Huayu: From charlatan to great entertainer

Chapter 35 Art Examination (1)

The Spring Festival of 2002 was extremely dull for Lu Kuan, and he missed the bright lights and vibrant life before his rebirth.

I talked to Mei Yanfang on the phone for a long time on New Year's Eve. Her treatment progress has been put on the agenda.

When she learned that the disease could be cured while preserving her fertility, the daughter of Hong Kong burst into tears again.

Lu Kuan declined her invitation to go to Hong Kong to spend the holidays together, simply because he didn't want to see the idiot mother and her two sons.

Some things are like chocolate. People feel good when they eat them, but dogs feel uncomfortable when they eat them. Lu Kuan's methods made them obedient and also created a safe environment for Mei Yanfang to recover.

There were constant phone calls on New Year's Eve. Sending New Year greetings via text messages was not very popular back then. It was not until May this year that China Mobile and China Unicom were able to exchange information.

Even so, Zhou Xun, Zhang Jizhong, Mei Yanfang, Wang Minhui, Zhang Songwen, Li Yang, Fan Bingbing and others called. Even Baoqiang, who had no money to buy a mobile phone, borrowed his phone to send his blessings.

Less than half a year after his rebirth, the young Taoist priest had unknowingly accumulated a number of connections in the entertainment industry, waiting for the day when he would make a breakthrough.

The first step to achieve great success is the fourth art test of Beijing Film Academy on March 3.

Lu Kuan scored high marks in the first three rounds of comprehensive general knowledge, free statement, and art and photography work analysis. In the end, he had to compete with more than 20 other candidates for the only 6 admission places.

The examination was held at the Beijing Film Academy. (Note 1)

The atmosphere in the examination room was solemn and dignified. When Lu Kuan entered the room, many teachers and classmates saluted him because his performance in the first three rounds was so outstanding.

More than 20 people sat down according to the time and examination room order and began the first two art examination processes: performance report and narrative essay writing.

The former is to examine students' hypothetical cognition as directors, including the hypothetical handling of stage space and time.

In short, as a director, you must first convince yourself to accept this virtual performance method before you can better guide the actors.

Lu Kuan's group consisted of 10 people. The topic they drew was "station". Everyone randomly played the role of a group of people waiting for the bus at the station. There was no detailed script, and they all played freely according to the outline.

Due to his excellent performance and high scores in the previous three rounds of interviews, everyone in the group trusted him very much and unanimously agreed that Lu Kuan would be responsible for allocating and planning the performance plan.

Only one rat dropping stood out.

"I don't agree!" The speaker was a 37-year-old young man with a sinister look in his eyes, probably about eighteen or nineteen years old.

"Liu Zeyu, if you don't want to, just withdraw from the exam. You've been finding fault with me from the beginning until now, you're such a fussy person!"

Lu Kuan looked at the fat man who was scolding the young man with amusement. This was the only familiar face he knew among the group of candidates, He Yanjiang.

He is older than his classmates in the group, born in 79. He participated in the screenwriting of Zhou Runfa's version of "Confucius" and Chen Baoguo's versions of "Emperor Wu of Han" and "Qiao Family Courtyard".

Later, he went to work at China Film Group Corporation and worked his way up to become the vice president of Hong Kong Asia Television, responsible for program planning and directing.

"What the hell! What did you say!"

Born into a family of officials and with his family in power, how could Liu Zeyu tolerate such humiliation?
He came to take the art exam just for fun, to see if he could get into the directing department and play with the girls.

Seeing that everyone was glaring at him, he no longer risked public anger and chose to resist in silence.

No matter how proud you are of this round of performance report, let’s see how you perform in the next round of creative discussion!
Lu Kuan didn't take him seriously. Everyone divided the plan and started to prepare on their own.

The invigilators were Xie Xiaojin, head of the Directing Department, Tian Zhuangzhuang, who was about to take over, Jiang Wei and Zhang Jiandong, the head teachers, and Wang Jingsong, the deputy director of the Acting Department.

"I didn't expect these students from the directing department to have such a coherent discussion."

This was Director Wang's evaluation from a performance perspective, and it was also the reason he was sitting in the invigilator's seat today. Zhang Jiandong stroked his chin and said, "Director Wang, look at the candidate in the black shirt. He's been assigning roles and guiding the performance rhythm."

Xie Xiaojin nodded secretly, this was the director's coordination ability.

Similar to the group discussions in later interviews, this part of the process will also test the candidate's organizational and coordination skills.

We can still roughly distinguish which ones are talented generals, which ones are talented commanders, and which ones are useless.

"How's it going, everyone?"

Several invigilators quickly stood up. It was the principal Zhang Huijun who came for a routine inspection.

He gestured for everyone to sit down and not disturb the candidates who were making final preparations.

Several teachers took a quick look and saw that those who quietly entered the venue following Zhang Huijun were the well-known fifth-generation director Zhang Yimou, actor Chen Daoming, Jiang Zhiqiang of Emperor Entertainment Group, and a relatively unfamiliar face.

Zhang Huijun smiled and said, "Let me introduce to you, Mr. Jiang from Anle Pictures and Director Zhang Jianting from Eagle King. They are both guests invited by the school to attend the forum next week."

Tian Zhuangzhuang jokingly said, "Yimou, are you, a senior from the Beijing Film Academy, here for an inspection? How about I give you my seat and give you a rating today?"

"Come on, Lao Tian, ​​just stay here and don't yell at me as soon as we meet."

Zhang Huijun, Zhang Yimou and Tian Zhuangzhuang are all classmates from the class of 78 at the Beijing Film Academy. They have a very good relationship and chat and joke casually with each other on weekdays.

Zhang Jianting was looking for his target on the stage. He met Liu Zeyu's eyes and nodded, hinting that he came here with a mission.

"Hey, Principal Zhang, I heard that the final round of the Beijing Film Academy's directing department entrance exam is a creative discussion. I have a suggestion, but I'm not sure if it's appropriate."

Zhang Huijun was stunned. He didn't like this director with questionable stance, but he had to give face to Eagle King.

"Director Zhang, please speak."

"Director Jiang is currently discussing their next script, 'The Rivers and Lakes,' with Director Yimou. I think we could use this half-finished script as the topic for the final round."

Zhang Jianting adjusted his heavy glasses and winked at Jiang Zhiqiang.

Jiang Zhiqiang smiled and said nothing, but instead threw the question to Zhang Yimou: "Yimou, what do you think?"

If the parties involved are not worried about the script being leaked, then there will be no substantial obstacles.

Zhang Yimou didn't know why this Hong Kong director suddenly had such an idea, and a smile appeared on his face. "I'm fine with anything. If Principal Zhang thinks it's appropriate..."

Although he felt strange, he was open to the proposal.

The so-called "A Chinese Odyssey" is actually the first version of "House of Flying Daggers", but at this time it just had a rough outline of the story.

In his previous life, Zhang Yimou also invited more than a dozen domestic screenwriters to hold discussions to communicate on script creation during the script writing stage. With this kind of progress, there is no problem of early leakage of scripts.

　Note 1: The four-exam process for the Beijing Film Academy in this chapter has been modified. The standard process consists of three consecutive days of exams. The first day involves writing a narrative essay, the second day involves discussing creative issues, and the third day involves a performance report.

　　The Beijing Film Academy's directing department currently admits around 18-20 students each year, compared to the low single digits in the early 2000s, when faculty shortages prevented it from taking on so many students. In 2002, excluding international students, the actual number of students admitted was only six.

　　The four-test process was modified here and ended in one day.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)