Peninsula: From a supporting actor to the best actor in Chungmuro

Chapter 32 Makeup Photo Shoot

Half past nine in the morning.

Jin Dayuan turned the steering wheel sharply and turned into the underground garage of the studio.

The air conditioning from the studio on the third floor mixed with the smell of hairspray hit me in the face.

The stagehand stopped them, holding up a map of the route map. "Change clothes first, go to dressing room number three, then turn left to the fourth room."

"Ok."

There are neatly ironed suits hanging in the dressing room.

After changing into his suit, Jiang Zaixun opened the curtain of the dressing room and sat in front of the makeup mirror.

The table was piled with hairspray bottles and foundation brushes. The stylist pinched his shoulders and gestured a few times, and finally only applied a layer of matte wax to his sideburns.

The hem of his navy blue suit shone with a satin sheen as he walked, and the lack of shoulder pads made his shoulder lines look sharper.

Park Hyung-sik came out of the next dressing room, his bow tie pulled:
"Does my outfit look like Gu Jun Pyo from 'Boys Over Flowers'?"

"It's pretty similar to how I dressed when I was selling a house."

"Ah! You sell houses every day and everyone looks like an agent!"

Jiang Zaixun rolled up his sleeves and adjusted his watch. "Didn't you have this hairstyle when you auditioned for Choi Young-do?"

"The stylist insisted that showing my forehead made me look mature, but I was born with a baby face, but..."

Park Hyung-sik suddenly lowered his voice: "I heard that Kim Woo-bin fell off his motorcycle yesterday."

Jiang Jae-hoon paused while adjusting his watch and asked, "Change people?"

“I’m not sure about that.”

Park Hyung-sik suddenly poked Kang Jae-hoon's shoulder and asked, "Did you get this suit custom-made?"

"The stylist picked it up from stock."

"God has gifted me this." Park Hyung-sik pinched the shoulder pads of his suit. "I added four layers of lining to this one, and the stylist insisted that the head-to-body ratio wasn't good enough."

Jiang Hena opened the dressing curtain, and his dark gray striped suit made him look like a moving ginkgo tree:
"You should change your fitness trainer, not your shoulder pads."

"..."

After changing their clothes, the three of them sat side by side on the plastic chairs in the rest area.

The groundskeeper was pushing a mobile clothes rack full of clothes across the corridor.

When the locker room curtain was lifted again, Lee Min Ho's silver-gray suit caused a small commotion at the scene.

Jin Zhiyuan suddenly moved closer to Zheng Xiujing and whispered:
"He has a thread on his left shoulder."

"where?"

Kim Ji-won didn't point out who it was at all, but Krystal subconsciously turned to Kang Jae-hoon's position.

"I'm just kidding, but Xiujing——"

Jin Zhiyuan folded her arms and looked at her with a scrutinizing look:
"Are you learning dialogue techniques for the show or for people?"

"Of course it's a play."

"The day before yesterday, I secretly filmed him marking the script, yesterday I secretly changed seats, and today I peeked at him six times. Is this considered acting or is it out of line?"

Krystal avoided her gaze and stomped her high heels on the floor tiles, making a loud noise:

"Get into the role."

"Three days is enough to learn Jiang's line marking techniques. Any longer would be selfish."

"It's too noisy and I can't hear clearly."

"..."

A moment later, all the actors had changed their costumes and the stagehands were calling people over the loudspeaker.

The studio ceiling lights suddenly lit up, and the reflectors pressed the actors' shadows into thin sheets.

"Everyone take a group portrait cover first!"

The assistant photographer was shouting to assign positions.

"Jin Tan took a half step to the left—yes, covering the tip of Lee Hyo Shin's shoe."

Kang Jae-hoon was arranged to stand behind Lee Min-ho on the left, and his navy blue suit and silver-gray fabric formed a subtle color difference under the light.

Kim Woo Bin was not present today, so a stand-in actor took the makeup photos for him and added them in later.

After five minutes of fiddling with the spacing of the formation, the photographer shouted:
"Take steps forward as a group. Girls should lift their skirts in sync, and boys should put their hands in their pockets without revealing their watches!"

“As you step forward, imagine you’re going to acquire a rival company!”

"Prepare--"

“1, 2, 3——”

The clickers clicked, and nine pairs of leather shoes and high heels rolled across the floor simultaneously. The shutter sounds and flash rates gradually synchronized.

"Click——"

The photographer stared at the photo and frowned slightly:

"Again."

The sound of nine pairs of leather shoes and high heels returning to their original positions in sync was like a rewinding tape.

“1, 2, 3——”

"Again."

"..."

After repeating this fifteen times, the stylist came forward to touch up the makeup.

Taking advantage of the gap, Park Hyung-sik poked Jiang Jae-hoon's back waist:

"Aren't your knees sore?"

"what?"

“Every time I back off, it’s like a robot resetting its calipers.”

In these fifteen shots, not a single one was retaken because of Jiang Zaixun's mistake. His fingers in his pockets always stopped at the golden section of the lens, and the edge of the watch was exactly stuck in the shadow area.

Jiang Zaixun stared at the footprints that the photographer's assistant had drawn on the ground with a marker and said:

"I've practiced."

His ability to take twelve steps back on stage without bumping into props was more than enough for the final photo shoot.

After the makeup touch-up, the shooting continued.

The flash cuts time into pieces, and the intervals between the photographer shouting "1, 2, 3" become shorter and shorter.

When the shutter sounded for the twenty-third time, he finally waved and let the person go.

The stylist carried crystal tiaras and distributed them to the female actors one by one. When Krystal was adjusting the tiara, two of her hairs were pulled out. She pursed her lips and said nothing.

After the two covers were taken, all the actors changed into their costumes and took individual photos in order of their ranking.

The shooting progress of individual makeup photos is much faster than that of group photos.

When Jiang Zaixun put on the off-white round-neck sweater, the stylist took off his watch:
"Yun Chan-young doesn't need luxury goods."

The lighting panel in front of the camera was set to soft light mode. The photographer tilted his head and looked at him for two seconds, then suddenly pulled open the backdrop and said, "Go to the window, put one hand in your pocket and look outside."

Jiang Zaixun leaned against the imitation wood grain window frame, with the cuffs of his sweater rolled up to his elbows.

When the shutter sounded, he happened to look down at the ground - this was the "empty-eyed approach" that Hwang Jung-min taught him, which allows his eyes to tell a story.

"OK, let's change to Park Hyung-sik!"

……

When the final outdoor group portrait was taken, the sunset had already dyed the western clouds red.

The work was finished forty minutes later than expected.

The studio's ceiling lights went out one by one, and the crew began to collect the reflectors.

Changing back into his casual clothes, Jiang Zaixun was the first to bow and thank the staff. He grabbed his backpack from the back of his chair and bowed to them as he stepped back, "Thank you for your hard work, everyone."

Park Hyung-sik was taking off his tie in front of the mirror. Seeing this, he immediately jumped up and said, "Going to the gym to train your shoulders?"

"Something happened."

"You've rejected me three times recently!"

"Not today, maybe next time."

Jiang Zaixun pressed the door closing button half a beat faster than his answer.

When the elevator descended to B2, Jiang Zaixun looked at his phone: 18:27.

Jin Dayuan rolled down the car window and shook the cake box at him, while the dumbbell gift box lay quietly in the trunk.

The first thing Kang Jae-hoon did after getting in the car was to check the order receipt to confirm that the blessing message had not been changed by Kim Dae-won to "I wish my roommate good fortune as vast as the East Sea" without his permission.

The brake lights during the evening rush hour formed a red river on the road.

Jiang Zaixun opened Kakao, and Lee Sung Kyung’s chat window was still stuck on last night’s “Hmm”.

His thumb hovered over the send button, and the text "What are you doing?" lay halfway in the dialog box.

As the car's air conditioning blew across the back of his neck, he deleted the text and retyped "What time does the shoot end?" The cursor flashed for five seconds before being cleared.

The moment the red light turned green, Jin Dayuan's inertia of stepping on the accelerator caused his finger to accidentally touch the expression bar, and the grinning yellow bean man suddenly appeared in the dialog box.

"Ashi."

(End of this chapter)