The entertainment industry: My 99 future timelines!

The next afternoon, in that familiar little conference room of the Directing Department at Beijing Film Academy.

The moment Li Xu pushed open the door, the hushed conversation inside abruptly stopped.

A dozen pairs of eyes were focused on Li Xu. These people were both men and women, but they were all outstanding students from previous years of the Beijing Film Academy, and they were all much older than Li Xu.

Their eyes were filled with scrutiny and curiosity towards Li Xu, this twenty-year-old junior.

As for the doubts...

With the quality of Yili's previous products as a benchmark and the endorsement of two bigwigs, only a fool would jump out and cause trouble at this time.

After entering the small conference room, Li Xu first greeted each of the senior students, which was the most basic courtesy.

But after the formalities, Li Xu also adopted the demeanor of someone involved in his film project.

He walked to the head of the table, opened his laptop, connected it to the projector, and without any pleasantries, went straight to his carefully prepared PowerPoint presentation.

"Dear seniors, the fact that Professor Zheng and Teacher Mu were able to gather you all here shows that you are all outstanding students from Beijing Film Academy, so let's skip the formalities and get to know each other."

"Let's start by analyzing the Yili GG video I shot before, frame by frame."

"Everyone can talk about it from their own professional perspective—photography, lighting, art direction, performance, anything goes."

Li Xu's voice was calm, but he didn't put on airs.

He knew that although he had two powerful figures, Zheng Dongtian and Mu Deyuan, backing him up, he still needed to demonstrate his true abilities to gain genuine respect and get people to work for him without hesitation.

-

The film analysis and evaluation meeting has begun.

The atmosphere in the small conference room became exceptionally quiet.

Li Xu captured the moment in the GG scene with a close-up of Liu Yifei's "first love gaze".

This short clip has been made into a GIF and is widely circulated online.

After Liu Yifei finished filming Yili GG, she was praised by countless netizens as "summer's first love," and this was a very important factor.

The screen lights up and freezes on a close-up of Liu Yifei's famous "first love gaze".

"Senior Wang, you and I are both from the photography department. Please share your thoughts and insights on catchlights in the eyes."

Seeing that the atmosphere in the small conference room was quiet and no one spoke first, Li Xu casually called out the name of a second-year graduate student in the audience who was famous for his lighting skills.

Before arriving in the morning, Li Xu had already thoroughly reviewed the names, majors, and career information of these senior students based on the information provided by Zheng Dongtian and Mu Deyuan, and he had memorized it perfectly.

Seeing that he was the first to be called out, Wang Luyao thought for a moment and cautiously replied, "In my humble opinion, this scene should have used a main light softbox with a butterfly cloth, then side backlighting to outline the contours, and then a reflector to add catchlights to the eyes."

"This is a classic butterfly light variation, creating a hazy, first-love feeling."

"The light ratio is about 1:2, which is necessary to create such a soft and hazy feeling of first love."

Wang Luyao's answer was very standard, and many people in the meeting room nodded in agreement.

However, Li Xu was not satisfied with this answer.

Enlarging the image of GG until Liu Yifei's eyes were the most prominent feature, Li Xu shook his head and said, "Senior Brother Wang, what you said is the standard answer, but it's not the correct answer."

"You say this light is a variation of the classic butterfly light, yes, but why did I shoot it this way?"

"Because when I was filming this scene, what I wanted was not 'blurry,' but a kind of 'clear blurry'."

"So I used an extremely thin layer of tracing paper layered on top of a diffuser cloth, so that when the light passed through Liu Yifei's eyelashes, it underwent extremely small diffraction, forming a light color that was difficult to see with the naked eye, but the lens could accurately capture. This is the accurate lens feel I wanted."

"Brother Wang, I suggest you take a look at Benjamin Williams Reid's classic oil painting 'February' when you have time."

"Our films are an art of light and shadow, just like oil paintings. How to depict and create light is a lifelong course for every photographer, and there is no end to learning it."

"The aesthetics of light and shadow in film should not be merely for the sake of beauty, but also for the purpose of realizing an idea. Don't turn it into a photo essay."

Hearing Li Xu speak like that.

The already quiet meeting room became even quieter.

Wang Luyao opened his mouth, his face flushed, but he was unable to refute it.

The level of photography comprehension this junior student has.

In his view, it wasn't just a complete crushing of him, but rather something that had reached a level he found difficult to comprehend, like a primary school student trying to understand advanced mathematics.

An hour later.

Li Xu only spoke three paragraphs before no one in the meeting room responded.

This group of elite students from Beijing Film Academy went from being eager to try, to being thoughtful, and now to collective silence, just like students being called on by the teacher in class, afraid of being called on.

Seeing this, Li Xu turned off the projector and looked at the crowd below the stage.

"Alright, seniors, is there anything else you want to ask?"

After a brief silence, a third-year graduate student majoring in directing, wearing black-rimmed glasses, spoke first:

"Junior Li Xu, with your skill level, we have no right to act like seniors. I'm getting paid to learn from you on this film project; it's a huge bonus!"

As soon as he said that, the atmosphere in the conference room instantly exploded, with everyone expressing their opinions and looking excited.

"Hey Li Xu, junior, count me in for photography!"

"I'll handle the art."

"The recording is fine."

However, while they were satisfied with Li Xu's skills, Li Xu was not satisfied with everyone in the small conference room.

Li Xu would never lower his standards just because he was introduced by Zheng Dongtian and others.

Once the noise in the conference room subsided, he looked at the group of top students from the Beijing Film Academy below the stage and said calmly:

"I'm sorry, fellow seniors, my team doesn't need that many people."

"Li Deyuan, Wang Luyao, Zhang Tianfang, Lu He, and Zhou Lin, welcome to the team."

"We can work together with the other senior brothers and sisters in the future if there is an opportunity."

After Li Xu finished speaking,

In the small conference room, the five people he had chosen couldn't help but show their joy.

Those who weren't selected didn't look too happy.

But no one said a word; that one hour had been enough for them to see the gap in skill completely.

Glancing at the various expressions of the people in the small conference room, Li Xu didn't care. He simply packed his things and stood up. "Tomorrow at 2 PM, five senior students, let's meet at the off-campus studio and talk about the preparations before joining the group."

As soon as he finished speaking, he pushed open the door and left.

The remaining people in the meeting room looked at each other, and after a long while, someone muttered under their breath:

"What the hell... "

Someone next to him tugged at him: "You should shut up. He's really good, the kind who can crush us."

The person who had been muttering sighed upon hearing this and fell silent, humiliating himself further.