Chapter 72

Ji Mowei was a little confused when he heard these words. Happiness came too suddenly and he seemed unable to react.

...How did it pass? Didn't he just make a mistake?

Tong Feifan motioned him to come over and look at the screen on the monitor. These two were newcomers. Both Ji Mowei and the new female actress were inexperienced, and they didn't know each other well, so there was always a strange barrier when they interacted with each other.

But with that action just now, the states of the two people are different, more natural, and the whole action and emotion are consistent.

"Remember this feeling," Tong Feifan said, "try a few more and follow this."

Ji Mowei read it carefully several times and seemed to understand a little.

It took nearly two hours to polish this shot alone. After Ji Mowei finished shooting, he felt a little tired, but also thoughtful.

Different industries may have something in common. By practicing the same thing over and over again, even the most inexperienced person can figure out some experience. He took a few more takes, and Tong Feifan chose the best one, and finally passed.

But before Ji Mowei could breathe a sigh of relief, he soon discovered that this was just the beginning.

There is another shot at night, where Ji Mowei meets Li Chu after sending someone back. The situation between the three people is a little subtle. In the end, Li Chu brings people in and sends them home.

Lin Zhi, the half-brother, doesn't get along well with the heroine. After Li Chu sends him home, the two have a quarrel, which is very unpleasant. But when she was sleeping, she heard someone knocking on the door again, and ginger sugar water to ward off the cold was placed at the door.

This clip is the same as the previous one. Tong Feifan is not satisfied, so he will keep shooting until he sees a shot that can pass. If it doesn’t work today, he will continue shooting tomorrow.

The idols were actually well prepared. They read the script and designed their expressions and movements just like they designed the stage movements. They were very familiar with how to show their charm. But when they came here, Tong Feifan completely disrupted their plans.

This is not a one-man show; drama requires interaction, and it must be just the right amount of intriguing interaction.

When he was talking seriously about the play, he naturally talked more.

Tong Feifan first pointed to Ji Mowei and Li Chu.

"You two—" he said, "You two are friends, and it's the same in the play, but because of this girl, something has changed. But this change is meaningless if it is directly expressed in the dialogue, so you can't tell anything from the dialogue."

"But your body language, your movements and micro-expressions, even your props, one holding a raincoat, the other holding an umbrella, you driving a motorcycle, he asked the butler to come out to pick someone up, the two of you in this situation may seem to be in harmony, but it creates opposition."

He then pointed at Lin Zhi.

"On the contrary, your speech was very intense, and it was also written in the notebook that you and she had a quarrel and parted unhappily, but you have to understand that this is not an antagonistic relationship."

"When you are arguing, don't show too much expression or gestures. Don't use superficial emotions like raising your voice or getting excited. You are a well-educated and well-fed nobleman. Besides, there is no real hatred between you two."

"This girl had been very careful not to talk back before. This is the first time she fought back. You are definitely not just showing your anger, otherwise you wouldn't be waiting for someone to come back in the living room at night. If you didn't care at all, you would have gone upstairs to sleep."

"After the fight, you weren't angry. You were a bit confused. Try to find that state first, and then try to act out this scene."

This is indeed just an ordinary and common Marie Sue script with a bit of otome style, which is neither good nor bad. However, the reason why this old Cinderella routine is still popular until now is that it has its own popularity and reasons, and excellent directors have their own understanding.

The plot is already very simple, and if the understanding and expression of the characters are only superficial, it will be more likely to fall into clichés.

Why did Su Ning insist on working with Tong Feifan? Because for an inexperienced actor, the role of the director is very obvious. Even with such a simple script, the content he wants to express has layers.

It’s not that light and shadow entertainment doesn’t have complex scripts, a ton of copyrights, and a lot of co-writers, but one has to progress step by step.

They were considered to have gotten started by going through these three stories under Director Tong, so the funding provided by Su Ning was sufficient and they were not afraid of wasting film, so they tried as much as possible.

The movie is almost out of theaters, and Director Tong has plenty of time. After shooting a take, he would occasionally ask them to come over and watch the footage on the monitor. Although he doesn't talk much, the problems he points out are often to the point, making people think differently.

The story to be filmed is not long, and many parts of the script have been condensed, leaving only the main plot. You need to rely on simple lines and plots to understand the characters.

Sometimes, when Tong Feifan felt something was wrong, he would change the script on the spot, deleting a line or two or adding a simple scene. Every change he made was enough to make the Glory crowd ponder for a long time.

So after we finished filming these two simple scenes tonight, I looked at the time and it was three o'clock in the morning.

But the shots taken by Tong Feifan are really good, comparable to the quality of movies. The dreamlike feeling of luxury of Cinderella accidentally entering a wealthy family comes out. The emotions and thoughts of each person in the rain are carefully polished to be different. It is almost as if every clip can be used as a luxury goods advertisement.

But let’s be honest, some of these detailed props are actually soft advertisements, and some are even endorsements of the group.

Yuedong reminded him that acting in a drama can indeed attract sponsors, and their clothes and even the car are actually soft advertisements.

It doesn't look awkward in Tong Feifan's shots, and he doesn't accept everything. He has chosen them deliberately so that they won't look abrupt in the short film. These can all be negotiated. For these collaborations where there is room for maneuver, Su Ning knows how to maximize his own interests.

Although these sponsorships are far from enough to cover the cost of filming, Su Ning knows that some money should be earned and some money should not be touched at all.

It’s not like the young idols haven’t worked overtime to this point before, but now it’s because of their own reasons that so many people in the crew have to work overtime with them. The seven of them still felt sorry, but they didn’t rest after returning to the hotel.

They don't sleep much.

There is a sense of freshness and excitement in coming into contact with new things, and a bit of reluctance.

"...I take back what I said before. Acting is really hard. It's really hard. It's much harder than I thought," Wang Ruoyi muttered to himself while lying on the sofa. "It's really different from the clips I performed in variety shows before."

He seemed to be fooling around before.

Lin Zhi, Ji Mowei and others were reading the script, taking notes and writing down their own understandings.

As for Li Chu, he was lying on the bed and sending a message to Su Ning.

The other party should have fallen asleep at this point, but he still wanted to talk to Su Ning about what happened today, his own experience and opinions, and said a little pitifully that everyone found it very difficult at the beginning, as they only shot a few shots in a day, but Director Tong was really very responsible.

Su Ning replied to him early the next morning, and first asked: "Do you still want to shoot?"

Of course.

No matter how much they wanted to cry yesterday and had to repeat the scene countless times by the director, these seven people were the first to arrive on the set early this morning. They probably only slept for two or three hours, but they arrived earlier than the director and kept asking the assistant director and the acting teacher hired by Su Ning for advice.

The questions they asked after putting the work into practice were very different from those they had asked on paper. They were just as competitive as ever, except that they were holding their breath to come up with even better work after not winning the award.

It is good for the future if you don't feel that you can do anything after becoming famous and being praised by everyone. It is good to recognize your shortcomings and try new areas after experiencing setbacks.

"Everything is difficult at the beginning, so take your time," Su Ning admitted after hearing this. "I also thought a lot about the last incident."

There are many things in this industry that are not satisfactory. He gives his artists the greatest freedom because he hopes they will have choices in the future.

Idols don’t necessarily have to dance on the stage their entire lives; the age ceiling in this industry is real.

At the beginning, they acted in some bad dramas. Because they have many fans, it is not obvious on the surface. However, the resulting reputation and some bad habits formed in acting will cut off their path of continued development. But if this short drama is performed well, it can become a stepping stone and bring more opportunities to these young people.

"You guys give it a try first," Su Ning said, "If after you finish this performance, you feel that you still want to develop in this field, I can arrange for you to audition with director Guo Baomu."

There are many supporting roles in the drama "The Ambitious Family" that require young male actors. They have been polished by Tong Feifan for several rounds and are qualified to play supporting roles with few lines in the drama.

Glory persisted in her filming journey amidst all the pain and excitement.

Everyone suffered a lot at Tong Feifan's hands, but the progress became faster and faster afterwards. They were able to meet the director's requirements more quickly and gradually began to understand his requirements and intentions.

After finishing the first story, they started to shoot the second fantasy film "I Met You" with Ji Xue.

This is another different experience. The seven people just walked out of the simple and ignorant basic idol drama plot in the previous part, and immediately welcomed an upgraded version here.

Ji Xue's advantage is that she is very good at interacting with her opponents.

Because these characters are set as animal-like people, Ji Xue also knows her own mission. Most of the time, only her back is shown in the camera, but she has her own design.

There was a shot of him eating dessert secretly, and originally he patted Li Chu on the shoulder after being discovered, but when the snow piled up, he grabbed Li Chu's neck instead.

She suddenly changed her movements, and Li Chuzhen felt a little caught off guard. His eyes widened as if his fate was being grasped by the back of his neck. After filming this, Jixue went to the monitor to take a look and nodded, saying, "This shot looks good."

Moreover, as a professional actor, Jixue will tell the director some more detailed things from the actor's perspective, reminding them of the shortcomings of their eyes and movements, how to interact with the camera, the tone of the lines, and so on.

Tong Feifan has high requirements. There are no dubbing actors in this short play, all the voices are original and live.

After filming two short films in succession, the seven people's experience of acting became even more different.

In this process, everyone breaks away from many so-called "this is good, that is good" career plans from the outside world and makes some choices that come from the heart.

Li Chu is still young. After trying it out, he still wants to focus more of his energy on the stage. He will talk about acting later. There is no rush now.

The same goes for Lin Zhi. After all, both of them are too young and their faces are too fresh, so the roles they can choose from are limited. It would be better for them to focus on the stage first and make further progress in becoming idols.

After trying it, Zhou Heng and Rui Song became more determined to pursue the path of being a singer-songwriter. Acting was not suitable for them.

Wang Ruoyi would also like to be an idol who also performs variety shows. He is really not good at acting. He has a lively personality and wants to laugh when he is serious. Perhaps it would be more appropriate for him to act when he has more experience and is more mature.

After Ji Mowei and Qu Shoubai were severely beaten on the set, they actually noticed something different.

Tong Feifan also felt that the two of them could try acting at this time based on their image and performance, and that they were tall enough, so he specially recommended them to Guo Baomu.

When they auditioned, they had just finished filming the story of "First Love" and "When I Met You", and there happened to be two days of break in between, so they went to the crew of "The Ambitious Family" and auditioned for small roles.

One is a literati who is upright and rebukes the empress dowager's tyranny, and the other is an ordinary prince who has no interest in politics and whose only role is to help the heroine. With their popularity, playing such supporting roles is just a guest appearance, and Guo Baomu doesn't care much about such small supporting roles, as long as they meet the passing line, but the performance of these two is beyond his expectations.

Even if it was a minor role that only appeared in a few episodes, I did my homework before coming, and even analyzed the character's personality and wrote a short biography, which was really well done.

The two tried it on the spot for a few times, and it turned out to be quite good and suitable, so they decided on it immediately.

Besides the roles, the experience of being part of a large crew is indeed different. They met Su Ning and happened to see Ye Qiuxin coming over. Moreover, Ji Xue was also trying out for a role today, and the two were preparing to rehearse a scene.

"If you have time, you can stay and watch," Su Ning said to them, "After watching it, you should know why I refused to cooperate with Yuedong and wanted to keep Ye Qiuxin recommended by Director Guo."

The two looked at each other and nodded.

The first step in acting is to have a preliminary and correct understanding of this industry. The second step is to know what excellent performances and roles look like.

And there were more than just the two of them coming to the set today, Zhu Lan was also here.