Chapter 458

Bai Jiang's expression was indifferent, and he asked back: "She is the female lead number two in the crew; isn't it normal for me to get on good terms with her?"

This question left Xu Ting stunned.

Bai Jiang was the male lead and had no conflict of interest with the female lead number two; only she, the female lead, had conflicts with the female lead number two over scenes.

Since joining the crew, Bai Jiang's relationship with Jin Li had been distant. She thought Bai Jiang had chosen to stand by her side, but it didn't seem so now?

Xu Ting said sheepishly: "We've already filmed half of it; it's too late to try to get on good terms now, right?"

Bai Jiang shook his head: "Before, when filming literary scenes, I didn't feel the person was very impressive, but ever since filming motion capture scenes, I realized why the director kept praising Jin Li."

Before filming motion capture scenes, he had watched Jin Li's performance in the lens and felt it was just so-so; he could do it if he were in her place.

But until he went to film it, he discovered it wasn't like that at all.

Wearing heavy clothes while having to keep movements crisp and neat, looking not bloated at all, and keeping posture from deforming is very difficult.

At this time, looking at Jin Li's performance again, one would know how precise her decomposition and grasp of movements were.

Bai Jiang felt that Jin Li just didn't have good physical strength and could only show her power for a few minutes; otherwise, she could completely carry a martial arts drama on her own.

But the disadvantage of poor physical strength, when placed in a movie, especially since she was a female lead number two, was not a problem at all.

The female lead number two has few scenes; to streamline the plot, it often only describes the most important episodes, which makes it seem like every time she has a plot, she is showing her power.

Although those action plots are only fragments of a few dozen seconds, when put out to watch alone, it only makes people feel that Jin Li's martial arts scenes are very powerful.

Bai Jiang only knew the difficulty of martial arts scenes after experiencing them personally, so he knew the director's praise was not without reason.

To tell the truth, if he were the director, he would also prefer an actor like Jin Li.

Jin Li's talent in motion capture scenes, and even her talent in action scenes, is completely visible. If you don't get on good terms now, are you going to wait until everyone else has become successful to do so?

Martial arts scenes have always been the most distinct flag of Chinese cinema and the reason why Chinese cinema can enjoy international fame.

This kind of drama has both Chinese characteristics and can show Chinese prestige, and the plot design is also very good. Bai Jiang believes that after *Dawn* is broadcast, Jin Li will definitely receive invitations for martial arts movies.

If this kind of film explodes internationally, the influence won't just be in China, but the whole world.

Xu Ting looked at Bai Jiang: "I thought that after you realized someone else's excellence, you would strive to catch up, instead of—"

She paused, her words unfinished.

Bai Jiang smiled indifferently and only said: "Compared to surpassing her, I'd rather be friends with her. I'm not that arrogant; I still know what type of films are suitable for me."

His face and acting skills make youth films his comfort zone.

Relying on the fame he built in the youth film circuit, he has already radiated domestically and abroad, and he has many fans abroad too.

If Director Chu wasn't very powerful and his special effects films weren't also very famous internationally, he wouldn't have taken the role.

People also need to step out of their comfort zone occasionally to try some new acting paths and give the audience some freshness.

"Brother Jiang, it'll be late if we don't go eat now." Bai Jiang's assistant suddenly walked over from elsewhere, looking anxious.

Bai Jiang took the opportunity to end the conversation with Xu Ting: "I'll go eat first."

Xu Ting pulled up the corners of her mouth to smile at him, and after he turned around, she quickly relaxed her smile.

The new assistant was cautious and didn't dare to talk nonsense, only asking Xu Ting in a low voice where she wanted to eat.

Xu Ting said lightly: "Pack it up and eat at the hotel."

After the assistant left, Xu Ting's face was expressionless, her brows slightly furrowed, and her expression solemn.

Jin Li returned to the hotel. She still had scenes in the afternoon, so she didn't do problems at noon but picked up the character biography she wrote to look at it, brewing the feeling for the drama.

After a month of not filming, Jin Li felt as if the days of filming were still yesterday.

Ever since she worshipped Zhong Kui, her energy had always been abundant, and her thinking had been switching smoothly. Now switching to the filming state, there was no obstruction at all.

And her body hadn't experienced high-intensity exercise for a while; Jin Li found that she was quite looking forward to it.

Filming is originally very tiring; a segment might need to be filmed repeatedly, and by the end, the actors are a bit exhausted.

But Director Chu pays more attention to the sense of fluency when filming; he doesn't like filming short segments and prefers filming long segments. In the case that she doesn't make mistakes in her performance, Director Chu is more willing to let Jin Li film a long segment smoothly.

After Jin Li got used to this filming mode, she not only felt that the efficiency was high, but she also didn't feel mentally tired; instead, she had a sense of challenge.

For this afternoon's scene, could she pass it in one take? Could she add a few more scenes in succession?

In the afternoon, at the crew's A-set.

Jin Li was finally able to put on the motion capture suit and film with Bai Jiang and Xu Ting.

Her filming progress was too fast before, and she had almost finished all the solo scenes. This time she was called back to film the three-person scenes.

These scenes were very relaxed; where the male and female leads are, the female lead number two is usually a background board.

But there were also one or two scenes where the female lead number two's limelight would be greater than the male and female leads, but such fragments were rare and at most lasted a few seconds.

Jin Li and the others tried filming once first; this time everyone was walking through positions and saying lines, not doing it for real.

Director Chu watched it once in the lens, felt there were no problems, and let them start filming.

"Cut!"

Only a few seconds after filming, before Xu Ting, as the female lead, had finished speaking, she was interrupted by the director.

Xu Ting walked over automatically, thinking it was her problem.

But Director Chu called Bai Jiang and Jin Li over too and showed them the footage.

After watching, he asked: "Did you see anything?"

Bai Jiang and Xu Ting frowned, not quite sure of their guess.

Jin Li said it directly: "Director, am I too prominent in the frame?"

Director Chu nodded: "Not too prominent, but as soon as you stand on the field, you attract everyone's attention. Your demeanor and temperament are too good."

Mentioning this, Director Chu Chenliang was also a bit puzzled.

According to Jin Li, she went to study in seclusion for the month she was away. After seeing her, he only felt that her spirit was quite good, and studying could nourish the spirit.

As a result, after filming started, he discovered that Jin Li's demeanor and temperament had changed; she was too conspicuous, and at first glance, she felt very upright, steady, and reliable.

Chu Chenliang couldn't help but ask: "Did you go to train for something?"

Jin Li shook her head: "No, I was just doing problems and studying, and I was livestreaming every day."

Chu Chenliang also felt strange; can a person's temperament really change so quickly?

Jin Li faintly felt that perhaps the influence of Zhong Kui's divine power still remained on her, so she looked particularly upright in the lens, making people feel at ease.

Jin Li quickly thought of a way: "Director, let's change my makeup; make my skin tone a bit darker."

Chu Chenliang frowned: "You want to yield the makeup..."

As soon as these words came out, Bai Jiang was fine, but Xu Ting's mentality couldn't hold up a bit.

After filming for so many years, this was the first time she had encountered yielding makeup.

Even if she didn't get along with female actors before, everyone relied on their own abilities to steal the spotlight, or asked the screenwriter to change the script to give themselves better plots.

But yielding makeup...

This makes one seem incompetent.

As an actor, unable to surpass the other party in acting skills, one can only use such side-door methods, and filming it will also affect the visual experience of netizens.

Xu Ting frowned and said: "Director, we don't need to yield makeup, right?"

As an actor, she still wanted to rely on acting skills to surpass Jin Li.

Jin Li only said: "If the skin tone is darker, it won't be too conspicuous."

If she wasn't too "bright" in the lens, Jin Li wouldn't have suggested changing the skin tone.

In this scene, she only needed to be a bystander, watching the male and female leads talk, and then looking at the background outside the window; she was originally a background board.

Why did she need to look so good?

If this scene was an important scene for Ruan Ruanruan, she definitely wouldn't yield the makeup.

Chu Chenliang thought for a while: "You film it again."

A dozen seconds later, Director Chu shouted "Cut" again.

He frowned tightly, asked the makeup artist to change Jin Li's makeup to be a bit darker, and then continued filming.

And this time, they filmed the complete scene.

Director Chu called them over again and let them watch the footage after yielding the makeup; everyone agreed that this version highlighted the male and female leads better.

The matter of changing makeup was settled like this.

Jin Li asked the makeup artist to make her look darker from then on; the subsequent scenes were all multi-person scenes, and when she needed to be prominent, she would ask the makeup artist to add a brighter loose powder.

The makeup artist was astonished after knowing Jin Li's request; she had never seen a female actor take the initiative to ask to make herself look ugly. Jin Li really had no idol baggage!

After Jin Li went to film, the makeup artist quietly nagged to others and told this matter.

Now, many staff members in the crew knew about "Jin Li changing makeup" and praised her one after another for being broad-minded, responsible, and kind.

"She didn't want to make things difficult for the female lead. Her acting skills were too prominent for a supporting role, and she couldn't highlight the female lead's power, so she could only make herself look uglier."

"Do you feel that Jin Li has become more beautiful after coming back this time?"

"Yes, her complexion has improved, and her temperament is more outstanding!"

"It has to be Jin Li who understands the big picture; other actors only think about how to fight for the spotlight and don't understand the artistic expression of film and television dramas at all!"

Jin Li's reputation in the crew became even better.

And while filming, Bai Jiang tried to solve problems in his mind, but he found that he couldn't be distracted at all.

His mind was thinking about solving problems, and when filming, his brain was confused, as if he was still thinking about solving problems, and various Arabic numerals kept spinning in front of him.

Imagination wasn't seen, but distraction was obvious.

Because his mind was not on the job, he was criticized by Director Chu twice instead, and he even raged: "If you are in this state tomorrow, then you don't have to come tomorrow!"

How could Bai Jiang dare not to come?

He knew what the director said was all angry words; the movie had already been filmed two-thirds of the way, so no matter what, it was impossible to change people.

But Director Chu is a big director; even if he is a first-tier actor, he doesn't want to offend the director.

So the next day he not only came, but he came especially early, looking only at the script the whole time to mobilize his state.

As for those damn math problems, he didn't dare to touch a single one!

"Cut!"

One day in early December, as Director Chu shouted with a megaphone, Jin Li's last scene in *Dawn* was finished!

"Congratulations to Jin Li for finishing!"

"Congratulations, congratulations!"

"Wishing every drama Jin Li films will be a hit!"

Some staff members presented flowers to Jin Li and also bought a big cake.

Jin Li accepted it unexpectedly and kept saying thank you to the staff who came to congratulate her.

She took the time to ask Chen Qin, and Chen Qin smiled and said: "No, didn't I ask you before if you wanted to send things on the day you finished? You said you didn't need to engage in this formalism, so I didn't prepare it for you.

Later, someone from the crew came to ask me if I wanted to order flowers for you, and I also said no. These things were all prepared spontaneously by the staff."

Chen Qin also didn't expect that Jin Li's popularity in the crew would be so good.

Jin Li only filmed for ten days after returning.

During these ten days, her character appeared along with the male and female leads' scenes, so she was often immersed in the crew.

Jin Li felt that the crew's staff were all quite friendly to her and even prepared gifts for her, which moved her greatly, so she quickly asked Chen Qin to go out and buy some gift boxes.

She wanted to prepare one for every staff member, just as a token of her heart.

That night, all the staff, including the director and the actors whose names could be called, and the extras whose names couldn't be called, received the fruit gift boxes sent by Jin Li.

They were all high-end fruit gift boxes, at least three hundred yuan each.

Xu Ting looked at these gift boxes, her face sinking.

Who sends gifts to the whole crew when finishing? Jin Li is destroying the market!

Xu Ting was not willing to pay this money; her money didn't come from a strong wind.

Jin Li's scenes were over, but the male and female leads' scenes still had to be filmed for about a month. Xu Ting thought left and right; she didn't want to lose face, and she didn't want to spend too much money, so she asked her assistant to find a purchasing agent.

Purchasing agent for some duty-free products that are sold very expensively in China but are very cheap abroad.

She planned to give these to everyone as finishing gifts when the time came.

Bai Jiang wasn't as conflicted as Xu Ting; he didn't even think about this kind of thing!

In the crews he filmed with before, there was only the part where the crew prepared gifts for the actors when they finished, not the part where the actors finished and turned around to send gifts to the crew.

So after he finished, he didn't prepare gifts for the crew's staff; only Xu Ting prepared them.

He didn't give them, and the people in the crew wouldn't feel he should have given them.

But Xu Ting gave them, so everyone couldn't help but compare her gifts with Jin Li's and found that she was really stingy.

"This lipstick only sells for fifty yuan abroad, and the one she gave is also near its expiration date; it can only be used for two months. What's the use of this kind of lipstick?"

"I don't even know if it's worth twenty or thirty yuan; it's better not to send it."

"Xu Ting is not as broad-minded as Jin Li; Jin Li is very generous."

... Jin Li didn't know about these later events.

The day after she finished, she left the crew and returned to Chenxi Entertainment.

Jin Li called Sister Fang in the car to handle matters related to the co-branding. Sister Fang said:

"The co-branded backpacks for Black Bear and the co-branded spring ready-to-wear for Fanghua have all been produced. They were just sent to the company yesterday. Come to the company later and take the samples back. If there are no problems with the samples, they will all be put into production."

Jin Li replied while doing problems: "Okay."

"Also, Director Chu's assistant just called me and said that you might need to reshoot some plots before the movie goes online, and I agreed."

Jin Li: "Hmm, this is what I should do anyway."

Finishing the movie doesn't mean it's completely over; before going online, actors can be called to reshoot at any time.

This is written into the contract; no matter how busy the actor's schedule is, they have to find time.

Sui Lingfang: "By the way, Cat Claw Live contacted me and asked if you can participate in an online meeting tomorrow. They have very important things to report to you."

"Cat Claw?" Jin Li asked curiously: "What is it? About the livestream?"

Sui Lingfang shook her head: "No, it's about that Knowledge Planet."