Chapter 76 Entering the state

"Popular writer Liu Zhou joins hands with superstar Zhang Guorong, the romantic film "My Sassy Girl" is worth looking forward to! "
-
"Southern Weekend"

"Best-selling author Liu Zhou's ambitious work as a director, "My Sassy Girl"!"
-
"China Youth Daily"

"The debut novel of the popular young writer Liu Zhou, My Sassy Girl, will start filming soon"
-
Sohu Website

"Zeng Li, suspected to be Liu Zhou's new girlfriend! Digging into the story that the two have to tell!"
-
"Beijing News"

……

The next day, all major media reported the news that Liu Zhou's new film "My Sassy Girl" had started filming.

Many media outlets gave positive coverage, and only a few reported unnecessary news in order to attract attention.

However, Liu Zhou's launch conference was undoubtedly very successful. These days, there has been news about Liu Zhou's new film, which has left a certain impression in everyone's mind.

When colleagues in the industry saw Liu Zhou’s eye-catching publicity method, they immediately said they had learned a lot!

As expected of a young man, his mind is very flexible.

However, when everyone outside was reporting on the news, Liu Zhou had already started filming with the crew in a low-key manner.

The first scenes to be filmed were those set in school. Liu Zhou did not look for famous schools like Sun Yat-sen University or South China University of Technology, but directly found a second-tier university. This was the result of a long period of communication with the Pearl River Film Studio.

Because it is still the school term, although it is the National Day holiday, there are still a small number of students in the school.

If Liu Zhou didn't want to be watched by a large number of students, he only had two days to shoot the school scenes.

Fortunately, there aren’t many scenes in school, so if everything goes well, two days should be enough.

After the crew arrived at the school, staff from each department performed their respective duties and unloaded the equipment from the car.

They were all experienced professionals, and while Liu Zhou was explaining the play to Zeng Li and Zhang Guorong, they were putting their equipment in place in an orderly manner.

Telling the story is something every director has to do; it is even a director's core function. Before filming, the director needs to have pictures and plots in his mind and tell the actors about the character's psychological state and action factors.

After roughly telling them my requirements, I then need to figure out how to act on their own.

Liu Zhou then discussed the shots with the actors, photographers and lighting technicians. It was very necessary to discuss the shots. First, determine how to shoot. Then, after the actors were done with makeup, arrange their positions. Then, discuss lighting with the lighting technicians, rehearse, make slight adjustments, and then start shooting the first shot.

The first shot was of the two of them strolling around the campus. This was relatively simple. Both of them were not newbies, so they took two shots and Liu Zhou called it a day.

Then according to the shooting plan, Liu Zhou finished shooting all the shots of the two people and one person on campus in one day.

What follows is the highlight, and Liu Zhou set aside a whole day to shoot this scene.

At this time, Qianniu and Mingxi had already fallen in love with each other. Because Qianniu was embarrassed, he hid the roses in a box.

But as soon as he walked into the classroom, he saw Mingxi playing his favorite Canon on the stage, which he had told her about.

Then Morning Glory took out the roses and slowly walked towards the podium.

"I want a close-up of this shot. The camera should move along with the hero from his side, and then give a close-up of his face. The duration should be about fifteen seconds." Liu Zhou made the request.

"No problem. Once the actors are done with their makeup, you can ask them to move into position. We'll also prepare for the photography."

This time a lot of extras were needed to play the students, so Liu Zhou directly invited students from his own school to make guest appearances. Not only did it cost no money, it also did not seem out of place.

The only troublesome thing was that they needed to be told some things to pay attention to during the filming, but the assistant director would take care of that, so Liu Zhou didn't have to worry about it. The key point of this scene was Zhang Guorong, from being timid at the beginning, to being moved and determined when hearing Mingxi playing Canon, to slowly walking onto the stage with an obsessed look in his eyes, all these expressions needed to be shown one by one.

However, Zhang Guorong is indeed a talented actor with superb acting skills. There was no mistake in his performance. Instead, the problems came from the guest students or Zeng Li.

Liu Zhou's worries were right. It would be difficult to shoot the scene with too many people. Fortunately, he reserved a day, and by the afternoon, the scene was finally completed.

After filming the school scenes, Liu Zhou brought the crew to the subway station.

This is the beginning of the film and also where the two met and became friends.

In order not to affect traffic, filming could only be done in the subway station after it stopped running at night, so it was already late at night.

The shot at this time is from inside the car.

Zeng Li was seen with her hair disheveled, half of her body leaning on the middle handrail, her eyes were dazed, her body was swaying, she almost fell down, she held the handrail, then turned to look at the camera.

"Click, stop."

Liu Zhou walked up to Zeng Li and said:

“You performed well up to this point. Your body movements were all correct, and you already had the dizzy feeling of a drunk person, but the look in your eyes was wrong.

The eyes of a drunk person should be sluggish and blurry, and should not appear lively. If you move your eyes quickly, it will give people the impression that you are pretending to be drunk.

Take a break for ten minutes first, and make the most of it."

This shot has been NGed five or six times because Zeng Li doesn't drink and couldn't express the state of drunkenness well.

In fact, if it was a TV series or the requirements were not high, it would have been acceptable, but Liu Zhou hoped to achieve perfection and would rather spend more time and film.

After the break, filming resumed and Zeng Li's condition was obviously much better. After taking two more takes, this shot finally passed.

Later on, Zeng Li seemed to have opened her Ren and Du meridians, and her grasp of the role became more and more precise.

Song Mingxi has not gotten over the unexpected death of her beloved boyfriend for a year, so her world is gray. Savagery is on the surface, and pain is hidden underneath.

In order to get the young man to give up his seat, she slapped him on the head savagely, which was a sign of her recklessness.

Why so carefree?

Because she had a self-destructive mentality.

Zeng Li did a great job in portraying the state of not caring as the world is boring.

There was no need for Liu Zhou to worry about Zhang Guorong, as he also grasped the key points very well and played Qianniu as honest, cowardly, kind and funny.

The most important thing about Qianniu here is the sense of humor. If it weren't for the sense of humor, the treatment of Qianniu would become that of a mean person in a matter of minutes, which the audience would absolutely not be able to accept.

Although both of them were already in the right state, it still took three nights to shoot the scenes at the subway station.

As everyone got to know each other better, the shooting progress began to speed up.

In just one month, half of the shooting plan has been completed.

The original plan was to finish the filming in two and a half months, but now it seems that it can be completed in two months.

(End of this chapter)