Chapter 420: Talk About Performance, Do You Have Any?

The filming progress of "Squid Game" can be described with the contradictory statement that it is both smooth and not smooth.

The reason it is said to be smooth is that every department and every trade on this production are the best in the industry; everyone can deliver excellent work, and since this drama relies heavily on studio shooting without needing location shoots, it has avoided many unexpected factors, allowing the coordinator to control the schedule very easily.

And the reason it is said to be not smooth is that as filming proceeds, everyone gradually develops a doubt: "Can this drama really become a hit?"

This doubt arises because... when everyone sees the giant puppet built as a real set on the filming location, its sheer size somehow exudes a sense of eeriness and fear.

And a scene of "Red Light, Green Light" actually took a full five days to shoot, with everyone simply following a group of people performing this scene—but for many actors, this hardly counts as acting, as there are few places in this scene that require performance.

This filming experience, completely different from the past, gives the actors a sense of loss of control, making them feel uneasy due to unfamiliarity.

Only the director and the coordinator keep emphasizing over and over that this drama has no delays in its schedule.

Lu Yan He has visited the set twice.

After seeing the set design, props, and the styling of each character on the set, Lu Yan He was filled with surprise.

It is not that the work is extremely exquisite, but rather that it has a sense of realism.

Lu Yan He particularly does not want this survival thriller drama to have a horror feel—there can be one or two horror shots, but the overall atmosphere should not be one that makes people feel afraid or eerie.

Otherwise, a large group of viewers who are unwilling to watch horror-themed content would definitely miss this drama.

He is firm that from the very beginning of the project, this drama must not allow the audience to form any impression of "Is this drama a bit scary?"

Including the actors, Lu Yan He also specifically spoke to each of them, asking them not to express similar feelings before this drama airs.

The "Squid Game" production team truly built every set to scale, one-to-one, based on real locations.

Because of this set construction, the director very much enjoys shooting large-scale scenes rather than close-ups; however, such large-scale scenes are especially shocking during the "Red Light, Green Light" game, particularly the shot of machine guns sweeping and a whole row of people falling down—horror, sudden and unexpected, sending adrenaline soaring.

How much does Aurora Video value this drama?

The background actors are all professional actors with excellent acting skills, those who signed contracts with the production team and are genuinely receiving their fees.

This ensures that every person appearing in every shot is fully immersed in this situation.

After Lu Yan He arrived on the set, everyone came over to greet him.

Those who know him exchanged pleasantries; those who don't got to know each other.

This is a very huge production team, with quite a number of actors.

Lu Yan He curiously asked Jiang Zixin how much money the real sets cost in total.

Jiang Zixin said: "Just the rent for the six film studios, adding up all the miscellaneous costs, exceeds one million."

Hearing this, Lu Yan He was startled, not expecting the rent to be so expensive.

Thinking about it again, it makes sense; this drama took three months from pre-production before filming to completion, and renting six large film studios at once to build sets means the rent figure isn't ridiculously expensive.

Lu Yan He joked with a smile: "So, are all six film studios filming at the same time?"

"Of course not; we didn't even split into Group A and Group B for filming," Jiang Zixin said. "For this drama, we are putting in a lot of effort, using the most ample production budget to make it."

Lu Yan He said: "Since the six film studios aren't filming simultaneously, why not use the idle sets to film a survival variety show? Once "Squid Game" finishes airing, we can follow it up immediately with this show to earn back the rent."

Jiang Zixin showed a look of astonishment.

"Huh?"

Lu Yan He said: "This drama tells the story of a group of people participating in a life-or-death competition to win the final prize; so why not organize a similar game competition, recruit some people to participate in these games? Of course, unlike in the drama, they won't face life-or-death threats, but wouldn't this allow us to upgrade the game difficulty a bit? In the drama, the game difficulty doesn't need to be that high because one wrong move means death, which is already tense enough..."

Listening to Lu Yan He suddenly come up with such a long speech, Jiang Zixin felt nothing but shock inside.

She didn't need to ask to know what Zheng Huiren's reaction would be if she told him this idea.

There would be only one reaction: Do it!

Jiang Zixin tentatively asked: "So, would this show be a spin-off of this drama? It might require your authorization."

The copyright for "Squid Game" belongs to Lu Yan He's film and television production company, not Aurora Video.

Whatever derivative content needs to be developed requires authorization.

Lu Yan He looked at Jiang Zixin with some surprise. "Do you really want to do it?"

"It sounds quite interesting; everyone should like it," Jiang Zixin said. "Moreover, if this drama becomes a hit, this show should also attract a lot of attention. Since the set construction for this drama is so expensive, developing some merchandise could help recover some costs."

Jiang Zixin threw Lu Yan He's own joke back at him.

Lu Yan He said: "Hmm, if you really think it can be done, then just authorize it."

Jiang Zixin immediately went to call Zheng Huiren.

Lu Yan He then went over to Jiang Jun and Jiang Yuqian's side.

"Teacher Jiang, Sister Yuqian, is everything going smoothly with the filming?"

Both Jiang Jun and Jiang Yuqian have lost a lot of weight.

The two of them put great effort into their body shapes to make them look more like ordinary people who have struggled in the lower depths of society for years.

Jiang Jun is acting as the male lead for the first time.

How much he cherishes this opportunity is beyond question.

Jiang Yuqian is the same.

Even putting that aside, their own professional attitudes would not allow them to cut corners.

Jiang Yuqian hesitated, wanting to speak but holding back.

Seeing this, Lu Yan He didn't expect that Jiang Yuqian really had something to say.

"Sister Yuqian, what's wrong? Is there something?"

Jiang Yuqian said: "We are all a bit unaccustomed."

"Unaccustomed?" Lu Yan He asked in surprise. "Unaccustomed to what?"

Jiang Yuqian told Lu Yan He the points that they all felt were problematic.

"A game is being filmed for too long?"

"Yes, we filmed many takes; in the script, it's actually just one page of content, but we filmed many takes," Jiang Yuqian said. "We also know that these few games are actually the highlight of this drama, but repeatedly filming so many takes, sometimes I even feel that although I am acting, there is essentially no camera filming me."

Hearing Jiang Yuqian say this, Lu Yan He wore a look of relief.

"You scared me; I thought something actually went wrong with the filming."

"What's wrong?" Jiang Yuqian asked. "Do you think this is fine?"

"The director actually communicated with me about this scene beforehand," Lu Yan He explained. "The reason he wanted to shoot for so long is that this scene is the first game in the entire series. If the first game cannot establish the tone of death's shadow and a sense of crisis, the story will be hard to justify. So, he hoped to shoot more wide shots. As for Aurora, they felt the drama couldn't work without close-ups of the actors, so they decided to shoot all the material they wanted to capture, then edit it later to see what editing produced the best effect. That's why this scene took so long. The scenes later won't have this situation; don't worry."

Jiang Yuqian looked at him in surprise and said, "How do you know more than we do? The director didn't explain it to us either."

Lu Yan He smiled. "He came to seek my support. He hopes to use more wide shots for this game and needs my support to persuade Aurora."

"Alright," Jiang Yuqian said, somewhat relieved. "If that's the case, I understand."

Lu Yan He said, "This director was chosen by Aurora after a long search. Although he didn't have particularly famous works before, we all feel his directing style fits very well with 'Squid Game'."

Originally, 'Squid Game' wanted to find Lian Bei, the director of 'Seventeen Floors'. They communicated back and forth for several rounds, but in the end, Lian Bei decided to give up because he had to prepare for the second season of 'Seventeen Floors'.

So, Aurora Video found the current director, Yao Yuanzhi, from among their own cultivated loyal directors.

Yao Yuanzhi did not study film and television art in college; he studied computer science. By a twist of fate, he entered this industry. Later, he shot two low-budget suspense thriller web dramas at Aurora Video. Both were "three-no" dramas: no famous director, no famous actors, no famous screenwriter, and not many people had watched them.

Originally, because Aurora Video valued this project enough, they wanted to find a director with more experience. However, because 'Squid Game' rushed into filming ahead of schedule, time was truly tight in the end, and this opportunity fell to Yao Yuanzhi.

Yao Yuanzhi also knew how rare it was for him to get this opportunity. In fact, he had already started preparing for this drama. To make Aurora believe he could do a good job as the director of this drama, when he was first included in the consideration list, he drew storyboards based on the script fragments he received. After that, Yao Yuanzhi constantly extended his ideas, thinking through clearly how he would shoot this drama. It can be said that this was also an important reason he finally secured this opportunity—he thought very clearly about how to shoot the entire drama, and his storyboards demonstrated this.

"Sister Yuqian, Teacher Jiang, although I am not very familiar with this director, he has always maintained very close communication with me. As a screenwriter, I feel his understanding and ideas about this drama are first-class," Lu Yan He said. "You can try not to think of him as an ordinary director without a representative work. Just trust him and understand every one of his decisions."

Jiang Yuqian was somewhat surprised and asked, "Shooting with a new director, can you trust them so unconditionally?"

Lu Yan He nodded. "In any director's production team, I trust the director very much. However, that is because before I accepted this role, I had already approved of this director. I accepted because I approved. Your situation is different from mine; after all, this director was decided only after you signed the contract for 'Squid Game'. So please trust me. I truly think he is very suitable to be the director of this drama. If you can trust him, I feel this drama can come out even better."

Jiang Yuqian pressed her lips together and fell into deep thought.

A famous actor, when facing a new director, inevitably feels distrust. This is a common occurrence.

This has nothing to do with good or bad, right or wrong, because most of the time, new directors simply lack experience, or even lack talent, being purely talented only in... words. An actor's experience can help ensure their own scenes don't turn out bad in a terrible drama.

However, Lu Yan He holds a belief: no matter what, a drama should ideally have only one voice. Even if it ultimately fails to shoot well, it is better than shooting something that is a mishmash. Furthermore, Lu Yan He keeps all his pickiness and scrutiny before joining the production team. After joining, he trusts the director.

Precisely because of this, he was able to shoot 'Late Spring' and shoot 'Six People'. When shooting these two dramas, the directors were not famous directors; their star power was not even as big as his. If he had not wanted to listen to the director and wanted to do it his own way, the director would have been helpless.

The meaning Lu Yan He expressed on this trip made actors like Jiang Yuqian and Liu Zefan start to seriously consider this matter. After all, Lu Yan He had said so.

"Lu Yan He said that the program 'China in Culture' could become a blockbuster. Don't be so stingy."

Zheng Huairen expressed dissatisfaction with the rating of the program 'China in Culture' at the department meeting.

This program had only received a B rating; it hadn't even received an A rating.

"This program doesn't have a single celebrity artist. How can it possibly be rated A?" others said.

Zheng Huairen asked, "Is that so? Then if this program really becomes a hit in the end, what will you say?"

The others fell silent.

"We can't judge it that way. Any program could potentially become a dark horse."

"Yes, but every project of Lu Yan He's is a dark horse; he has never failed. At this time, a new horse is about to run out of his stable. Shouldn't you bet a little more, instead of being so stingy and just buying the minimum?"

Zheng Huairen felt that his words had shaken these people's hearts.

"There is another thing. Just now, Jiang Zixin contacted me again. Lu Yan He proposed another idea."

"Why does he have so many ideas?"

"I'm curious too. How is it that the combined ideas of so many of us aren't as awesome as one person's idea?" Zheng Huairen immediately retorted.

The other person shut up.

"'Squid Game' spin-off program. Create an obstacle course program set in the 'Squid Game' worldview. Gather a group of people to complete the challenges. The person who wins at the end receives a cash prize," Zheng Huairen said. "The set design, props, and everything else are all ready-made. As soon as this drama finishes filming, we can record the program. According to the schedule, we could even finish recording in two or three days. It is another program that requires almost no cost investment but can make a huge profit relying on the popularity of this drama itself."

He put the pen in his hand down on the table.

"Sometimes I really want to know. Whenever you come to complain to me, saying I allocated too much production budget to Lu Yan He's projects, why don't you reflect on yourselves? Why can't you come up with this kind of idea?" Zheng Huairen sneered. "Back then, when we said we wanted to build real sets for 'Squid Game', you all said no, saying building real sets was too expensive, saying such an investment was a complete waste and unnecessary. Why is it that when building real sets is expensive for Lu Yan He, he can immediately come up with an idea to effortlessly recover the money spent? Every time he brings out these ideas, it's like he's doing charity by making money for us. He could completely choose not to include us and do it all by himself. What right do you have to keep complaining here?"

Zheng Huairen's sudden barrage of questions and sarcasm, laced with barbs, firmly smashed the English word "idea" into everyone's heads.

Lu Yan He naturally did not know that the idea he casually mentioned was used by Zheng Huairen as a weapon to machine-gun the people in the department, shooting the dissatisfaction and annoyance of many into a sieve.

This is Aurora Video, not Jing TV. Here, we speak with performance results.