Entertainment: I am the peak

Chapter 51 Start of Construction

As filming started on the same day as "The Forbidden Kingdom", Li Qiutang was also unlucky.

All the reporters have gone to "The Forbidden Kingdom"!

Another reason is that the crew of "No One" sent out a round of press releases when they entered Hengdian for setup and trial shooting. At that time, the media thought that was Li Qiutang's opening ceremony, so they did not come today for the official start of filming.

If you don’t want to come, then don’t come. Li Qiutang just wants some peace and quiet.

The ceremony was simple, with no speech from the director or the producer. They just unveiled the red cloth covering the camera, and everyone took a photo together under a banner that read "Good luck with the start of filming of the movie "No One in My Life", and then the crew started working.

The first scene was Huang Xiaoming's. Although Huang Xiaoming didn't want to play a villain, he took the job and his attitude was impeccable. He would complete it seriously and diligently.

But sometimes acting isn't just about attitude.

After taking two takes of a scene, Li Qiutang realized something was wrong: "Stop." After Li Qiutang called for a stop, Huang Xiaoming came out of the set: "Director, is there a problem?"

Li Qiutang said softly, "It's strange. The lighting, props, and photography are all fine, so why doesn't the photo look good?"

Huang Xiaoming watched the replay and felt that his acting was fine.

Li Qiutang said again: "Xiao Ming, please act out the scene you just played again."

Huang Xiaoming was not vague either. He stood in the director's room and re-enacted the scene in front of the director, producer, supervisor and others.

After watching the scene again, Li Qiutang knew Huang Xiaoming's problem and said, "Don't learn those stereotyped performances. The bad guys always have a sinister and vicious expression all day long. How can you be so lazy when you graduated from the academy!"

Li Qiutang criticized Huang Xiaoming's performance bluntly.

"Watch it again," Li Qiutang replayed it, "Have you ever seen someone with this kind of expression? Yuwen Ying is aloof, arrogant, sinister and vicious, but you can't act sinister and vicious. If you do, you won't look like a normal person.

"Relax your expression, relax your body, and act like a normal person."

Huang Xiaoming immediately understood: "Okay, let's do it again."

Huang Xiaoming returned to the scene, made some preparations, and made an OK gesture. The assistant director on the scene issued an order: "Okay, one more take, get ready, record."

As soon as the assistant director gave the order, the five people in the director's room saw on the monitor a man holding a speaking rod walking between the machine and the actors.

Walked over...

He just walked over with the talking stick in his hand.

"Cut!" Li Qiutang hurriedly called a halt. Before he could get angry, the executive director started cursing: "Fuck it, if you don't want to do this, just get out!"

The assistant director on the scene also had a grim look on his face, and the people recording and photographing him wanted to kill someone.

The state Huang Xiaoming had finally found was interrupted again.

Li Qiutang sighed deeply and sat in the director's chair without saying a word. The assistant director and the sound engineer walked over and scolded the microphone operator in a very loud and unpleasant voice.

This is an unforgivable mistake!

Only after the assistant director and the recording engineer finished scolding did Li Qiutang say to start over.

But Huang Xiaoming's condition had problems again, and they shot five more takes, but Li Qiutang just didn't call him back. This time, Li Qiutang didn't tell Huang Xiaoming what was wrong, but just did it again and again.

"If you can't act it out, we'll keep filming until we pass."

Huang Xiaoming also began to panic. The more panicked he became, the worse he acted, and the worse his performance was, the more tormented he became by Li Qiutang.

Huang Xiaoming failed ten times in the whole morning.

Even though he was a big star, the crew members looked at him with unfriendly eyes.

Huang Xiaoming read the contempt contained in these eyes: "How can it be so bad?" "Take a ten-minute break and continue shooting in ten minutes." Li Qiutang announced a pause in the filming, stood up and left the director's studio. He also needed to calm down.

Huang Xiaoming and his agent Zhou Siwei came over to apologize to Li Qiutang.

Li Qiutang then spoke to Huang Xiaoming: "Yuwenying is a bad guy, but you can't play a bad guy."

"What do you mean?" Huang Xiaoming didn't quite understand this sentence, as he had never played a villain before!
"It seems that you don't understand the role deeply enough." Almost no one would criticize Huang Xiaoming like this, "Why do you think you are a bad person?"

"Yuwen Ying is a bad guy." Huang Xiaoming said.

"I set him up as a villain from a God's perspective. You can't set him up as a villain. What's your purpose in robbing tombs and digging for night-shining pearls?"

"To please General Guo's daughter and marry her."

"Yes, it's normal to give a gift to a girl you like." Li Qiutang said, "It's just like buying a bouquet of flowers or jewelry as a gift to someone. Do you think buying flowers or jewelry is a bad thing?"

"Nope."

"Then why do you think that robbing a tomb to dig up the Night Pearl is a bad thing?"

"This..." Huang Xiaoming was speechless. He had indeed not thought of this before.

"In your eyes, stealing this night-shining pearl, including killing the tomb robber, is no different from buying a bunch of flowers on the street, you know? In your eyes, all your subsequent actions are correct. Your marriage was ruined by Cheng Xiazi's complaint, so you took revenge on him. What's wrong? You were beaten and scolded by your brother all day long, and you couldn't bear the humiliation, so you killed your brother and took his place. What's wrong? How can a bad person think that he is a bad person? You have to establish your own behavioral logic, you have to look at the problem from the perspective of the character itself, not from the perspective of the creator."

“When playing a villain, don’t criticize the villain, but become that character.”

“I want you to be in the same state as when you played in ‘The Emperor of Han Dynasty’, that youthfulness, that confidence.” Yuwen Ying is a bad guy, but Li Qiutang wants him to go in the direction of Liu Che.

If Huang Xiaoming still doesn’t understand after all this has been said, he can only blame himself for not having enough talent.

"Okay, I understand, director." I don't know if he really understood or was just pretending.

After reshooting, it passed in two takes.

Huang Xiaoming may have really felt the difference between his before and after states, and began to admire this director who was younger than him - he was really talented!

Afterwards, he took the initiative to communicate with Li Qiutang about acting.

Only after hearing this did Li Qiutang realize that what Huang Xiaoming had just represented was the machismo of the men of Qilu.

"Just take it if I give it to you. Don't ask any questions. How can I harm you?" "Listen to me. I'll do it. I'm doing this for your own good."

Huang Xiaoming is this kind of person in real life, a typical macho man who cares about face, makes many friends, is warm and generous to others, but is not good at talking.

But from his point of view, he really thinks it's good for you.

Li Qiutang did not deny Huang Xiaoming's method of substitution. As long as the film can be shot well, I don't care what method you use.

"Put the food on first, and eat quickly, as we still have a lot of work to do in the afternoon."

It is true that the crew is a bit poor now, but the working atmosphere is very good. There is no special kitchen in the crew, and everyone in the crew eats boxed lunches. Of course, the quality of the boxed lunches is another matter.

But everyone didn't care about anything and just sat together to eat.

Li Qiutang went to get another meal. This was the third box he had eaten. Huang Xiaoming, who was sitting opposite him, smiled and said, "The director has a good appetite."

"It's not that I have a good appetite, I have to eat so much, otherwise I won't be able to hold on in the afternoon." Li Qiutang said as he ate, "You have to sit in the director's chair for half a day, and you eat so much. What kind of soup is it today? Seaweed and egg drop soup? Serve me a bowl."

After dinner, at 3 pm, we continued working on "No One".

(End of this chapter)