Chapter 187: You've Fallen

Next was Zhou Xun; her height was about the same as Jia Jingwen's, and her look in the mechanical heavy armor was similar.

But when acting, the gap appeared.

It was an almost flawless conventional performance, and her response to the Best Actor Feng Yuanzheng was also smooth and error-free.

Liu Yifei watched from the side, feeling extremely envious; she always felt she couldn't reach such a realm.

She was always thinking about how to act this role well, while Zhou Xun was like a bug, directly fitting herself into her own life experience or other character models, like being possessed by a ghost.

How could this be compared? She was acting as herself.

This was the typical method of the experiential school, constantly substituting.

But you, Liu Yifei, couldn't learn it; how many times had she fallen in love? How long had she been struggling in society?

She was too young and lacked too much life experience; now, at most, she had seen through the ugly face of a scumbag once, and in the future, when acting in crying scenes, she could substitute this journey of the heart.

Seeing Lu Kuan didn't call out nicknames on the set: "Zhou Xun, which part of your own experience did you just substitute?"

"Director Lu knows my habits too? I was just thinking that I was a modern version of Huang Rong, heh."

Lan Yue was the daughter of a brilliant scientist, a type who was both intelligent and brave, somewhat similar to Huang Rong.

Seeing Lu Kuan nodded with a smile, and when facing Liu Yifei, he was again using harsh words: "Liu Yifei! What are you daydreaming about? Go change your clothes and put on makeup."

She responded, and while the staff helped her put on the mechanical heavy armor, she calculated the character's action chain and the martial arts routine for a moment in her heart.

The props were made according to a standard female body of 165cm, and it was a bit tight on her.

But the short hem revealed a pair of long legs, and the slightly thin fabric was tight and elastic, showing the faint muscle lines of her legs.

Zhou Xun laughed: "Xixi, you look so cool in this outfit."

Fan Bingbing didn't stint on praise: "Xixi, I often see you posting fitness photos on your blog; look at this body, it's really well-trained."

Liu Yifei thanked them with a smile and quickly entered the acting state.

After a series of intense action scenes, Yuan Heping, after yesterday's inspection, gave Liu Yifei extra training, increasing the difficulty of the movements.

Various designs of spins, backbends, and forward rolls emerged one after another, with quite a bit of power in every punch.

Even with the most critical eyes, one couldn't say that any of the other actresses present were better than her in this regard.

Next was the drama scene.

Feng Yuanzheng was an old acquaintance, and he tried his best to take care of her during the acting process, but it drew Seeing Lu Kuan's dissatisfaction.

"Cut!"

"Teacher Feng, don't hold back, okay? I want to see her true level."

Liu Yifei looked back at him innocently and playfully stuck out her tongue.

If Seeing Lu Kuan hadn't interrupted, she wouldn't have even noticed that Feng Yuanzheng was deliberately avoiding suppressing her acting...

Feng Yuanzheng smiled helplessly: "Okay, let's do it again."

"Lan Yue, this is a major matter concerning the fate of humanity; I don't want you to still be hiding something from me now!"

Feng Yuanzheng approached Liu Yifei by the computer with a gloomy face, his hand already on his weapon.

This was a completely different aura from just now, and Liu Yifei was lost for a moment.

Suppressing acting sounds quite nonsensical; they are all professional actors, can there be such a big gap?

There really is, just like Lu Yi, who is often complained about in *In the Name of the People*.

From Zhao Dehan at the beginning to Sha Ruijin, Qi Tongwei, and Li Dakang later, one by one, when they met, they were crushed into slag.

In the whole play, only he and Ke Lan were the most abrupt.

In *Drummer*, the gap in the cooperation between Feng Yuanzheng and Zhou Zhou Jielun at the beginning was also very large.

Zhou Zhou Jielun was thrown too far by Feng Yuanzheng in lines and expressions, causing an imbalance in the weight of the plot characters, and his presence was greatly reduced.

Liu Yifei concentrated her attention, frowned to meet his sharp eyes, and disdainfully pouted at the team members on the side.

"I'm not hiding anything from you; I will be responsible for the safety of the team."

Saying this, she blew the bangs on her forehead and turned sideways to continue studying the host.

"Cut!"

Boss Lu frowned as he looked at her.

How should he say it!

"Why did you turn sideways just now?"

Liu Yifei thought he was going to scold her again, and hurriedly explained: "I read the male lead's plot and lines; he is a decisive person."

"In such a dangerous situation, he was suspicious of me, feeling that I was hiding dangerous information that would cause the team to capsize."

"I thought, I'll leave my side and back to my teammates to build a sense of trust with him."

After Taylor heard the translation, he looked at Yuan Heping and the others, all somewhat surprised.

Boss Lu didn't deny that this action design was very thoughtful.

If the auditioning actress only looked at her own scenes and didn't grasp the action chain and inner activities of all the characters in the play, it would be impossible to have such a design.

"Yang Siwei, take her script and let me see."

Yang Siwei was present today: "Oh, coming!"

She watched Seeing Lu Kuan flipping through the pages and Taylor leaning over, both nodding frequently, and suddenly felt a bit uneasy in her heart.

Wouldn't Xixi really stand out? So many strong competitors!

As expected, the script not only had a few pages of the female lead's character biography, but also densely written character traits and psychological activities of the male lead.

Seeing Lu Kuan rarely praised her: "Commendable spirit."

Liu Yifei smiled like a big fool, but unfortunately, before her mouth could reach her ears, she was hit again.

"But!"

"Before filming, I said, full makeup for filming; the lighting and photography are all according to a real film set."

He walked to where Liu Yifei had just stood and pointed to the side and back: "The camera is here."

He also held her shoulders and turned them 45 degrees to indicate: "The main light is there!"

"When filming *Drummer*, you were all given long-shot close-ups; you didn't need to find the camera position and consider the lighting."

"But this movie has a lot of action scenes and scheduling scenes; it's good that you can innovate yourself, but you didn't consider these factors at all!"

"The lighting set for the confrontation between the male and female leads in this scene is high-contrast bright lighting; half will hit the upper part of your face to help the female lead highlight the eye acting."

"Half will hit the male lead's jaw, using the hard lines of the jawline to highlight the male's firm, decisive, and killing character traits."

"And you, now a sideways turn directly chases the light to your butt? How do you want the photographer to do it?"

As mentioned earlier when filming *Drummer*, there is an indispensable process in the standard film shooting process called positioning.

It is after the camera trajectory and lighting control are completed, the actors walk through the shooting sequence under the director's arrangement to familiarize themselves with the lighting and camera positions.

Big stars will first be matched by light stand-ins, and they can just walk through it again after they finish their makeup.

So just now, it was hard to comment on Liu Yifei's performance...

You, Liu Yifei, indeed studied the character seriously, and the performance couldn't be said to be wrong, and the self-innovated action design also grasped the character's action chain.

Even considered the character setting of the partner scene.

But it violated the basic shooting guidelines!

Other actresses listened to Seeing Lu Kuan's analysis and nodded secretly, but were once again jealous of Liu Yifei's special treatment; why was she always given guidance!

But thinking about how many mistakes Director Lu picked out on her, they were relieved; as long as it was fair.

Especially Zhang Ziyi and Fan Bingbing, both were clear-eyed people.

"Ziyi, give Little Liu a lesson and teach her how to find the camera."

Although Zhang Ziyi was disdainful of the little girl's acting skills in her heart, she was still quite humble in her words.

"Don't, Director, lecturing on acting is your business; I was hoping you would give me some pointers too!"

While speaking, she also put on the prop costume.

Seeing Lu Kuan patted the aggrieved Liu Yifei: "Come with me behind the monitor to watch."

Fan Bingbing looked at Seeing Lu Kuan explaining the camera and lighting to Liu Yifei with an inexplicable expression, feeling a bit uncomfortable in her heart.

"Don't look so miserable; not finding the camera is a reason of experience; you've only filmed one movie in total, how many has Zhang Ziyi filmed?"

"Ask if you don't understand, learn if you don't know!"

"Got it."

Zhang Ziyi had already started acting with Feng Yuanzheng.

Seeing Lu Kuan pointed to the monitor: "See that pause she just made?"

"Just now it was a zoom-in and zoom-out; the camera will quickly switch between the faces of the male and female leads for close-ups, then zoom out to a medium shot, putting the expressions of the two in the same frame."

"At this time, your lines have to pause, just like Zhang Ziyi did just now."

The young director watched her watch the playback attentively, nodding frequently, not knowing if she really understood or was just pretending.

"Then tell me why you have to pause."

Liu Yifei wrinkled her nose and rubbed her lips with a finger: "Because you said the camera will switch, comparing the male and female leads, so the pause is to give the camera time to switch perspectives and zoom."

The more she said, the brighter her eyes became, feeling she had found the trick: "Only in this way will there not be a phenomenon where the female lead is halfway through her words and the camera switches away, causing the picture and sound to not match!"

"Right?!"

Boss Lu smiled and didn't commit: "Keep watching."

Cao Yu on the side secretly nodded to the little girl behind Seeing Lu Kuan's back and gave a thumbs up.

Liu Yifei was instantly overjoyed; I'm not too stupid!

"An actor's sense of the camera is a talent, especially the camera in a movie, which is usually relatively fixed."

"You have also participated in variety shows and filmed TV dramas; there are many multi-camera shots, but why are they harder than movies?"

"Just because there are a dozen cameras shooting you at every turn, you don't need to find the camera at all; after filming, there is naturally editing to help you find the best angle."

Liu Yifei nodded knowingly; this kind of truth couldn't be more obvious.

But having a master explain it to you frame by frame in front of the monitor, it was naturally much simpler to understand.

"Then I don't have that many movies to film? How do I cultivate a sense of the camera?"

Boss Lu looked at her like she was a big fool: "Isn't that simple? Look in the mirror every day."

"Find that kind of mirror spliced from different angles, you say your lines to the mirror, look at yourself in different mirror surfaces, and adjust your expressions and rhythm."

While speaking, he didn't forget to tease her: "It's best to do it before meals, don't make yourself vomit."

Saying this, he left the monitor to talk to Zhang Ziyi about the scene.

Liu Yifei's face turned black, and she bared her teeth at him behind his back with a small fist, looking like she dared to be angry but didn't dare to speak.

Later, Zhao Yanzi and Fan Bingbing auditioned one after another.

Yanzi belonged to the type where the roles and opportunities when she was young were too heaven-defying, directly stamping a seal on her face; no matter what she acted, the audience thought of Yanzi.

Except for the subversive role of playing ugly in *Dearest*.

As the wave of entertainment in the entertainment industry arrived, she also gradually moved behind the scenes, starting to ponder opening a company to cut leeks, and no longer had more pursuits in acting.

Bingbing was a natural entertainment industry player.

During the peak of her career, there were two types of roles in her comfort zone: peony flowers and enchanting bitches.

The Wu Yue who helped her win the Hundred Flowers Award was an enchanting bitch, and she was also half a prostitute in *Lost in Beijing*, which was nominated for the Golden Bear.

Other things like Wu Zetian, Nan Feng in *Buddha Mountain*.

Even the slightly simpler *I Am Not Madame Bovary* outputted her stereotypes to the audience in the title.

In a sense, she didn't have much motivation to study and hone her acting skills; the later her didn't have the realization that works are 1 and everything else is 0, everything was just for money.

Of course, this couldn't be said to be wrong; everyone has their own way of living.

But without works, there is no fault tolerance; when you collapse, everything will vanish into smoke.

September 14, 2003, 2:00 PM, Inquiry Realm conference room.

The three-and-a-half-day female lead audition ended; the college entrance examination results were out; are you surprised, are you stimulated?

The eight actresses were calm on the surface, but their hearts were very active.

Fan Bingbing was the calmest; Seeing Lu Kuan clearly told her that she didn't meet the requirements for the female lead and would leave her a supporting role with a Chinese face with very few lines and scenes.

Zhang Ziyi was the most confident; in the three days of public auditions, everyone's performance was obvious to all.

Except for Liu Yifei's martial arts scene on the second day, which was a bit stunning, she had no flaws in other places.

Zhong Xintong, Yanzi, and Jia Jingwen had also given up; their performance was mediocre, and the key people behind them couldn't exert extra pressure on Seeing Lu Kuan again.

There were no better resources to exchange, so they could only regret missing this time.

Zhang Baizhi was somewhat uneasy in her heart, and the crazy night with Seeing Lu Kuan planted a seed of the devil in her heart.

She shamefully remembered the contraction that obviously increased in frequency when she was on the phone...

Plus her performance on the third day was also recognized.

She looked forward with some luck, could he throw an olive branch because of her attentive service?

Little Liu had the least pressure; this was a role she gave up herself, and coming to fight for it again was just to let Seeing Lu Kuan see her progress.

In fact, except for the low-level mistake of doing "multiple-choice questions" on the first day, the washing machine generally didn't find many spray points on herself.

This made her very relieved; having worked silently for so long, who wouldn't want to get a word of recognition?

"Okay, we won't do the slow-moving thing like an awards ceremony; we'll just announce it directly."

"Ziyi, happy cooperation!"

Seeing Lu Kuan smiled and nodded at Zhang Ziyi, then stood up to shake hands with the other actresses one by one, thanking everyone for taking three days to cooperate with the audition.

Such an audition experience was indeed unique in the domestic entertainment industry; if it weren't for a Hollywood blockbuster, no popular actress would spend so much time asking for a role.

Zhang Ziyi had no surprise at all, just thinking about how to solve the problem of scheduling conflicts...

Just from the perspective of professional ability and character fit, as well as the impression Hollywood had already accumulated of her from *Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon*, she was indeed the best candidate.

The Inquiry Realm staff let all the reporters outside the door in, and Zhang Ziyi, as the female lead, would accept some interviews on the spot.

Seeing Lu Kuan sent the other actresses out of the company, which was also to protect them and avoid them accepting interviews; the taste of a loser was not good, and this was also very considerate of their face.

"Baizhi, wait a moment."

Zhang Baizhi walked out in low spirits, and when she heard this, she was startled; she was now somewhat obsessed with Seeing Lu Kuan...

Liu Yifei raised her willow eyebrows and took the initiative.

"Seeing Lu Kuan, I want to ask you about *Kung Fu*; I'll wait for you in your office."

"A Fei, open the door for me."

After the little girl finished speaking, she turned around and walked to the office with ease, not treating herself as an outsider at all.

Not entering your Inquiry Realm, speaking is tough!

Other actresses walked out of the Inquiry Realm under the protection of agents and assistants and got into business cars.

Zhong Xintong learned to be good this time and stood not far from Zhang Baizhi and Seeing Lu Kuan.

"Baizhi, you chat with the director, I'll wait for you together."

Zhang Baizhi nodded awkwardly, raising her eyes to meet Seeing Lu Kuan's playful gaze again.

The two walked further away and stood by the railing.

"Disappointed? Angry? Feel like you were played for free?"

"You!"

Zhang Baizhi looked around anxiously, and looked at Seeing Lu Kuan in disbelief.

How did you suddenly turn from the talented director on the set into such a wolf-in-human-clothing bastard?

Do you have to trample me to death?

"Lu... Director Lu, you can't bully people like this, I..."

Boss Lu raised his hand to interrupt her bluffing confession.

"Nothing to film before the end of the year, right?"

Zhang Baizhi's newly risen anger was interrupted: "Huh?"

"No! No!"

Was this to give her a role?

"Inquiry Realm has a movie called *Love is Not Blind*; the protagonist is a girl who just graduated from college, about the same age as you."

"Director Xue Xiaolu is a teacher at the Beijing Film Academy; there will be no problem with the prospects of this movie, and your acting skills can handle it."

"Director Lu! I..."

Seeing Lu Kuan interrupted her spellcasting again.

"Listen to me finish!"

"I have only one requirement for you: practice your Mandarin well, at least the lines in this movie."

"I will talk to Director Xue there; you go and make up the audition, just bring out your true level."

The casting for the female lead of *Love is Not Blind* encountered difficulties; the most suitable Wang Luodan and Bai Baihe in later generations were still small dishes now.

Gao Yuanyuan went to audition, but her acting skills were rejected by Xue Xiaolu.

Tong Liya could have tried, but the business didn't work out, so it was not considered for now.

Other age-appropriate actors were either from the Beijing circle or not quite fit in various aspects.

Originally, he didn't think of someone like Zhang Baizhi, it was just that the Xiang family pushed her into the audition through Anita Mui, and from the performance, it was indeed quite good.

In addition, her Golden Film Award in 2004 was also a plus, which was beneficial to the film's box office.

After going back and forth, it was also to build a relationship with the Xiang family.

On this one-third of an acre of land in Hong Kong, when it comes to underground forces, Li and Xiang are evenly matched.

Talking about the betting matter back then, Wang Minhui still asked the Xiang family for help.

A society of human relationships, courtesy demands reciprocity, and the circle was formed like this.

"Alright, you go back, I'll arrange things."

Seeing Lu Kuan didn't wait for her to express her gratitude, and when he passed by, he quietly whispered in her ear.

"Baizhi, call me if you have anything."

Zhong Xintong originally stood far away to avoid suspicion, and felt slightly relieved to see Seeing Lu Kuan and Zhang Baizhi just talking at a distance.

Seeing Lu Kuan left, and she walked to Zhang Baizhi's side, only to see her body trembling uncontrollably...

"Baizhi, what's wrong?"

Zhang Baizhi's complexion was somewhat flushed, her legs trembling.

She absolutely refused to admit that because of the light whisper in her ear just now, she was a bit sensitive to the point of being unable to control herself.

But she told herself clearly.

Zhang Baizhi, you've fallen!

(End of chapter)