Shao Yichen was stunned for a moment before quickly understanding what had happened.
So Jiang Miaomiao wanted to work on the film editing together with Qin Lu, and she had come to find her to ask if she could hand this task over to them!
Without stopping to consider why Jiang Miaomiao would drag Qin Lu into the women's restroom if she wanted to work on editing, she readily agreed: "No problem! The pay will be the same as originally planned. As long as you finish the editing within a month, that's fine. What do you think?"
Handing the editing over to two novices couldn't align more perfectly with her intentions!
In the previous film, she had already experienced the system's power—even with such unprofessional footage, the system could edit it to look presentable. If she handed this properly filmed footage to the system, wouldn't the system go overboard and transform this terrible film into a masterpiece?
That definitely couldn't happen.
Therefore, even if Jiang Miaomiao and Qin Lu hadn't volunteered themselves, she was planning to hand the editing task to someone else. For instance, some unknown small studio or a newly graduated editor looking for practice—anyone but the cunning system!
Hearing this response, Jiang Miaomiao's eyes immediately lit up. She turned around and proudly patted Qin Lu's shoulder: "See? I told you we wouldn't know if we didn't try! Look, the director has agreed!"
Meanwhile, Qin Lu, hearing this answer, began questioning his life choices, completely disregarding his current location.
What was happening? Was this director really so casual?
Was it really appropriate to entrust such an important task as film editing to two young novices?!
His expression stiffened as he looked from the director to the cinematographer, a thousand thoughts rushing through his mind.
Finally, he humbly said: "...Can we get out of the women's restroom first?"
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To explain why Qin Lu had been dragged into the women's restroom by Jiang Miaomiao, and how he had ended up on this precarious ship of film editing, we need to go back to when filming wrapped.
When Jiang Miaomiao saw that filming had completed, she was naturally ecstatic. She immediately grabbed the hand of the art director beside her with tears in her eyes, reminiscing about the eventful month they had spent with the film crew.
But Art Director Qin Lu didn't actually feel anything particularly deep about it.
Unlike the cinematographer who had to constantly watch through the camera lens, Qin Lu, as the props manager, had seen his workload drastically decrease after preparing the props and sets during the preparation phase. His daily work in the crew basically involved directing stage workers to adjust the scenery, bringing one prop over or moving another elsewhere, occasionally fixing any gaps with some small additional props. His life was leisurely, and he even had time to resume updating his own works, openly slacking off during breaks in filming.
However, despite his apparent ease, his work had never caused any problems. In fact, it had received unanimous praise from some of the actors, led by Li Xingyu—because his preparations had been thorough. Ever since the creative meeting, he had borrowed Li Xingyu's annotated script of "The Web" to make a copy, carefully sorting through all the props needed for the script. He had even discussed with some actors how certain props should be made. For example, the diary that appeared in the play had its contents jointly decided by him and Li Xingyu, but was handwritten by Li Xingyu.
At first, Qin Lu lacked confidence in the props he made and frequently contacted Shao Yichen to see if she had any opinions on his work. Later, he discovered that no matter what he did, the director's responses were always "okay," "good," or "keep up the good work," almost always with immediate replies, and she had barely raised any issues.
The only time this director had ever questioned a prop was about Yuan You's diary, but even this rare query had nothing to do with the prop itself—she asked, "Why is the handwriting so beautiful? Was it specially designed by someone?"
Qin Lu sent Li Xingyu's name to the director, and there was no further response. He guessed that the director had discovered that her own calligraphy skills as a writer were inferior to those of a professional actor, her self-esteem had suffered to some extent, and she never dared to mention it again.
In short, because of the director's laissez-faire attitude that gave him complete freedom, Qin Lu gradually became bolder and began designing props according to his own understanding, feeling quite good about his work.
Of course, while Qin Lu had let his creativity run wild with prop making, he hadn't been so casual about his attitude toward these props. He had provided detailed explanations to the film crew's creative team—especially cinematographer Jiang Miaomiao—about what each prop represented, what story lay behind it, and what details it contained.
Faced with so many details, Jiang Miaomiao naturally let her imagination run wild. Moreover, Director Shao Yichen had confidently entrusted almost all decisions about how to shoot scenes to Jiang Miaomiao. Therefore, Jiang Miaomiao had designed many close-ups specifically for Qin Lu's props, all to express the stories behind these props through camera language.
During this process, Jiang Miaomiao and Qin Lu inevitably became familiar with each other through their frequent discussions on how to better express ideas through the camera—they had become each other's most familiar colleagues in the crew. Their topics of conversation expanded from just film content to wide-ranging discussions of career planning and life aspirations.
Qin Lu, as someone who had experienced society's harsh realities, had very simple life aspirations—work, buy a house, buy a car, pay off the mortgage, and if he could earn more money, buy another house.
But Jiang Miaomiao, as an eighteen-year-old girl who hadn't even attended university yet, had considerable yearning and expectations for the future. Not to mention that she had directly run away from home to film this movie and had started working at a photo studio, which showed that she not only had dreams but also possessed formidable determination.
She watched the busy figures moving through the film set, her eyes shining as she said, "Someday, I too want to become a film director!"
Qin Lu thought she was just daydreaming and jokingly said, "Aren't you a cinematographer? Why do you want to be a director?"
"Assistant directors are directors too!" Perhaps thinking about script issues, Jiang Miaomiao slightly lowered her demands, "If that's not possible, even an executive director would do!"
The more she thought about it, the clearer her plan became: "Actually, I don't want to tell a story all by myself. I know what I love most is still the camera. What I want to do most in film is to use the images in the lens to express things that words cannot, to create heart-stirring visual effects! I want everyone to know the charm of the camera lens!"
"But if I only have the position of 'cinematographer,' no matter how important I might seem in the eyes of professionals, others still won't recognize my abilities!"
"So I want to become a director, no, an assistant director would be enough—or a member of the directing team! Then I'll make great works! This way, I can tell everyone how important the camera is, tell everyone that my camera work is also part of the film!"
"Oh right, directors like Director Shao who allow people to innovate freely are great! If possible, I'd like to keep working with her. If I could become an assistant director for her films, that would be perfect!"
Jiang Miaomiao spoke with increasing excitement, but Qin Lu remained silent.
After being exposed to the film industry, he had done some investigation and knew that in China, "assistant director" was basically a transitional role. All assistant directors ultimately aimed to become the sole director of a film crew. In such circumstances, the so-called directing team was hardly likely to emerge, and Jiang Miaomiao's dream of achieving her goal by becoming an assistant director would naturally never come true.
Moreover, the difference between cinematographer and assistant director was quite significant. Under the premise of not wanting "director" as the ultimate goal, wanting to become an assistant director?
This was basically impossible.
But looking at Jiang Miaomiao's expression, he decided not to reveal this truth.
Once she had spent more time in film crews, she would gradually recognize reality and abandon this unrealistic idea, Qin Lu thought.
But what Qin Lu didn't expect was that more than a month later, at the wrap party, Jiang Miaomiao brought up this dream again—after tearfully sharing her wrap-up feelings with him.
"Qin Lu, do you remember the goal I mentioned about becoming an assistant director?" she asked, haphazardly wiping away excited tears with the tissue Qin Lu had handed her.
"Yes, of course I remember." Qin Lu nodded, thinking that her plan was more like a dream than a goal—but naturally, he couldn't say that out loud.
"I did some more research afterward," Jiang Miaomiao blew her nose, which was a bit uncomfortable from crying with emotion, her nose tip red as she said, "I found out that assistant directors are responsible for many things, such as suggesting casting choices, evaluating shooting locations, preparing shooting notices, and confirming editing points. If I want to become an assistant director, I still need to learn many things..."
Qin Lu nodded, thinking she had finally faced reality and was preparing to give up.
While feeling relieved, he also inexplicably felt a bit disappointed, like seeing his former self who had abandoned drawing manga due to life's pressures.
Unexpectedly, Jiang Miaomiao changed direction: "...I think it's too late to learn the things an assistant director needs to do during filming, so I can only start with post-production work! To familiarize myself with the crew's workflow and learn more about what an assistant director needs to do, I want to find the director and volunteer to handle the editing work!"
After saying this, she looked expectantly at Qin Lu: "However, I'm still a novice when it comes to editing and would like to hear others' opinions—so could you work on the film editing with me? Of course, I'll be the main person responsible! You just need to provide some suggestions!"
Qin Lu: ?!
This development wasn't what he had imagined!
How had she suddenly pivoted to pursuing the path of an editor?!
He hadn't expected that Jiang Miaomiao really wanted to start working toward becoming Shao Yichen's dedicated assistant director—but why edit herself to become familiar with post-production work? Even if she had previous experience with editing from working at the photo studio, editing wedding video clips and editing films were completely different jobs!
There were plenty of opportunities to become familiar with the work; there was no need to ruin someone's film!
Besides, she was inviting him to work together and provide suggestions—but he was a novice too! How could one novice provide constructive feedback to another? Impossible! The more Qin Lu thought about it, the more unreliable this idea seemed.
However, Jiang Miaomiao felt confident: "I'll go ask the director right now if I can edit! Director Shao is such a nice person. If she agrees, it means this method is definitely feasible!"
At this point, Qin Lu felt that if he didn't speak up, he would be dragged onto this perilous ship by the highly motivated Jiang Miaomiao. He quickly tried to dissuade her: "Let's forget about it. Editing is such an important task—how could Director Shao entrust it to two novices like us? Let's not bother her."
"How will we know if we don't ask?" Jiang Miaomiao was firm. "People should always try new things!"
"But I still think it's a waste of effort." Qin Lu shook his head, feeling it was time to bring Jiang Miaomiao back to reality. "I won't go find the director today. Let's talk about it later."
Sensing Qin Lu's lack of enthusiasm, Jiang Miaomiao grabbed his arm and stood up, intending to take him to find Shao Yichen: "I see now! You've chickened out, haven't you? You think this is impossible, so you plan to drag through today's party, then never contact me again, naturally making it impossible for us to edit together—right?"
Qin Lu froze for a moment.
Jiang Miaomiao had hit the nail on the head. He was indeed planning to stall until after today. As long as they didn't approach Shao Yichen today, it would be easy to lose contact with Jiang Miaomiao afterward, making editing together out of the question.
"In that case, I can't let you escape today!" Jiang Miaomiao gripped Qin Lu more tightly and stood up, about to head to Shao Yichen's position across the table, only to find it empty.
"Huh, where's Director Shao?"
"She suddenly rushed to the restroom for some reason just now..." Li Xingyu hesitantly said, "She might not be back for a while."
Accompanied by the jarring music intro from the Nan twins, Qin Lu breathed a sigh of relief.
It seemed temporarily impossible to find the director.
But what he didn't expect was that after hearing this, Jiang Miaomiao silently pulled him toward a certain direction in the restaurant.
"...What are you doing?" A sense of crisis washed over Qin Lu.
"Going to the women's restroom—to find Director Shao!" Jiang Miaomiao said firmly. "You're coming too!"
Author's Note: Second update of the day!
There should be a third update... but the draft box is getting thinner and thinner! Mom is very worried (?)
Child, there's really not much left at home, Mom can only feed you this much each day (stuffs draft)