Chapter 38: Teaching Ning Hao to Modify *Stone*

The Beijing Film Academy is the cradle of Chinese film talent; this sentence is of course recognized by the industry, but the food at the Beijing Film Academy is also really hard to eat.

Therefore, there is another saying called "Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications is the baby bottle of Chinese film talent."

Seeing Lu Kuan went to school here in his past life, and he always followed everyone to stroll to the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications 1,000 meters away to bum a meal, or go to the slightly farther Beijing Normal University to see girls.

"Seeing Lu Kuan, how are you so familiar with the Beijing Film Academy?"

Ning Hao temporarily put aside his original intention of finding him to discuss the script and first satisfied his curiosity.

"Oh, I'm more interested in the beauties of your Beijing Film Academy acting department, so I often come to bum meals."

The flat-headed guy looked at him fiercely eating sheep cartilage somewhat speechlessly; if he dawdled any longer, it would be eaten up, so he rolled up his sleeves and started working.

After tea and a full meal, Seeing Lu Kuan patted his belly with satisfaction.

During the Spring Festival, restaurants outside were not open, and his cooking skills from his early years had been lost completely; this half a month could be considered a loss to his five internal organs.

"Little Ning, speak if you have something to say."

Boss Lu had a very good awareness of "eating people's mouth is short," and decided to promote this "junior" who was still hovering between art films and commercial films.

Ning Hao was stunned, looking at his slightly young face but unusually mature temperament, and couldn't think of refuting his address for a while.

"That, I have a script, I want to discuss it with you..."

"Oh, let's go!"

Ning Hao's brain circuit couldn't keep up with his rhythm; didn't you even ask?

The two came to the improved housing that Ning Hao and his wife moved out of the basement: Jimenli residential area.

Portrait photography became popular after the millennium, and Ning Hao's sideline also upgraded from setting up a stall to draw pictures to personal photography and videography. Since taking that set of personal portraits for Liu Laowu of the Tang Dynasty Band that was famous in the industry, the rumor that there was a young man in the Beijing Film Academy with great photography skills named Ning Hao spread throughout the industry.

So there were MV orders from Jinhaixin, Tu Honggang, and even Pu Shu that came one after another, and Ning Hao and his girlfriend Xing Aina, whom he met through drawing, also took the opportunity to improve their lives and moved near the Beijing Film Academy to facilitate school and part-time work in photography and editing.

Under the introduction of her boyfriend, Xing Aina greeted Seeing Lu Kuan and went to the kitchen to boil water and make tea very virtuously.

"The house is relatively simple, don't mind."

"It's pretty good! Who doesn't know how to live a life with money? You can't see the affection; you have to have this kind of bitter life to cultivate feelings!"

Boss Lu hadn't done Ning Hao's public relations business in his past life, but the couple should be relatively harmonious.

Ning Hao didn't dawdle either, dug out a script from the waste manuscripts piled high, and the cover was written with *The Big Diamond*.

"I'll take a look first."

Seeing Lu Kuan had no awareness of modesty and leaned on the sofa to flip through the script.

Xing Aina put down the teacup, gently poked her boyfriend, and whispered: "Who is this? Is he reliable to bring home?"

Don't say that women have a kind of natural intuition; she saw at a glance that Boss Lu was not a good bird.

And when other women realized this, they probably had already paid a considerable price, such as the sad Sister Jiang.

"The script is too bad, it must be modified greatly!"

Xing Aina was a bit indignant; this script also had her intellectual achievements, how could it be easily denied.

Ning Hao opened his mouth with a heavy face: "What's the plan?"

He didn't feel too much; others even scolded Zhang Yimou's script, so what kind of onion was he.

"Little Ning, have you seen a proper Hollywood script?"

The excellent master's student of the directing department of the University of Southern California decided to give a lesson to the advertising director who became a monk halfway.

The two shook their heads together, and Seeing Lu Kuan spread out the script.

Sharpening the knife does not delay the woodcutter; only by teaching the tool-man can he work for himself better.

"Hollywood film companies and large studios usually set up a very important position called a script analyst."

"Take your script for example; if I were a script analyst and received your manuscript, the first thing I would look at is your introduction and summary, probably just two or three sentences, and then a plot outline of no more than two pages."

Does it feel very familiar? It's the same process as the editors of Qidian reading and passing manuscripts, and book friends choosing books: look at the tags, look at the introduction, look at the golden three chapters.

In short, book friends = Hollywood script analysts.

Seeing Lu Kuan said these things to guide him to improve in the direction of commercial scripts, and then said: "I know a Hollywood script analyst; usually in the Hollywood film industrialization process, they will use a series of quantitative standards to evaluate the script."

Saying that, he picked up Ning Hao's script and opened the part he just marked: "For example, your *The Big Diamond*, if the male and female lead's scenes don't exceed 75 scenes, it is often rejected directly; this is to ensure the scenes of big-name stars, thereby ensuring the box office."

"For another example, the dramatic events in your script, such as the cola can that appears at the beginning, Baoge mistakenly sending real jade to his wife, etc., this kind of event generally needs to reach at least 50 scenes in a script; this is to avoid the movie being too much of a running account and unable to grab the audience's eyeballs."

Is it familiar again? In short, dramatic events and male and female lead scenes = cool points; if the cool points are not enough, delete the book and take it off the shelves.

"We are now back to *The Big Diamond*; according to the Hollywood classic three-act structure, generally, dramatic topics or suspense must be created within ten minutes, and a story or branch must be created before thirty-five minutes."

"Calculated by a standard 120-minute movie, it is to design the plot and scenes according to a structure of about 3:6:3; look at your script now, it's typically heavy at the head and light at the tail, and it's missing material in the middle; there is too much and too dense foreshadowing in the front, and there is no dramatic tension when the suspense is revealed in the middle."

Ning Hao listened intently; the problem that he couldn't find even after pulling out his hair was dismantled by Seeing Lu Kuan like a butcher dismembering a cow, and he shouted in his heart that his script was saved.

"Now like this, we take the plot point as the benchmark, and fill in the standard of 75 scenes and 50 dramatic times just mentioned; of course, yours is a group portrait play, there is no specific protagonist, then these two numbers should be increased as appropriate."

Ning Hao nodded repeatedly; although he didn't understand Hollywood, he was not unfamiliar with basic screenwriting knowledge like plot points.

In short, a plot point is a landmark event, fact, plot, etc., of each scene's turning point; it will lead the audience to develop to the next plot branch, and then connect the whole play together.

It's similar to the protagonist in a Xianxia novel clearing a map, suddenly receiving a sound transmission, the mountain gate is in danger, return quickly, and then entering the next chapter map or plot, that's about it.

"In addition, you should also change this name."

What big diamond, everyone who mixes in Qidian knows that the fewer words in a novice book title, the more it will flop.

"What should it be called?"

Boss Lu pondered for a moment: "*Crazy Stone*!"

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 39 =====