Chapter 73
She even arrived earlier than the others.
This film was invested by Shen's Films, and several supporting roles were played by artists from Jianfeng. It was normal for her to appear here, but the entire crew was under the control of Su Ning, so her presence or absence would not change anything.
Zhu Lan mainly wanted to see what this resource that she had previously looked down upon had become, and what the result of Su Ning's choice was.
When she came, she saw Ji Mowei and the other person, and raised her eyebrows. She thought that Su Ning did not ask Li Chu, who was his own company employee, to come over, but asked these two instead. She didn't know whether it was to win people's hearts or to force them in to show off their reputation.
Ji Mowei knew what she was thinking as soon as he saw her expression, and he was too lazy to explain that this was the path they had chosen themselves.
The more he got along with Su Ning, the more he felt that Mr. Su was not as complicated as these people thought. He was just teaching students in accordance with their aptitude and seriously considering the actual situation of their personal wishes. Why should he think so much?
Ye Qiuxin hadn't arrived yet, so these two auditioned first. Zhu Lan took a look and to be honest, it was a bit beyond her expectations.
She knew the acting skills of the young idols. Not to mention how good their performances were, even being able to pronounce their lines clearly was considered outstanding at the beginning. However, the performances of these two were indeed different. Moreover, idols also have their own advantages in acting. They have strong control over their body shapes and the ability to learn in front of the camera.
These were all learned by Tong Feifan through cramming, including the lines, actions, positioning and performance in front of the camera. After practice, his progress can be said to be rapid.
When you first enter the industry, you must follow the right person. Su Ning insisted on hiring Tong Feifan. Many people said that it was a waste of talent and that it was just a gimmick, but now it has been proved that high standards are really useful.
Several minor supporting roles in the play were decided very quickly, and not long after, Jixue arrived. Since they had met quite a lot before and had collaborated on a short play, she and Ji Mowei greeted each other in a friendly manner, and then shook hands with Ye Qiuxin who had just arrived.
Among all the actors, Ye Qiuxin's face is actually not that outstanding. She is a beauty, but there are too many beauties in the entertainment industry, and the competition among actresses of her generation is even more fierce, with all kinds of works, awards and endorsements coming to her head.
It is true that she is relatively unknown, especially on the Internet, and many young people don't know her very well.
Most of the dramas Ye Qiuxin had starred in before were serious dramas and historical dramas, with high ratings, but he himself is not very interested in marketing or taking on any business opportunities. He just concentrates on acting, and his personality seems to be ordinary, not cold, but not overly enthusiastic either.
She plays the female lead, Luo Suyan, who is set to be a dignified and steady girl from an aristocratic family. She is childhood sweethearts with the crown prince and is only waiting to marry into the East Palace after the crown prince's mourning period is over. However, the old emperor is incompetent and superstitious about astronomy, so he seizes his wife and forces her into the palace, and makes her the Empress Li.
As a result, the world of the girl from a wealthy family who had originally aspired to be a good wife and have a harmonious marriage collapsed in an instant.
In her heart, she hated the cruel, merciless, and amorous old emperor, and she didn't want to compete for favor in the harem. So at the beginning, she was unique in the harem with a sense of freshness and pride. The emperor wanted to pamper her, even with an endless and extraordinary pampering, and he would pamper her to the utmost, just like a sweet pet story.
The life of a favored concubine is really too good.
No woman, or even anyone, can remain completely indifferent to such pampering. The heroine is inevitably shaken, but she abides by the rules and thinks she has kept the bottom line. But soon, the old emperor has a new one.
Once the favor is transferred, the gap appears.
It turned out that those who were jealous of her began to take action. It was an ordinary game. For the first time, Russell felt like she had fallen from a high altitude into the clouds and felt the true cruelty of this damn place.
It turns out that her disdainful favor is the capital to save her life here.
Fortunately, Princess Zhenyue came to the rescue and spoke for her, so she was only confined to house arrest - Zhao Zhenyue, who has a very important role in the play, has always been on the side of the heroine, and is a character with a very important role in the decent faction, and it was at this time that she was awakened.
Su Ning wanted to give this role to Ji Xue, and the two of them were rehearsing this scene now.
Zhenyue is applying medicine to the heroine.
There was a long scratch from the side of Luo Suyan's face to her neck, which almost disfigured her, but she was the one who was punished. The other party framed her and was eloquent, and she cried in the emperor's arms, and she was caught off guard.
She was sitting there in front of the mirror, her whole body trembling slightly, her tears accumulating in her eyes as if she was talking to herself: "Why doesn't your Majesty believe me?"
Anyone who saw this scene would feel sad for her.
At this time, she still felt aggrieved about the slander she had suffered, immersed in grief, and didn't know why she had lost her favor. She cried for her fate that was never determined by herself.
Zhenyue called her, "My Lady."
When Luo Suyan heard this name, he seemed to be stimulated by something and looked at Zhenyue's face through the mirror.
"You have privately called me the Empress's sister-in-law before," she said, "I am not an Empress at all..."
She wanted so badly to go back to the past.
But Zhenyue interrupted her and said, "Your Highness, this is the palace, you can't say anything careless."
So Luo Suyan shut up.
The tears that had accumulated in her eyes could no longer be held back, and at this moment they flowed down, and she asked again, "How could it become like this?"
She didn't know what she had done wrong from beginning to end.
But what was even more difficult for her to say was that she now didn't know whether she was feeling pained by entering the palace or at a loss because she had lost the emperor's favor.
At first, she clearly felt very ashamed of such pampering, but now, after really suffering, she actually began to miss the old days. And today, if Zhenyue hadn't come, she would have almost not been able to eat a hot meal, and there would be no medicine for her face. The eldest daughter of the Luo family had never suffered such hardship in her life.
But Zhenyue, who was in the palace, knew very well that her father was not stupid. He knew everything. It was not that he did not believe her. Everyone knew that she was wronged. It was just that once the novelty of the person in power wore off, he felt that such a beautiful woman was meaningless, so he tried to temper her like taming an animal.
After experiencing a little bit of hardship, you won’t act so arrogantly in the future.
This is cruel and true, but Zhenyue brought worse news. The Luo family is a military family, and the father and brother are generals. There are constant wars on the border. The father and brother of the Luo family were ordered to go to war, but they were ambushed halfway and urgently needed to be rescued.
But now the court is also in chaos. Even if the prince helps to speak up, Prime Minister Jiang and his gang, who have always been at odds with the Luo family, are unwilling to send troops. They are even opposed to the prince and keep delaying. The last time someone framed Luo Suyan in the palace was Prime Minister Jiang's daughter, Concubine Yi. This is a personal grudge, but it also involves the court.
"… Your Majesty, there is not much time left. How can the frontline wait? Only if you cheer up can the Luo family be saved," Zhen Yue said, "I really don't want to see the Luo family end up like this. The border is in danger, but these bureaucratic insects are just because of their own selfish desires…"
Zhao Zhenyue is a girl in the boudoir, but she cares about the country and the people.
Although Luo Suyan's family was a military family, their daughter had always been raised to be a lady from a noble family. She had been reading the Book of Instructions for Women since she was young, and was doted on by her father and brothers, who wanted to keep her in a large mansion and never asked her to take on any responsibilities.
Luo Suyan's first reaction was: "Me? I can't do that. Women, women should be humble...be obedient and abide by the law. Moreover, the harem cannot interfere in government affairs. This is, this is..."
She spoke incoherently, and could not remember the many rules that she had memorized so well.
The only thing that echoed in my mind was Zhenyue's last words: "That was a trick to fool people like the queen. Now, the lives of Luo's father and brother are in the hands of the queen."
Zhenyue couldn't stay here for long, for fear of being discovered. She sighed, left the medicine and left. Luo Suyan was still sitting in front of the mirror. She looked at the scar on her cheek where the medicine was applied, and could still see the obvious red mark. She closed her eyes silently.
She was going to go against what she had been taught and become a seductive concubine who bewitched the emperor's heart.
Ye Qiuxin and Jixue finished rehearsing this paragraph and then turned around. The whole place was silent and no one spoke.
It was Ye Qiuxin who broke the silence. She hadn't wiped the tears from her eyes yet. She said to the director, "I think the line 'Why doesn't your majesty believe me' can be moved to the back, to the middle. The emotion will be more natural. What do you think, director?"
Guo Baomu took a look and said, "Okay."
They had already started discussing the play, but Ji Mowei and Qu Shoubai, who were standing aside and watching, had not yet come to their senses.
So awesome.
The reason why I chose this episode is that it is very representative. After this, Luo Suyan changed. The zither she used to cultivate her sentiments became a tool for winning favor. A gentle whisper over the palace wall won back the old emperor's heart. In order to please her, he immediately sent troops out.
This incident was a decisive node in the heroine's growth. The old emperor thought he had tamed a pet, but after Luo Suyan succeeded once, he no longer thought so.
She used to think that the prince was already a very powerful man, his future husband whom she once regarded as the best, the most respected and capable person in the world, and he would inherit the throne sooner or later.
But when something happened to the Luo family, even if he tried so hard, he could not persuade the old emperor. But he only needed a word after gaining favor. It was so simple and easy.
The young lady in seclusion did not realize how good it was to compete for favor, but how good it was to have power. The things that men did not allow her to touch turned out to be so wonderful. Later, she knew more clearly that competing for favor was an indirect way to obtain this power, and it also depended on the color of the man on the throne, which was far less satisfying than controlling it herself.
This is also the reason why Su Ning chose this one among many scripts.
There have been many dramas about palace fighting and house fighting, some of which are successful, and a lot of which are not. The concept of this kind of drama, that is, the root of the script, is very important. Women can talk about love in palace fighting and house fighting, but just fighting for love is boring, but women's resistance and struggle for power will be much more interesting. If the audience can see the cannibalistic nature of the feudal court in such a drama, it will be a step up.
Even if the result is not good, at least the film he made is an interesting work that he is worthy of.
TV series are not like movies, nor are they like short stories like Glory that can be slowly polished. If a 60-episode TV series is polished like this, it will take ten years to finish.
Therefore, the script of the TV series needs to be particularly solid, the main actors must have enough experience to keep up with this pace, and the heroine must be able to hold on.
Ye Qiuxin didn't even change her costume. She was wearing casual clothes and performing this scene with the snow. There were almost no extra actions. She just sat there, and everything depended on her lines and expressions.
When she looked up from her chair, she had already turned into Luo Suyan who had broken through the shell of "property and dignified". The red mark on her face was a metaphor for her breaking the eggshell.
Jixue was also very eye-catching and she was able to handle the role well, and she had the ability to become stronger when facing stronger opponents. Ye Qiuxin came from a drama background and was very strong in acting on the spot, and yet she did not let Zhenyue, who was acting opposite her, lose her luster.
But this is a good show, and everyone around can see it.
Ji Mowei and Qu Shoubai, two newcomers who have just started acting, pondered over and over again when they saw such a play. Zhu Lan certainly knew that she was aiming to make money, but this did not mean that she had no judgment after having been in the industry for so many years.
Doesn’t she know that the idol dramas filmed by Yuedong are bad?
She knows it better than anyone, but this is how the industry is. Sometimes good dramas don’t make money, but bad dramas do. It’s hard to say.
Zhu Lan is a well-known producer. She has been in the industry for so many years, and she is certainly not only famous for those idol dramas. She has invested in many critically acclaimed and commercially successful works, and has also invested in films that did not do well at the box office but won awards. Until now, she is still investing in some niche projects that may lose money.
It is because of this process that Zhu Lan can see more clearly that good quality does not necessarily lead to big money, and the audience's choice is fluid.
Some people think that artistry is above all else, but for Zhu Lan, she knows that she is secular and never hides her secularity. Profits are eternal. Being well-received but not popular is definitely not the best choice for Zhu Lan. If she has to choose, she will invest in a bad drama that makes money.
But the performance of the movies on Valentine’s Day reminded her, what if the audience doesn’t buy it?
The choice of the industry is often a cycle. In the past few years, there were many serious dramas, so the public wanted to try something new, so the idol dramas of Yuedong were popular at the beginning, because there was demand, and it also brought in traffic like Tang Lulu.
So they continued to shoot a batch of films, and a new one was released in the past two months, but the results were not satisfactory.
It seems that the audience has exhausted their patience, no longer likes this kind of youthful exuberance, and is now pursuing quality works.
President Sheng had not originally intended to tear his relationship apart like this. Changing the award at the last minute was very risky, but he was the person in charge of this project, and a company like Yuedong was not named Sheng. If he couldn't do well, the person in this position would have to be replaced.
The way capital solves this kind of decline is to control variables, so Mr. Sheng can only think of a more popular Glory, changing to a more popular traffic source, changing a group of fans and making another wave of cuts, as if the problem will be solved. This is the most common practice in this circle.
But Su Ning disagreed.
It was like a knife was placed on his neck during the award ceremony, but he still didn't agree. If it weren't for Su Ning being connected to Shen Mingzheng and the Shen family behind him, it would have been possible for President Sheng to really hold a knife to his neck.
It is not new that capital is crazy for money. When Hong Kong was in chaos decades ago, there were people filming movies with guns pointed at the back of the heads of popular stars. Now things are much milder.
But Zhu Lan is not like President Sheng. The other party has no way out, but she does. Given her ability and status, she will immediately turn around when she senses a slight change in the wind direction. If she can't make money there, she will find another way to make money.
Not only this one, before she came, she even visited the sets of several other palace fighting and family fighting dramas that were about to be released. Several of them have already started filming, and some of them are popular stars.
But no matter how they marketed it outside, Zhu Lan took a walk around the set and had a rough idea of what it was like.
Just the director Guo Baomu has won a lot, but if we talk about quality, it really has to be Su Ning.
What she wants is a winner-takes-all situation.
But now Su'ning has no shortage of investment or popularity, and there is no place to plug in. However, there are a few roles that have not been determined yet.
There is no need to think about the female lead. Yuedong wanted to snatch the role of the female lead before, and even wanted to change the script, replacing the original not-so-perfect prince role with one to promote a young actor, but that is no longer possible now.
However, this is a group drama, and many characters are also very outstanding, for example, Princess Zhenyue, Zhao Zhenyue.
It can be seen that the role is very important, and this is one of the few roles in the drama with almost no flaws. You can tell from the fact that Su Ning specially chose this role for Ji Xue.
If one wants to promote someone and reap the benefits of this drama, this role seems to be the best choice.
Zhu Lan watched silently, having already made a decision in his heart.
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