China Entertainment: Been working as a director since 03

Chapter 742: Both Art and Business

Chen Kaige already has the prototype of the new movie in his mind.

This time, he plans to be the screenwriter himself.

He planned to make a film about a Taoist priest with great martial arts skills who was sent down the mountain by his master to fend for himself during turbulent times.

That’s right, this movie is “The Taoist Goes Down the Mountain”.

There is an original work for "The Taoist Goes Down the Mountain", a novel written by Xu Haofeng in 2007.

After reading this book, Chen Kaige liked it very much and praised it as a wonderful book.

As a middle-aged and literary person, Chen Kaige's aesthetic and appreciation abilities are online.

"The Taoist Goes Down the Mountain" is indeed an excellent masterpiece.

In the original novel, the author uses the story of a young Taoist priest who goes down the mountain to look at the secular world with a Taoist eye. He goes in and out of the world several times. Although the secular world is secular, there is Taoism in it.

The original work is a good book, it just depends on how Chen Kaige handles it.

Chen Kaige serves as the screenwriter, but he will not take on all the screenwriting work himself.

After all, he is a director, not a professional screenwriter, so he asked Zhang Ting to help him complete the script.

Zhang Ting graduated from the Central Academy of Drama and has a certain influence in the field of screenwriting.

He has been nominated for the Golden Eagle, Magnolia, and Feitian Screenwriter Awards, but has never actually won any of these three awards.

His screenwriting skills are erratic, and he has written "Fights Break Sphere".

That’s right, it’s the drama where the fighting spirit turns into a horse, which shocked people deeply.

However, most of the time, his screenwriting skills are online. In his career, he has produced some good works such as "The Family Man", "The Long River of the World" and "The Legend of the Condor Heroes".

By the way, he later switched careers to become a director.

"The Long River of the World" and "The Glory of the Ming Dynasty" are both works he wrote and directed.

However, his main achievements and good works are TV series, and the movies he wrote are very average.

As a screenwriter, his influence in the film industry is much weaker than that in the television industry.

Logically speaking, since Chen Kaige wants to make something big, he should find a screenwriter who has written many good movies to work with.

Writing a movie script is not the same as writing a TV script.

Television scripts and film scripts have different structures.

Television scripts often rely on dialogue to advance the plot, focusing on dialogue and plot continuity.

There can be many stories in a TV series, and the screenwriter does not need to rush to resolve the ending of each story. He can slowly whet the audience's appetite and play with the audience's emotions.

Movie scripts require a tight plot and be highly visual.

So being able to write a good TV script does not necessarily mean being able to write a good movie script.

If you use the successful experience of writing TV scripts to write movie scripts, it will easily fail.

It may seem strange that Chen Kaige would look for a screenwriter who has not proven himself in the film industry, but his motives are actually easy to understand.

He wanted so badly to tell his own story, he wanted to have absolute control over his own film.

If you find a screenwriter who is a big name in the film industry, people may not tolerate his bad habits.

Capable bosses are all very proud and would never allow the script they have worked so hard to write to be ruined by others.

"I think it must be both commercial and artistic. The script must be poetic, the realm must be high, and it must have very profound connotations..."

Chen Kaige feels that he should have it all, and should grasp both art and business, and be good at both.

He had previously made the film "Farewell My Concubine", and although he really wanted good box office data, he felt that he could not completely go in the commercial direction.

Being too commercialized can easily make things look vulgar, but he is a person with substance, so how can he be vulgar?
"I...I'll try my best..." Zhang Ting's expression froze, and he felt numb all over. Chen Kaige thought too highly of him.

It has to be commercial yet have substance, artistry, and a high level. Damn, if he could write this kind of script, he would have won the Berlin Cannes Screenwriting Award long ago, right?

Even if the country's top film directors come, they may not be able to meet Chen Kaige's requirements.

Top screenwriters also need inspiration, and not every script they write can be a masterpiece.

……

Chen Kaige and Zhang Ting are working together to write the script for "The Taoist Goes Down the Mountain".

On the Hualiu Company side, "Mulan" officially started filming in Hengdian.

On the day of the start of filming, Li Yu did not show his face.

It's not like he's the director of this movie, he's just too famous.

If he showed his face, he would completely cover Cao Qing.

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The filming of "Mulan" started in a very low-key manner, but because it is a controversial movie, it still attracted a lot of attention no matter how low-key it was.

The female lead of Deshini's Mulan hasn't even been finalized yet, but the filming of this Mulan has already started, and the main theme is that speed is of the essence.

Producer and screenwriter Li Yu joined the crew a few days after filming started.

He was very low-key in the crew and did not interfere with the director's work. He just played the role of an audience member.

This version of Mulan did not start out by filming in the Hakka Tulou in Fujian Province.

Foreigners may not understand China's history, but Chinese people must understand it.

Hakka earthen buildings were a product that was created hundreds of years after the time of Hua Mulan, and they were located in the south. At that time, the south was ruled by the Liu Song Dynasty after the migration of the elite to the south. How could Hua Mulan, a Xianbei from the Northern Wei Dynasty, possibly go to the south and live in an earthen building?

This version of Mulan also includes scenes of childhood Mulan.

The main purpose is to improve the character setting and tell the audience that Mulan when she was a child was different from ordinary girls at that time.

If the story starts directly as an adult, without any preparation for the character's personality, it would be very abrupt to join the army to replace his father.

Of course, it would not be like what Deshini did, where little Mulan could climb walls and fly over rooftops, and was regarded as a witch by the neighbors.

This version of Mulan mainly highlights the attributes of a naughty child, telling the audience that although Mulan was a girl when she was young, she was already the leader among her peers.

The children were great at playing simulated war games, and little Mulan was always in charge and in charge.

When little Mulan's parents asked her what her ambition was when she grew up, she replied that she wanted to be a hero on the battlefield like her father.

Parents, especially fathers, sternly reprimand girls to behave like girls, and that fighting on the battlefield is a man's job.

But after little Hua Mulan left, her father Hua Hu was very happy and proud of having a daughter with ambition and uniqueness.

This is a true Chinese parent. They always have complicated feelings. They think their daughter's ideas are absurd, but at the same time they admire her ambitions.

When she was studying, little Hua Mulan was not interested in Confucian classics such as the Four Books and Five Classics, but was only interested in military books and strategies.

This also paves the way for Mulan's future adulthood.

When Mulan was a child, she was reading the Four Books and Five Classics. When she grew up, she immediately commanded thousands of troops. Without sufficient foreshadowing, it would be very distracting.

If Hua Mulan and Liu Yifei both looked like Confucius, there would be no need for any foreshadowing. They could just go to the battlefield and kill people.

Because Confucius was a great writer who was always talking about convincing people with reason.

In fact, most people dare not be unreasonable in front of him.

Because he was a 1.9-meter-tall strong man, his father was a famous general in the State of Lu, known for his bravery, and he was also proficient in the six arts of a gentleman, including archery and driving.

(End of this chapter)