"Why are you looking at me like that?" Sheng Wenzhi tilted his head.
Shang Yechu awkwardly looked away. During her brief cohabitation with Sheng Wenzhi, Shang Yechu knew that Sheng Wenzhi had a gym at home and that he worked out every day. But this was clearly out of character for Sheng Wenzhi—someone with irregular eating and sleeping habits actually had a consistent habit of exercising. It was as strange as wearing a thick cotton coat and sitting in air conditioning every day.
It's better to be lucky than early, and Shang Yechu isn't the type to let doubts linger in one's heart.
"You can't even manage to eat breakfast on time, so how come you can stick to exercising every day?" Shang Yechu moved to the side, and Sheng Wenzhi sat down next to her.
Despite the simplicity of the question, Sheng Wenzhi paused for a long time, so long that Shang Yechu thought he had asked the wrong question.
"I don't know either." Sheng Wenzhi finally shook his head. "Working out makes me more masculine."
"..."
It's not that this reason is abnormal; it's that it's too normal. So normal that it doesn't seem like something Sheng Wenzhi would say.
"Then why don't you just cut your hair off?" Shang Yechu couldn't help but ask, "Or grow a beard?"
Given the stereotypes about men's and women's appearances in life, it is widely believed that shaving one's head and growing a full beard will greatly increase masculinity.
Sheng Wenzhi shook his head even more resolutely this time: "That would make me feel disgusted."
Shang Yechu's gaze toward Sheng Wenzhi sharpened slightly.
For some reason, Shang Yechu found herself subtly empathizing with Sheng Wenzhi at this moment.
When she was with Sheng Wenzhi, Shang Yechu could no longer see him as a woman. But strangely, if the other party showed even the slightest masculine characteristics, Shang Yechu would feel even more uncomfortable, as if there was a wad of rotten cotton stuffing in her chest, and she would have an urge to vomit.
Spending too much time with Sheng Wenzhi will mess with your brain. Shang Yechu shook her head, trying to clear these chaotic thoughts. Regardless of whether Sheng Wenzhi is male or female, she had to get him to write the script today.
Shang Yechu first took out a brown paper bag from his bag and placed it on the coffee table.
"What is this?" Sheng Wenzhi asked, drying his hair, seemingly uninterested in the package.
Shang Yechu took a deep breath, constantly organizing her thoughts.
Ji Juntao has completely washed his hands of the script matter and is resolutely refusing to get involved. Shang Yechu can only resort to her own methods of deduction... she doesn't even know if they'll work.
"Good news and bad news. Which do you want to hear first?"
Sheng Wenzhi said, "I don't want to hear anything, I just want to sleep."
The first heavy blow.
"Alright, alright, this reaction from Sheng Wenzhi was exactly what Shang Yechu expected." Shang Yechu remained calm: "Then let me tell you the good news first. The good news is that my boss had someone study 'your' script, and the plot should all pass the review."
Of course they'll all pass the review, because Gu Wenhua has already cut them down to just one page. The reviewer can finish reviewing them in the time it takes to fart.
"Oh." Sheng Wenzhi raised an eyebrow, his expression unreadable, neither surprised nor pleased. "And the bad news?"
"The bad news is that the script is not long enough because the novel and the film are presented in different ways."
As she spoke, Shang Yechu took out the script from her bag and spread it out in front of Sheng Wenzhi and herself.
"The most common way in the industry to estimate how long a script can be made into a movie is 'one minute per page'." Shang Yechu opened the script and pointed to the page number for Sheng Wenzhi. "That is, each page of the script is roughly equivalent to one minute of the finished movie length."
Sheng Wenzhi flipped to the last page of the script in Shang Yechu's hand. The page number on the last page was clearly written as "59".
"So my script can only be filmed for... an hour?" Sheng Wenzhi frowned.
“Actually, it should be even shorter,” Shang Yechu added. “Your script has a lot of psychological and environmental descriptions, but in actual filming, these won’t take up even half a minute; they’ll just flash by. So it will be even shorter.”
As she spoke, Shang Yechu tried her best to make her expression look serious and composed. However, her palms were already sweaty.
The claim of "one page per minute" certainly exists, but that's how Hollywood does it. The Hollywood film industry is highly developed, and script formats follow standardized rules, with specific guidelines for font size, line spacing, and margins. Therefore, rough estimates tend to be more accurate.
Currently, there is no standardized format for domestic scripts. Furthermore, the information density of Chinese is far greater than that of English; in actual filming, one page of a Chinese script can typically produce two to three minutes of footage. In other words, Sheng Wenzhi's original script is more than sufficient for filming needs.
These were industry secrets that Gu Wenhua had told Shang Yechu, which Shang Yechu then adapted and used to deceive Sheng Wenzhi.
In theory, writers should be a group of people with broad knowledge. However, Sheng Wenzhi's main creative focus is clearly on suspense and thriller novels, and he has never expected his novels to be adapted into films or television series, so he probably doesn't understand the industry knowledge involved in film production.
She was gambling that knowledge of the film industry was a well-known blind spot.
Sure enough, Sheng Wenzhi hesitated for a moment, but did not refute Shang Yechu. Instead, he picked up a few sheets of paper and flipped through them: "Really? This page can only be photographed for one minute?"
Fortunately, it seems Sheng Wenzhi really doesn't know. That makes things easier.
Shang Yechu cleared her throat: "You don't believe me? The script for 'The Mute Woman' was over a hundred pages long, and the movie version was also over a hundred minutes long. Have you forgotten?"
Sheng Wenzhi had read the script of "The Mute Woman" and vaguely remembered it. He nodded hesitantly.
Shang Yechu's lips twitched slightly. When filming "The Mute Woman," the crew used a larger font and wider line spacing in the script to accommodate the presbyopia of actors Qi Ming and Li Zhenxiang, resulting in a longer script than the one in front of them. However, the human brain doesn't record every detail, and Sheng Wenzhi would definitely not remember these minutiae.
"How about this, let's have a script reading session, one sentence from you, one sentence from me. One or two pages definitely won't be accurate, let's just see how long it takes to read the whole script?" Shang Yechu launched another attack.
This sentence clearly hit the nail on the head, and Sheng Wenzhi immediately showed an expression of disgust. He had been rewriting and revising the script lately, and could practically recite the entire thing from memory. Asking him to read it aloud again would really make him want to vomit.
"Alright, alright, I believe you." Sheng Wenzhi waved his hand. "Then what do you mean by coming to see me today? Do you want me to expand on the writing? That's impossible. There's only so much in a general store; I've already written it all."
Shang Yechu coughed lightly, her eyes darting around. "I know. Our boss thinks that movies need to have some romance to succeed these days. So..."
"Impossible!" Sheng Wenzhi immediately stood up, threw down the towel in his hand, and his face twisted slightly with disgust. "Tell your boss to give up on that idea!"
Shang Yechu silently wished Ji Juntao well, then stood up and patted Sheng Wenzhi on the shoulder: "Don't worry, I've already stopped her. I told you, you would never agree."
Sheng Wenzhi breathed a sigh of relief: "Luckily you understand me, Ye Zi."
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