From the moment Nan Rongyu began his performance, Li Xingyu frowned from a position outside the camera's frame.
His scene only appeared in the final small portion of this shot, so he had time to observe Nan Rongyu's performance during the first half.
In his view, if he were to grade Nan Rongyu's acting, the score would clearly be failing.
And not the kind of failing that scores 59, just one point away from passing; rather, the single-digit kind where even if a teacher wanted to find ways to add points out of sympathy, they couldn't find anything worthy of extra credit...
His performance was completely like that of an amateur who had never studied acting!
Starting with his initial appearance, he was playing a police officer. Though physical limitations might prevent him from achieving a commanding presence, he should at least maintain a natural posture and composed demeanor. Simultaneously, since the character was specified as newly recruited, he should display the vitality characteristic of young people—energetic, perhaps even showing a hint of inexperience or impulsiveness without betraying the character's essence.
But Nan Rongyu's walking posture could be summed up in one phrase: sloppy nonchalance. Not only did he fail to keep his back straight, but he also swayed and moved at a pace like a leisurely stroll. The short distance from the doorway to the protagonist's desk was traversed with the air of a rich heir out shopping.
His subsequent performance was even worse. His search through the deceased's desk for clues appeared as natural as if rummaging through his own belongings, even conveying a sense of "this textbook was published by my family; I'm just checking on our property"—the arrogant attitude of a wealthy heir.
Li Xingyu deeply felt that Nan Rongyu shouldn't be playing a police officer.
He should be playing the rich kid who bullied Yuan You in the script—it would be perfectly type-cast, vivid and authentic.
By his standards, the director should have called cut by now, either to coach Nan Rongyu or let him find his own feeling, making him aware of the issues with his performance. But when Li Xingyu looked toward Shao Yichen behind the monitor, he found she showed no intention of stopping, and even appeared somewhat satisfied!
What was happening?
Li Xingyu felt utterly bewildered. But by this point, the scene was approaching his part, and since the director hadn't called cut, he could only proceed with determination. He tried to forget his confusion and immerse himself fully in the plot.
Meanwhile, Shao Yichen was indeed, just as Li Xingyu suspected, very satisfied with Nan Rongyu's performance.
Look at that! This is exactly the atrociously bad acting she had been seeking!
Though Shao Yichen lacked any knowledge for judging acting, even she could tell that everything about Nan Rongyu's performance felt off, immediately breaking immersion.
This matched her expectations perfectly! It was exactly what she wanted!
She felt delighted, believing this was precisely the kind of money-losing actor that would appear in a money-losing film crew.
After the scene was completed, neither Nan Rongyu nor Li Xingyu looked particularly pleased. Nan Rongyu felt he had performed poorly and was letting down the entire crew, while Li Xingyu, experiencing Nan Rongyu's acting for the first time, contemplated the complexity of working together for a month with mixed feelings.
Perhaps the only happy person was Shao Yichen. After calling cut, she felt extremely satisfied and was about to approve the take and prepare for the next shot when she was abruptly interrupted.
"Director, I don't think this shot works well," Jiang Miaomiao said from behind the camera with a serious expression.
Typically, while cinematographers hold important positions in film crews, they don't usually direct the director's filming. But since Shao Yichen wasn't a proper director herself and was filming what she considered a guaranteed money-losing film, she didn't have any negative feelings about this phenomenon that would never occur in a normal film crew.
Nevertheless, when she heard these words, her heart skipped a beat.
Was Nan Rongyu's acting so terrible that even the cinematographer wanted to quit? But this was her hard-won, eye-scorchingly bad male lead—improving his acting was absolutely out of the question for her...
Just as Shao Yichen was desperately searching for excuses to persuade Jiang Miaomiao not to mind Nan Rongyu's acting, Jiang Miaomiao continued speaking, but her content was entirely different from what Shao Yichen had imagined.
"I think the lighting doesn't work! It doesn't feel right! We should use natural light!"
...Oh, so she wasn't planning to criticize my money-losing ally Nan Rongyu's acting.
Shao Yichen breathed a sigh of relief.
No objections to the acting meant Nan Rongyu could continue filming this way, which was fine.
Having put her mind at ease, Shao Yichen began considering the issue the cinematographer had raised: "Lighting? What's the problem? I think it's fine—dark and gloomy, perfect for an evening atmosphere."
Jiang Miaomiao shook her head firmly: "In the script, this scene is set in the evening. What's most important about evening? It's the sunset! The afterglow! The last ray of sunlight before it disappears below the horizon!"
"I specifically checked the weather forecast. Today there's a good chance of seeing sunset glow. If we don't film this scene during the actual evening, wouldn't that be a shame!"
Shao Yichen: ...
She vaguely recalled that the troublesome customer at the photo studio had also been photographing a sunset scene.
Do you have some strange obsession with sunsets?
Shao Yichen initially wanted to refuse, but seeing Jiang Miaomiao's earnest expression, she reconsidered, thinking that lighting wouldn't significantly impact the shot's effect, and letting her practice wouldn't hurt. Moreover, reshooting the first scene, especially postponing it to the evening, would likely dampen the filming morale, which would benefit her money-losing plan in the long run.
So she pondered: "You mean moving this scene to the evening? That's not impossible, but it's summer now, so waiting for what you describe as 'before the sun disappears below the horizon' means waiting until 7:30. The contract clearly states eight hours per day with no overtime..."
Jiang Miaomiao thought for a moment, then suddenly seemed to have a flash of inspiration and confidently said: "I've got it! We can take the day off and film in the evening!"
❀⋆｡°✿☆❀✿°｡⋆❀
Li Xingyu, biting half a popsicle, couldn't understand why after a series of events, the film crew suddenly had the day off, with wages still being paid, everyone free to do as they pleased, only to reconvene in the evening to reshoot the previous scene.
It was absurd.
Presumably aware of how unusual this arrangement was, the director bought a bunch of ice cream and popsicles as compensation for the crew members (though there were fewer than ten people). Since the crew had little understanding of standard film production anyway, they were easily placated by Shao Yichen, leaving only Li Xingyu, the sole normal person with common sense, questioning reality.
As for the half popsicle in his mouth, the other half was with Shao Yichen.
What happened? Apparently, Director Shao Yichen miscounted when buying ice cream and was short by one person's portion. Li Xingyu, mindful of maintaining his physique, was going to give his ice cream to someone else, but Shao Yichen firmly disagreed, insisting that all crew members should be treated equally. Since she had picked out a popsicle for herself, she forcefully broke it in half and thrust one piece into Li Xingyu's hand, threatening that refusing would be disrespectful to her as the director.
Left with no choice, Li Xingyu joined the rest of the crew in eating his popsicle.
He took a gentle bite, finding it quite sweet.
Just then, from the corner of his eye, he noticed Nan Rongyu, who had played the police officer, approaching with a popsicle stick in his mouth, looking somewhat embarrassed as if he had something to say.
After the crew was given time off, Director Shao Yichen led by example and disappeared after distributing the ice cream. Without the director's pressure, crew members naturally scattered quickly. Li Xingyu remained partly because he hadn't finished his popsicle, and partly because he wanted to examine the filming location again to plan his blocking. During the morning session, he had been thrown off by Nan Rongyu's performance and didn't feel good about his own work, so he wanted to stay a bit longer to find his rhythm.
But surprisingly, Nan Rongyu hadn't left either, which was rather strange.
Honestly, Li Xingyu didn't have a favorable impression of this lead actor. In his view, with even minimal acting guidance and script analysis, the previous performance shouldn't have been so terrible. Therefore, he could only conclude that Nan Rongyu hadn't prepared for his role before filming. Since he was so casual about his performance, there wasn't much to say.
But if he cared so little about this performance, why was he still hanging around?
Li Xingyu couldn't figure it out. While he was pondering, Nan Rongyu seemed to have finally made some decision. With a stamp of his foot, he walked straight toward Li Xingyu.
Li Xingyu discreetly took a step back.
What's this? Looking for a fight?
Though he didn't think he would lose in a physical confrontation, he didn't want to cause trouble in Director Shao Yichen's film crew and create problems for the production.
However, Nan Rongyu didn't notice his subtle movement. He walked up to Li Xingyu, closed his eyes, and right there, gave him a deep bow!
Li Xingyu: ...
Why such a grand gesture, good sir?
Nan Rongyu's bow was extremely formal—a perfect 90-degree angle. Moreover, while most people's bows spring back up automatically, he was clearly a rusty spring, because once he bent down at that 90-degree angle, he didn't bounce back up!
Maintaining this 90-degree bowing posture, he shouted at the top of his lungs.
"Brother Li!!! Please teach me how to act!!!"
Author's Note:
Li Xingyu's Acting Class is now in session! When a child's acting is consistently bad, they're probably beyond help...
Nan Rongyu: ?
First update today!
Brother Li is going to carry someone up the ranks! (?)
Actually, I'm not very confident about the content of each script, haha, but I'll try my best to present the script as I envision it!
Thanks to the little angels who cast Emperor Votes or poured Nutrition Fluid for me during the period from 2020-08-26 20:03:31 to 2020-08-27 11:12:43~
Thanks to the little angels who threw landmines: Nannan, £Weixian ギ 1;
Thanks to the little angels who poured Nutrition Fluid: Ginger Orange 130 bottles; Zhou Zhou 50 bottles; Lin Manmi, Nannan 20 bottles; Three Days One Period, Symbol 10 bottles; Did You Work Hard to Update Today 8 bottles; Has Xia Wen Eaten, Ye Zi Who Wants to Lose Weight Again 5 bottles; Human Ultimate Taste 3 bottles; My Beloved Yue Rong, Thirty-five, Smile Xiao Yan, First A in Interstellar, £Weixian ギ, Yu Yu, Literary Stray Dogs, My Home is on Another Planet 1 bottle;
Thank you very much for your support, I will continue to work hard!