27
“…Alright.” Zhuang Qin couldn’t find a reason to refuse. He reached out and touched the kitten. The cat timidly shrank back into the carrier. Its eyes were blue and very clear.
His movements became a little gentler and slower, only daring to gently touch it with his fingers. The cat timidly raised its head to smell his fingers: “Actually, I haven’t raised one, but Xiao Lian has one at home. I’ll give it to him when we’re shooting. Where did you find the cat? It looks a little malnourished and thin. Have you fed it?”
“I found it by the roadside and I bought cat food.”
Li Mu really didn’t lie.
He was free yesterday and originally wanted to go to the pet store to buy one but he heard cat sounds when he went out and found this white cat under the car.
Zhuang Qin said, “I remember that It’s better to leave cats at home and that you shouldn’t take them out.”
Li Mu said, “Yesterday I took the car for a check-up. There were ear mites, and the doctor put some medicine on them. I bought a cat litter, box, climbing frame, and toys. They’re at home now.
“Well, you’ve done a good job. You’ve bought everything.” Zhuang Qin thought that Li Mu came to him with a cat and said that they should raise it together because he couldn’t alone, but the result was that he’d already bought everything. Then what did he need him for?
“Have you named the cat?”
Li Mu: “It’s called yogurt.”
Yogurt?
Zhuang Qin thought of the particular brand of yogurt he is endorsing. Previously, to shoot a commercial for them, he drank the yogurt until he vomited. The advertiser also sent a lot of it to his house every month. According to the advertising contract, he also had to do all kinds of external advertising for the yogurt brand.
Zhuang Qin considered that. Never mind, Li Mu took them all. Yogurt can just be yogurt.
(t/n: the cat can just be named yogurt. No other fun thoughts)
He handed over yogurt to Xiao Lian and when he got to set, Xiao Lian held the cat while sitting behind the director and picking out flea dirt from its body.
Because he just returned to the group and didn’t rehearse in advance, it was particularly difficult to shoot this scene.
[Daytime; Indoor Laundry Room]
Aerial shot; several pieces of clothes were hanging on the drying rod. The sound of running water from the tap could be heard.
Jiang Zhuo, with a cigarette in his mouth, was scrubbing a piece of clothing with soap in the basin.
An Ke paced in the room.
An Ke walked to the outside of the laundry room and said, “I want to ask you to do something?”
The sound of the faucet turned off, Jiang Zhuo put the soap back in place: “What?”
“I want you to help me kill someone.”
Jiang Zhuo hung up the clothes and squinted in the sun (standing by the vent): “How much will you pay?”
The focus cut and An Ke laid on the ground to take out a box from the bottom of the bed. He took out all the baht and dollars.
He picked at the wall tiles and pulled out more rolls of cash from inside it, and held them in his arms.
The focus cuts again; all the cash he found was piled up on the table, and then a bag of white powder was thrown on the pile of money.
An Ke: “Count it, it should be enough ”
Jiang Zhuo looked at the money.
An Ke: “This bag can still sell for tens of thousands. There was more but I washed it down the toilet.”
Jiang Zhuo (in a flat voice): “I can’t accept your business.”
An Ke (in a shaky voice): “Isn’t the money enough? Then just kidnap him for me, I’ll do it myself.”
Jiang Zhuo put the money on the table in a box: “You take the money and leave this country. Forget your hatred. I’ll prepare your passport tomorrow.”
The lens cuts again. The light was dim In the bathroom. An Ke knelt in front of the toilet and tightly held the bag of powder that was worth a lot of money.
Inside a tidy room, the curtains were drawn. There was a glimmer of light through the cracks and the room became a bit blue because of the cigarette smoke.
The sound of a door closing. Jiang Zhuo raised his head in the room.
He opened the door.
On the table, the money and powder were gone.
During these two Scenes, the was an NG from the first shot. One scene NG-ed so many times that Director Guo, for the first time waved him over and began lecturing him about the scene.
“It is actually not possible to encounter this scenario in the script in our life, so you can only rely on your imagination to achieve it. You had an important person; a very important person to you, who left you because he was killed. Now, you think you’ve found his murderer and you want to hire a killer and you can’t find anyone else. He is your only hope.”
“You acted well just now and the emotion was enough” if it were another director, this one would have passed.
“You think like a director and scriptwriter so you do a lot of extra movements, but don’t do that, you just need to have fun.” Director Guo noticed that Zhuang Qin was very involved when acting and was always trying his best to hold the scene together. He was too absorbed in his own performance.
“This can be a small or a big problem. First of all, you have to think about the audience. Put yourself in their shoes. I was the audience and you two, your scenes have always been very smooth, that is, there’s always been a lack of drama … do you understand what I mean?”
Zhuang Qin didn’t speak, he lowered his head and thought about the question.
There was a problem as Director Guo’s said. In his last life no matter how he studied acting, he was just a single person practicing alone after all. He designed the script and emotional scenes by himself, so he would consider more things and obsess over the emotions.
But acting doesn’t need that much thinking.
“I realize that I need a break-out opportunity.” Zhuang Qin said.
Director Guo saw that there were beads of sweat on his face, he was obviously too engrossed in filming just now. He said, “Go to the dressing room with Li Mu and take a break for ten minutes?”
Zhuang Qin nodded.
He and Li Mu entered the dressing room and saw that there were two long sofas for resting there. They were for him and Li Mu to rest on and to lay on to sleep.
In the scene just now, he felt that there was actually no problem with his performance. Maybe what was missing was just that little bit, but Director Guo wanted that little emotion, but this little emotion was very difficult to reach, and Director Guo had no way to directly remind him.
Seeing that his assistant was still picking something on the cat, Li Mu opened the refrigerator and brought him a bottle of water, and found a small packet of Xianbei.
He handed the water to Zhuang Qin, who took it and put it on his lap. His eyes were fixed on a certain point and seemed in deep thought.
Li Mu handed him the snack but he didn’t see it, so Li Mu opened the packet, wrapped his hand with a tissue, took out a piece, and put it to his mouth.
Zhuang Qin noticed the smell first, and then took a bite. The sweet aroma filled his mouth before he realized that Li Mu was feeding him.
He immediately recovered and quickly took the remaining Xianbei from his hand. He was a little embarrassed: “Thank you. Where did you buy Xianbei?”
“Local Daigou1t/n: Daigou: roughly translated as ‘buying (on behalf of). Surrogate shopping“. Li Mu threw away the tissue: “Do you want to go over lines?”
“It’s not a matter of lines…” Zhuang Qin couldn’t say anything. If he was a director himself, what kind of feeling would he expect the actors to show?
He was about to think about it deeply when he thought about what Director Guo said, that you cannot act by thinking like a director or a screenwriter, it was completely different, and if he thought like that, he would be acting too deliberate.
Ten minutes soon passed and Zhuang Qin reorganized his thoughts but it was still wrong. It was still an NG. There were so many NGs that Zhuang Qin couldn’t keep count.
And Director Guo was still shouting to do it over again.
Zhuang Qin gradually lost confidence and became a little desperate. The more he acted, the more he felt something was wrong. And he didn’t know that the camera had actually been turned off, and Director Guo was waiting for that one emotion to explode.
After about forty NGs, Director Guo felt that it was almost time, so he signaled to the cameraman to turn it on.
“I want to ask you for one thing?” There was a faint tremor in his facial muscles, and his voice became hoarse because of too many NGs.
“What?” Li Mu felt a sense of oppression from him.
“You help me kill someone.” Under the calm tone of voice, there was desperation and suppressed hope and it was just the exact thing that Director Guo was looking for–
“Cut!”
Zhuang Qin thought he had to start over again and was about to when he heard Director Guo say, “This one is done. No need to reshoot, let’s take the next one.”
“Ah?” He turned around baffled, “it passed?”
“Yes, it passed, I’ll talk to you about it in detail in the evening. Keep it up and let’s shoot the next scene.”
After a day of filming, Zhuang Qin was exhausted. Director Guo then explained to him why he keep NGing in the afternoon: “Come and look at it yourself, see how your state changed from good to worse; you became impatient, then desperate, then finally in place.”
Zhuang Qin listened to him and began to look carefully at the NG shots.
After a while, after watching it, he had to admit that Director Guo was right. He was indeed very capable.
Zhuang Qin was very tired, he said, “Director Guo If you do this again, I won’t be able to hold on”
“Aiya, it’s been hard on you. I know you must have been exhausted from rushing back yesterday.” The reason why Director Guo didn’t give him a break today was because Zhuang Qin himself insisted that he was okay and also because that exhausted state was actually just right for shooting this scene.
Why did he (DG) tell him that only after the shooting? Because if he (ZQ) knew in advance, It would be impossible to produce the most natural effect. This is the biggest difficulty that actors face, that is, the audience will not know the following plot when watching the play, but the actors are different. Actors have finished reading the script, and it is difficult for actors to perform without knowing.
On the way back to the car, Director Guo hovered beside them and petted the cat twice: “This kitten doesn’t purr much, and it’s still scared of people.”
Xiao Lian was raising one at home, so he said, ” it will be better when you are familiar with it.”
“Have a good rest tonight. I scheduled your scene for tomorrow afternoon, so you don’t have to get up early tomorrow.”
“Thank you, Director Guo.”
Back at the hotel, Zhuang Qin continued to rehearse with Li Mu in the next room. Perhaps his state today wasn’t right because he didn’t rehearse in advance.
Zhuang Qin saw that Xiao Lian was about to fall asleep while holding the cat. Xiao Lian had also followed him all the way last night, so he asked him to go back to his room to rest first: “It’s almost eleven o’clock. Leave yogurt here and go back to rest. Stop playing with it.”
“I’m not playing with it, Brother Zhuang. I’ve been picking its flea dirt all afternoon.”
“Hence why you should go rest, we’ll be done here soon. Be good and go back.”
Xiao Lian left the door card of 258 for him and went back to his room. Only he and Li Mu were left in the room. The two finally rehearsed tomorrow’s lines and when Li Mu was ready to leave with a cat carrier, he noticed that the cat was missing.
“Yogurt!” He called out twice.
The newly found kitten did not respond.
“Where did it go?” Zhuang Qin went to check the door lock and said, “Xiao Lian closed the door when he left and the balcony door is also closed. The cat is small so it should be hiding in the corner or under the bed…”
The room was big and after searching for a while, Zhuang Qin found it – it turned out that it had been hidden in a bath towel that fell on the ground. Because the color was the same, you couldn’t notice it.
It was already very late. Zhuang Qin still wanted to see the kitten for a while and send Li Mu downstairs but Li Mu didn’t let him: “Go back.”
“It’s okay, I’ll send you downstairs first. You’re alone…” Zhuang Qin was worried that he couldn’t take good care of a sick kitten alone, and he was still wondering if Li Mu had bought the wrong cat food.
The child was concerned about him. Li Mu’s heart felt soft: “It doesn’t matter if I’m alone. Be good. Go back.”
t/n: L. O. L did you see what he did there <_<
Zhuang Qin: “…”
He had the slightest feeling that this phrase had just been said by himself to Xiao Lian.
Hearing it from such a cold fellow as Li Mu, made him feel especially uncomfortable.
Zhuang Qin: “Then drive carefully. I’ll go back to my room.” After saying that, he took the room card out of the phone case and swiped it on 258.
The door lock didn’t even flash a light. Zhuang Qin swiped it again, twice… After several swipes, he confirmed that the room card was useless.
Li Mu stood aside and asked, “Is it demagnetized?”
“…Yes, but the hotel staff seem to be asleep, so I can’t call to ask them to help me activate it.” Zhuang Qin said, “It’s okay. I’ll go to Xiao Lian’s room to sleep for the night.”
Li Mu: “You can sleep on the same bed as your assistant?”
“Yes, it’s nothing. We’re both slim.”
Li Mu pointed to room 257. “The lights are off. He’s probably asleep.”
Zhuang Qin also had no choice, he was thinking about whether or not to sleep in the opposite room, but he was hesitant. The bedding in that room hasn’t been changed because they weren’t used so he doesn’t know how much dust and bacteria was on it. He came here with sheets he brought from home.
Li Mu looked at him and said, “You can go back and stay with me for the night. There is an empty room that hasn’t been used.”
Zhuang Qin shook his head: “No I can’t……”
Li Mu: “You can also feed the cat at night. It doesn’t seem to like me very much but it likes you.”
Zhuang Qin actually felt that the cat ignored everyone but liked to stick to Xiao Lian.
But he was still tempted.
Li Mu observed his expression and felt that he was swayed: “There’s no scene tomorrow morning. I’ll wake you up at eleven. what do you usually like to eat in the morning?”
