director of the millennium

After returning to the capital, Wu Yuan was greeted by an empty house.

Liu Yifei did not wait for him at home, but went to the northwest to film with the crew.

The film was in preparation last year, and after several months of closed training, when "The Monkey King" was completed, Zhang Yimou's new film "Cai Wenji" also started shooting at the Yinchuan Film and Television Base.

Faced with an empty home, Wu Yuan, who had just been married for less than a year, was somewhat uncomfortable. This made him devote more of his attention to work after returning to Beijing. He stayed in the company's post-production center almost every day and only returned home for a short stay at night to sleep.

Of course, in this case, daily video chats with Liu Yifei are also necessary. During the video chats, she will also share the shooting situation with Wu Yuan.

The reason why "The Monkey King" started filming in the northwest of the motherland was mainly because there was a scene in the script where Cai Wenji was abducted by the Huns and needed to be filmed. In addition, movies with a Han Dynasty background are basically shot in several film and television cities in the western part of the motherland, where there are also complete film and television buildings from the Qin and Han dynasties available for filming.

After more than a decade of development, Chinese-language films have basically formed a mature filming system.

Modern dramas are mostly filmed in Shanghai, Beijing, Hangzhou and Xiamen.

Most of the dramas with Qin and Han Dynasty backgrounds were filmed at film and television bases in Shaanxi and Gansu.

The Tang Dynasty dramas were filmed in the Tang City built by Chen Kaige and the Xi'an Film and Television Base.

Dramas from the Ming and Qing dynasties and the Republic of China were mostly filmed in Hengdian, while fictional fantasy and fairy-tale dramas were filmed in Xiangshan. Others like The Return of the Condor Heroes and Tianlong Film and Television City were used as supplementary films.

In this way, a film and television shooting system covering all parts of the motherland has been formed.

Of course, this is not absolute. At least Hengdian and Xiangshan are quite versatile. If you really want to be convenient, any drama with any background or era can be filmed in these two places.

These two places are also the film and television bases with the largest number of extras in the country and receive the most crews every year.

People in the circle often joke that if you haven't filmed a movie in Hengdian and Xiangshan, you'd be embarrassed to call yourself an actor.

But it is also interesting that these two places are well-known throughout the country and even laymen who have little contact with the film and television industry are familiar with them, but Wu Yuan, a professional director, has never filmed any film or television drama here.

From his debut to now, he has never filmed in Hengdian or Xiangshan, which is extremely rare in the circle.

Even Zhang Yimou filmed "Hero" and "All About Gold" in Hengdian.

The few times Wu Yuan went to Hengdian were either to visit the set or to record the variety show "Actors Please Take Your Place". He himself had never filmed a movie there.

The places where he filmed most of his films were mainly the Huairou Film and Television Base in Beijing and the mountain city of Chongqing, which is very similar to Jia Zhangke's preference.

The movie "Cai Wenji" will also be filmed in Hengdian. At the end of August, the crew of "Cai Wenji" moved from the northwest to Hengdian to start shooting the second half.

Wu Yuan, who was very quiet, thought that he had hardly ever been to Hengdian, so he became interested and came to Hengdian with his assistant to visit Liu Yifei on the set.

On the third day after the crew of "Cai Wenji" moved to Hengdian, Wu Yuan arrived at the crew's filming location in Hengdian with several cold drink trucks.

He didn't even say hello in advance, it was a surprise attack. When he arrived at the scene, everyone from director Zhang Yimou to his wife Liu Yifei to other actors and staff of the crew were very surprised.

"Hahaha, surprise!"

Wu Yuan smiled and hugged Liu Yifei who was jogging over. He also greeted Zhang Yimou who was looking at him with a smile and said, "Director Zhang, you have worked hard. It must not be easy to shoot a costume drama like this in the hot summer."

Yes, just a hug, he could clearly feel the heat from Liu Yifei's body, and he probably even the lining she was wearing was wet.

In fact, the clothes worn by real ancient people in summer were not very hot, especially the nobles and high-ranking officials. Their summer clothes were breathable and cool. Silk was as thin as a cicada's wing and much more breathable than industrial materials such as polyester worn by modern people.

But the crew couldn't get such clothes. After all, the costumes in the movie naturally had to sacrifice a lot for the visual effects, and they didn't take into account the impact of the season.

"It must be too hot. I brought a lot of cold drinks. Let's take a break and drink some to cool down." Wu Yuan took the initiative to hand Liu Yifei a glass of low-sugar lemonade. After watching her drink it in small sips, he turned his attention to the other crew members.

This "Cai Wenji" is a biographical film. Naturally, the heroine is the absolute protagonist, and the other characters all revolve around Cai Wenji's life.

Of course, a person's life, especially a historical figure, is full of ups and downs. Even a biographical film cannot record her life from birth to death. It is usually filmed around a few important events in her life.

For Cai Wenji, the important moments in her life were of course her carefree youth, the bullying by the Southern Xiongnu in her youth, and the ups and downs after being redeemed in her middle age.

So in the movie, there are three characters who have a profound impact on her. One is her father Cai Yong, one is the Zuo Xian King of the Southern Xiongnu, and the other is Cao Cao who redeemed her.

In Hengdian, the main focus was on filming the story after the redemption, so on the set, Wu Yuan only saw the male lead Yu Hewei who played Cao Cao.

Yes, it’s the actor who once played Liu Bei and played the essence of Cao Cao in “The Advisors Alliance”.

"The Advisors Alliance" was a hit TV series last year. The series is divided into two parts. The first part was broadcast on June 2017, 6, and the second part, "Tiger Roar and Dragon Roar", was broadcast on December 22, 2017.

What’s interesting is that the first part of this drama was broadcast simultaneously on the Internet and TV stations, but the second part was only broadcast on the Internet. The specific reason is mainly because new regulations on TV dramas have been introduced in the past two years, requiring the number of episodes of TV dramas to be controlled at 30-40 episodes and requiring streamlined content.

Therefore, such long TV series have to be shortened into two parts, and can only be broadcast online, and the higher-ups will turn a blind eye to it.

However, this did not affect the popularity of the movie, and it even won the Outstanding TV Series Award at the Feitian Awards at the beginning of the year.

This drama has also become the most outstanding ancient costume political drama in recent years. It is much more realistic than idol dramas disguised as political dramas such as "Nirvana in Fire".

The "uncle alliance" of Yu Hewei, Wu Xiubo and Li Chen also became popular again because of this drama and became the new top stars.

Among them, Zhang Yimou is very optimistic about the actor Yu Hewei and admires him very much, so after "The Advisors Alliance" became a hit last year, he invited Yu Hewei to play the role of Cao Cao again.

Faced with the invitation from the national master, it was naturally impossible for Yu Hewei to refuse.

Wu Yuan also admired this actor and took the initiative to greet him: "Teacher Yu Hewei, it's our first meeting. I have known you for a long time. I hope we can have a chance to work together in the future!" (End of this chapter)