1990: Starting from Baojia Street

Early the next morning, Joey Wong came to work. Today she was going to watch the audition video with Zhou Yan.

As soon as she saw Zhou Yan, Joey Wong said with a smile, "Xiao Rong cried so much that her pillow was wet last night."

"I didn't expect that she could finish watching "To Live" last night."

Wang Zuxian curled her lips and said, "You underestimate me. Besides, this book is so good and easy to read."

"If Yu Hua knew she was crying, he would definitely laugh again."

"Is it a writer's bad taste to be happy when seeing readers suffer?"

Zhou Yan shrugged, "At least I don't have such bad taste."

In fact, most authors would not have such a bad taste. Some people say that Yu Hua is happy when he sees readers suffer, and that when he was writing "To Live", his mind was full of thoughts on how to make readers suffer. These are all jokes.

If a book makes readers feel uncomfortable, then the author must have had a hard time writing it.

Even though Yu Hua seemed to be laughing and happy every day, no one saw him secretly dropping the little pearls.

……

When watching the audition video, a lot of people gathered in the conference room.

All the members of the director team were present, and the makeup team, camera team, and costume team were also present.

However, although there are many people watching, Zhou Yan does not adopt the democratic election method. He will not ask for their opinions on who to vote for and who not to vote for. At most, he will discuss it with a few people from the director team.

There are a lot of videos, but I don’t watch every one of them, and it’s even more impossible to watch every one of them.

When encountering some non-controversial videos, Zhou Yan simply asked them to skip them.

After looking around, Zhou Yan's thoughts were basically the same as yesterday, with no change.

Li Xiaoran's performance in front of the camera is also good. She is afraid that she will appear 20 pounds fatter in front of the camera, but in fact, she still looks very thin in front of the camera.

If you want to be more in line with the role, you have to gain some weight.

After watching all the videos in the morning, Zhao Xiaoke from the costume team came over with a notebook, "Director Zhou, have the roles been decided? Can you give us a list? Sister Miaomiao specifically asked me to get the actors' size data as soon as possible."

The costume team pays great attention to the casting. Although the costume design has been basically finalized, each piece of clothing still needs to be worn by each actor, so the actor's size is needed.

Before filming begins, they need to alter the clothes according to the actors' sizes.

Because the two main characters had already been decided, the clothes had also been made long ago, so there was no need to worry about it anymore. Now their costume team was mainly concerned with the clothes for the supporting characters.

Zhou Yan nodded and said, "I will gather the actors at the studio the day after tomorrow, and your group can just come over for the measurement then."

"Okay, I'll go back and tell Sister Miaomiao that Qizi has a lot of work to do recently and Sister Miaomiao is also very busy, so she doesn't have time to come over."

Dong Wenmiao now mainly cooperates with Qizi Company and rarely takes on clothing design work. If it weren’t for Zhou Yan, she would not have agreed.

"It's okay, it doesn't matter if you come. There's one more thing, for the role of Qin Yu, the actress is quite thin now, so I plan to let her gain five to ten kilograms before filming starts, so the data before and after will definitely be different."

Zhao Xiaoke smiled and said, "That's okay. We can measure her size first and leave some space. When the shooting starts, if it doesn't fit, we can make minor adjustments. It won't take much time. And I remember that Qin Yu doesn't have many clothes."

"That's quite a lot. There are seven sets."

"Although there are seven sets, they include a swimsuit and two pajamas, so the workload shouldn't be too much. I'll go back and look at the design again to confirm."

"That's hard work."

In fact, the costumes don’t have to be so form-fitting, especially for the character of Qin Yu, who wants to highlight her sexiness, so it’s okay if the clothes are a little smaller.

Besides, Zhou Yan only asked Li Xiaoran to gain five to ten kilograms, not twenty or thirty kilograms. According to Li Xiaoran's height, a weight difference of five to ten kilograms will not make a big difference in clothing size.

After Zhao Xiaoke left, Hong Xin also came over with a smile, "Our leading actor and leading actress, do you want to give us some time to get our makeup done?"

"Let's do the makeup together with the other actors. You're more familiar with our faces anyway."

When filming "The Sixth Sense" before, the makeup was done by Hong Xin and others, so they are quite familiar with Joey Wong's face.

As for Zhou Yan, there is no need to say more. At the beginning, when Zhou Yan was filming "Raise the Red Lantern", Hong Xin and others had already fiddled with his face.

"Of course I'm familiar with your faces." Hong Xin looked at them with a smile, "But this time is different. I can't make you look too good this time."

In this movie, Joey Wong's early makeup was very ordinary, so Hong Xin and her makeup team needed to give Joey Wong an ordinary-looking makeup.

This kind of makeup is the most difficult to do. First of all, Joey Wong is not ordinary-looking. Secondly, they can't really make her look ordinary. The effect Zhou Yan wants is that she looks ordinary at first glance, but very beautiful when you look closely.

The male lead is similar, but the only changes you can make to him are his hairstyle and clothing.

"Let's wait until Zhao Fei officially joins the team in a couple of days before we discuss this."

Makeup is the same as audition, it cannot be done solely by feeling and eyes, it needs to be presented through the camera, so the lighting team, camera team, and makeup team need to work together to complete it.

Of course, Hong Xin also knew that she came here just to remind Zhou Yan to prevent things from being dragged on.

Although the director team can always take care of everything, they still need to remind the team of the things they should remind.

……

After chatting with Hong Xin about makeup for a while, Zhou Yan pulled Li Hong over and asked, "What's the situation with Liu Qing and the others now?"

Before the audition began, Liu Qing took some people from the set design and logistics department to the filming location in Pengcheng.

Although the protagonist’s home is set in Pengcheng, there are actually very few locations for filming in Pengcheng for this movie, so basically only one house is needed.

The house they used this time was provided by Zhou Yan's second brother Zhou Hong.

After the reform and opening up, the original residents of Jiaochangwei Village in Pengcheng moved away one after another, and a large number of houses were left vacant. Zhou Hong planned to plan a tourist area there.

Zhou Yan didn't know about this at first. It was only when his second brother heard that he was going to shoot a movie in Pengcheng and was looking for a location that he told him about it.

Zhou Yan was also quite surprised to hear that their family was cooperating with the government to develop Jiaochangwei. He only knew that their family's business was doing well, but he didn't expect it to have come to this point.

The renovation of such a large area requires a lot of funds.

Now there are vacant houses in Jiaochangwei for Zhou Yan and his crew to choose from, and Zhou Yan also picked the one with the best scenery and the largest area.

This time, Liu Qing and his team went there to renovate the house in advance.

Another advantage of filming at Jiaochangwei is that there are enough houses. When the crew goes there, they don't have to worry about accommodation. With so many vacant houses, the crew won't be able to accommodate them all.

"Brother Liu and his family have settled down, and they are also starting to decorate the rooms."

"Is life convenient over there?" Zhou Yan asked again.

"Although many people have left the village, it is still relatively convenient as it is not small. Brother Liu said that it is definitely more convenient than Qiao's Courtyard. If there is nothing to eat, we can go to the sea to catch seafood."

When Zhou Yan heard the word seafood, he frowned. He recalled the mass poisoning incident of the crew at Dartmouth.

Although he was not hit, the incident left a deep impression on him, especially the scene of dozens of people dancing wildly on the deck, which he still remembers vividly.

Moreover, the wound on his arm from Christie's pen had not healed yet, and he could still feel the pain if he moved a little. Thinking of this, Zhou Yan couldn't help but instruct, "Tell Qinggen to pay attention to food safety at the scene. They need to know clearly what can be eaten and what cannot be eaten. The ingredients must be kept hygienic, and not just anyone can enter the kitchen."

Li Hong had heard about what happened to Zhou Yan at Dartmouth, so he also knew why Zhou Yan cared so much about this.

Li Hong nodded seriously and said, "I will remind Brother Liu and ask him to pay attention."

Zhou Yan also nodded. Although it was highly unlikely that poisoning would occur in their crew, it was always better to be safe than sorry. It was always better to be more careful.

"Also, ask them to take care of the accommodation for the rest of the crew. We'll be there soon, so don't wait until they're there before you start scrambling."

"Don't worry about this. Brother Liu is reliable. He told me about this when we called yesterday. The logistics team has already reserved the accommodation rooms. We can just allocate the rooms after the list of personnel is released."

After hearing what Li Hong said, Zhou Yan didn't say anything else. It was impossible for him to take care of every detail of the crew's affairs. For some things, just asking and getting a general idea would be enough.

As for the specific matters, he still believed that Li Hong and his team could carry out them well.

After such a long period of cooperation, they never let him down.

……

Li Xiaoran was playing "Contra III" at home when the phone in the house rang.

She was at a critical moment and was reluctant to pause, so she simply stretched out her long legs and tapped the hands-free button with her big toe.

"Hey."

Zhao Baogang's voice came from the other end of the phone, "Xiao Ran, are you playing games again?"

Li Xiaoran did not give a direct answer, but just asked, "What's wrong, Director Zhao?"

She didn't answer directly, but Zhao Baogang knew she was playing games and was used to it. "I passed the audition for "Time Traveler". I'm going to sign the contract tomorrow. Director Zhou said that you need to gain five to ten pounds before filming starts."

"Isn't this a small matter?" Li Xiaoran was full of confidence in gaining weight.

She is not a person who cannot gain weight. As long as she eats a little more, she will gain weight. Losing weight is not easy, but isn't it also easy to gain weight?
Zhao Baogang smiled and said, "I'm not worried about you gaining weight, but I want to remind you not to gain too much. I asked you to gain 5 to 10 kilograms, so stay within this range and don't exceed it. Let's not talk about whether Director Zhou can still use you if you gain too much weight, and you can't let this play affect your future development."

"Director Zhao, rest assured, I won't do anything rash."

Zhao Baogang wanted to give a few more instructions, but in the end he said nothing more.

Li Xiaoran is a girl with great talent, but she has no ambition and is haphazard in everything she does.

She has been dancing since she was a child. After graduation, she joined the Oriental Song and Dance Troupe and her career was doing well. As long as she stayed in the troupe with peace of mind, with her conditions, she would definitely get better and better. However, she felt that dancing was too tiring and resigned directly.

She is not very busy filming now. Other actors try their best to play the leading role, but she thinks it is good to play the supporting role, as there is less work but the pay is quite high.

In addition to "Time Traveler", Li Xiaoran also took on another drama, which is a costume drama invested by Taiwan. The role is very small, but the pay is quite good.

Li Xiaoran was very happy to receive such a role.

The situation is similar in "Time Traveler". Qin Yu's role doesn't have many scenes, but his pay is tens of thousands of yuan.

Sometimes Zhao Baogang felt that it was a waste to give Li Xiaoran such a talent.

For an actress, the period before the age of 30 is very important, and given Li Xiaoran's laziness, I'm afraid she won't be able to film many movies before the age of 30.

Moreover, no matter how talented she is, if she is not willing to work hard, she will not be able to achieve great acting skills.

Originally, Zhao Baogang wanted to say that Li Xiaoran could study hard after joining the crew of "Time Travelers", but he didn't say it because he felt that it would be useless to say it.

However, he heard that Zhou Yan had very strict requirements for actors, and maybe he could help educate Li Xiaoran.

Although Li Xiaoran has few roles in the movie, she joined the crew very early and Zhou Yan had a lot of time to take care of her.

After Li Xiaoran hung up the phone, she focused her attention on the game again.

She knew that she would be joining a group in a few days, so she wanted to take advantage of the free time in these few days to play games.

She originally wanted to ask Zhao Baogang if the crew had the conditions to allow them to bring game consoles over, but in the end she didn't have the nerve to do so.

……

After the casting was finalized, other things also entered the fast lane.

After mid-September, crew members began to rush to Pengcheng one after another.

Zhou Yan and Joey Wong stayed in Yanjing for a few more days until September 26th when they finally rushed over.

Originally they were planning to go directly to Jiaochangwei, but Zhou Hong waited until they arrived and insisted on picking them up.

Zhou Hong always makes a big show wherever he goes, and this time when he came to pick up Zhou Yan and the others was no exception. He drove a Rolls-Royce Silver Thor to the airport to pick up Zhou Yan and the others.

After getting in the car, Zhou Yan patted the seat and said, "This car is great."

Hearing Zhou Yan's praise for the car, Zhou Hong smiled and said, "If you like it, this car is for you. It just so happens that you are in Pengcheng during this period and need a car to get around."

Zhou Yan waved his hands repeatedly, "Forget it, it's too conspicuous for me to drive this car."

In fact, Zhou Yan used to think that his second brother was already quite high-profile in Jinling. There were several luxury cars parked at home, including two Mercedes-Benz.

Only when I arrived in Pengcheng did I realize that Zhou Hong had been very low-key in Jinling.

This Silver Thor is estimated to cost more than 10 million yuan, enough to buy several Mercedes-Benz cars.

Zhou Hong said unconcernedly, "It's not like you can't afford this car."

Hearing this, Zhou Yan couldn't help but curl his lips. He could indeed afford this car, and he could afford more than one.

But he wouldn't spend so much money on a car.

The money from this car was almost enough for him to make a movie of "The Sixth Sense".

The key point is that cars are different from houses. Houses can appreciate in value, or at least maintain their value, but this kind of top luxury car basically has no value retention and the annual maintenance costs are huge.

Of course, Zhou Yan could also understand his second brother buying a luxury car.

Buddha relies on gold ornaments, people rely on clothes, and luxury cars are like a shining business card that can save people a lot of trouble.

Going to discuss business in a Silver Clutch means you have already won in terms of momentum.

"I won't buy it even if I can afford it. With this money, I can make more movies."

"Are you still short of money for making a movie now? Compared to money, I think what you lack more is time." Zhou Hong said with a smile.

I have to say, what Zhou Hong said is absolutely right.

Zhou Yan has no shortage of investment for making movies now. With a budget of 30 million for a movie, he can make up the budget even if he makes ten movies a year, let alone one.

But Zhou Yan simply doesn't have that much time. It's already not easy for him to make a movie every two years. (End of this chapter)