Reshaping the landscape of the Chinese entertainment industry

That evening, in Zhang Yimou's room.

When He Ye knocked on the door and went in, Zhang Yimou was sitting at the table with several hand-drawn storyboards spread out in front of him.

"Sit down." He gestured to the chair next to him.

He sat down and glanced at the storyboards.

Each drawing was rough, but the colors were marked very carefully.

Use which color for which scene, which hue for which emotion, and even specify the RGB values.

"I divided the color tone of 'Hero' into several layers." Zhang Yimou picked up a picture and handed it to He Ye.

"The Qin region's design is predominantly black, accented with dark red and gold. Black represents majesty, dark red represents bloodshed, and gold represents power."

"The Zhao State Academy section is predominantly white, supplemented by black and green. White represents nothingness, black represents destruction, and green represents hope, but that hope is quickly extinguished."

"The part about Broken Sword and Flying Snow's memories is predominantly green, supplemented by blue and white. Green represents beauty, blue represents melancholy, and white represents purity."

"The part where Nameless and Broken Sword fight on the lake is mainly cyan, supplemented by gray and white. Cyan represents etherealness, gray represents confusion, and white represents enlightenment."

He listened intently and couldn't help but ask, "What about the performance at the poplar forest?"

"The poplar forest?" Zhang Yimou smiled smugly. "That's the most complex scene in the whole film. It's predominantly red, but there are many shades of red: bright red, vermilion, orange-red, and dark red."

"Each shade of red represents a different emotion."

He flipped to another picture, which was densely marked with color variations.

"At the beginning, the red of Feixue and Ruyue was dark and oppressive. During the fight, the red became brighter and brighter. In the end, when Ruyue fell and Feixue was injured, the red darkened again, until it turned black."

"The changes in the color red represent the changes in their emotions."

Looking at the picture, He Ye realized that he probably couldn't learn that much in a short time.

Being able to learn several of them is considered a sign of great talent.

"Director," he suddenly asked, "how did you learn all this?"

"You'll understand once you've taken enough photos."

He paused, then said, "Xiao He, you must remember, technique can be learned, but aesthetics are cultivated. You need to see more, shoot more, and think more."

"Color is not decoration, it is a language. When you speak with color, the audience can understand with their eyes."

……

Zhang Yimou's color teaching cannot be learned in one night.

After that, He Ye went to Zhang Yimou's room almost every day.

In other words, their age gap is too large, and people nowadays don't really think that much about same-sex relationships.

If we wait for Li An's "Brokeback Mountain" to come out, people might start gossiping.

However, He didn't care about this at all; he had been living a very fulfilling life every day during this period.

He learns quickly, and Zhang Yimou is happy to teach him.

From color theory to practical application, from the red in "Red Sorghum" to the red in "Raise the Red Lantern," why are the two shades of red different?

From the dyeing workshop in "Ju Dou" to the poplar forest in "Hero," how does color become part of the narrative?

All of this has greatly benefited He.

……

The scenes in Ejina were filmed over five days.

He Ye followed Zhang Yimou every day, from morning to night, watching the storyboard, the blocking, the color grading, and the lighting.

Like a sponge, it desperately absorbs everything.

Zhao Xiaoding would sometimes tease him, "You kid, you might as well just acknowledge Director Zhang as your mentor."

He chuckled and said, "That won't do, Teacher Mu will kill me."

Zhang Yimou, who was listening nearby, chuckled, a rare occurrence for him: "Old Mu is incredibly protective of his own."

But after laughing, he looked at He Ye seriously and said, "Xiao He, you've mentioned wanting to make movies lately, and you've learned so much. Have you thought about what you want to make in the future?"

He Ye's heart stirred; he knew this was a good opportunity.

He took a script out of his bag and handed it over.

"Director, this is the script I wrote. If you have time, could you take a look at it for me?"

Zhang Yimou took the script and glanced at the cover, "Tides and Smoke".

"You even wrote screenplays?"

"I've been writing this for a while now, and this is just the first draft of the script." He scratched his head. "But I really want to make it into a film."

Zhang Yimou didn't immediately open it, but looked at him and asked, "You're assembling your own film crew? Finding your own investors?"

"Um."

"Does your dad support you?"

"I support it," He Ye said. "This script isn't expensive to film. If there's no investment, we can cover the cost ourselves."

Zhang Yimou was silent for a while. During this time, He Ye had not acted like a spoiled young master at all, which made him almost forget that he was a rich and powerful man!

Without saying anything more, he opened the script.

He sat beside her, feeling a little uneasy for the first time.

This is the first film that He Ye is preparing to shoot, which is actually a relatively niche film.

This is a French film made in 2007 with a budget of only $90. Its original title was "Grain and Mullet," and it is not widely known in China.

Set against the backdrop of the port of Sète in southern France, the film tells the story of a North African immigrant family, profoundly showcasing the living conditions and emotional struggles of the lower-class immigrant community.

Although the film was relatively obscure, it still won the Special Jury Prize (Silver Lion) and the Marcello Mastroianni Award at the 64th Venice Film Festival, and was nominated for the Golden Lion at the same festival.

As for the César Awards in France, it won Best Film, Best Director, and Best New Actress.

It is hailed as one of Kechiche's masterpieces.

The film focuses on Begi, a fishing port worker who is over fifty years old.

After being laid off, Bege decided to transform an abandoned old ship into a restaurant serving "couscous" (made primarily with grains and mullet), a traditional North African dish, in order to support his family and seek dignity.

This entrepreneurial plan becomes the core that connects the entire narrative, and also metaphorically represents the immigrant community's desire and hardship in settling down in a foreign land.

The film was directed by Kechiche, who employed a highly personal audiovisual language.

The film uses a lot of handheld tracking shots, close-up shots, and long dialogues to create a strong sense of realism and immersion, bringing the audience directly into the characters' mundane, noisy, and tense daily lives.

It accurately replicates issues such as family relationships, cultural conflicts, and identity anxiety.

Actually, when He Ye first saw this movie, he wasn't interested in the issues it addressed; he was just very interested in the North African traditional dish, "couscous."

The reason he chose to adapt this film was because 2001 was the year that social problems such as the wave of layoffs in women-owned enterprises broke out.

There are actually many layoffs in China right now.

It was after seeing this news that He also thought of changing the original film's theme of immigrant unemployment to the social problems of laid-off workers in small towns and elderly people who came to the city to work.

Of course, He didn't want to study the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties and delve into the social system of this issue.

He doesn't want to become an underground director yet. Society is developing, times are progressing, and life is still full of hope.

Therefore, while retaining the resilience and warmth of the Yue family, which were originally portrayed as ordinary people from the lower class, he focused on heartwarming topics such as entrepreneurship, employment for the elderly, and family mutual assistance for laid-off ordinary workers in China.

In this way, many social issues will become less acute, and there will definitely be many public intellectuals and bigwigs who will criticize him, saying that he has no artistic pursuits, or that he is actually cheering for the country.

He wouldn't care about such noise.

His demands were actually very simple: he didn't crave anything extravagant, he just wanted to become famous.

No matter what public relations methods are used, as long as we can get shortlisted for Venice, any award will do.

These days, it's a bit difficult to make a living through box office success in China, but awards are something to consider, and people seem to appreciate that these days.

Winning an award should be enough for him to make a name for himself as a director.

The only questionable point is whether Zhang Yimou will find it too deliberate that he changed the flavor of French cinema to the local flavor of China.

However, this is my first time making changes, so I'm still a bit clumsy. This is only the first version, and I'll definitely need to make further adjustments later.

About twenty minutes later, Zhang Yimou closed the script.

"This notebook," he glanced at him, then asked curiously, "did you write it?"

"Um."

"You're just a seventeen-year-old kid, writing about social issues like layoffs, forced evictions, and senior citizen entrepreneurship?"

He could hear the doubt in his tone, but he didn't panic.

"Director, my parents both work at Emei Film Studio. I grew up in the factory and have seen many laid-off uncles and aunts. It's not that they don't want to work, it's that they have nowhere to work."

"What I want to film is not suffering. I have always believed that suffering is not worth glorifying. What I want to film is how people live in the face of suffering."

Zhang Yimou stared at him intently, his eyes revealing something new.

"Your script is quite interesting. If I weren't so busy, I would love to film it myself."

He was secretly pleased, but didn't show it on his face: "Director, if you think it's alright, could you give me some suggestions?"

Zhang Yimou thought for a moment and said, "I wouldn't call it a suggestion, but there's one thing you should pay attention to."

"Please speak."

"Is your script geared towards film festivals?"

He nodded: "I want to send it to Venice."

"Venice?" Zhang Yimou raised an eyebrow. "Quite ambitious."

"You still have to have dreams, right?" He smiled.

Zhang Yimou didn't respond to that, but instead said seriously, "If you're going to submit this to a film festival, your script needs to be revised. Warmth, family, and fate—these are the themes Venice likes."

"But to win an award, you need something else, such as artistic expression..."

"Of course, I'm just saying. As a director, you should have your own aspirations. Don't make films just for film festivals. You should be a director, not a contestant."

"You should film what you want to film, not what the judges want to see."

He nodded, knowing that these were the heartfelt words of Zhang Yimou.

"And another thing," Zhang Yimou continued, "the angle in your sketchbook is your greatest strength. Don't lose it."

"Currently, domestic films are either too artistic or too dark. I see a commercial flavor in your script, and I'm just trying to find a balance between art and commerce. I hope you can continue on this path."

"If you can make this path work, you'll have plenty of opportunities in the future."

That's all Zhang Yimou said, since he didn't really have any advice on business matters, as this was his first time trying it out.

We don't know the outcome yet.

"Director, after the movie is finished, could you please take a look at it for me?"

Zhang Yimou glanced at him, then patted He Ye on the shoulder: "Don't overthink it, just do your best. If it turns out well, I can recommend you."

He was waiting for this very sentence.

"Thank you, director!" He almost jumped up.

"Don't be too happy yet," Zhang Yimou waved his hand, "You should film it first."

"must!"

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