Entertainment: Who still wants to fall in love when there are cheats?

Chapter 170 Choosing a Director
Zhao Liying debuted in 06 through a talent show on Yahoo! Search Star. After winning the show, she was signed by Huayi Brothers. However, after entering the industry, Zhao Liying did not get any good resources.

Huayi Brothers doesn't allocate many resources to Zhao Liying throughout the year. At most, she gets two roles a year, and they're all very small and insignificant, only slightly better than being an extra or a featured extra.

So she drifted along at Huayi for more than two years without making any significant progress.

It just so happened that Sister Wang ran into Zhao Liying by chance and thought that Zhao Liying's image was not bad. Although it was quite different from the traditional image of a leading lady, she looked good in other aspects. So she chatted with Zhao Liying and found that Zhao Liying's personality was quite resilient and she was also hardworking. Since entering the industry, she had been trying to find ways to improve her acting skills.

So Sister Wang extended an invitation to Zhao Liying. However, Zhao Liying was not valued at Huayi Brothers and had not achieved anything after more than two years. In addition, her agent at Huayi Brothers did not like her much. So, she gritted her teeth and decided to join Li Boda's studio.

Although it's just a personal studio, Li Boda is a big star, and there are no other female artists in the studio. So the studio's resources may not be as many as those of a film and television company like Huayi. However, the resources that ultimately end up in Zhao Liying's hands are definitely more than when she was at Huayi.

Therefore, Zhao Liying chose to sign with Li Boda's studio, becoming the only artist in the studio besides Li Boda himself.

Of course, it was Sister Wang who handled the matter of Zhao Liying terminating her contract with Huayi Brothers. Because Zhao Liying was a minor figure, although there was a penalty for breach of contract in the contract, after negotiation, the actual penalty she paid was not much. However, after Zhao Liying paid this penalty, it completely emptied her savings over the years.

Therefore, when Sister Wang signed Zhao Liying's contract, she specifically wrote in the contract that the studio would provide accommodation and three meals a day, otherwise Zhao Liying might not even have a place to stay.

After Zhao Liying joined Li Boda's studio, she immediately received a resource.

The female lead in "One Cut of the Dead" is the male lead's sister. She is a somewhat eccentric and passionate young woman. Like the male lead, she has a very enthusiastic passion for directing and is easily overexcited. Once she gets into filming, it is difficult for her to stay calm.

When Zhao Liying learned that she was actually the female lead in this movie, she became extremely excited. She even wanted to slap herself to see if it hurt and if she was dreaming.

After that, Zhao Liying began to study the script carefully and meticulously, researching the role she was going to play. In order to play the role well, Zhao Liying even secretly hired a teacher to guide her on how to act, or rather, how to play the role well.

Of course, hiring a professional teacher also costs money. For this reason, Zhao Liying even asked Sister Wang for an advance on her salary and film fee.

However, although the script was ready, and the male and female leads were also chosen.

However, filming for this movie can't start immediately. Because, as of now, this is all that's left of the "One Cut of the Camera!" project.

The director has not been decided, and the production team has not been assembled. The remaining roles, and the actors to be cast, are also still undecided.

So all of these need to be prepared before the film crew can be considered complete and filming can officially begin.

However, Li Boda delegated most of these tasks to Sister Wang.

After all, this time, Li Boda asked Sister Wang to be the producer of the "One Cut of the Camera!" production team, which can be considered a kind of training for Sister Wang. If she can't do this kind of job well, she might as well come back and continue to be an agent, no, I mean, continue to be an executive agent.

When Li Boda entrusted her with these important tasks, Sister Wang did not refuse at all, nor did she feel any hardship. On the contrary, she was full of enthusiasm.

After all, if this project is successfully completed, she will officially become the head of Li Boda Studio. It will not only be about status and position, but also her abilities will be honed.

Such a good opportunity, unless one is a fool, Sister Wang would never give it up.

[Don't Stop the Camera!] This script is positioned as a comedy, with other elements following the comedy, and even horror elements are placed after other factors.

So if you want to find a director to direct this movie, you need to find a director who is suitable for making comedies.

In China at this stage, Ning Hao is actually the most suitable person to be a director.

On one hand, Ning Hao has already directed a comedy film, "Crazy Stone," which was a huge success. He has already proven his directing abilities.

Secondly, the screenwriter who wrote the script for "One Cut of the Dead" is the same one who previously collaborated with Ning Hao to create the scripts for "Crazy Stone" and even the currently filming "Crazy Racer".

So when Yue Xiaojun and his team were creating the script for "Don't Stop the Camera!", they subconsciously leaned the script towards the style of "Crazy Stone" and "Crazy Racer". So this script is pretty much the type that Ning Hao is best at.

However, Ning Hao is currently filming "Crazy Racer," and if they want him to direct "One Cut of the Dead," they will have to wait until he finishes filming "Crazy Racer."

It will take at least two more months before filming for "Crazy Racer" wraps up.

Moreover, even after filming wraps up, Ning Hao will still need to participate in post-production work to some extent. In addition, filming is very tiring for a director. After Ning Hao finishes filming a movie, will he need to take another month or two to rest?
So under normal circumstances, if we want Ning Hao to direct the film "One Cut of the Dead," we'd have to wait at least six months. Six months—that's a long time. Even if Li Boda could wait, Sister Wang wouldn't want to!
Now their studio is planning to turn things around with this drama. But for Ning Hao, they're going to wait for more than half a year. Does the studio even want to continue operating?
So, Ning Hao, who was the most suitable person to be a director, was forced to be abandoned by Sister Wang.

Besides Ning Hao, there weren't any other suitable directors in mainland China, so Sister Wang turned her attention to Hong Kong.

Putting everything else aside, there are quite a few directors in Hong Kong who are good at making comedies.

Needless to say, Stephen Chow is a big shot; there's absolutely no way we could get him to participate in this movie.

Then the remaining ones include Wang Jing, Chen Musheng, Liu Zhenwei, and so on.

Sister Wang also plans to contact these directors and discuss the matter.

However, while these directors may have the ability, their attitude when directing and making films may not be the right one.

Because of these directors, many of the terrible movies they made before were invested in by mainland China. They made these movies just to make easy money and didn't take filmmaking seriously at all.

Shows like "The Fairy Tale of the Immortal" and "The Treasure Box" are absolutely terrible.

Therefore, when Sister Wang was selecting these directors, she also had to make sure that after taking on the role in "One Cut of the Dead," these directors would not slack off or shoot haphazardly.

This, in turn, requires a considerable amount of effort and time.

So when it came to choosing a director, Sister Wang was very nervous.

In fact, Li Boda was not worried about this, because the list of directors that Sister Wang had provided were all truly capable. He could choose any of them, and even if they wanted to slack off after joining the crew, Li Boda had plenty of ways to make them take it seriously.

Although Li Boda rarely used his extraordinary abilities, it was because he had a very high moral standard. While he didn't become a saint like Superman, he wouldn't abstain from beef like Homelander.

The main reason is that after Li Boda possessed extraordinary power, he was also restraining himself. He was worried that if he became too indulgent, he would suddenly lose his goals, do evil, and do whatever he wanted. Before long, he would find life boring.

That's why Li Boda set a bottom line in his mind: to use extraordinary power as little as possible.

After all, even without extraordinary power, he could live comfortably in this world.

However, using it as little as possible does not mean not using it at all.

If Wang Jing or Liu Zhenwei were to be the director, and they instead chose to slack off on set and not work properly, Li Boda wouldn't hesitate to use his supernatural abilities to turn them into competent tools.

To be honest, Li Boda originally thought that Sister Wang would choose Wang Jing to direct this movie.

After all, compared to others, Wang Jing's integrity in making movies is slightly higher.

Or rather, Wang Jing's minimum standard is a little higher.

Even when Wang Jing is making bad movies, his level of bad movies is still better than Liu Zhenwei's.

Moreover, Wang Jing is relatively considerate of investors. In fact, it can be said that almost none of the movies he makes, whether good or bad, lose money. Even if they don't make money, they don't lose money.

This is why so many investors are willing to cooperate with Wang Jing and invest money in him.

However, Sister Wang did not choose Wang Jing, but instead chose Ye Weimin.

However, after communicating with Sister Wang, Li Boda realized that Sister Wang wanted to choose Wang Jing, but unfortunately, Wang Jing had too many jobs and his schedule was already full, so Sister Wang couldn't squeeze in at all.

As for the remaining Hong Kong directors who chose Yip Wai-man, it was because Yip Wai-man was not only capable, but also more serious about filming than the others, which is why he was chosen.

(End of this chapter)