Chapter 480: In Preparation

Toei Kyoto Studio Park, in the hotel conference room.

"First, we must clarify where the action characteristics of our movie lie." Miss Luo Quan spoke eloquently at the front. Sitting opposite her was a large group of middle-aged uncles who were twice her age; these were the action assistant directors, assistant directors, and cinematographers supported by Sony.

For a big production, it was impossible for the director to film it well alone. To complete a movie of this magnitude, it required the concerted efforts of hundreds or thousands of people.

And now, she was providing technical guidance to the senior creators of this movie:

"I have studied quite a few samurai action movies on the market. Most are like 'Zatoichi', focusing on the display of sword-drawing techniques, especially the process of drawing and sheathing the sword."

"Admittedly, beautiful 'Iai' (sword-drawing) is indeed very ornamental, but if there is only this one action, it is too monotonous. After all, not every movie can be filmed to be as full of stimulating violent beauty as 'Zatoichi'."

"In addition, these recent action movies emphasize so-called practical combat effects too much, and the ornamental value is not high enough. This needs to be changed."

Miss Luo Quan's remarks quickly received a question from action director Musashi: "Director, but practical combat is the mainstream now. Everyone likes actions that are relatively realistic. If it's too flashy, what's the difference from a sci-fi movie?"

Miss Luo Quan corrected: "I don't mean that being realistic is bad. I mean that on the premise of being realistic, make the fighting look as good as possible. Increasing some exaggerated actions slightly is also acceptable."

"After all, this is a movie, not a documentary. Artistic processing is also understandable."

"But how should the action be completed? Hanging on wires the whole time?" Musashi remembered those classic Chinese martial arts movies. "Do we need to add concepts like 'lightness skill' (Qinggong) and 'internal energy' (Neili)?"

Japanese martial arts and Chinese martial arts basically didn't follow the same path. Classic Chinese martial arts involved walking on water, flying over grass, and shooting shockwaves with a palm strike.

While Japanese martial arts were somewhat like Hollywood action movies—fierce fighting, full of blood, and emphasizing visual impact.

"Of course, we won't add those things." Miss Luo Quan smiled. "I can complete most of the actions independently, and a few need wires. This is what I call appropriate exaggerated expression techniques."

Hearing Miss Luo Quan say this, the uncles no longer had doubts. They had heard a bit about Director Luo's skills. This was a fierce person who subdued five armed criminals with her bare hands. Even the elites in the world's top special forces could reach this level in unarmed situations.

If Miss Luo Quan devoted herself to the action movie industry, no martial arts superstar in the world could be her opponent.

In every sense.

"The tone of the movie is temporarily like this. Because there are too many action scenes to film, I definitely can't conceive them all by myself. Everyone, especially the action directors, can design some explosive and flashy fighting actions. They can be slightly exaggerated, even if they are detached from reality, it doesn't matter."

"Action movies are not art films or satirical films. Making the audience feel satisfied is the first priority." Miss Luo Quan supported her hands on the table and gave instructions to the "senior management" of the crew.

As the brain of the crew, she could set every major direction for the movie's filming, but she couldn't take care of every detail, and these required the help of others in the crew.

After the meeting, Miss Luo Quan sent the costume design drawings to a company specializing in making costumes for period dramas.

What needed to be made were the costumes for the protagonist, so the workload wasn't very large.

As for the costumes for the extras, they could just be rented wholesale at Toei Kyoto Studio Park. This was the largest film and television base for period dramas in Japan, and its status was the same as Hengdian in China.

Of course, it couldn't compare to Hengdian in terms of scale or the degree of restoration of ancient buildings.

She had already found the extras with a foundation in sword skills, and once the costumes arrived, she could let the disciples of the Yagyu Kendo Hall come to work.

Speaking of which, these disciples could be considered helping their master's granddaughter, and the lead actor, Miss Luo Quan, was also the idol of most of them, so everyone originally intended to perform for free.

However, Miss Luo Quan was definitely not a stingy person. People were willing to come and film, which was already a favor. If she let them work for free, even if these disciples didn't mind, the old master Yagyu would probably have some opinions about her.

She wasn't as strapped for cash as when she was filming "Resident Evil" and needed to borrow money from others to get through a financial crisis. The wages she gave were basically above the market price, and the treatment was excellent.

Miss Luo Quan had always felt that high investment could lead to high returns, and shoddy work would never succeed.

So when she filmed a movie, the wages of the lead actor would definitely not account for too large a proportion of the total cost.

In the current movie market, investments were often over 100 million, and the pay of traffic stars directly accounted for half or more of the total investment.

The budget was only so much, and the bulk was taken by one person, so what level of actors could be hired with the remaining money, and what kind of costumes and props could be made, was self-evident.

Five-cent special effects and plastic-textured costumes came from this.

Early capital blindly believed in the magic of traffic "fresh meat," throwing money to hire popular traffic stars to act, attempting to let the fans of the traffic stars consume for their idols, and then harvesting the leeks.

At first, such movies really made some money, and capital became increasingly greedy, compressing costs in investment, once causing the pay of "fresh meat" to account for more than 60% of the total investment.

And the result was filming one pile of excrement after another. Although fans were fanatical, they weren't fools. They could be fooled once or twice because of love, but they couldn't be fooled forever.

Consequently, these capitals lost everything in the overwhelming tide of traffic-ridden bad movies.

And now, these capitals had become slightly enlightened, increasing investment and using the routine of mixing traffic stars with veteran actors, which improved the quality and reputation of the movies, but not many truly made money.

In general, the current Chinese movie market, after several rectifications, still presented a trend of "good money driving out bad money." As long as it was a truly good movie, the box office generally didn't need to be worried about.

And bad movies wouldn't have as many people paying for them as before, and stars who filmed such movies would face more public criticism than before.

This time, Miss Luo Quan filming in Japan, in fact, just looking at the protagonist and the second female lead, had somewhat of the "one old leading one new" configuration prevalent in China recently.

However, although Junko was a popular idol, she wasn't a veteran actor.

She was just a star who was more popular than Junko and had quite high influence in Japan.

She couldn't guarantee box office appeal, but ten small targets should still be no problem.

And as long as the movie quality was excellent, with the fermentation of word-of-mouth, the box office would definitely only be higher, not lower.

By then, she would truly have box office appeal.

Therefore, for the movie "Rurouni Kenshin", Miss Luo Quan would absolutely not choose to control costs like most movie investors.

In her view, earning a little less didn't matter; establishing a reputation was the key.

And reputation was usually reflected by the wonderful performances of the actors.

As the lead actor, Miss Luo Quan would inevitably receive the most attention and rationally bear the most responsibility.

And the first step for her to bear responsibility was to cut off the long hair she had been growing for several years.

"Cut half of your hair?!" In the barbershop, after hearing Miss Luo Quan's request, the stylist asked in a tone that was half-incredulous and half-incomparably regretful, "Miss Luo Quan-san, your waist-length golden hair is so beautiful. Do you really have to cut it off like this?"

"It's for filming." Miss Luo Quan appeared quite indifferent. "Besides, it's not like shaving it bald, and hair can grow back after being cut."

As an actor, she didn't film kissing scenes, passionate scenes, or nude scenes, which already made her path quite limited.

If she couldn't even bear to cut her hair, that would be a bit too willful and not professional enough.

Let alone cutting it into short hair, if the plot character needed it, even if she really had to shave it bald, she wouldn't have any hesitation.

"This is really a pity." The stylist picked up the scissors and, according to Miss Luo Quan's request, cut her waist-length long hair directly in half.

In the original work, Kenshin's hairstyle was air bangs plus a ponytail that wasn't particularly long.

Her hair was obviously too long, and the color was wrong, so after cutting her hair, she immediately dyed her rice-golden hair red-brown, which was the maximum extent of sticking to the original work.

However, besides the hairstyle and hair color, the original Kenshin also had a cross-shaped scar on his left cheek.

But this was definitely the job of the prop master. Even if she was professional, there was no need to self-mutilate.

And now her face was quite expensive. A while ago, on her birthday, her father, to celebrate her twentieth birthday, directly took out insurance of several hundred million USD for her face.

Then, her face was once again listed in the Guinness World Records, becoming the most valuable human organ in the world.

Although the matter sounded quite bizarre, if it were placed on Miss Luo Quan, it would be different. No one would think Miss Luo Quan's face wasn't worth that much money.

And after the insurance company underwrote it, they also regularly sent people to perform facial care for her. And this time filming an action movie, Miss Luo Quan also needed to report to the company in advance. They would send special personnel to the set to keep an eye on it, ensuring that her face wouldn't be hurt in the event of an accident.

Very troublesome, and also very unnecessary.

When Miss Luo Quan learned about this insurance, she really wanted to tell her old man that her face was actually thick and hard, not as delicate as it looked, and the insurance was completely unnecessary.

However, the money had already been paid, and the contract had been signed, so it was too late to say anything.

Miss Luo Quan could only be glad that this company wouldn't let bodyguards surround her 24 hours a day, only appearing when performing dangerous activities.

Like when she went to Paris Fashion Week before, these bodyguards didn't come.

Therefore, her daily life wasn't greatly affected.

Her thoughts gradually drifted back, and Miss Luo Quan's hair had been dyed.

For this new look, she was quite satisfied.

In order to keep fans and the audience fresh, stars were actually constantly changing their looks, including hairstyles, makeup, costumes, etc.

Only Miss Luo Quan's look was almost unchanged for ten thousand years. Interestingly, fans were not tired of the unchanging Miss Luo Quan at all.

However, this time she took the initiative to change her look, and fans would probably be very happy.

"Miss Luo Quan-san, this is the hair you cut off." The stylist walked over holding a large bundle of soft, bright golden hair. This was what he collected when he cut Miss Luo Quan's hair just now.

In his view, this hair might be more valuable than gold of the same weight, so when he cut it, he held it carefully with his hands before cutting it down.

Taking these "troublesome threads," Miss Luo Quan didn't know if the number was three thousand, but the first thought was definitely that she didn't want them.

She was originally prepared to leave the barbershop and find a non-recyclable trash can to throw them away, but after thinking about it, if they were picked up by someone with ulterior motives, that would be another troublesome matter.

It wasn't that she was afraid of being cursed; she didn't believe in these superstitions at all. It was mainly because she was afraid these things would be sold by others.

The shoes she wore before could be sold for a sky-high price on Xianyu, let alone this large handful of hair cut from her body.

After thinking about it, Miss Luo Quan still asked the stylist for a plastic bag and put all these hairs into it for proper preservation.

As for whether to burn them or what to do next, that was a matter for later.

Anyway, hair wouldn't rot or stink, so it didn't matter if it was kept for a long time.

Putting on sunglasses and a mask, Miss Luo Quan returned to the hotel room.

Junko was still reading on the bed. Miss Luo Quan first took out her phone to take a selfie for her new look, then shouted at Junko: "Junko, see what's different about me today?"

"Could it be that you've become even more beautiful?" Junko closed the book with a smile, looked up at Miss Luo Quan, and then her eyes went blank:

"You... you... when did you dye your hair!"

Miss Luo Quan flipped her hair: "Just now. First cut half of it, then dyed it red."

"Wow, it's really much shorter than before. Your sacrifice is too big." Junko leaned over to Miss Luo Quan's side, examining her hair with a sigh.

Miss Luo Quan said seriously: "This is the professional quality an actor should have. Not just me, you also have to be prepared."

"What preparation?" Junko was a bit hesitant.

"The preparation to shave bald if the plot needs it."

"Ah!" Junko grabbed her hair, almost crying out in fear.

Seeing this, Miss Luo Quan hurriedly explained: "Don't have such a big reaction. I'm just making an analogy. You definitely don't need to shave bald in this movie."

"You scared me to death. I thought I had to shave bald this time." Junko breathed a sigh of relief, then clenched her fists and said firmly: "However, if I really have to shave, it... it's not impossible."

"It's good to have this preparation. If there's a chance in the next movie, I will definitely fulfill your wish." Miss Luo Quan patted Junko's shoulder and laughed.

In Junko's eyes, the face of this boss suddenly became like a devil. ===== CHAPTER 481 =====