Entertainment: I am the peak

Chapter 38 Don’t Go Against the Audience

The joining of Li Qiutang has greatly improved the screenwriter's work efficiency.

While working with Li Qiutang, the two screenwriters discovered that Li Qiutang had a very rare quality: he knew what the audience wanted to see and would never go against the audience.

The main audience of martial arts action movies is male. What do these audiences want to see in a martial arts movie? The first thing is definitely the exhilarating action. The love between men and women and the feelings of serving the country and the people are all placed on the action, so Li Qiutang must give priority to the action. If necessary, he will even give up these feelings. That is why he wrote more than a dozen various fighting scenes in the script. Anyway, Li Qiutang is happy to write, and then he will torture the action design and martial arts instructor.

Besides the action, what else? Men, they can’t do anything but those things, so they must be beautiful women, so among the four main characters, there are two women, a beautiful older sister and a pitiful younger sister. Li Qiutang even arranged a scene for Cheng Xiazi to fight a group of female technicians in a technical college, and to give the audience some sexy and erotic benefits - a typical cult film routine, which must give the audience some benefits to further stimulate adrenaline. Of course, due to the environment in China, the sexy and erotic scenes are definitely not as large-scale as those in Hollywood, but since the background of the era is set in the Tang Dynasty, I can say that the folk customs at that time were open if I put on some sexy and erotic scenes.

Li Qiutang will not go against the audience. The protagonist is blind at the beginning and he is still blind at the end. Then the protagonist's fight was in vain!

The protagonist helps the weak and takes revenge when he sees injustice, but he also needs to gain something for himself. So Li Qiutang will restore the blind man's sight and use this to kill the villain. That's really cool.

This is also the reason why Li Qiutang wrote a comedy ending. When the audience goes to the cinema to watch a play, you cannot make things difficult for them. Revenge is taken, the eyesight is restored, and there is a beautiful sister to travel around the world with. How wonderful is that.

Although this quality is easy to say, to shoot what the audience wants to see and not to upset the audience, there are very few directors in the industry who can do it. Many of them want to educate the audience and think that going to the cinema for entertainment and excitement is a very low-level thing, and they have to teach the audience what is high-level and what is aesthetic in the movie.

However, there are compromises everywhere in filming a movie, and Li Qiutang doesn’t know whether other directors can only shoot it that way or they have no choice but to compromise.

Wang Zhonglei came to the preparatory group on New Year's Day to check on the situation. The "No One" project has been launched for nearly two months. He has also heard some situations from the outside world, including that various actors want to approach the crew in advance. These are all very normal situations.

The preparatory group was set up in a residential suite rented by the crew. Two screenwriters lived here to write the script. Li Qiutang and the pre-production producer did not live here.

Wang Zhonglei arrived at the preparatory group site, and it was just like the preparations of the film crews he had seen before. The site was clean but not tidy, and things were in a mess.

The dining table, which also serves as a conference table, is filled with things, and in front of it is a large whiteboard covered with information about "Defiant" and with sticky notes on it.

The two screenwriters and the producer were already sitting together discussing what to write today. Wang Zhonglei did not disturb them. He sat aside and listened, holding the script currently written by the screenwriter team in his hand.

"You're adding a little extraneous content," said screenwriter A. "There's no need for this fight. There are fight scenes before and after this scene. If you insert another one, the audience will be on edge. That's not good."

But another screenwriter believes that arranging this fight scene will help establish the character of Qin Niang: "She can't just be a singing, dancing and pipa-playing singer. We need to keep the audience on edge, otherwise why would we arrange so many action scenes?"

Action scenes do not need to be written by a screenwriter. "No One" has currently confirmed more than a dozen action scenes, which are just a dozen words typed on the script. "Writing" these actions is the job of the martial arts instructor.

Wang Zhonglei definitely understands drama and creation. He watched and listened for a long time and expressed his opinion: "I think we can make two preparations. We can fight or not fight. When shooting, we should prepare according to whether to fight. Whether to shoot or not depends on the specific situation on the set."

The producer on Wang Zhonglei's side laughed and said, "Preparing one more fight scene means paying more money."

"Leave the money to me." Wang Zhonglei said with a smile.

As they were talking, Li Qiutang came over: "I brought you some buns and soy milk, eat them while they're hot." Seeing Wang Zhonglei was there too, Li Qiutang smiled and said, "I thought that Wrangler downstairs looked familiar. Why didn't you tell me in advance that you were coming, Mr. Wang?"

Wang Zhonglei joked, "I just can't tell you in advance. I want to see your actual working environment and working conditions."

Li Qiutang said, "How is it? Is it okay?" "It's okay, no different from other crews." It would be bragging to say that these people in the preparatory group can undergo earth-shaking changes under the leadership of Li Qiutang.

But during the time Wang Zhonglei was sitting there, he had a very obvious feeling: the word he heard most from the two screenwriters and one producer was "audience."

What are the audience like, whether the audience likes it or not, the audience's nerves, how to stimulate the audience and so on.

Li Qiutang put a bag of breakfast on the table, sat down and stared at the whiteboard in front of him.

A screenwriter told Li Qiutang about the discussion of whether to add a fight scene for Qin Niang. Li Qiutang thought about it and had the same idea as Wang Zhonglei: "Prepare it first, and we'll see whether to shoot it or not when the time comes. Anyway, the boss will pay for it."

Wang Zhonglei smiled.

Wang Zhonglei's visit today was definitely not just for inspection. While the two screenwriters went to the balcony to smoke and take a break, Wang Zhonglei called Li Qiutang aside to discuss the cast with him.

Wang Zhonglei must have come to the preparatory group because he heard that Li Qiutang had already finalized the story line.

Huayi has the largest artist resource library in the country, and "Arrogant" is a project of the company. Wang Zhonglei was not polite at all and wanted to take all four main actors, leaving no one for Li Qiutang.

Li Qiutang didn't care. If Huayi could choose the right actors, he would not be willing to get involved in the casting. But Li Qiutang wanted the final say. Huayi would choose the actors, and Li Qiutang could of course also choose, but Li Qiutang had the final say on who to use and who not to use.

Wang Zhonglei did not reject Li Qiutang's request. This is the basic power of the director. Besides, they can discuss who to use and who not to use when the time comes.

Wang Zhonglei immediately expressed his choice for the male lead Cheng Xiazi: "What do you think of Zhang Hanyu? His image and temperament are very chivalrous, and he is old enough to play a middle-aged hero. It should be no problem."

But Zhang Hanyu was directly rejected by Li Qiutang: "Brother Hanyu has good image and temperament, but he can't fight."

"If you can't play, you can practice. Hanyu's professionalism is still trustworthy." Wang Zhonglei must have promised Zhang Hanyu something in advance.

Li Qiutang could compromise with other actors, but not with the protagonist being blind: "Brother Han Yu has no experience in martial arts films, so I still want to find a professional action actor to play the blind man."

But I’m sorry, there are no professional action actors in the entire Huayi!

Wang Baoqiang still focuses on literary comedies.

In fact, Li Qiutang's candidate was Hu Jun. Although he came from a literary drama background, he had relatively rich experience in action movies, was good at fighting and acting, and had the right age and temperament. When he acted in a martial arts film, the audience would think of Xiao Feng, and he would have an advantage in publicity and promotion.

But Hu Jun left with Wang Jinghua last year, so Li Qiutang would not be stupid enough to mention Hu Jun.

Wang Zhonglei didn't want to mention who Li Qiutang agreed with. The director was not so easy to please, so he sat for a while and then left.

(End of this chapter)