Ji Juntao said, "Is the climate there so dry? I'll bring you a set of skincare products when I get back."
Such a normal topic and concern was very out of place with Ji Juntao's style. Shang Yechu was just feeling strange when she heard the dead man continue, "Your face is our shared asset. Don't make it depreciate."
Shang Yechu: "...Thank you, I'll try my best to preserve its value. Please continue."
"It usually takes a week to a month to recover from acclimatization problems." Ji Juntao held up the piece of paper he had just scribbled on. "Let's say a week. Filming the desert scenes will take twenty days, so that adds up to a month."
Shang Yechu calmly said, "Let's not even talk about filming multiple projects at once. There's no director, no camera crew, and we haven't even cast any supporting actors besides me. Even the most rushed films wouldn't be shot like this."
Ji Juntao, however, thought differently: "There are five main actors. They are the mute woman, the parents, the mute woman's daughter, and the granddaughter. The rest of the roles are played by villagers. We can find villagers to play these roles directly. It would be great if they could play themselves."
"Do you even understand movies?" Shang Yechu retorted. "There's a difference between how actors appear on screen and in their daily lives..."
"I already said this script is for you to practice with. Do you expect me to find a bunch of award-winning actors and actresses to act alongside you?" Ji Juntao retorted sarcastically. "Tell me, are you more suitable or am I?"
The two were about to start arguing when Shang Yechu quickly changed the subject: "Fine, fine, even if the extras and supporting roles are tolerable, what about the filming time? A month, and that's mixed with the filming time for 'Xiao Feng Que'. What can you do with that little time?"
Ji Juntao argued vehemently: "Fire, which won three major awards, was only filmed in seventeen days, and Xiao Liu, which won the Best Film Award at an international film festival, was only filmed in twenty-one days. How many days do you expect to film a practice film whose main scenes take place in a small village?"
This is utterly sophistry!
Shang Yechu almost laughed in exasperation: "Is this script being filmed in such a hurry? I think it's okay to wait."
Shang Yechu thought she was already very anxious, but she didn't expect Ji Juntao to be even more anxious than her. He was a complete shrew.
Ji Juntao pulled out another piece of paper and showed Shang Yechu the scribbles on it: "Can you see them clearly?"
"I can see it clearly, but I can't understand it." Shang Yechu tried hard to decipher Ji Juntao's flamboyant and grotesque handwriting. "You should still say something."
Ji Juntao took a sip of coffee to moisten his throat: "Look, didn't you say before that Director Zheng was going to write a spy drama script based on the nameless martyrs? As soon as I heard about it, I went to find all the relevant information."
"She was executed by the reactionaries on December 6th, which means that December 6th is her death anniversary."
"Her hometown is in Ruguan Province, where Ruguan TV is one of the highest-rated local stations. At its peak, it could dominate the ratings for the entire day... But let's not go into that for now."
“I checked all the biographical dramas, historical dramas and spy dramas produced by Ruguan TV and found that this local station has a big point. Whenever the protagonist is a real historical figure or has a prototype, the start date of filming is always set on the birthday or death anniversary of the prototype of that character, in order to pay tribute and commemorate them.”
Shang Yechu immediately understood, "This senior's birth date is unknown, so the start time can only be chosen on the anniversary of his death."
“That’s right,” Ji Juntao said. “I checked the almanac, and December 6th this year is indeed an auspicious day to start up the machine.”
Shang Yechu was quite aware of how fast Zheng Bohan could write a script. Half a year was more than enough time for Zheng Bohan to finish a script.
“There are five more films following ‘Xiao Feng Que’ that have already been approved.” Shang Yechu quickly recalled what she had found on the Film Bureau’s official website.
"There are twenty volumes of 'Phoenix Plays with Dragon.' Three of them are generally considered to be of low quality and are money-grabbing works, so CTS does not plan to film them; two of them are spin-offs of Tian Ru Shui, which I do not need to film, CTS will start a separate series; two of them have similar and repetitive plots, so we can choose one to integrate."
"Excluding Yang Huanyi's book, the two I've already finished filming, and the one I'm currently filming, the remaining ten or so books can be combined into five books just right."
"Xiao Feng Que is a project of CTS. If it is filmed well, it will benefit you." Ji Juntao said calmly and logically. "If you want to do something good, either don't do it at all, or do it thoroughly. You can't turn down any of these five projects."
“I know.” Shang Yechu calculated the time. “Today is April 29th, and there are still more than seven months until December 6th. Filming ‘Xiao Feng Que’ takes about a month…”
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