Chapter 35 The First Scene
"I've heard that Penguin Video's "The Darker Side" should start airing after the Chinese New Year. If we hurry up, we can get ahead of them."
At the entrance of the "convenience store" studio, Meng Bai and Wu Bai sat aside waiting for the lighting technicians, photographers and other staff to set up the scene, and chatted about the "friendly drama".
Wu Bai frowned and said, "In fact, we don't have to get ahead of them, right? Our theme is supernatural suspense, and their theme is criminal investigation and crime. The two don't conflict."
"But the audience's attention at the same time is limited, and the popularity of the two dramas will inevitably be tied to each other." Meng Bai explained.
Although the two dramas are of two different themes, in fact, the main audience is mainly college students and young people under the age of 28, and their attention and topics are limited. If the two dramas are broadcast at the same time, it is inevitable that there will be diversion or suppression.
In fact, there is another option, which is to put "Soul Ferry" on the back, which can also avoid competition.
But unfortunately, Meng Bai learned that Penguin Video's "The Darker Side" is a simulcast of the first and second seasons, adding up to a total of nearly fifty episodes.
According to the broadcast frequency of one episode a day and five episodes a week, it will take more than two months to finish.
More importantly, there is a key issue involved here, which is the membership recharge of the video platform.
The membership fee of fifteen to twenty yuan a month is a kind of consumption that "although the money is not much, it always feels uncomfortable to spend" for young viewers who are still in school or just starting to work.
If it is one platform, it is okay, but the two dramas involve two platforms, and the "uncomfortable" feeling brought by this consumption will be doubled.
Therefore, the behavior habits of many viewers are mostly to reluctantly open a membership of a website first, and then when they need it, they go to Kuaibo or Tieba to shout "Big brother please", and then naturally a "wild" resource will appear in front of them.
Therefore, whichever drama is broadcast first, the audience is more likely to open a membership of that platform.
The number of membership recharges is an important profit point for both video platforms and producers.
In the revenue sharing contract signed by Meng Bai and Leshi.com, one of the important revenue sharing is the recharge of members in the drama.
Since it is related to personal interests, Meng Bai naturally has to consider it as carefully as possible.
"So, brother." Meng Bai patted Wu Bai's arm and said in a tone of entrusting him with an important task: "I'll have to ask you for more help in the next filming!"
"...I'll try my best."
...
The biggest difference between text and pictures is the degree of intuition for the audience.
When reading text, the author can not write clearly in many places, relying on the reader's own imagination to feel the atmosphere of the plot scene.
But film and television dramas are not like this. What the picture shows is what the audience receives.
As a drama of supernatural suspense, the most important point of "Soul Ferry" is to let the audience feel the atmosphere of horror, suspense, tension and excitement.
So how to reflect this atmosphere?
It's very simple, just let the picture be filled with darkness and shadows.
In other words, it is to shoot at night.
The most scenes of the "Pendulum" crew are night scenes. After all, the night itself has a horror atmosphere.
And the first scene to be shot in the whole drama is a night scene.
"Lights are in place!"
"Recording is in place!"
"Camera is confirmed!"
"..."
Listening to the various departments of the crew taking their positions, Wu Bai, who was sitting behind the monitor, stood up and said loudly: "OK, all groups are in place, keep silent on the scene. Script supervisor, prepare to make the decision!" "
One scene, one shot, one time for "Soul Ferry", snap!"
"Begin! "
As Wu Bai's order was issued, the scene immediately became quiet, leaving only the subtle operation of various filming equipment.
"Wow--"
The door of the convenience store was pushed open, and Yu Yi, with a big back hair and a black slim suit, strode into the door.
"Welcome!"
Zhang Ruoyun, who was wearing a convenience store employee uniform, hurriedly greeted him. Just as he was about to ask the other party if he needed any help, he saw Yu Yi directly took a can of drink from the shelf, opened the lid and drank it naturally.
"Hey, what are you doing?"
"I'm Zhao Li, the night shift waiter here, your new colleague."
"Impossible, the boss stipulates that only one person is on duty at night."
...
The first scene of "Soul Ferry" was not filmed from the first scene of the script, but the plot of the second half of the first episode was filmed first.
Whether it is a TV series or a movie, it is rare to shoot in sequence according to the plot. Most of the time, what to shoot first and what to shoot later are generally arranged according to the order of actors, weather, scenes and props preparation.
Actors are definitely the most important. After all, if an actor in a scene takes a leave of absence, there is no way to adjust it.
Therefore, some crews that have signed big-name actors will choose to shoot the scenes of this big-name actor first in order to save the actors' schedule.
The second is the weather. For example, when encountering specific weather conditions such as rain, snow, dusk and early morning, the crew will definitely rush to shoot as soon as possible if necessary.
Of course, if these weather conditions are really not encountered, the crew naturally has means of artificial intervention. For example, spraying water, artificial snow, or covering the glass of the room with black cloth to simulate the night.
A little-known fact of the crew is that for a long time, the crew will use nitric acid fertilizers to simulate snow scenes, because when they are sprinkled on the ground, they are all white and fine powder. The picture looks very beautiful, but the smell on the scene is really "violent".
After the weather, the plot of the same scene will also be shot intensively most of the time.
For example, in "The Legend of Zhen Huan", there are many plots of concubines and the emperor going to bed in the plot, and these scenes naturally cannot be set up once for each shooting. In fact, all the sleeping scenes were shot in one go by the crew in two days.
Therefore, the fatigue on the face of Chen Jianbin, who plays the emperor, when the concubines sleep with him in the later part of the plot is not all acting.
Finally, there are props. Some props, especially food, have a shelf life, so the crew often finishes shooting the relevant scenes before shooting other ones.
Therefore, the selection of the first scene of "Soul Ferry" roughly follows this order - the three main characters are all there, the night scene, and the convenience store focuses on the plot.
Meng Bai, like Wu Bai, also sits behind the monitor and watches the scenes shot by the camera.
He is a "live-type" screenwriter, that is, he will watch the actors' performances on the spot, and then adjust the characters and lines appropriately according to the performance to make them more compatible with each other.
There are also "textbook-type" screenwriters, whose characteristic is that they will not make any changes to the scripts they have written, even the modal particles in a line cannot be changed.
In fact, it doesn't matter which of these two types of screenwriters is better or worse, as long as the plot effect that the audience sees in the end is wonderful.
(End of this chapter)
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