23.
Zhuang Qin’s back was turned so he couldn’t see Li Mu’s expression but he could feel him staring.
He quickly put his clothes back on and turned around to see Li Mu holding the lollipop with an expressionless face.
Zhuang Qin: “How was this part just now? Do you want to do it again?”
Li Mu politely shook his head: “No.”
If you look at it again, I’m afraid it won’t be so easy to speak calmly.
Li Mu said no, which meant that the rehearsal was over. Zhuang Qin said, “Then I’ll send you down.”
Since He said no and Zhuang Qin offered to send him downstairs, he nodded.
Xiao Lian who hugged his knees as he slept on the stool finally woke: “Zhuang, Brother Zhuang…”
“Quickly Get up. It’s been hard for you. Go to bed.”
Xiao Lian saw him wearing shoes and was confused, “It’s over? Brother Zhuang where are you going?”
“To send him downstairs.”
Xiao Lian wiped the saliva from his mouth: “Don’t forget the room card!”
“I almost forgot it if you didn’t say it.” Zhuang Qin picked up the room card and sent Li Mu downstairs: “You want to head back alone. Do you want me to accompany you?”
It will take more than a minute using the path outside but it is dark and lightless, and there was a wasteland next to the path.
Li Mu was stunned for a second but then shook his head.
Zhuang Qin: “Then message me when you arrive and be careful.”
Li Mu sensed that he was serious and concerned.
This child seemed to sincerely listen to Director Guo and planned to fall in love with him?
Li Mu wondered if he was too cold, would the child feel frustrated? But he was a stiff-faced and passive person who rarely showed such emotions like laughter outside of a scene.
He began to think about what would happen if he were really Jiang Zhuo.
Zhuang Qin saw that he hadn’t moved: “Did you forget something?”
Li Mu stood at the entrance of the stairs and touched his hair, his fingers withdrew quickly, and his expression remained cold, “I’m going now, good night.”
The touch on his head was fleeting, but it left Zhuang Qin stunned: “Oh…Good night.”
He waved his hand, and Li Mu said “hmm”. Zhuang Qin couldn’t help but feel like he was behaving a little bit docile.
Li Mu left so he went back upstairs. Although he was surprised by Li Mu, he didn’t take it seriously.
The next day’s shooting was once again another intense one, it was constant filming from morning till night. In the evening on the indoor set, Director Guo cleared the area and left only the photographer and the four people to shoot in the room.
“Cut-Teacher Zhuang, this one just now was a little strange. It felt deliberate like you knew that there was someone behind you. Relax a little.”
Zhuang Qin: “Okay.”
Director Guo: “Take 2, Pass.”
To proceed to the next shot, Zhuang Qin had to take off his trousers for them to film his legs. If he could wear something like this to swim then he could wear it here as well. Seeing the two slender and well-proportioned legs under his shorts, Director Guo muttered, “How can your figure be so good and this part, it’s so white like this.”
There were only two people on set. Zhuang Qin didn’t care about showing a little skin and was very cooperative.
Li Mu looked outside. His eyes subconsciously tried to avoid looking but the image had already left an impression in his mind. His brain kept conjuring the image in front of him, so avoiding it was the same as not avoiding it.
After the photographer was done, Director Guo saw that there was still time and suggested, “Would you like to add another one?”
Li Mu held the prop cigarette between his fingers. When he saw that Zhuang Qin was exhausted, he was about to object when he heard Zhuang Qin’s assistant speak first: “Director Guo, isn’t this okay? It will violate the shooting contract we signed. We’ve been shooting for a whole day today…”
“It’s okay!” Zhuang Qin interrupted, “Director Guo can add another scene, and I will fully cooperate.”
Director Guo: “Are you in a good state now?”
Zhuang Qin said, “I’m in a good state. I’ll have to readjust my state to shoot tomorrow so might as well shoot it now then we don’t have to rearrange another one tomorrow”
Director Guo was impressed by his commitment and asked Li Mu, “How about you? Can you still shoot?”
Li Mu looked at the time and said coldly, “Until ten o’clock, if this one doesn’t pass, I won’t shoot another.”
“Okay, we’ll wrap up at ten o’clock.” Director Guo doesn’t know why he listened to him, probably because he was the investor.
Zhuang Qin put his clothes back on and opened the script.
This impromptu addition was interesting, and it also preceded an ambiguous scene.
Zhuang Qin scanned the content of this scene, and after a few seconds of reading, saw that he didn’t have a single line.
He breathed a sigh of relief, fortunately, it was this one, if it was the next scene, he really wouldn’t know how to shoot it.
This scene had only five shots.
The empty lens was fixed on the rotating electric fan in the room. After spinning for a few seconds, it slowly stopped.
Jiang Zhuo stood up from the bed to check, but the fan did not move.
Jiang Zhuo went out.
An Ke laid down on the bed and turned over on the bed (to look at the door).
There was no light in the room, so Jiang Zhuo came in (while looking at the bed and said): “It’s me.”
In order to avoid shooting the next scene undressed again, before each scene was shot, a camera was used to archive it. So before filming the next scene, the archived film will be brought out and used.
Director Guo found several crew members to come back, and it took a while to set up and start shooting.
When Li Mu started filming, Zhuang Qin watched from the side.
Yesterday, because they filmed together he didn’t really notice it, but after watching today he realized that he actually had a diverse range of acting skills. To shoot such a scene that only shows the character’s mood through external movements, he got the hang of it very quickly and was able to carefully detect the direction of the camera, so as to adjust himself.
These types are generally known as gifted actors. First, from their looks, it can be seen that Li Mu has a perfect “movie face”, but was also extremely burdened by the idol typecast. This was because Zhuang Qin has never seen him play a character different from himself nor did he take a wide range of roles. It was the reason behind his narrow career path.
Zhuang Qin walked to the back of the camera again. The pressure caused by Li Mu’s appearance was not as strong from the back as it was in front of the camera. Even though he was only looking at it through a plain screen, this kind of compelling handsomeness seemed to jump out of the screen and into his eyes. It was enough to show how good his external appearance was.
Soon it was Zhuang Qin’s turn.
After one passed, they called it a day.
Director Guo said, “Teacher Zhuang, you are not scheduled for a scene tomorrow morning so you can sleep a little more. It’s important for you to balance work and rest.”
Zhuang Qin agreed, but Xiao Lian who was helping him pack up frowned when he heard this: “Director Guo, next time you want to add a scene you have to say it in advance, not on a whim. Don’t think that we’re easy to bully!”
In his heart, he still believed that Zhuang Qin’s accepting this film was to give the director a lot of face, otherwise, which rising star would accept this kind of lgbt theme. But the director randomly added scenes, breaking the contract and messing up the actors’ work and rest balance, and still had the nerve to talk about work/rest balance! Shameless!
Director Guo choked for a moment. Unexpectedly, this assistant had such a temper.
Zhuang Qin pulled him back: “It’s alright, if I shoot an extra scene, I’ll have one less to shoot later on. Are you afraid that I’ll suffer? Director Guo, don’t mind him. he has orders from my company and does not want me to suffer even the slightest hardship, it does not represent my personal thoughts.”
“It was me who didn’t think it through,” Director Guo admitted that he thought Zhuang Qin was easy to talk to, so he was a little embarrassed. “It’s just that I was afraid that you’ll have other activities scheduled for later on. Your new drama trailer premiers today. Are you going back to China to cooperate with the promotions?”
Zhuang Qin said he would go back: “But Director Guo, don’t worry, I won’t delay the crew’s shooting schedule.”
He signed a contract with the company after his first drama became popular. And last year, he only shot one drama.
That drama will premiere online in April this year.
Zhuang Qin remembered that the evaluation of this youth idol drama that aired two episodes a week was not bad in the beginning, but that was until the accident on the “The Calm Spring Wind” set. His reputation plummeted and he lost all his endorsements. All contracts were regarded as defaults and the crew of “The Calm Spring Wind” were eager to find someone to take the blame and bear the scolding on behalf of the crew, so he became the unlucky guy who had no background.
As for this youth idol drama, he was forced to take all the blame and had all his scenes deleted and there were a lot of them. The screenwriter even temporarily changed the script to write off his role as going abroad to never come back.
Because of the sudden changes, the drama that started off well, sunk to the bottom and flopped.
After they wrapped up, Zhuang Qin saw Director Guo get in Li Mu’s car. He was afraid that he was really angry, so he sent a message explaining more to him: “Director Guo, as an actor, filming is my favorite thing to do. You are free to add more scenes, I don’t have any problem with it.”
Director Guo was sitting in Li Mu’s car and replied, “Oh, you don’t have to do this. It was my fault. I wanted to shoot it faster but now that I think about it, it’s useless to rush. We’ll just take our time and shoot slowly.”
Zhuang Qin: “I also want to shoot it sooner and get an award faster so that it can be released earlier.”
Director Guo: “Let’s take our time.”
Zhuang Qin messaged him for a while and saw that Director Guo wasn’t too bothered by it, but he still felt a little bit guilty towards him. He put away his phone and said: “Xiao Lian, don’t do that next time. Director Guo works so much harder than me. If you contradict him, aren’t you afraid that he will make me wear small shoes?”
t/n make someone wear small shoes: or make things very difficult for someone.
“Brother Zhuang… I was wrong. I was just afraid that you were working too hard. That director… he obviously just thinks you’re easy to bully!”
“How can actors shoot good movies without hard work? You think I’m getting paid so much to play ah. If you do that again, I’ll ask Sister Min to order you back to China–“
Xiao Lian immediately begged for mercy and then changed the topic: “Brother Zhuang have you watched the trailer of the new drama?”
In the car, Director Guo also opened Weibo and clicked on the trailer of Zhuang Qin’s new drama “Memory of Youth Ways”. He asked Li Mu, “Would you like to watch it together?”
In the trailer, Zhuang Qin, who was obviously the second male lead, had more scenes than the leading actor.
Moreover, his popularity was a great deal higher than the male lead, so most of the fans came for Zhuang Qin.
As Director Guo watched it, he vehemently complained that the production filters were too much: “This kiss between the male and female lead, the borrowing was too obvious!”
t/n: “borrowing (a place)” when shooting kissing scenes means that the actors don’t really touch each other, they use an object or their body to block the camera. Or you know, just substitute, lol.
Li Mu shifted his head to look, “Isn’t he the male lead?”
“You mean Teacher Zhuang? He’s the second male! The main character is this miserable guy. But Teacher Zhuang is the second male character. He has a better persona than the main character and he’s more popular. I guess his agency is not ready to let him and the actress hype CP together, right? After all, Teacher Zhuang … he is still a blank sheet of paper in regards to relationships and is still a traffic star. I don’t know how many girlfriend fans there are. This time, to hype a scandal with the actress is still unacceptable. Yesterday I asked and only found out that he was really very pure. He’s never been in love and this was also the first time he’s shot this kind of film ……”
After saying that, Director Guo was suddenly serious: “My film, don’t try to take advantage of loopholes and borrow a spot for me! If you want to shoot the scene it has to be real!.”
Li Mu thought about whether to delete those scenes
After a few seconds of serious thinking, the person with a terminal cleanliness fetish reluctantly responded, “I’ll try my best to cooperate.”
