One person's entertainment

Chapter 11: Why don’t you write a story about a courtyard full of birds?
On Saturday, the weather will be sunny and the temperature will rise slightly.

"Is this outfit of mine okay?"

"It's really no problem."

Zeng Xiaolai asked three times and Shen Lingyou answered three times.

She attached great importance to the filming of this MV. Even with Shen Lingyou's trust, she was still worried that she would mess it up, so the first step was to put on her best clothes.

Because I was feeling nervous and uneasy, I couldn't help but ask Shen Lingyou.

"Don't worry, it's up to the director to decide how to arrange it. Usually he will arrange the costumes." Shen Lingyou hoped to ease Zeng Xiaolai's nervousness through chatting.

"Okay, I understand." Zeng Xiaolai felt slightly relieved.

The office of the Red Star Production Society was located in a small villa on a horse farm west of Yanjing, quite far from the Central Academy of Drama.

At ten o'clock in the morning, Shen Lingyou and Zeng Xiaolai finally found this place.

The people who came to pick them up were Chen Jiantian and Zheng Jun.

Zeng Xiaolai seemed a little excited when she saw Zheng Jun. This was her first time to see a star face to face up close.

Zheng Jun is very well-known. The legitimate sales of his album "Naked" have exceeded 100 million copies, sweeping the top of the charts of fifty radio stations.

The song "Cinderella" has captured the hearts of countless girls.

Shen Lingyou, on the contrary, was quite calm and just exchanged glances with Zheng Jun.

He has many favorite stars, but he is not a fan. When he sees his favorite stars, he will be happy but not excited.

Zheng Jun is really good. In this golden age of rock music and the flourishing of singers, he didn't have many albums, but every one of them had a great response and every song was a success. He was among the best in terms of popularity and sales, and was one of the representatives of Chinese rock music in the 1990s. But, this was not his cup of tea.

At the same time, Zheng Jun was also observing Shen Lingyou.

He was born with a good appearance; this was his first impression of Shen Lingyou.

He is talented, handsome, and sings well, so it is hard for him not to be popular. This is his evaluation of Shen Lingyou.

"Who is this?"

"My classmate Zeng Xiaolai came."

"Hello."

"Hello."

After the introduction, Shen Lingyou said directly: "Mr. Chen, I plan to let her be the heroine in the MV of "Heart Too Soft"."

"This..." Chen Jiantian thought that she was brought here to see the world, but unexpectedly, she was brought here for this matter. He looked at Zeng Xiaolai again and found that she was a beauty. Her height of 170cm was a perfect match for Shen Lingyou's height of 184cm. So he treated it as a favor to Shen Lingyou and said, "Your MV, you decide."

Shen Lingyou smiled and said, "Thank you."

Chen Jiantian raised his hand and beckoned, "Let's go in and talk. The director is already here."

Then I went up to the second floor of the villa and came to the meeting room.

The director was a middle-aged man in his forties or fifties, dressed casually and sitting in a rather lazy posture. When he saw them come in, he glanced at Shen Lingyou twice, then stared at Zeng Xiaolai, unable to move his eyes away, and could not help swallowing his saliva with his Adam's apple rolling.

"This is Director Huang."

"These two are the male and female protagonists of the music video."

"Xiao Shen, take a look at the script first."

Even though a song’s MV is only three or five minutes long, it still requires a script.

The script plays a guiding and normative role in the production process of the MV, which includes not only the plot script but also the storyboard script.

The plot script describes the overall story flow of the MV, while the storyboard script is a blueprint for planning and designing the specific scenes of the actual shooting.

Shen Lingyou nodded and opened the script.

Length: 5 minutes and 50 seconds

Genre: Love Story

Main scenes: courtyard, alley, crossroads, park

Story outline: The hero and heroine are a couple who have just fallen in love. Due to family reasons, they deceive each other. When they see that the other has a new love, their relationship comes to a standstill and they eventually break up.

Scene 1: The hero and heroine meet for the first time at a family gathering and develop feelings for each other. The hero seems a little shy, and the heroine thinks he is not proactive enough. Close-ups of their facial expressions are taken, so the heroine comes up with an idea and sneaks out of the courtyard with the hero...]

Shen Lingyou's face sank as soon as he read the content on the first page. What kind of crap is this? It has nothing to do with "Too Soft-Hearted". There's love, family, and courtyard. Why don't you write about a courtyard full of birds?

Zeng Xiaolai, who was standing by, was watching it very seriously and she didn't think there was anything wrong with it.

In fact, this is a quite normal MV script. The style of MVs in mainland China in the 1990s was indeed relatively earthy. The MV of the song "Jiu Mei" released in the middle of the year was the best in this style and it is still used as a typical example many years later.

Seeing that Shen Lingyou's face was not looking good, Chen Jiantian immediately said: "Xiao Shen, if you have any ideas or opinions, feel free to speak up."

Director Huang raised his eyebrows and his face instantly fell.

What does this mean? How can a little kid who hasn't even grown up know what a script is? How can he shoot an MV? And he's still asking me to express my ideas and give suggestions. Isn't that funny?

However, he did not say what he was thinking.

Shen Lingyou put down the script, organized his words, and said, "My neighbors in the old house are a middle-aged couple. They are workers in a garment factory. Their monthly salary is not much, just enough for the family to live on. But the husband has a bad habit of gambling. He often loses all his salary and owes a lot of foreign debts. When they are found out, they quarrel. At the end of each quarrel, the husband always promises his wife in tears that he will not gamble again. Naturally, the result is not so good."

"Once he even stole his wife's salary and used it for gambling. They had a huge argument that day and my parents went to persuade them. As the saying goes, persuade them to reconcile rather than divorce. However, many people present that day persuaded the wife to divorce. But seeing her husband crying like a mess, the wife did not do so. My parents were still talking about it when they got home. One of the sentences was 'She is too soft-hearted'. I was inspired to write down the words 'You are always too soft-hearted' and later created this song. Using a persuader as the main perspective, it presents the unreserved dedication of an infatuated person for love."

After making up the half-truthful story, he finally said the key point: "So, I hope the MV is in a modern urban style, and this script is not suitable."

After hearing this, the people present had different expressions.

Director Huang: Don’t you just dislike my script? Why are you saying so much?

Zeng Xiaolai: It turns out that he didn’t write it for himself.

Zheng Jun: Is this okay?

Chen Jiantian: There is a bit of Ka Kui’s shadow.

"Ahem..." Director Huang spoke first, not very happily, "You needed the script urgently, but you didn't make the requirements clear. I wasted several nights."

In his opinion, Shen Lingyou's telling of this story was a slap in his face, saying that he did not understand the meaning of the lyrics.

Chen Jiantian took the blame and said, "It's my fault. I didn't think it through." Then he looked at Shen Lingyou and said, "Xiao Shen, how about this? We can rewrite the script according to your requirements and then shoot it next weekend."

Shen Lingyou heard this, and after a moment's silence, he said, "We have a lot of schoolwork lately, so we may not have time next weekend. It would be best if we can finish it in the next two days. How about this, I will write the script, and we will start shooting tomorrow morning. One day is enough time."

Chen Jiantian thought about the feasibility. He was a student of the Central Academy of Drama and a songwriter. It should be no problem for him to write an MV script. If it didn't work, he could use this script as a substitute. So he looked at Director Huang and said, "Director Huang, what do you think..."

Director Huang frowned and said, "We just take the script and shoot it right away? How can we shoot it without designing the styling, lighting, and storyboards in advance? We need at least one or two days to prepare."

Chen Jiantian turned to Shen Lingyou and said, "Xiao Shen, how about..."

Shen Lingyou narrowed his eyes, having sensed the gunpowder released by Director Huang. He was very upset when this guy looked at Zeng Xiaolai with a lecherous look just now. If it weren't for the fact that he was invited by Chen Jiantian, he would have turned his face away and said lightly, "I will write down the styling, lighting, and storyboards in detail in the script. You just need to shoot it according to the instructions."

Director Huang looked impatient and said, "I can't take the photo anyway. You are so awesome, why don't you take the photo yourself?"

Shen Lingyou laughed and said, "That's exactly what I meant."

When Director Huang heard this, he snorted and said, "You're wasting my time." He then stood up and left.

Seeing this, Chen Jiantian hurriedly called out, "Director Huang!" Keren did not stand up to stop him. Originally, they had invited a director they had been working with, but he had already accepted the job and started working, so he recommended Director Huang. Now that they had met him, they found that his creative ability and temper were not very good, so they decided to leave. He then said to Shen Lingyou, "I'll contact another director."

Shen Lingyou smiled apologetically and said, "I'm sorry, Mr. Chen. I'm a quick-witted person, please forgive me." Then, he said very seriously, "I didn't say that in anger. You just need to find a stylist, a lighting technician, and a cameraman for me. I can direct it."

(End of this chapter)