1990: Starting from Baojia Street

Chapter 26 Major and Minor Keys

There were many people coming to dinner today. In addition to Ni Zhen and Su Tong, there were many more people from the crew, all coming for the opening ceremony tomorrow.

Many of the new arrivals had Taiwanese accents. Zhou Yan also saw the film's investor Qiu Fusheng, but he only glanced at him from a distance and did not say hello.

That night Ni Zhen stayed in the dormitory to sleep, while Su Tong and Qiu Fusheng went to stay in a hotel in the county.

Ni Zhen is a very talkative person. At night, he leans on the bed and talks to Zhou Yan while smoking a cigarette.

He Wuming has been sitting by his bed... He never sits on the bed except for sleeping. When Zhou Yan and the others chatted, he would read quietly.

Halfway through the conversation, Ni Zhen took the initiative to talk to He Wuming, "Xiao He, you Peking Opera actors still have a hard time. You have to practice basic skills since childhood. After you learn it, you have to practice and maintain it every day without slacking off."

He Wuming just nodded, "Yeah, not bad."

Seeing He Wuming being so cold, Ni Zhen found it boring, so he stopped talking to He Wuming.Ni Zhen has a good temper. He can get angry when he meets some seniors and feels that they are losing face.

Zhou Yan watched from the side and thought to himself that He Wuming really treated everyone equally. He was always so cold and indifferent to people he didn't know well, even if the other person was Ni Zhen.

However, after more contact, you can find that He Wuming is not that cold after all.Of course, just like He Wuming, it would be difficult for ordinary people to have much contact with him unless he was in a certain environment.

If Zhou Yan hadn't lived in the same house with him, he wouldn't have taken the initiative to talk to him. Even if they lived in the same house, the two of them rarely talked at first.

Although Ni Zhen was talkative, he had a hard time on the way here today. After talking until eight or nine o'clock, he couldn't bear to fall asleep.

He fell asleep, but Zhou Yan and He Wuming suffered a lot because he snored while sleeping, and his voice was quite special.

When ordinary people snore, even if the sound is a little higher in decibels, most of them are relatively stable. The sound waves are periodic wave types, but Ni Zhen's shouts are random up and down, irregular, non-periodic, or The cycle is too long, Zhou Yan and the others haven’t listened to the entire round yet.

If Ni Zhen's voice is compared to a symphony, then it is in a major key and a minor key at another time, and the melody direction is very strange.For most of the night, Zhou Yan was repeatedly tortured by switching back and forth between the major key and the minor key. This was the first time that Zhou Yan felt the pain of inheriting the original music memory. When he heard Ni Zhen's call, he was looking for the music. high.

……

The next morning, Ni Zhen got up after a full sleep and stretched out comfortably. "I didn't expect that I slept well last night. Sure enough, the weather was cooler, so I slept well."

Zhou Yan rubbed his eyes. His eyelids were a little heavy because he didn't sleep well. Ni Zhen, who played the symphony all night last night, was not tired, but he, the unlucky audience, was exhausted.

But when he saw He Wuming with dull eyes, Zhou Yan had a smile on his face. Well, someone can treat this guy. The only drawback is that they also treated him.

The power-on ceremony starts at [-] a.m. This time is said to be chosen by investor Qiu Fusheng, which means it is perfect.

The location of the ceremony was at the entrance of Qiao's courtyard. Early in the morning, Liu Qing and the others hung a banner on the door, which read: "Raise the Red Lantern" and have a good start.

Under the banner, an incense offering stand was set up.

The incense table is quite simple. Two one-meter-long ordinary folding tables are put together and covered with a large piece of red cloth. There are several plates of seasonal fruits on them, and a small incense burner is placed in the middle.There are two cameras on both sides of the incense-offering platform, both covered with red cloth. After the ceremony begins, the director will remove the red cloth. This is what is called turning on the camera.

When Zhou Yan, Ni Zhen and others walked out of the compound, they saw several people who looked like reporters taking pictures with cameras.

Because "Raise the Red Lantern" is a cross-strait co-production, and with the title of "the first time internationally renowned directors from both sides of the Taiwan Strait work together," it is very topical, so the film naturally attracted a lot of media attention when it was released.

Today, not only some local media came to Qiaojiabao, but also reporters from CCTV and some major newspapers.

Zhou Yan roughly counted, there were fourteen or five people with cameras alone, and some without equipment, but with work IDs hanging around their necks, the total number of them must be twenty or thirty.

At ten o'clock, the opening ceremony officially began. Zhang Yimou walked to the incense offering platform and spoke. He briefly talked about the process of the ceremony, introduced the important guests attending the ceremony today, and finally talked about why there was this movie and his feelings about it. The idea for this story.

After Zhang Yimou finished speaking, he invited Qiu Fusheng and Hou Xiaoxian over, and the three of them lifted the red cloth cover of the camera together.

Afterwards, Qiu Fusheng, Hou Xiaoxian, Su Tong and Ni Zhen all spoke. Originally, Zhang Yimou and the others had arranged for Zhao Jiping to speak. After all, Zhao Jiping had a relatively high status.

However, Zhao Jiping was too busy during this period and couldn't get away at all.

Except for a few of them, the other staff and actors did not speak.

When some movies start filming, some big names in the industry will be invited to help out, but today there were only the cast and crew of "Raise the Red Lantern" on site.

When the speech session was over, starting with Zhang Yimou, the main creative staff of the crew walked to the incense-burning stage to offer incense.

Although Chen Feipu, played by Zhou Yan, does not have many roles, he is still an important role, so he was also arranged to come forward to offer incense.

It was his first time to participate in the opening ceremony. He didn't understand anything and was afraid of making a joke, so he asked Liu Qing in advance what he should do when offering incense and whether he should keep talking about it.

Liu Qing told Zhou Yan that there is nothing special about offering incense. Just go up and light three incense sticks and insert them into the incense burner. Whether you worship or not, and whether you recite the words or not depends on the individual.

To put it bluntly, turning on the camera is just a formality, and not many people really expect this to make shooting smooth.

Moreover, mainland directors are different from Hong Kong and Taiwan in this regard. Most mainland directors still do not go out of their way to perform opening ceremonies when filming.

If this were in Xiangjiang, it would be impossible. They attach great importance to this kind of ceremony, and the steps are more complicated. For example, pig heads are cut in Xiangjiang, but not in the mainland.

Different people have different attitudes toward rituals. People like Liu Qing believe that this thing is to create a sense of ritual for themselves, telling themselves that they have to do things seriously, and they just go through the formality.

There are also some people who are really superstitious. These people are very religious when offering incense and worshiping gods. They are afraid that because of their insincerity, they will encounter problems during filming.

Of course, most people are like Zhou Yan and just follow the crowd.

(End of this chapter)