Entertainment tycoon since 83

Chapter 85 Departure to Cannes
Sitting in the car, feeling the bumps on the road, Huang Ze vaguely sensed that something was wrong.

Good guy!
Cars are shaking like this, what about motorcycles?
Sure enough, after a while, Gu Changwei expressed Huang Ze's concerns, "Old Huang, I suggest that the male protagonist drive a car instead of a motorcycle. It just so happens that we have enough cars."

“The motorcycle was too shaky when driving on it, and it was also very troublesome when shooting the character’s face, because the shaking of the car with the camera and the motorcycle were inconsistent.”

"It's even more unrealistic to change the road. We are originally looking for a dirt road, and we need a dirt road that is one car wide. There is basically no good road condition."

"I noticed that too." Huang Ze nodded slightly.

I am too complacent.

It is already difficult to shoot motion shots, not to mention that there are no Steadicams in China at present.

If I force myself to use a motorcycle, the final filming would probably be a disaster.

After all, most of the shots in this film are about what happens to the protagonist on the road.

Huang Ze doesn't want to spend years preparing for a film like this.

"Let's change it to the protagonist driving the car!" Huang Ze corrected his mistake immediately, "And this way, it will be more appropriate to shoot the character's facial expressions."

The motorcycles, one in front and one behind, made it impossible for the protagonist and the supporting character to look at each other.

You can't let the protagonist, a person who is determined to die, turn his neck 180 degrees, right?
When shooting scenes of the main and supporting characters, the camera can be installed next to them.

And when the wind blows, the motorcyclist's face is directly facing the wind, and his expression will be distorted.

If we switch to cars, this situation will no longer exist.

"Ok, deal!"

"I will adjust the shooting storyboard and plan tonight."

Huang Ze finally finalized the matter.

I don't know how long the car drove, but it stopped. When we got out, Zhang Yimou and the script supervisor were digging a hole.

"Director Huang."

"Old Huang."

"This is the pit where the protagonist will lie." Zhang Jianya came over and introduced it, while pointing to Jiao Huang not far away, asking if he could take a look.
"Are you back?" Jiao Huang nodded at Huang Ze.

"You don't look very well!" Huang Ze said.

"Yes!" Jiao Huang's face was not very smiling. "Since I received the script, in order to play this role well, I haven't had a good night's sleep for almost a month. I only sleep six hours a day and deliberately mess up my sleep and rest schedule."

"I thought that a person who wanted to commit suicide would definitely have no appetite, so my food intake also dropped a lot, and I lost almost 10 kilograms."

"Are you feeling okay?" Huang Ze asked with concern.

After all, the other party is already fifty years old. If you keep doing this, I hope something unexpected happens during the filming.

What about this film?
It wouldn’t be good if something happened after you finished filming!

Huang Ze is still a person who cares about his reputation. He would not do things like selling movies at funerals or using the death of an actor as a gimmick to promote his films.

"It's okay, I'm fine." Jiao Huo smiled, "These are all small things. It's not like I haven't experienced periods of poor sleep before."

"To be honest, I also thought about suicide for a while. I have a lot of experience. You have come to the right person."

"Haha!" Huang Ze laughed. He couldn't continue with this topic.

But I have to say it.

This is actually one of the unknown reasons why he was chosen to play this role.

I think he has experience!

After Jiao Huang got married, he encountered that incident, was criticized, and his wife divorced him.

He went to the countryside, met a woman and got married. However, she couldn't stand being criticized all day long, so she divorced him.

If his mother hadn't taken the initiative to accompany Jiao Huang after knowing the situation, he would probably not have survived until today.

This kind of experience is very rare for this role.

Nodding with satisfaction at his preparation for the role, Huang Ze smiled and said, "I'll try to finish the filming as soon as possible, and then you can have a good sleep."

"Okay, but don't just pursue speed. As long as I can maintain this state for a year or two, I'll be fine."

"Ah."

Next, Huang Ze looked at all the filming locations they had decided on.

Ask him to find a car, and then start drawing a new storyboard in the hotel.

By the way, the script was also modified to include a scene where the right front wheel of the car driven by the protagonist accidentally ran out of the lane, and a simple worker working not far away came over to help the protagonist move the car out.

……

three days later.

"Taste of Cherry" officially started filming on the streets of Yuci!

With a lifeless makeup on his face and his eyebrows drawn a little darker, Wu Di, played by Jiao Huang, drove aimlessly in the city.

The camera was placed in the car, facing the outside to capture some scenery, and then the car was driven again along the original route, but this time the person being filmed was Wu Di, the driver.

Whenever he stopped in a crowded place, young people who looked like workers would come over and ask him if he was looking for workers.

But he refused every time.

Continuing to drive aimlessly, he stopped at a dilapidated public telephone booth.

There was a young man in the phone booth. Because the car window was not closed, I could vaguely hear the man's high-pitched voice. He seemed to be worried about financial problems.

Wu Di thought that the other party might be the person he was looking for, so he offered to give him a ride, but was rejected by the other party. The protagonist Wu Di continued to drive the car to follow the other party until the young man asked him impatiently through the car window what he was doing.

"I just heard your call and it seems you are short of money. If you need it, I can help you."

But his so-called good intentions were angrily driven away by the young man.

The protagonist drove out of the city and came to the suburbs. The second person he met was a man who was picking up sheep dung.

Huang Ze had already decided on an actor for this role, his classmate Zhang Yimou.

Others may not know, but I know it very well. In my previous life, I was not only a photographer and director, but also an actor in between these two identities.

The leading actor in "Old Well" is Sun Wangquan.

In "The Battle of Qin Terracotta Warriors", he played the role of Meng Tianfang, a Qin general.

Especially "Old Well", which helped him win three Best Actor awards, including the Golden Rooster, Hundred Flowers, and Tokyo International Film Awards.

Such an actor should not be wasted.

Although his appearance certainly doesn't make him suitable for the role of the Terracotta Warrior, I think he is more than qualified to play an extremely dull farmer.

The protagonist stopped the car next to the man who was picking up sheep dung. "If you are willing to do me a favor, I will give you a lot of money. One thousand yuan! This is enough for you to pick up sheep dung for five years."

But Zhang Yimou, who was picking up sheep dung, rejected the protagonist's proposal, saying that he only knew how to farm and pick up sheep dung.

Keep driving until you meet the third person.

This is a young soldier.

Considering that this character is a bit shy, Huang Ze did not let Zhang Jianya look for Wang Zhiwen. He thought it would be better for the latter to play a role that is both good and evil.

But this time, we found a Shanghai native, Lu Jianming, who was studying at Beijing Film Academy.

The young soldier he played got on the bus. Through chatting, the protagonist Wu Di learned that the other party had dropped out of school because his family had no money, so he once again offered to give him one thousand yuan and asked him to do him a favor.

The boy was pulled all the way to a cherry tree, and the protagonist Wu Di got out of the car and pointed at the cherry tree.

"There's a pit down there. Come here at six tomorrow and call my name twice."

"If I respond, pull me out of this hole, take a thousand bucks from the car and leave."

"If I don't react, bury me in the dirt and leave with a thousand dollars."

The protagonist wants to commit suicide, and he wants to find someone to help him fill the soil.

……

This film does not require grand scenes, nor does it require too much light and shadow in the shots. It strives for authenticity and has the texture of a documentary.

The actors chosen are also those who have some talent.

So, apart from the initial episode where we had to change the protagonist's scene from riding a motorcycle to driving a car, we didn't encounter any major problems and the filming went quite smoothly.

Huang Ze originally thought that he would need to hand over the photography to someone else when he went to Cannes, but on May 5rd, it was the last shot.

Viewfinder.

A dozen soldiers who cooperated with the filming were running on the road while shouting slogans.

When you take a picture, you will find that this place is not entirely yellow earth, but rather a lush green area.

"Okay, stop under that tree!" Huang Ze stood behind the camera.

Zhang Yimou carried another camera and filmed Huang Ze.

Jiao Huang, who played the leading role, took out a cigarette and handed it to Huang Ze, and chatted with Huang Ze.

The soldiers also ran up, and one of them even picked a flower.

The last shot is to tell the audience that this is not a real thing, it is a film.

And there is not only yellow earth here, there are green grass, flowers and lush trees. It is only because of the mentality of seeking death that vitality disappears from their eyes and it has become a yellow earth like a desert.

Where the world has always been.

There are spring, summer, autumn and winter, and there are wind, frost, rain and snow.

And what it looks like depends on the eyes with which you look at the world.

"Good! Click, it's done." Huang Ze cheered, sat on the ground, broke off a blade of grass, put it in his mouth, looked at the scenery in the distance, and enjoyed it all.

At the same time, I was also thinking about the Cannes Film Festival which will begin on May 5th.

During the filming of "Taste of Cherry", Huang Ze had already called Liu Zhenwei and "In the Mood for Love" successfully entered the main competition unit of Cannes.

But Huang Ze was still a little worried.

There is no fixed number for winning awards, as each judge has his or her own preferences.

He produced this movie more than ten years in advance and changed the male and female protagonists.

I don’t know what the final result of this film will be in Cannes!
“I hope I can make a name for myself.”

"Of course, it would be great if I could win several awards. The more awards I, Huang Ze, win, the better."

……

He took a day to explain to the editor the key points that need to be paid attention to when editing this film. While others returned to Shanghai, Huang Ze took photographer Gu Changwei back to Hong Kong Island first.

The previous version of "In the Mood for Love" won a technical award. In order not to leave any regrets for Gu Changwei, he, the photographer, cannot be absent.

After returning to Hong Kong Island, Huang Ze joined Gong Xing, Liang Jiahui, Zhang Shuping, Liu Zhenwei and Wang Jiawei and boarded a plane to Cannes.

(End of this chapter)