Huayu 2011: Starting with Hilarious Men

Chapter 95, "The Best of Us," begins filming.

On April 17, 2012, Zheng Nan, Dilraba Dilmurat, Guo Xiaoting and others left the Shanghai Theatre Academy and went to the filming location first, while other actors were arriving one after another.

The filming crew, which was rented from Tangren Media, had already arrived ahead of schedule. They had even prepared the "opening ceremony" and were just waiting for director Zheng Nan to host it.

The custom of holding a launch ceremony before filming begins mainly originated in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong people are very superstitious, and fortune telling, feng shui, and other such doctrines have always been popular in Hong Kong.

Before the advent of digital technology, films were shot using film. If a camera malfunctioned and scratched the film, the expensive film would be destroyed, rendering the footage unusable.

Faced with such unpredictable and enormous risks, people in Hong Kong used a red cloth to cover the camera to "ward off evil" and pray for blessings. Gradually, this ritualistic action became part of the opening ceremony.

Tangren's team has collaborated extensively with Hong Kong, and these habits have been maintained ever since.

Offering incense, unveiling the red cloth, and setting off firecrackers —

After completing all of the above, Zheng Nan took a photo of the opening ceremony and then posted a Weibo message: 【Congratulations on the start of filming for the new drama!】

[A new drama? What new drama? Isn't it "Hilarious Men"?]

Is Yui Hatano here too? I'm waiting to see!

[Yui Hatano made a guest appearance on "Men's Laugh" last month, but has long since returned to her quiet life and resumed filming.]

[After filming here, they filmed there; Mr. Hattori is truly dedicated!]

What genre is the new drama? Is it still a comedy?

Rarely finding someone asking a serious question, Zheng Nan quickly replied below: "It's not a comedy, it's a youth romance drama."

【Oh, this is boring. I'm going back to watch "Hilarious Men"】 This netizen casually teased Zheng Nan.

Romance is the most mainstream and enduring theme in the film and television industry.

Many people watch it, and the potential audience is enormous.

This has led to a large number of romantic films and television dramas being produced every year, making this field extremely crowded.

Most of Zheng Nan's fans are those who came to know her because of "Hilarious Men". They are not naturally interested in romance dramas, so when Zheng Nan announced that her new drama would not be a comedy, these fans were not very excited and even a little disgusted.

Seeing the feedback from fans in the comments section, Zheng Nan couldn't help but sigh, "No wonder it's so hard for actors to transition to other roles."

When an actor becomes famous because of a certain role or persona, the audience subconsciously associates the role with the actor himself.

This preconceived notion and cognitive inertia is the biggest obstacle to transformation.

As a collection of fragmented online jokes, "Hilarious Men" features Zheng Nan playing different characters in each joke, which is a good transition for him. However, most fans won't immediately accept it.

Assistant director Zhang Qing came over and asked, "Director Zheng, what are we shooting this afternoon?"

Zhang Qing is in his early forties, and the team that Zheng Nan rented was led by Zhang Qing.

Zhang Qing has been in the industry for a long time, working his way up from a production assistant to an executive director for many TV series, and has extensive experience on set.

Zheng Nan is now a complete novice in front of Zhang Qing. Despite his successful directing experience with "Laughing Man", "Laughing Man" is hardly a serious film.

Zheng Nan's exceptional memory can only reproduce the original shots, but it cannot make him a qualified director.

If Zheng Nan wants to become a professional director and go beyond simply replicating original films and television dramas, she still needs to learn a lot.

"Brother Zhang—" Zheng Nan was just about to get closer to Zhang Qing and learn some filming techniques when the phone rang.

Zhang Qing, with his keen insight, left immediately.

Zheng Nan picked up her phone and saw that it was an unfamiliar local number in Shanghai.

Zheng Nan's previous phone number was registered on too many platforms when the first season of "Hilarious Men" was released online, which made it known to many people, and strangers called her every day.

What's infuriating is that most of these strangers just want to get freebies from Zheng Nan. They'll ask him to write a song or a script, but they'll shut up as soon as money is mentioned, which annoys Zheng Nan to no end.

Since the company expanded and established a dedicated customer service team, Zheng Nan handed over his original mobile phone number to the company for use as a public account, and changed his own to a private number that few people knew about.

"Hello, who is this?"

"It's me, Director Zheng," a female voice came from the phone.

"Nazha, you changed your phone number?" Zheng Nan had exchanged contact information with Nazha when he visited the set of "Xuan-Yuan Sword," so the fact that the number was showing as an unknown number meant that Nazha had changed her phone number.

"Director Zheng recognized my voice! My previous phone number was from Beijing, but I changed it to a local Shanghai number." Nazha was very happy that Zheng Nan called her by name so quickly.

"Mr. Cai said you'd be at the film set today, does that mean you'll be there soon?"

"We'll be there in another hour."

"Okay, we'll wait for you to join the crew."

After hanging up the phone, Zhang Qing came over again.

"Brother Zhang, Gulnazar will be joining the crew soon." Zheng Nan glanced at the time as he spoke: "It's already noon. Let's get to know each other today and shoot a couple of funny skits. We'll start filming the main content tomorrow."

"No problem." Zhang Qing agreed readily. Once you've taken the money, you have to do the job. That's the truth in the film crew.

Zheng Nan had a simple lunch on set, and while eating, she came up with two jokes.

Filming for "With You" is going smoothly and won't wrap up until the end of June, not even counting the time for post-production editing.

Since the third season of "Men's Laughter" will air in July, "With You" will definitely air after "Men's Laughter".

In order to attract viewers to "With You", Zheng Nan decided to have the main actors film a short skit together before filming the main episodes and add it to "Hilarious Men".

After finishing her meal, Dilraba sat next to Zheng Nan and read the script for the female lead, Geng Geng, trying to understand the character and deepen her understanding of the lines.

When I get tired, I look up at Zheng Nan for a while.

Now that we can see the complete script, instead of the unfinished novel of over 60,000 words, Dilraba can understand the characteristics and essence of the character Geng Geng.

Geng Geng is an ordinary underachiever who gets into a top high school by luck. She appears unremarkable, even somewhat clumsy and insecure.

Encouraged by the male protagonist Yu Huai, she, who is insecure, takes becoming a better version of herself as a goal to achieve. She then tries her best to reach her goal with her clumsy nature. Even if she fails or is discouraged along the way, she will digest the experience and stubbornly continue.

There's a line in the script that perfectly describes Geng Geng.

"Not all perseverance yields results, but some perseverance can cultivate more than 100,000 blooming roses from a sliver of frozen earth."

The more Dilraba studied the character, the more she liked Geng Geng and wanted to play the role well.

Dilraba was clearly immersed in the script when she suddenly looked up and saw a strange yet familiar figure appear not far away.

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