful of people in the entire entertainment industry who can do both movies and TV series like Yan He without affecting their status. His achievements in film are simply undeniable. You only have one film, ‘Rouge,’ so you need to accumulate more experience.”
Huang Kairen nodded.
"That's the plan. We're basically talking about movie scripts," he said. "However, it's quite difficult to compete for better productions. Right now, almost all the companies that are approaching me are just average productions."
At this point, Xin Zixing certainly wouldn't say, "Why are you so focused on big productions? You can find gems even in ordinary productions."
Unless you have exceptionally good judgment, for projects like movies, you can't determine whether someone should act based on the quality of the script. What's more important is whether the production team is good.
The script is just a small part of the whole process, a basic element.
Every year, there are countless ordinary and mediocre films in China. Some of them have a creative idea that seems to catch your eye, but after watching them, you'll regret it so much that you'll want to slap yourself.
Many reliable productions, even with mixed reviews, only a handful of films achieve truly outstanding critical acclaim each year. At least reliable productions don't give the impression of being used for money laundering.
Truly reliable productions rarely suffer "disastrous failures." It's possible they won't be profitable; that's the nature of the film industry, especially Chinese-language films, which rely heavily on theatrical box office revenue. Having only one main source of income makes it arguably the riskiest industry globally. But at least it won't severely damage the actors' reputations.
Some movies can single-handedly elevate an actor to the status of being the worst film ever, not to mention the director.
If even a renowned director like Chen could cause such a lingering tragedy over a steamed bun, then a certain director surnamed Lu, whose reputation was initially quite good, also suffered a sharp drop in popularity after his film "Chronicles of the Ghostly Tribe," and has yet to recover.
It's normal and right for a top-tier actor like Huang Kairen to be cautious.
“Actually, look at the film ‘The Sea, My Pah!’ Although Linghe supported the new director and provided funding to help him start filming, none of Linghe’s key figures were actually involved in the production,” Xin Zixing said. “What I heard is that they just wanted to give Wu Chi some experience in filmmaking so he could later direct a script written by Yan He. Two million to buy the experience of a director with the potential to gross hundreds of millions at the box office is actually a good deal, but only an atypical film company like Linghe can do that.”
"Why do you say that? Can't other film companies do the same?"
“Of course we can do it, but other film companies don’t have Linghe’s long-term vision,” Xin Zixing said. “Many film companies are just maintaining their relationships with a few big-name directors. If a director’s movie becomes a hit, they will try to snatch it up and compete for it, and cultivate new talent… Which film company isn’t serving the capital behind them and the stock price? Cultivating new talent doesn’t help the stock price at all.”
Huang Kairen: "Yan He has always refused to accept investment from outside capital."
“Think about it, he doesn’t need to,” Xin Zixing said. “Linghe now has its own film library and several production teams. They can shoot whatever they want, although it’s not large-scale and is mostly small-scale productions. But the advantage is freedom. Even if they lose money, even if they lose everything, the company won’t go bankrupt. Yan He is very clear-headed. He never takes risks that could cause him to lose everything. All the risks he takes are those that, even if he fails or makes a comeback, won’t affect the overall situation.”
Huang Kairen: "He is really amazing. He has even started performing in theaters."
“Then you’re mistaken. Jumping Theater actually has little to do with him. Linghe is just one of the producers of Jumping Theater,” Xin Zixing said.
"The Jump Theater was mainly established in collaboration with Jump Theater, Yuehu TV, Bingyuan Video, and Northern Lights Video. As far as I know, Yan He was not really involved, although his network of connections played a decisive role in the initial stage."
"The most amazing thing about Jump Theater is that it pioneered a low-cost, high-quality production model. In the past, the biggest weakness of Chinese-language film and television dramas was the poor control of production budgets. A show that could have been made with only 10 million yuan would end up costing 30 million yuan due to inefficiency and various losses. Jump Theater, on the other hand, will give you a production budget of one or two million yuan, and the budget will be calculated in such detail that you can actually make a work with such a budget."
Huang Kairen: "I felt that. Didn't I shoot a movie for them before? It was a movie, mainly set in a house, about the daily comedic stories of a family. We only filmed it for four days because we didn't have to change locations or move around. Plus, we had rehearsed beforehand, so we managed to shoot a movie with the scale and quality in just four days."
“From the very beginning, when they chose the subject matter and the actors, they combined the production budget and the shooting plan,” Xin Zixing said. “It’s really amazing. Look, now many places are following their example, setting up XX theaters, and even those small theaters where a story is only ten or twenty minutes long. Some of them are quite good, but they’re too much like sketch comedy. Jumping theaters are still filmed in a cinematic way. Those small theaters are just using the name of a theater to put on a sketch comedy stage.”
Huang Kairen: "If the results of 'The Sea, I Spit' are not very good, will it affect Yan He? Now when people talk about him, the most common thing they say is that he has never made a mistake."
“How bad could ‘The Sea, My Pshaw’ possibly be?” Xin Zixing chuckled. “A film with a production cost of only two million, plus television and online streaming rights, plus Linghe’s overseas sales capabilities, it won’t lose money even if it doesn’t earn a single dollar at the box office. Yan He might not think that far ahead, but Chen Ziyan won’t let him make a mistake. There’s no way he could fail, especially since this film has practically nothing to do with Yan He.”
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"If we fail, we fail," Lu Yanhe said earnestly to Wu Chi.
Upon arriving at the set of "The Sea, My Pfft," Lu Yanhe was shocked by the chaotic situation, even though he had prepared himself mentally.
I didn't expect it to be this chaotic...
Lu Yanhe looked at the footage he had already shot. How should I put it? He could only find one or two usable clips from a huge pile of unusable footage.
The style is still the same: chuunibyou (adolescent delusions of grandeur), youth, and manga-like crazy passion...
Lu Yanhe could almost foresee that this movie was unlikely to become a miracle or a dark horse.
Fortunately, he was truly prepared that "it's okay if I fail."
From the production cost of two million, it's clear that Linghe never thought this movie would make money.
Wu Chi hadn't expected Lu Yanhe to be so "lenient" towards him.
He was truly prepared to be expelled.
Having been in this industry for so long, he has heard many stories of "unreliable" directors being fired by film companies halfway through filming.
Wu Chi had carefully prepared a speech in his mind, ready to explain to Lu Yanhe.
He's getting better at it. He wasted a lot of time and time filming earlier, but he'll improve later.
As a result, all his preparations were rendered useless.
Lu Yanhe patted Wu Chi on the shoulder, offered him some encouragement, and then prepared to leave.
As soon as he stepped outside, the dozen or so members of the film crew looked at him with tense and uneasy expressions.
They probably knew what they were filming recently, and were uneasy, worried that the production would be cut off and they would all have to pack up and go home.
Jiang Yue looked the most nervous.
Who can understand her feelings?
She joined the crew with high expectations, but before she could even film her first scene, she was told that the plot was in a bad state and that the crew might have to stop filming because of Lu Yanhe's visit to the set.
Jiang Yue was very worried that Lu Yanhe would really disband the film crew on the spot with just one sentence.
Lu Yanhe noticed everyone's mindset.
He smiled and said, "I'm sorry I didn't give you any advance notice before coming, which has caused you all trouble. The 'The Sea' production team is the first production of Linghe that I didn't star in or write. I really like this script. It's not serious, unlike the kind of traditional good movie script, but it's quite juvenile, like the comics we read when we were kids. It's unrealistic, but it has the power to move us."
"Chaos is only temporary. As long as we have a good heart, things will definitely get better and better." Lu Yanhe said with a smile, "Director Wu Chi is directing for the first time. He is very talented, but he lacks experience. Please give him your help. I have been a director myself, and I know best how much a new director needs help from everyone when he is making his first film. The help he receives at this time is like rain after a long drought."
Lu Yanhe smiled and encouraged everyone: "Then I'll continue to rely on you all for this project."
After he finished speaking, everyone looked at each other, and for a moment, no one reacted.
They dared not react.
At this moment, Jiang Yue suddenly let out a high-pitched "Whoa!" cheer.
"Fighting!" she shouted energetically.
I recommend the new book "The Demon-Slaying Sword".
(End of this chapter)
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