One person's entertainment

Chapter 13, Awesome 13
October 10, Sunday, sunny.

Shen Lingyou brought Zeng Xiaolai, Hu Dajing, Qin Xilu, Yuan Yu, Qin Hao, Liu Huohua, and Chen Minghao, a total of eight people, to the Red Star Production Society in a mighty manner.

Early in the morning, I waited downstairs for Zeng Xiaolai, followed by her three roommates, who also wanted to see the world.

It doesn't matter whether he brings three or six, so Shen Lingyou agreed. If he is short of extras at that time, he won't have to look for extras.

"Are they all your classmates?" Seeing that they were of similar age, Chen Jiantian guessed that they were classmates.

"Well, this is..." Shen Lingyou introduced a circle.

"Good morning, Mr. Chen." Everyone greeted politely.

"Hello." Chen Jiantian replied politely.

"Mr. Chen, it's getting late. The person you promised to help me find..."

"Don't worry about me. I've found everything. I just didn't know there were so many of you. One van wouldn't be enough. Wait for ten minutes and I'll call another car."

This arrangement is really perfect, nothing to say about it.

Shen Lingyou also knew that this was a gesture of goodwill in order to get him.

Unfortunately, this little favor is far from enough to impress him.

But he still had to be polite, and said to Chen Jiantian with a smile: "Mr. Chen, I'm sorry to trouble you."

Chen Jiantian laughed and said, "It's just a small matter. There's no need to be so polite."

While waiting, he took the group of children to visit the Red Star.

"Wow, Mr. Chen, are Beyond and Wang Jingfei both in your company?" Qin Hao couldn't help but ask when he saw the group photo hanging on the wall.

"No, I was their agent a few years ago." Chen Jiantian's face was calm, as if he was talking about an ordinary thing.

This is a legendary rock band and the queen of Chinese pop music.

Beyond is Shen Lingyou’s favorite band, no doubt about it. I learned guitar because I listened to their songs.

Wang Jingfei is okay. I have several of her songs on my loop playlist, such as "As Wish", "Those Years in a Hurry", and "Red Bean". Her voice and singing skills are very distinctive.

But then again, there were indeed many talented people in the music circle at that time, including Black Panther, Zheng Jun, Tian Zhen, Xu Wei, Xiao Ke, Zhang Yadong, Zhang Weining, etc. The music circle was like the Whampoa Military Academy, and it produced a lot of talents for the Chinese music scene.

After walking around, the car that Chen Jiantian called arrived, and the group of people divided into two cars and headed to the filming location of the MV.

Shichahai is a holy place for love, where young men and women like to come for love.

Liu Huohua was very familiar with this place. He had been worried about not being able to hand in his homework, so he ran here and cried in the middle of the night.

This is the first time for Shen Lingyou to come here.

Take a look around.

The scenery is nice enough.

Make-up, set up the camera, talk about the play...

"Ling You is a director?" Hu Dajing couldn't help but exclaimed.

"Are you kidding?" Yuan Yu also looked shocked.

"He really looks the part, as if it were the real deal." Qin Xilu found it incredible.

Qin Hao, Liu Huohua and Chen Minghao looked at each other in amazement.

This is not hidden very deeply.

This is awesome!
I can understand someone who can sing and write songs, I can understand someone who can act and write scripts, but I cannot understand someone who can direct a play.

We entered the same school on the same day, were in the same class, and even lived in the same dormitory. Some of them were still crying because they couldn't hand in their homework, while others had already been actors, screenwriters, and directors. Why is there such a big difference between the same people?
Another person who also had a new appreciation for Shen Lingyou was Chen Jiantian.

He was seen staring at Shen Lingyou who was directing Zeng Xiaolai, the lighting, and the cameraman's movements, and he sighed repeatedly.

You can’t fake directing, you can tell at a glance whether you can do it or not.

The professional skills displayed by Shen Lingyou are no different from those of a professional director.

This 19-year-old boy brought him so many surprises that he became more and more interested in him and wanted to sign with the company more and more.

At this time, Shen Lingyou was quite patient. He was not in a hurry to start filming, but carefully arranged all the details.

Most of the current filming still uses film cameras.

They shot the footage with a portable 16mm movie camera, and after developing the film, they used telecine to transfer it to videotape.

Although film is troublesome and expensive, a room would be filled with film to make a movie, but the images are highly saturated and the colors are strong. In addition, digital photography has just become popular and the technology is not mature yet, so it cannot replace film photography for the time being.

And a 5 minute and 50 second MV does not only take that much time to shoot. It can take dozens of minutes at least, or several hours at most, and then select the appropriate materials for editing.

In order to save money for Chen Jiantian, Shen Lingyou tried to reduce the shooting time as much as possible.

He had the original MV as a reference, and the script was written in great detail. As long as there were no problems with the actors, not much film would be used.

"Hey, don't look at the camera during this part..."

"Come on, look more natural..."

"Come on, let's save one more..."

Shen Lingyou had acting experience because he had used the Ten-Year Director Experience Card and made few mistakes. Most of the NGs were done by Zeng Xiaolai, who was participating in the filming for the first time. Fortunately, she had strong comprehension and learning abilities, so she passed it in three or five takes at worst.

The main reason is that the MV of "Too Soft-Hearted" is more freehand, unlike the MV of "Fairy Tale", which has a plot. There is less interaction between the male and female protagonists, so the acting skills required are low, so it is easy to shoot a lot.

Qin Hao and the others also experienced it, acting as backgrounds, with each having one or two shots.

Indoors and outdoors, day and night, parks, streets, minibuses, cars...

I was busy from morning till night, and most of the time was spent on the road, but fortunately I completed all the shooting.

Chen Jiantian generously invited them to have a meal at the Hua Xia Hotel.

On the way back to the Central Academy of Drama, Shen Lingyou sat alone in Chen Jiantian's car.

"Xiao Shen, I have something to discuss with you."

"You say."

When Shen Lingyou was called into the car by Chen Jiantian, he vaguely guessed that he had something to discuss with him.

Chen Jiantian sighed before saying, "In recent years, piracy has become increasingly rampant, causing great suffering to the record industry. After the release of genuine tapes and discs, pirates can sell pirated albums at one-third of the price five days later."

At this point, he gave a bitter smile and added, "For this reason, some record companies have even gone to find pirates, not to argue with them, but to hope that they would show some mercy and delay the release of the pirated copies for two days."

Shen Lingyou listened quietly, unable to guess what Chen Jiantian was going to say.

"The more piracy there is, the less copyright fees we can recover and the less legitimate sales we can get."

Chen Jiantian said slowly while driving, "Last night I read a market research report on the domestic record industry in the first half of the year. The overall sales of legitimate records in the three places of Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan are not very good, so I suggest that you find nine songs to make up the number, and use your "Heart Too Soft" as the main promotion song, and integrate it into a ten-song album for sale."

After saying that, he glanced at Shen Lingyou and saw that he frowned slightly, then continued: "It's not that I don't have confidence in you and "Too Soft Heart", but the record market is in an unstable period."

Then he sighed and continued, "Don't worry, there are your posters on both sides of the record, and the introduction is "Too Soft Hearted". The other nine songs are all relatively ordinary and won't steal any limelight. I have also contacted the radio station to promote it..."

(End of this chapter)