A widower's entertainment

Chapter 456 [My Daughter's Art Exam] (Please Subscribe)
Beijing, Yenching Film Academy.

Lin Zhaomei took the entrance exam for the directing department of Yenching Film Academy in her second year of high school, which wasn't anything special. After all, actor Duan Long also applied to Yenching Drama Academy for three consecutive years in his second year of high school.

He failed the exam twice, but he didn't give up. He kept trying and eventually passed.

Lin Zhaomei is currently taking the entrance exam for the directing department in her second year of high school. She's thinking of giving it a try, since she's confident in her academic scores if she can pass the professional exam. Even if she doesn't pass, she believes she can try again next year.

Of course, Lin Zhaomei was quite confident about the exam, after all, she had been preparing for it all along.

The entrance exams for the Directing Department at Yenching Film Academy are becoming more standardized. The Directing Department also has three rounds of testing. Unlike the Acting Department, which focuses on voice, acting, physical expression, and performance, the Directing Department tests a wider range of subjects. The questions in the first round are quite varied and cover a wide range of topics, including literature, history, politics, fine arts, and other fields. It tests a broad range of knowledge.

Lin Zhaomei answered the questions fairly smoothly, especially since she even saw a question related to her father in the written test.

"Question 39: In the novel *Atonement*, what is the first textual structure? The four options are *The Tribulations*, *The Reunion*, *Atonement*, and *The War*."

Undoubtedly, this question is quite simple, but if you haven't read the novel "Atonement," you naturally wouldn't know that the first textual structure of the novel's opening is the play script "The Tribulations."

Lin Zhaomei had naturally also read her father's novel, "Atonement".

Besides literature-related questions, there are also art-related questions, such as which work does not belong to Picasso, the master of collage and Cubism? The four options are "Guernica", "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon", "The Weeping Woman", and "Sunflowers".

Lin Zhaomei also understands that film directors need to have some understanding of art direction. After all, it is just like the composition of photography. It requires a certain level of art design, including color, composition, and the contrast between foreground and background. These are all ways to make the picture look better. In fact, it can be said that a truly good director is one who has a certain level of art direction skills and artistic aesthetics.

Teacher Tian Zhuangzhuang had mentioned this to her before, and she also regularly looked up information on this topic and knew very well that "Sunflowers" was a work by Van Gogh.

Besides literature and art, current affairs and politics, there are also very professional questions, such as how many feet a panoramic lens should be under normal circumstances, with four options: 14 feet, 13 feet, 15 feet, and 16 feet.

Actually, this question is quite difficult to some extent. Of course, it won't stump everyone who is applying to the directing department. For example, Lin Zhaomei knows why she asked how many feet a panoramic lens is. This is because cameras and film are not cheap, and now it is necessary to convert the lens length into feet. Professional film crews will convert the lens length into feet.

This is because the director needs to know the approximate length of a shot during filming to determine the overall length of the movie. Otherwise, the movie might not be long enough and reshoots would be necessary. Another reason, which Lin Zhaomei witnessed on set, is that the script supervisor also calculates and knows how many feet of film are needed for subsequent shots and whether there is enough film in the camera. If not, a shorter shot can be filmed first.

Lin Zhaomei was also very clear about this. For example, 35mm film is 1.5 feet per second, and a wide shot is about 15 feet.

This is largely because Lin Zhaomei knew about it and used cameras regularly. If she hadn't been exposed to these things in Decheng before, she naturally wouldn't have known what the answer would be.

Actually, these questions weren't particularly difficult, but they covered a wide range of knowledge. Lin Zhaomei didn't know the answers to some of them and just guessed.

After completing the entire set of questions, Lin Zhaomei felt that she should have no problems.

Lin Youcheng originally planned to drive Lin Zhaomei to the exam, but Lin Zhaomei declined, not wanting to be too high-profile. However, it was clear that she was unaware of his background, so even if she wanted to keep a low profile, she couldn't.

Because Tian Zhuangzhuang and Li Shaohong both knew that Lin Zhaomei was going to apply for the directing department of Yanjing Film Academy, it was obvious that the film academy also knew about this. Some teachers noticed Lin Zhaomei in the examination room. When the results of the first test came out, Lin Zhaomei passed smoothly, and her name would naturally be known by more teachers in the school.

Zheng Dongtian, the current head of the directing department at the film academy, said with a smile, "It looks like Lin Youcheng's daughter, Lin Zhaomei, is really going to apply to our directing department!"

"Yes, I heard they're planning to apply here."

Another teacher from the directing department nodded and said with a smile.

This is essentially the long-standing rivalry between the Yenching Film Academy and the Yenching Drama Academy. There's a saying that the drama academy produces actors while the film academy produces stars, but there's also a subtle undercurrent of disparaging the film academy. However, both the film academy and the drama academy, as renowned art institutions in China, have produced many well-known performers, including directors. Neither can claim absolute dominance; there's simply ongoing competition.

This is similar to the case of Xia Yu, the newly crowned Venice Film Festival Best Actor, who plans to apply to the Peking University Drama Academy's acting department instead of the Beijing Film Academy's acting department, which naturally leads to some competition.

Lin Youcheng's daughter, a screenwriter who is quite well-known both domestically and internationally, has applied to the directing department of the film academy, which naturally makes all the teachers in the directing department very happy, especially after seeing that Lin Zhaomei's preliminary test results are very good, which makes them even more hopeful.

Lin Zhaomei was very happy to pass the preliminary test. The next step was the second test, which tested film analysis. This involved watching a movie in the film academy's screening room and then writing a film analysis in the examination room. Lin Zhaomei already knew this, not only because her father, Lin Youcheng, had told her, but also because Zheng Xiaolong and Tian Zhuangzhuang had told her that film analysis was very important for directing students.

After all, the directing department has a dedicated film analysis course. Film analysis is not just a simple film review. A film review might just be expressing some opinions, insights, and feelings about a movie, but a truly professional film analysis involves analyzing the film's theme, structure, characters, shot composition, camera angles, lighting, editing, and sound effects—all of which are professional directorial terms.

This is actually a common practice among directing students: film analysis. Only by analyzing excellent films repeatedly can they understand the methods of shooting and editing, thus better absorbing and learning them, and eventually developing their own shooting style in their own filming process.

The movie being shown now, "Raise the Red Lantern," is unrelated to her father, Lin Youcheng, but Lin Zhaomei had seen it before.

This is similar to when Tian Zhuangzhuang took the entrance exam for the directing department of the film academy. The film analysis they showed was "Heroes and Daughters," and the lead actor was none other than Tian Zhuangzhuang's father. Tian Zhuangzhuang clearly remembered that when he was in the sixth grade of elementary school, the director of this film was at his home discussing the film with the crew. He also remembered the director's specific handling of one of the scenes. Naturally, the film analysis was very easy, and he handed in his paper early, during the two-hour exam.

Lin Zhaomei didn't hand in her paper early, but instead diligently analyzed the color and composition of the film "Raise the Red Lantern." She passed her second audition smoothly. As for the final third audition, which was a themed creative work, with her father Lin Youcheng providing guidance and the renowned director Tian Zhuangzhuang as mentor, she had virtually no problem with the task.

The exam is a themed creative writing test, which can be divided into two parts. First, you draw a topic, which is the key words in the topic. Then you prepare to write a story. You can make a draft or mentally rehearse it. After about half an hour, you go to the classroom where the judges and examiners are to have an interview. You tell the examiners your story in turn.

Lin Zhaomei looked at the paper in her hand, her eyes filled with surprise. She hadn't expected such a coincidence that the word she drew was "fate".

This is why Lin Zhaomei needs to conceive a story with "fate" as its theme and tell it in front of the examiners. Of course, the story cannot be too long; it needs to be told in about three minutes.

Lin Zhaomei really felt it was too much of a coincidence; it really was fate!
destiny!

Because the short film script she had worked on with her father was "Destiny," she had already memorized the story. However, she didn't relax too much and prepared her own story carefully, writing it and reciting it several times according to the time constraints.

Actually, telling a three-minute story is very simple, but the actual time is very short. This means the story cannot be too complicated, otherwise there won't be enough time to tell it. This requires the candidate to grasp and control it themselves. Of course, if the story is too bland and lacks exciting twists and turns, it will naturally not stand out and will be difficult to impress the examiners.

After the preparation time was over, Lin Zhaomei and the other candidates were naturally taken to the examination room.

The examiners were several teachers from the directing department, including Zheng Dongtian, the head of the directing department, and Xie Xiaojing, the director who would later become the head of the directing department and was also a classmate of Chen Aige and Li Shaohong.

Clearly, none of the examiners noticed Lin Zhaomei.

As the candidates began their presentations, Lin Zhaomei listened attentively to the stories told by the other candidates. One candidate had drawn the word "love," but the love story was rather bland and lacked any highlights. Another candidate drew the word "death," and told a story about an old man's passing and his instructions to his children and grandchildren before his death. Although the story was simple, it was filled with deep emotion, as if he had personally experienced it, and it was quite moving to listen to.

Soon, it was Lin Zhaomei's turn.

Lin Zhaomei then stepped forward and began to tell her story, "Destiny".

"At a school, the school bell rang, signaling the start of class..."

Lin Zhaomei's story wasn't particularly complicated; it was simply told according to the main plot of the script. It was about a girl from a rural area who was preparing hard for the college entrance examination, but unfortunately, she failed the exam and didn't receive an admission notice. So she returned to the countryside to work, and then got married and had children.

Zheng Dongtian was actually quite looking forward to hearing Lin Zhaomei mention the word "fate," because he himself had also filmed a TV series called "Fate." However, after hearing Lin Zhaomei tell the story of failing the college entrance exam, he felt it was a bit too simple. But it was precisely when Zheng Dongtian felt the story was a bit too simple that he realized it was a bit too simple.

Lin Zhaomei offers an alternative fate for the story: the girl marries and has a child, working in the fields with a large belly, when she falls and screams in pain, struggling to give birth to a girl. Time rewinds, and the girl actually passed the college entrance exam, but someone else took her place. In this alternative fate, the girl receives her university admission notice, enters university, and gets a glamorous job as a teacher.

At the end of the story, many years later, the female teacher rang the school bell, and a girl rushed from the fields to school, just missing the female teacher.

When Zheng Dongtian and the other examiners heard Lin Zhaomei recount the rest of her story, their expressions changed, because they clearly understood the special, or rather, astonishing, aspects of Lin Zhaomei's story.

The girl's college entrance exam was stolen, which means that Lin Zhaomei's story unfolds with two different life destinies. This story, especially based on Lin Zhaomei's narration, is similar to two different hypotheses in Kieślowski's "Blindfolded". But the key and surprising thing is that in the other story, the female teacher and the girl just brushed past each other, leaving too many unknowns and suspense.

Clearly, not only the examiners, but also the other candidates in the examination room were astonished by the story told by Lin Zhaomei.

Of course, some test takers did not realize the more astonishing aspect of the story and simply thought it was about one person living two different lives.

Xie Xiaojing looked at Lin Zhaomei and asked, "Is the last little girl the girl the heroine in the first story gave birth to in the field?"

When Lin Zhaomei heard the examiner ask her this question, she said, "I don't think I should answer this question. Leaving it blank is the best approach."

Undoubtedly, Lin Zhaomei's answer surprised the other examiners, but after the initial surprise, they felt that the answer was excellent and that the story should be left unsaid.

Lin Zhaomei looked at Xie Xiaojing and said, "Moreover, whether it's the first story or the second story, the female protagonist is always the same, only with two different fates."

Clearly, Lin Zhaomei's story truly made the examiners think. Two different life possibilities—this is undoubtedly a novel fate. The key point is that this fate is manipulated by someone. Moreover, if the female protagonist becomes a teacher after her college entrance exam is stolen, she might very well have her child become the student of the imposter, which makes the story even more ironic.

Furthermore, one could even consider the school bell that rings at the very beginning of the story. Could it also be rung by a female teacher? This is yet another cycle. The girl who was impersonated in the college entrance examination is not the only one. Perhaps similar impersonations have occurred long before, and this is just a replay of the story.

Indeed, Xie Xiaojing clearly felt that if this story were made into a film, it would be a replay of fate.

At this moment, the examiners looked at Lin Zhaomei with surprise in their eyes.

Because they clearly realized that the story Lin Zhaomei was telling was quite complicated.

(End of this chapter)