A writer has arrived in the Chinese entertainment industry.

After signing Dilraba, Su Liu realized that there was still a lot of work to be done.

Although the company currently only has Dilraba as an artist, they might be able to sign a few more promising candidates through the casting auditions for "Knives Out." Therefore, an experienced artist director is essential, and Dilraba's personal team also needs to be assembled, including an executive agent, assistants, a styling team, and so on.

While it was certainly satisfying to snatch the person away from Zhao Ruoyao, Su Liu was overwhelmed by the thought of the complicated matters that would follow.

Forget it, let Sister Wenxiu worry about it!

"President Su, President Su?"

Su Liu was frowning, staring at his phone screen, which displayed a message that Chen Duling had just sent.

Hmm, why does she seem a bit distant? Or is it just my imagination? She's been like this before, hasn't she? Su Liu scrolled up, comparing the past messages. Yeah, she really is a bit distant. What went wrong? Should she not have posted that photo? But it's nothing, just telling her the company has a new employee... Could it be a bad photo? Right, she should have included herself in the picture!

Thinking about this, Su Liu suddenly understood. That's right, why would she want to see a woman's picture? She definitely wants to see me! Yes, that must be it.

At that moment, Reba's voice diverted his attention.

"What's wrong?"

"I've already signed the contract, and next... I should..." Dilraba looked at him expectantly, her tone filled with undisguised anticipation.

Su Liu straightened his back and looked at her with deep eyes.

"There's a very important problem I need your help with!"

Reba immediately sensed the sense of mission conveyed in his tone, and subconsciously straightened her back, her expression as serious as a Samoyed that had just learned to sit up and was waiting for its owner to feed it.

"President Su, please speak."

"If I send a girl a picture of another girl, and she replies, 'Yeah, very pretty,' what do you think she means by that?"

"Huh?" Dilraba's mind suddenly short-circuited for a moment, and it took two seconds to reconnect.

"Mr. Su," she asked cautiously, "who did you send my photo to?"

"I didn't send it to anyone, it's just a hypothetical situation!"

"Oh, so it was just a hypothetical situation."

"Tell me quickly, if you were to reply with this sentence, how would you feel?"

"It must be really annoying."

Dilraba was just about to strike while the iron was hot and teach Su Liu some more tips on how to please girls, but he didn't give her the chance at all.

"Alright!" Su Liu pointed to the door. "Go find Xiao Liu. She'll tell you what to do next."

"Oh." Dilraba, who was eager to try, was forcibly pushed back and left the office looking disappointed.

Watching her retreating figure, Su Liu muttered to himself, "As expected, she doesn't understand anything at all." He took out his phone, took a selfie, and sent it to Chen Duling.

The following day, the production team held its first meeting in the offices of Revive Culture. The members included the producer, art director, director of photography, costume designer, an assistant director, and Su Liu himself.

Su Guohao, who came from the Shanghai Film Studio, was the art director for "Finding Mr. Right," which was released earlier this year. Dong Chongming is a senior costume designer at Shanghai Film Studio, while director of photography Mr. Shi is known for his delicate visuals that best express the emotions of the characters.

Among this group, the most prominent figure is assistant director Wang Mingfei, who worked on director Wang's "The Flowers of War" years ago. This year, he independently directed a film, which was a complete flop, failing miserably at the box office and disappearing without a trace, so he had to return to being an assistant director.

The producer from Shanghai Film Studio was Li Fei.

At this moment, everyone had a written version of the storyboard in their hands.

Su Guohao spoke first, "The most important scene in this film is this mountain villa. Should we shoot it in a studio or use a real location?"

"What are the advantages of shooting in a studio?" Su Liu asked.

"The filming process is relatively controllable, but post-production compositing will take some time. For live-action filming, we'll have to scout locations first, and if we can't find a suitable villa, we'll probably have to build one on the spot."

Which option is cheaper?

"Actually, it's about the same," Chen Zhixi said from the side. "If you want to build a villa, the difference is huge, depending on how much money you can invest in special effects for post-production compositing."

"But building a villa would take too long, wouldn't it?"

"I suggest we film it on location," Li Fei said, his brows furrowed, his tone calm and experienced. "We don't need to build it from scratch. We can easily find some resorts and guesthouses to collaborate with. We just need to do some simple renovations. We might even get sponsorships and save on venue fees."

"Besides that, the difficulty probably lies in the forensic laboratory. I saw a scene in the script where the criminal throws a Molotov cocktail and burns down the forensic laboratory. But the judicial appraisal centers here are either affiliated with a university or are simply located in the police station. It's not easy to find an independent, small appraisal center."

The speaker was assistant director Wang Mingfei.

"That's easy. There are many private forensic identification centers now. We can just find a small building and set up a photography studio according to the standards of a forensic laboratory."

Next, the group finalized everything from location scouting, art direction, and camera style to meticulous camera placement, and even the staffing ratios for the props, lighting, and production crews, the number of extras, and how many sets of costumes the costume crew needed to prepare in advance.

There's also a car chase scene in the film, and after scouting the location, we need to quickly report to the traffic management department and apply for road closures. However, Shanghai Film Studio has plenty of experience with this, so Su Liu doesn't need to worry about it.

And so, everyone stayed in the office all day long.

After dark, only Su Liu, Chen Zhixi, and Li Fei remained in the house.

Su Liu slumped into a chair, holding a pile of actor information in her hand.

"Teacher Su, oh no, I should call you Director Su now. What are your thoughts on the female lead?" Li Fei asked.

"The female lead is a private nurse, a girl from a poor family burdened with huge debts. As for the actress, we'd like to find someone from a humble background who has a friendly appearance and seems to have a story to tell."

"How about this?" Li Fei handed over a document.

"Jiang Shuying?" Su Liu chuckled lightly. "Whose relationship is it?"

"The people brought in by CTS (China Television System) are the producers of 'So Young,' which was released in the first half of this year. Shanghai Film Group was responsible for the distribution," Li Fei explained.

"Look at her face, does she look like a girl from the lower class?" Su Liu said, then casually asked Chen Zhixi, "Zhixi, hasn't anyone come looking for you?"

"Of course I have one." She also pushed a resume towards me.

"Wang Luodan?"

"This should meet your requirements."

Su Liu looked at her photo with a conflicted expression.

"She doesn't seem to have any worries. She's more like a carefree little girl in the city."

"What you're saying is too abstract. Why don't you just go find Zhou Xun?"

"Hey..." Li Fei immediately interrupted her, "We can't afford it."

An actor of Zhou Xun's caliber would command a salary of at least five million yuan, which the "Sharp Blade" production team simply couldn't afford.

"I do think of someone," Su Liu said.

"Who?"

What do you guys think of Zhao Liying?