17

17

The next week, Li Zitong called me out again. When we met, she was holding a small camera in her hand.

I was surprised. "Where did you get it from?"

"My father has distant relatives in Heilongjiang who have business dealings with Russia and South Korea, and this was mailed from there."

"Wow, that's expensive, right?"

She quoted a price that made me gasp.

"How could he trust you with something so valuable?"

"Of course not. I took it secretly," she said casually. "The power source is AA batteries. I specially bought rechargeable ones. I can recharge them after using them up, so there's no loss at all."

"Oh, rechargeable batteries aren't cheap either, are they?"

"Don't worry, I spent all my pocket money to buy it. How can we make a movie without this thing?"

So they're really planning to film this! I can't help but be in awe. This guy usually seems to be bothered by everything, but when it comes to movies, he's inexplicably full of action.

"All the equipment is ready, let's start shooting now," she said confidently.

"Who are you filming?"

"Of course it's you."

"I can't act at all."

"It's okay. Remember that Chinese crime film we watched together two months ago? Most of the plot was boring, but the part at the end where the villain confessed his murder plan was quite interesting. Just imitate that scene and I'll film it to see how it works."

I didn't know how to react to such an unreasonable request. I was lucky enough to still remember the plot of a movie I saw two months ago, so how could I possibly remember how a specific scene was played out?

"With a memory like that, how did you even get into middle school?" Li Zitong said with surprise, mimicking the confession with her hands and feet. Surprisingly, she remembered every line clearly.

"Have you secretly watched it many times?"

"How is that possible? You know I hardly ever watch the same movie again...Okay, stop talking nonsense. Are you going to act or not?"

Having said that, I could only sigh and stand in front of the camera. "Next, I will announce my murder plan."

But I forgot the words to the second sentence. In front of the dark camera, my brain seemed to become slow.

"Cut! Stop! What the hell are you doing?" She poked her head out from behind the camera and yelled angrily.

I retorted helplessly, "You can't expect a new actor to be perfect."

"Really?" She checked the tape. "Luckily this machine has a re-recording function."

After that, she patiently taught me my lines several times. I thought I knew them by heart, but every time we started filming, I'd get stuck here or there. After countless repetitions, we finally managed to get a complete version shot before dark.

I wiped the sweat from my forehead, feeling relieved. But Li Zitong seemed dissatisfied with the result. The proof was that she had a gloomy face and didn't say a word on the way back.

Although it was a bit irresponsible to think so, I sincerely thought that it would be great if this failure could discourage her from making movies.

When we met the next week, she was still holding the camera in her hand, and her cheek was swollen and covered with tape.

I gasped, "What happened?"

"Father was mad about the videotape," she replied nonchalantly. "It turns out that while videotapes can be rewound and re-recorded, each reel can only be re-recorded a limited number of times. If you overdo it, the quality deteriorates until it becomes useless. We ruined that tape last week."

"You hit someone for such a small matter?"

She shook her head, taking unusually long time to choose her words. "Don't blame him. This tape is in VHS-C format and is very expensive. Forget it, let's not talk about it anymore. Let's hurry up and start today's filming."

"Still filming? Aren't you afraid of getting into trouble again?"

But Li Zitong remained unmoved, insisting that she had obtained the videotape secretly and it would not be discovered. I had no choice but to come up with a different excuse to dissuade her.

"Making a movie is not an easy task. A movie cannot be sustained solely by the director's spur-of-the-moment enthusiasm."

"Don't worry, I've probably already thought of the script."

"But what about the actors?"

"I've thought about this. The script I envision only requires one actor. It's simple, right?"

"How can a movie with only one actor be good, and what about the set?"

"Just listen to me first," she interrupted me impatiently. "Once you understand the story itself, you'll understand everything. Remember that doomsday you were always worried about? We'll film the story after that day comes."

Before the dawn of the new century, Nostradamus's prophecy finally came true. The sun, moon, and nine planets formed a "cross" in the sky. An asteroid struck Earth, completely destroying the atmosphere. Intense solar gamma rays pelted the surface. Over 98% of Earth's species became extinct within a few days. The surviving humans began to devote all their efforts to building interstellar spacecraft to escape Earth. Within a year, only about 1% of the Earth's population remained, and they were all from the lower classes who could not afford the cost. The young boy who serves as the protagonist of the film is one of them.

Scientists estimate this apocalyptic scenario will last for hundreds of thousands of years. Those remaining on Earth have given up hope, leaving behind suicide notes and awaiting death. But one teenage boy persisted. He and his mother stored a large amount of food, such as compressed biscuits. They hid in an underground cave, surviving by licking water seeping from the rock walls. Years later, their food supply ran out. Because they constantly conserved their food, their mother died first.

The young man lost hope and resolved to return to the surface and die. But as the terrain rose, the temperature didn't. He climbed the rock face and returned to the surface. Something had gone wrong! The sun... though it was at its zenith, it was a giant orange ball, like a setting sun, not particularly blazing. It turned out the scientists' predictions had been wrong. There had been a lull in the gamma-ray bursts, which had ceased in just a few years. As for when the next one would occur, no one knew; it could be just a few years from now, or hundreds of thousands of years from now.

He sat down at the cave entrance, gazing at the vast, unobstructed wilderness, then at the sun, before finally rising and beginning a new journey. He believed there must be other living humans...

Here she paused. "What do you think of this story?"

"Not bad." I thought for a moment. "I see. If it's a doomsday story, it makes sense to have only one actor."

"Bingo!" she snapped her fingers.

"But how do you express that grand sci-fi setting you just mentioned?"

"It would be better to have the protagonist speak it in the form of a soliloquy during the plot."

This will not only have no visual effect, but also make the sense of substitution very difficult, right? But this is not the problem I am worried about. I should be concerned about something else.

“Why is the protagonist a boy instead of a girl?”

"Because you're the lead actor," she said as if it were a matter of course. "Do you want to play the opposite gender?"

Hearing the expected answer, I couldn't help but feel a headache.

"Can you please let me go?"

"Don't worry, I will guide your acting skills well."

"Why don't you just act it yourself?"

"I can't act," she said firmly. "First, someone needs to operate the camera, and it's too expensive for me to give it to you. Second, I absolutely hate appearing on camera. The thought of being recorded makes me feel uncomfortable all over."

"Then you should find someone else. I really hate being on camera too."

"Only if I can find it." She looked me straight in the eye. "Even though I don't want to mention it, you still owe me a favor, right?"

I recalled how she helped me escape from the clutches of gangsters in elementary school, so I reluctantly agreed.

The story is told in flashback. The first scene shows the boy just arriving on the surface. Hungry, he desperately wants to find something to eat. Just then, a flock of wild birds appears before him.

Li Zitong crumbled up the dry bread she'd prepared and scattered it on the ground. Soon, a flock of hungry sparrows gathered around, chirping. I was tempted to say that it would be difficult for birds to survive a mass extinction, and that if I wanted to achieve realism, the protagonist should have caught cockroaches or mice for food. But considering both of these creatures are difficult to catch and disgusting, I couldn't bear it if she actually got them, so I forced myself to hold back.

"You need to be filmed chasing the bird! You need to act weak."

She raised the camera with sparkling eyes, "Start filming now, action!"

I tried not to look at the camera, kept a stiff face, and read the script desperately.

"So the surface world has returned to normal. But there's no one here. Um—and besides… um—I'm so hungry."

I stumbled towards the flock of birds, and the sparrows were frightened and flew into the sky, cooing.

“Cut!”

Li Zitong poked his head out from behind the camera and criticized my acting skills with a bitter look on his face.

"It's so slow, there's no real emotion at all, understand me?"

She bit her nails as she spoke.

"Your expression is too frozen. You need to express your natural sorrow and grief. Think about it, you're living at the end of the world. Your family is dead, and you're not sure if you'll survive. Shouldn't you be genuinely grief-stricken?"

This made me feel very uncomfortable, so I replied perfunctorily: "That's what I think in my head, and I can feel it in my heart."

"Then try your best to show it with your facial expressions and body movements, otherwise how will the audience see it! You can't film it like this, practice until I'm satisfied." So I was forced to repeat the scene a dozen times, and each time she found a different flaw. Both the sparrows and I were exhausted. They would stop to peck at the breadcrumbs for a while, but my performance scared them away, and eventually they just stopped coming.

Due to a lack of extras and the fact that it was almost noon, Li Zitong had to give up filming. Fortunately, he managed to film a "fairly good" version during the last take.

As we walked home, she announced her upcoming photography schedule. "Next Saturday is our day off, so come early. Meet in front of the North Exit Station at nine o'clock. Got you?"

I was surprised: "Do you want to continue filming?"

"Of course, it's only the first act."

The filming continued week after week, becoming an agonizing experience for me. To save on tape, Li Zitong forced me to rehearse dozens of times before filming began. He even wrote a thick script, specifying the movements and lines, and demanded I memorize them thoroughly before the actual filming began.

Because I was exhausted, I started complaining constantly. My most common refrain was, "Why take this so seriously? It's just a hobby anyway."

She initially pretended not to hear, but after hearing it many times, she couldn't help but retort, "If we don't pay attention to details, the audience won't feel involved."

"Speaking of immersion, my character keeps talking to himself. Isn't that weird? Do people really just say whatever they're thinking?"

"Well..."

She narrowed her eyes, pressed her lips into a straight line, and thought seriously.

I took the opportunity to expand on the topic, saying, "Movies definitely need supporting characters to complement and engage in dialogue, so that the main characters can display more vitality. Otherwise, they will become shriveled paper figures."

She remained silent for a long time, and the shooting was finally hastily concluded.

My original intention was to ask her to find some other people to help her. With more people to help her, the burden on me would be a little lighter. But when we met the next week, she brought over a basketball in a plastic bag. It was old, peeling, and half deflated.

"Where did you pick up this garbage?"

"Please respect him, he is your good friend."

I don't remember becoming a passionate sports boy who regarded basketball as his friend.

"I'm not talking about you in real life. Do you remember what you went through in the play? You wandered through a deserted city for a year, but you couldn't find a single soul. It's only natural that you'd feel lonely and miserable. The last time you spoke to anyone was your deceased mother. So, your only friend was a basketball. Now, doesn't that justify your lines?"

"I see. But this plot sounds familiar." I seemed to remember a similar plot in a movie about a man who worked for FedEx and was stranded on a desert island.

Her face flushed slightly. "This is just a reference. Anyway, let's shoot the scene you've practiced first. Don't change anything else. Just say your lines facing the basketball."

"Hey, you're not going to change places?"

"There aren't many people in the square today, so let's shoot here. There's no one in the west sandpit. Sit on the swing with the basketball on the ground in front of you." She used her slender fingers to form a frame. "You lean over and talk to the basketball. Perfect composition."

I sighed and sat down on the swing. Li Zitong raised her camera to check the footage. The onlookers' gazes immediately gathered, making me feel like a thorn in my side. She'd said the square was empty compared to a normal day, but there were still four or five elderly people taking a walk and exercising, and a couple who looked like a young couple pushing a stroller. Perhaps because cameras were so rare, they all observed us, whispering to each other, as if they had stumbled upon a rare animal in a wildlife sanctuary.

"Let's change places..." I pleaded. My mental strength wasn't strong enough to concentrate on talking to a ball in front of everyone.

"Don't worry, I tried, I can't capture anyone else from this angle."

"That's not the question. There are so many people watching. Isn't it embarrassing?"

"Not being disturbed by the outside world and concentrating on the performance are basic qualities for an actor. How can you make a good film if you can't even overcome this?" She ignored my protest and continued filming.

Continue read on readnovelmtl.com