Bright Era of China Entertainment

Chapter 769 A Lesson

The group took the elevator to the third floor of the hotel and stopped. This floor was the private room above the restaurant. When they walked out of the elevator, they saw the corridor on this floor was busy with people coming and going, and the door of one of the private rooms was crowded with people.

"Director Chu, Producer Liu, Director Lu, Teacher Huang..."

"Has everything been arranged?"

Chu Xuan asked Liang Datong, the director of the production team.

"arranged."

"Where are the actors?"

"It's all in there."

Today's scenes are divided into two parts. The first half of the scenes were shot on location in the hotel, which can be used as a set after a little decoration.

Some scenes of "My Love from the Star" take place in a hotel. As the hotel happened to be sponsoring the show, the crew was able to use local materials. Not only did they avoid the venue rental, but it was also easy to mobilize personnel.

"Director, producer."

Chu Xuan and Liu Yifei walked into the private room, and the actors who were chatting at the table in the room, mainly Zhang Songwen and Wen Zhengrong, greeted them one after another.

Chu Xuan nodded slightly: "We can just shoot now that everything is ready. We can adjust it if there is anything wrong. This scene is not difficult. Let's work hard together."

"Okay." The actors said in unison.

The box is big enough, with a wine table on the right side of the entrance and monitors placed in the sofa rest area on the left.

Chu Xuan, Liu Yifei and their group walked to the left and saw a woman and a girl sitting on the sofa. The woman was talking to the girl. When they walked closer and listened, they realized that they were talking about a play.

The girl's name is Gulina, an actress from XJ. She is currently in high school and is preparing for the Beijing Film Academy examination next year. She is only 17 years old.

XJ is home to many beauties. Gulina, Reba, Reyiza and Tong Liya are all beautiful Xinjiang actresses deep in Chu Xuan's memory, but they don't seem to be famous yet, and some have not made their debut yet.

No one knows where this Gulina got her connections from, but last year when she was just 16 years old, she booked a role in Tang Ren's "Xuan-Yuan Sword: Scar of Sky" when it was still in the preparation stage, before it was launched and promoted.

It is estimated that Cai Yinong saw the potential of Gulina's beautiful appearance and good figure, so he intended to sign Gulina.

That's why, in order to let Gulina see the benefits of joining Tang Ren, he recommended Gulina to the crew of "My Love from the Star" to play a small role.

Tang Ren is a subsidiary of Brilliant Times. Based on this relationship, Liang Datong from the production team, who was the casting director at the time, was very tactful and gave face to Cai Yinong, and arranged for Gulina to come in. She first played a small role in "My Love from the Star" and then a supporting role in "Xuan-Yuan Sword". Such resources were a very good start for a newcomer.

"Director, producer." The woman and Gulina stood up and greeted them.

This woman is Gulina’s sister, and it should be her who brought Gulina into the circle.

From Chu Xuan's perspective, her sister should have some ability, otherwise she would not be able to meet Cai Yinong.

But recalling Gulina's not-so-smooth development and the various negative news surrounding her, it seems like she, as an older sister, is pushing her younger sister into the circle.

But now with his existence, the people and things he has come into contact with will always inadvertently change their original trajectory. Gulina's future is full of unknowns and cannot be determined by the situation in his memory.

"Hello, director, hello, producer." Gulina lowered her eyebrows and looked very reserved. She stole a glance at Chu Xuan, but as Liu Yifei was present, she didn't dare to look at him any more, so she lowered her eyes again.

"Go get positioned, don't be nervous." Chu Xuan said.

"Okay." The woman pushed Gulina forward and said, "Let's go, we're going to shoot. Don't be nervous. Remember what I told you."

Liu Yifei glanced at Gulina's back and admired her: "She is so beautiful, has a good figure, and has a very classical face shape, which suits ancient costumes."

"Yeah." Chu Xuan sat down on the sofa in front of the monitor and said, "If we give her a special role, it will have the same stunning effect as Zhao Linger and Xiao Longnv."

Ning Hao, Tang Jili and other teachers took their seats. Huang Lei said, "Our director has a high emotional intelligence. While praising others, he also did not forget to praise his own wife."

The teachers laughed, and Liu Yifei looked at Chu Xuan with a slightly happy smile, and praised her husband in her heart.

"Get ready." Chu Xuan shouted to the set. Since he was close to the set, there was no need to use the walkie-talkie.

The actors each found their corresponding states and prepared themselves. The three camera crews set up their lenses in three positions, waiting for the set crew to leave and for the script supervisor to come and clap.

In the script, Yang Feifei, played by Gulina, is a newcomer to a newly signed company called Starlight Media, which is the villain entertainment company in the play.

This scene is a banquet where Ren Bulun, played by Zhang Songwen of Entertainment Capital, Zhou Minzhu, played by Wen Zhengrong, the general agent of Entertainment Capital, and a group of company staff welcome Yang Feifei to join the company's big family.

The next scene is that Yang Feifei was sent to a hotel and was sexually exploited by Ren Bulun.

The main effect of these two scenes can be summed up in one sentence - in the entertainment industry, if a female star wants to enter a certain resource circle, one of the ways is to go to bed and make friends.

"The recorder is on the board."

After counting down to ten on the board, Chu Xuan, Liu Yifei and a group of teachers watched the actors' performances on the monitor.

The two veteran actors Zhang Songwen and Wen Zhengrong had no problem toasting each other, and the performances by several special extras at the bar were no problem either. For these people, the scenes involving drinking table culture were based on their rich real-life experiences, so they performed with ease.

But Gulina lacked some feeling. This was a welcome party for her. Facing the acting with various teachers, she was overwhelmed and at a loss as to what to do. Her performance of the character seemed clumsy and she couldn't even speak her lines clearly.

"Well acted." Tang Jili said.

Chu Xuan and Liu Yifei were stunned. Teachers including Ning Hao and Huang Lei also paused. Is this what you call a good acting?
Chu Xuan suddenly clapped his hands and smiled, then he realized what was going on and nodded repeatedly: "Director Tang's words woke me up. She really acted well, or rather, it wasn't acting. Gulina's state was enough. Yang Feifei herself is a new star, and the feeling of being at a loss when facing such a drinking party for the first time is exactly what this character wants to embody."

"Yes." Ning Hao also reacted and said, "Yang Feifei's character positioning is that of a rookie in the entertainment industry. The more this is the case, the more sympathy people will feel for her suffering from unspoken rules, and the more it will arouse the audience's disgust with unspoken rules."

Liu Yifei nodded slowly. Gulina's novice acting skills accidentally interpreted the character's state in this scene correctly, which was quite clever.

"Click."

"Everyone, please adjust and do it again. Gulina, you performed well just now, but you need to speak your lines a little more clearly. The microphone can't even pick up your voice."

Gulina was a little confused. She was in a panic just now and kept thinking: It's over, it's over, I'm going to be scolded.

Who would have thought that the director would praise her for her good acting? Is filming so easy?
Such thoughts only show that she has not fully understood the scene, nor the role of Yang Feifei.

"You are a new actor in real life, and Yang Feifei is also a new star in this scene, so the stuttering and unnaturalness you just experienced were to suit the role, but you spoke too softly. Although this suits you and the character's mood, you have to take the overall situation into consideration when acting. Your voice cannot enter the receiver, which makes it difficult to handle in post-production, and the dubbing teacher cannot better dub for you based on your voice and emotions." Zhang Songwen patiently explained to Gulina.

After hearing what he said, Gulina vaguely understood that her own situation was in line with the role, so the director praised her for her good performance despite her poor performance just now.

Gulina felt happy and gained some confidence.

In front of the monitor, Liu Yifei raised an objection: "In the scene just now, shouldn't Teacher Zhang Songwen's eyes when looking at Gulina be..."

Liu Yifei didn't know what to say, so she thought for a moment and added, "Just a little more desire."

Ren Bulun is the capital. After the dinner, he will check into a hotel and have sex with Yang Feifei. So Ren Bulun knows what will happen next. So the look he gives his prey during the dinner must be a little bit unusual. But Zhang Songwen plays it too normal. Is this wrong? Does it not fit the character's character?
Taking herself as an example, when she attended some occasions in the past, it was not that she was narcissistic, but there really were many evil eyes on her, both at home and abroad, so she thought that Zhang Songwen's eyes were too ordinary, not like the state of a hunter waiting for prey to come to him.

"I think Zhang Songwen performed well." Tang Jili expressed his opinion.

"I think so too." Ning Hao agreed.

"That's fine." Huang Lei also supported it.

The teachers all held opposite opinions, which made Liu Yifei feel embarrassed. Her character analysis was based on real situations. Isn't that wrong?

"Teacher Zhang." Chu Xuan waved to Zhang Songwen.

Zhang Songwen was stunned for a moment, then quickly stood up and walked over: "Director."

Chu Xuan smiled and pointed at Liu Yifei: "Producer Liu has doubts about your performance just now. He said that the way you, as a hunter, look at your prey is too normal and there is no evil in your eyes. Teacher Zhang, can you help Producer Liu solve this problem?"

"Tsk." Liu Yifei puffed up her eyes and looked at Chu Xuan. She felt a little embarrassed that her husband pushed her to the front, but she was also very curious about how Zhang Songwen understood the characters, so she smiled and looked at him: "Please teach me, Teacher Zhang."

"Well, let's communicate with each other." Zhang Songwen was very modest and expressed his understanding: "Director Chu's two scenes mainly satirize the unspoken rule of 'making friends by having sex'. This unspoken rule really exists in some circles. There are a few people who are well versed in this and I know a few of them. Although we have never dealt with each other, we have met each other from a distance. The way they look at some female stars is just ordinary."

"My understanding is that when anything becomes a habit, the desire mixed in it will decrease. Ren Bulun is such a character. He is not doing unspoken rules for the sake of unspoken rules. He is just doing something that is very common in his circle. So when he looks at Yang Feifei, there is no excessive desire in his eyes."

"Why? Because the unspoken rule is his daily behavior, just like brushing teeth and washing face. Would we show anything unusual when we brush our teeth and wash our faces normally? No way?"

Chu Xuan took a sip of water and said, "In short, treating evil as a daily routine is how Teacher Zhang understands the character."

"Director Chu's summary is correct and to the point." Zhang Songwen nodded.

Treat evil as a daily routine? ... Liu Yifei was shocked. This understanding of the character was the first time she had ever heard such an understanding of the character. This was the kind of interpretation and thought that only an experienced actor could have. Neither she nor Chu Xuan, as the creators of the story, had ever had such an interpretation.

Watching Zhang Songwen return to the set of the wine table, Liu Yifei muttered, "If he treats evil as an everyday thing, just like Hannibal, wouldn't the character of Ren Brun be very attractive from another perspective?"

"Yes, this is the greatest charm of this role." Tang Jili nodded with a smile.

He looked at Liu Yifei and said, "Xixi, you are the creator of the story, but you probably haven't fully understood the idea that "My Love from the Star" wants to express. Why do we satirize the darkness of the entertainment industry? Is it to guide the audience to hate those who use unspoken rules? Is it to guide the audience to make random guesses about the female stars in the entertainment industry?"

"If that's all, then no matter how popular this drama is, it won't be able to break out of the circle. The audience is just a spectator, and whether the entertainment industry is in chaos or not has nothing to do with them. The response it can ultimately arouse is limited to the entertainment industry and only to people who pay attention to the entertainment industry."

"So, as the creators of the story, we cannot use our subjective eyes to look at the so-called villains from the perspective of justice. In the face of justice, all immoral behavior is villain behavior. This is narrow-minded."

Artistic coordinator Qi Mu said: "The audience doesn't want to hear us expound on great principles. What's the point of rambling on about things that already know the truth?"

"But if we look at the story from an objective God's perspective, then everyone should be a vivid character. There is no so-called good or bad guy, only people who have their own behavioral trajectories in order to live."

"Why does Ren Bulun follow the unspoken rules? Because this is his daily routine. Why does he have to do this? Because if he doesn't do this in this circle, he will have no friends. Ren Bulun's success was also helped by his friends. He has no choice, so he developed this habit."

"Why would Zhou Minzhu, the agent, give the actress to the capital? Because if she doesn't do this, the capital won't be able to play with her, and everything she has now will vanish into thin air."

"Why is Song Huiru willing to be seduced by Yang Mi? Because only in this way can she develop her career more conveniently and quickly."

Huang Lei folded his arms and said, "This is a reincarnation, a reincarnation that cannot be stopped. If the language of the camera we use is to stop this reincarnation, then it will lower the upper limit of this drama, because reincarnation cannot be stopped."

"In other words, if we use the camera to criticize Ren Bulun and Zhou Minzhu, then the scope will be small. Why? What's the point of criticizing these two people? There are still a steady stream of people lining up to join the game. Can we ever finish criticizing them?"

"If we expand the scope, if we can create charm for both the good guys and the bad guys, and not use the language of the camera to determine who is good and who is evil, who is right and who is wrong, we can only state the facts objectively and leave all the judgments of right and wrong to the audience, then the influence of this drama will inevitably radiate even greater."

"Because unspoken rules exist not only in the entertainment industry, but in all walks of life. If we want to break the circle, we must arouse empathy across the country, and we cannot guide the audience to think about the problem from a so-called decent perspective. The decent perspective is our subjective thinking, and others may not agree with it."

Chu Xuan put down the mineral water bottle and nodded, "The teachers are right. Art has no fixed angle. A decent character is not necessarily all good, and a villain is not necessarily all villain. Ren Bulun is so bad, but we can't just let the audience see that he is bad, but let the audience think about why he is bad. This can truly improve the audience's comprehensive understanding of a thing, rather than just completely resisting and criticizing negative emotions. So we can't just highlight his badness and evil, we have to integrate it into the state of life."

Liu Yifei remained silent, understanding what the teachers said.

She was indeed looking at the scene from the perspective of justice, so she was very subjective in thinking whether there was a problem with Zhang Songwen's interpretation. She also thought whether it was wrong to portray such an evil capitalist character with too much charm. She did not think about the character from Zhang Songwen's perspective, or she was unable to put herself into the perspective of such an evil character.

This is something an actor gets used to, because an actor needs to have very subjective thoughts, and in certain plots they need to create hostile relationships for themselves in order to find the right emotions, such as Zhao Linger and Baiyue, and Xiaolongnu and Quanzhen Sect. From the former's perspective, the latter is a villain.

But from the audience's point of view, the latter is not necessarily a villain.

Now as a producer, creating her own story for the first time, the teachers told her an idea that needs to be sublimated: actors are only part of a story, and they can have a strong subjective perspective to shape the characters, but as the creator of the story, they need to look at the whole story from an objective perspective.

In the eyes of the director and producer, the characters in the play should not be divided into good and evil, because this is the subjective consciousness of the director and producer. If the whole play is full of such subjective consciousness, then it is not called art, but an ordinary story for self-entertainment.

If we get rid of subjective consciousness and treat all characters in the play fairly, we will make the character who is being filmed the protagonist, regardless of whether he is good or evil, and only use the camera to depict his life according to the trajectory of his behavior. This will make each character flesh and blood and their behavior traceable.

Don't label whether this character is good or bad, and don't use the camera to guide the audience to follow your consciousness and ideas to evaluate something. Every audience has his or her own ideas and judgments, and you don't need to impose a self-righteous concept on them. Such behavior is unartistic and subjective.

"Thank you teachers for your teachings." Liu Yifei understood something, stroked her hair with a smile, and thanked the teachers for teaching her a lesson and saying so many words that helped her grow and progress.

Han Sanping once told her and Chu Xuan that China has no shortage of good actors, but there is a great demand for good directors and good producers.

She now truly feels this sentence. It is difficult to be a good actor, and being a good director and a good producer is even more difficult.

Put aside subjective consciousness, look at things objectively, stand in the standpoint of each role and treat each actor as the protagonist to shape a good character, regardless of whether you think it is good or bad, do not easily conclude whether a thing is right or wrong, and do not easily judge whether a plot is good or evil.

They cannot represent the opinions of everyone in the country on an issue, so they only need to state the social phenomena in accordance with objective facts. The audience will judge the justice and fairness therein, rather than letting the director conclude that this thing is right and that thing is wrong based on the plot.

What you think is just what you think, but the audience does not need you to think. The audience needs to think for themselves. This can cause a greater impact and make a certain social phenomenon more thought-provoking from a wider range of angles, rather than being limited to the situation that the director and producer think.

Exposing bad social phenomena, raising the audience's awareness of this, thereby triggering the audience's objective thinking, and allowing the audience to look at things more comprehensively and rationally, this may be a form of expression of film and television art.

On the other hand, the purpose of satirizing the unspoken rules in "My Love from the Star" is not to criticize. There is no end to the criticism of the chaos in the entertainment industry. Focusing the camera on this is a waste of effort. It will disgust some people and the audience.

She only needed to tell the audience that this is how the entertainment industry is. She should treat chaos as normal. There was no need to highlight it deliberately or express it in depth. There was no need to attach any subjective thoughts from the director or producer. She just wanted the audience to feel and figure out these things for themselves. This was the way of expression that she had just learned from her teachers about art.

"Crack!"

"Transitions."

After the scene was finished, the crew and actors began to move on.

Chu Xuan and Liu Yifei sat and chatted with the teachers for a while, and then got up and went upstairs when the people upstairs were ready.

"Go talk to Gulina later. She might feel burdened when filming the sex scene." Chu Xuan said.

"Okay, I'll go take a look later." Liu Yifei said.

(End of this chapter)