Chinese entertainment, from radio love songs to superstars

Chapter 27: Wild Shen Lang

Yanjing, suburbs.

It is difficult to find unharvested rice fields at this time.

After much searching, I finally found a beautiful rice field hidden in the capital.

In the sunshine, here are patches of golden autumn harvest.

Zhou Xun stood on the ridge of the field, her white dress swaying gently with the rolling golden rice waves, as beautiful as a painting.

Shen Lang couldn't help but compare her with Gao Yuanyuan.

The two people don't look the same type, Zhou Xun has the "Bai Youxiu" look.

A celebrity who once had a bad reputation once said, "Zhou Xun has the face of a fiancée." It is delicate, girlish, pure, innocent, and her eyes are sparkling.

But Wang Jin once said, "Zhou Xun is not a peerless beauty, her beauty can only be rated 70 points." Maybe their aesthetics are different. He likes gorgeous and curvy girls. Zhou Xun's appearance does not meet his aesthetic standards, but it does not mean that Zhou Xun is not good-looking.

As for Shen Lang, Zhou Xun has a pretty face but an average figure.

He is 185cm tall and when he stands next to Zhou Xun, they have the cutest height difference.

It would be better if Zhou Xun was 10cm taller.

"Shen Lang, Mr. Chen hasn't contacted you recently?"

There is also a voice, which is abstinence when it opens.

However, when she played the roles of Gu Xiaomeng, Li Mi and Xiao Wei, her voice was quite suitable and appealing.

Maybe it’s because these characters all have a sense of vicissitudes.

"Mr. Chen is a very busy man. How can he have time to contact me?" Shen Lang joked.

But it is a fact that since Chen Yaochuan bought the distribution rights of his album, he seems to have disappeared.

He really wanted to know how the sales were in Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and other parts of Asia.

There is currently no data.

"He's probably busy with the sales of your album. He should be here in a few days when my single is released."

"We'll have dinner together then."

While the two were talking, the director shouted, "Mr. Shen, I'm ready here, we can start filming."

The director recommended by Zhou Xun is none other than Ning Hao, the pioneer of Chinese film noir and absurd comedy, who will go on to make classic films such as the "Crazy Series", "No Man's Land" and "Dying to Survive".

But at this point in time, he was not famous at all.

It was not until the next year, when his graduation work "Thursday, Wednesday" won the Best Director Award at the Yenching University Student Film Festival, that his talent gradually emerged.

Ning Hao has loved art since he was a child. After graduating from junior high school, he studied art in a technical secondary school. Later, he switched to studying photography. In 96, after graduating from technical secondary school, he was assigned to the Taiyuan Repertory Theatre as a stage designer. As it was far from his dream, he applied to the Art Department of Yenching Normal University to study directing.

The consumption level in Yanjing is much higher than Taiyuan. In order to make a living and also to practice, he usually takes some jobs in shooting song MVs.

Previously, due to Shen Lang’s sudden appearance, the release of Zhou Xun’s single "Piao Yao" was postponed.

The filming of the MV was also put on hold for a while.

However, when the reboot started, the original director had already taken on other work, and Ning Hao replaced Zhou Xun.

The song MV is several minutes long.

Don’t be fooled by its brevity; it’s not easy to shoot.

It should have both musicality and storytelling.

Among the stages such as scene, storyboard and post-production, the actors' performance is the most important link.

Usually the singers themselves will play the majority of the role, and the quality of their performance will directly affect whether the audience can empathize with the performance.

In this MV, Shen Lang plays the first-person perspective of the song, "I", that is, the role of the son.

"Shen Lang, your acting skills..."

"Sister Xun, am I not acting well enough?"

Zhou Xun thought for a while before finding the right adjective and said, "A bit wild."

Shen Lang was stunned and asked: "Wild?"

Ning Hao, who was standing by, saw that he looked confused, so he interrupted: "I think Ms. Zhou meant 'wild ways'."

Ning Hao would be very humble when facing his financial sponsor.

He would shoot the film the way Shen Lang said, and he would not get angry because Shen Lang wanted to change his MV script.

He made the song MV purely to make money, and he is not naive enough to think of getting ahead through it.

In this case, there is no need to fight over these meaningless things.

To sum it up in one sentence: "Party A is the boss."

Shen Lang is quite satisfied with Ning Hao's style of doing things and there is a reason why he will become famous in the future.

Shen Lang doesn’t know how to be a director, but no one understands the song “Prose Poems Written by My Father” better than him.

If he wants to capture the emotions expressed in the lyrics, the director needs to cooperate with his understanding.

Therefore, it is best to have a clear positioning like Ning Hao, who will not argue endlessly about things like interfering with filming.

Everyone worked together to finish the filming early and leave work early.

"Director Ning is right, it's a wild way." Zhou Xun has been in the industry for 10 years and has collaborated with countless actors.

For example, Chen Kun and Lu Yi, who just finished filming "Like Fog, Like Rain and Like Wind" together, have standard professional acting skills and a complete performance system to refer to. In the early stages of their performances, they gave people a formulaic feeling of "copying from someone else".

As for Shen Lang, he was not a professional and had never acted before.

But when he stands in front of the camera, it feels like he is full of drama.

Shen Lang understands what "wild approach" means and can interpret the soul of a character through his own understanding of the character.

Zhang Yimou once talked about the types of actors' acting skills in a program. According to him, there are two types of actors in the entertainment industry:
The first type is experienced actors, who are born with talent and will never starve if they have acting skills;
The second type is those who are born with good acting skills, the kind that are gifted by God and are popular wherever they go.

In the entertainment industry, there are many actors who have graduated from professional schools and have superb acting skills. They are the first type. As long as they work hard and study diligently, they will definitely achieve something, such as Zhang Ziyi, Zhang Yi, Duan Yihong and so on.

That’s right, most of the outstanding actors are professionally trained.

However, this does not mean that unconventional methods are not possible.

Apart from other things, Zhou Xun was also a self-taught person, but still became the "Triple Golden Horse Film Queen".

Before Shen Lang traveled through time, the Chinese film industry had produced three actresses who had won the three major awards. Zhou Xun was the only one who was not a professional actor. The other two were Zhang Ziyi, who graduated from the Central Academy of Drama, and Zhou Dongyu, who graduated from the Beijing Film Academy.

There are also many unconventional male movie stars, such as Huang Bo, Fan Wei, Ge You, etc. Their acting skills are honed through repeated performances.

Therefore, Shen Lang does not think that "wild ways" is a derogatory term.

"In short, you can become an actor." Zhou Xun said with a smile.

"I think it's okay." Ning Hao agreed.

"Stop messing around, the sun is about to set, hurry up and shoot the remaining shots." Shen Lang called.

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An old house on the outskirts of Yanjing, a few hundred meters away from the rice fields.

Shen Lang rented this place for five days as the main filming location for the MV.

Today is the last day.

Off camera, Zhou Xun leaned on a rattan chair under an old tree, gently rocking the chair to the sound of the guitar.

The character of the mother died in the second verse of the lyrics, and her scenes had already been filmed.

I'm still staying here just to see Shen Lang.

In the camera, Shen Lang was wearing a simple jacket and shirt, sitting outside the house, playing a guitar.

This picture is simply pleasing to the eye.

Zhou Xun couldn't help but licking his lips.

"Your guitar playing is much better than Pu Su's." After this shot was taken, she immediately started to praise.

Last year, she starred in the music video for the song "September" sung by Pu Su.

At that time, I thought that men who could play guitar and sing were quite attractive.

Now, Shen Lang is even better than before. He is handsome, talented, can play the guitar and sing, and is absolutely charming.

"It's just so-so. I can't compare with my seniors." Shen Lang said with a smile.

As a music teacher, in addition to his excellent professional abilities, he can also play six or seven musical instruments.

Ever since I decided to pursue a career in the entertainment industry, I have been practicing musical instruments, as well as learning songwriting, composing and arranging music.

Because the experience of countless predecessors who have traveled through time told him that even if he can copy songs, he cannot just copy songs, but must constantly accumulate and enrich himself.

One is not to show timidity;
The second is that it is always good to have many skills, and when you can no longer copy songs, you will have a way out.

"I think there's no problem with this one. It can be passed." At this time, Ning Hao's voice came.

"Okay, that's it." After taking a few shots, Shen Lang felt that they were all the same and there was no point in taking more.

"Oh, it's finished?" Zhou Xun said reluctantly.

"It took us six whole days to shoot this 5-minute MV. If we don't wrap it up soon, it will become a short movie." Shen Lang sighed.

"That's a good idea. Why don't you ask the boss to add some money and make it into a movie?" Zhou Xun said with a smile.

You know what, Qian Guosheng might really be willing to do that.

Adapted into a movie with the theme of fatherly love.

It just doesn’t necessarily make money.

In the evening, Shen Lang paid for a farewell dinner for all the filming crew.

Zhou Xun drank some wine and her face was flushed. She didn't take Shen Lang's red envelope and joked that she was very expensive and worth at least a song.

How could Shen Lang not understand what she meant? He generously painted a pie for her and promised to compose a song tailor-made for her.

During this period, he and Ning Hao exchanged contact information.

He is a director with a very nice personality and great abilities. We can expect to work with him more in the future.

After the MV is shot, the post-production will take about five days, and it will be completed when it is delivered to Qian Guosheng.

(End of this chapter)