The friends have their own things to be busy with, and Xiao Yao naturally put all his energy into the TV series project.

Almost another week later, the auditions ended, and the cast of the main roles in the show was all decided.

Normally, the time for determining the actor for a film and television project is relatively early. Because after an actor receives a role, it usually takes a period of time to prepare, and some actors will even experience life for the role or something, many crews start to select actors in the early stage of preparation.

However, this situation is not absolute. Different producers, different directors, and different crews will have different operations and acting styles, and sometimes in the same play, the time when the actors of different roles are determined may also vary a lot.

For example, if an actor who has negotiated a problem temporarily has a problem, and then find another actor to save the scene, it is impossible to give a lot of time for the actor to prepare and let the whole crew wait.

There is also a possibility that a certain role has not been able to find a suitable actor, but the crew's preparations are almost ready, and after finding a suitable actor, in order not to delay the start time, there may be no time to prepare.

When Xiao Yao starred in a TV series for the first time, he was slapped by the director and producer on the spot after the audition, and then joined the group to film in less than a week, because the crew couldn't find a suitable actor and dragged it until that time, and the start time was not easy to change. Although it was not a temporary rescue, it was similar in nature to the rescue and was a rare exception.

As far as Xiao Yao's personal behavior is concerned, he has always disliked to audition for actors too early. As long as he personally participates in the audition and selection of actors, except for a few actors who have been determined in advance, he prefers to audition actors when the preparation of the project is carried out to a certain extent.

On the one hand, when the preparation of the crew has reached a certain level, the filming environment and conditions are clearer, which is convenient for Xiao Yao to negotiate contracts with actors after auditions. For example, in the previous project's "Donkey Gets Water", since the filming location is expected to be in the northwest, Xiao Yao chose the filming location and set the filming location before coming back for the actor audition.

On the other hand, Xiao Yao doesn't want to change the actor who plays the role temporarily, and he doesn't want to change the start-up time. The more complete the preparation of the crew, the more certain the start-up time becomes. The more certain the boot time, the less likely it is that there will be a conflict due to actors' schedules. Therefore, if you audition later and be more precise about the start-up time, you can also try to avoid this situation.

In the end, the actors who play the most core roles in Xiao Yao's current three film and television projects have been decided very early. For example, the three members of the YRF team in the parkour movie, Sun Tingting, himself and He Ying in "Donkey Gets Water", and himself and Yin Xi in this play. In addition to these core roles, Xiao Yao doesn't feel that other roles require actors to spend a lot of time preparing after the audition is decided. Rather than having an actor who decides on a role long in advance and having an actor spend a lot of time preparing for a non-core role, Xiao Yao prefers that he has more options when auditioning and lets those actors spend time preparing for auditions.

However, Xiao Yao just felt that the actors in his project did not need to spend a lot of time preparing after the audition, and this preparation time was still available to others, but it was shorter.

After the auditions are all completed, there are still some finishing touches on the preparation work of the crew. Although Xiao Yao served as the producer this time, except for the actor audition, Xiao Yao only understood the other work and did not personally participate. According to the work progress fed back by the crew, Xiao Yao set the start time for early April.

When talking about this project at the beginning, Xiao Yao once told Yin Xi that he would not start the film before it was released. started shooting in early April, and it was almost time for "Donkey to Water" to be released, which was already more than half a month later than the movie I told Yin Xi a week after it was released. However, Xiao Yao told Yin Xi that it would start in March at the earliest, not that it was not confirmed, nor was it a broken promise, and there was no problem with Yin Xi's side.

Xiao Yao is not involved in other work of the crew, so during the period between the end of the audition and the start of the TV series, Xiao Yao has a period of free time.

This time, Xiao Yao's role is an IT man in the entrepreneurial period, but this drama is an urban drama that mainly talks about feelings and life, not a workplace drama, at least there are not many workplace scenes on the male protagonist's side, so Xiao Yao didn't spend much time preparing for the role. Since the character's profession is a game designer, Xiao Yao only spent two days at Tong Luo's special effects company and spent two days with the technician in charge of game special effects, experiencing their work, and the rest of the time was used to pay off his debts.

The so-called repayment of debts is, of course, debts owed to fans and fans. Specifically, four songs.

Two of them are "Hu Lu Hu Scoop" and "Grandma Said" sung in this year's Yanjing Satellite TV Spring Festival Gala. These two songs only have the live version of the audio of the Yanjing Satellite TV Spring Festival Gala, and the official version has not yet been recorded.

The other two are the two tea-picking songs sung in "Wild Kitchen". Now that the show has been broadcast, there are fans who have watched the show on the Internet who are shouting for Xiao Yao to release the complete version of these two songs. As for the song that uses the tune of the traditional song of the Kino people and Xiao Yao spells it out in the Kino language, most people don't understand the Kino language, but there are no fans who shout for the song in the Kino language.

Since he wanted to record songs to pay off his debts, Xiao Yao planned to record all four songs.

Among the four songs, "Tea Mountain Love Song" is obviously a popular style in the eighties and nineties of the last century, and it is more suitable for female singing, so Xiao Yao does not plan to sing it himself, which means that this song has to find another singer.

When he went to the special effects company to experience life, Xiao Yao came according to the time when others went to work, and when people got off work, he also got off work, so he was also free at night. Coupled with the time at night, it is not difficult for Xiao Yao to record four songs in ten days, the main thing is that it takes some energy to find a singer.

However, Xiao Yao knew Hong Wei and had a relationship with Su Xiao. One of these two is a singer who came out of the system, and the other is still in the system, and it is not a problem to find a singer who is willing and suitable to sing the sweet song style songs of the last century through these two people.

Now Xiao Yao's new single is not promoted, or the publicity has already been done. In the case of no entity, after the song is recorded, negotiate the copyright with the music website, deliver the official version of the music source, and let the music website upload it.

After the four songs were launched on the music website one after another, the official versions of "Hu Lu Hu Scoop" and "Grandma Said" quickly replaced the live version and jumped to the top of the hot song list. Only the "nostalgic" style, which was sung by other singers, "Chashan Love Song" had slightly worse results.

Time passes day by day, and the day when the TV series crew starts filming is approaching day by day.

Preparations for the theatre are progressing well and it is not expected to delay the start-up. The four songs have been recorded, and the overall results on the music website are good, plus the movie "Donkey Gets Water" is about to be released, the total box office and word-of-mouth scores are still gratifying, Xiao Yao is in a really good mood during the time before the TV series starts and enters the group to film.

However, it was during this time when he was in a good mood that Xiao Yao received a message that was originally good news, but at this time it was not good news.

Two days before the TV series started, Xiao Yao received a video call request from the United States on his mobile phone.

"Big star, long time no see!" After the video was connected, what appeared in the picture was a person Xiao Yao hadn't seen for a long time, but this person was no stranger to Xiao Yao.

"Yan Ke, or should I call you Corell?" Xiao Yao smiled, "If you don't feel used to it, I can speak English to you." ”

The person on the other side of the video is called Yan Ke, who met Xiao Yao when he participated in the training camp of the Chinese Olympiad national team in high school. When he was in the training team, Xiao Yao shared the dormitory with him and two other top Chinese math high school students, Yu Gang and Chen Jiwei. In their spare time, the four of them often play poker together as a pastime. After being abused miserably after playing eighty points, Xiao Yao played 21 points with a few people, and then came up with a plan to "capture the casino" on a whim.

Xiao Yao mentioned it in passing at the time, and forgot about it, but the other three were obsessed. When Xiao Yao won the top prize in the art examination of Shen Opera, Yan Ke specially called Xiao Yao and asked Xiao Yao if he still remembered the original agreement.

The three of them are one year higher than Xiao Yao, and for the plan that Xiao Yao said, in order to enter the best university of technology in the United States and even the world, the three of them even stayed in China for an extra year. Of course, this matter was not said by Yan Ke, but Xiao Yao thought of it after the fact. Because Xiao Yao was already a senior in high school at that time, it stands to reason that the three of them should have gone to college, but what Yan Ke told him on the phone was that they were applying for an offer from MIT.

After learning about the attitude of the three of them, Xiao Yao also took this matter to heart. However, Xiao Yao just put it in his heart.

The matter of doing the card counting model is handed over to the three of them, and Xiao Yao is only responsible for the specific operation at that time, so Xiao Yao has only occasionally contacted them through email or communication software on the Internet over the years, ensuring that the contact will not be broken, in fact, the number of contacts is not much.

"No!" Yan Ke on the other end of the phone said with a smile, "We speak English all day and night here, and it's hard to be able to speak English with others, so we can't miss the opportunity." I know you speak English well, but you should speak Chinese with us, we are not used to it!"

"You guys?" Xiao Yao smiled and asked, "Are Yu Gang and Chen Jiwei also next to them now?"

"Yes!" Yan Ke nodded, and there were two heads next to him in the picture, waving his hand to Xiao Yao, and at the same time said with a smile, "Hello big star, long time no see!"

"Long time no see!" Xiao Yao also greeted with a smile and asked with a smile, "You have something to do with me?" Now that March is almost over, your spring break over there should have just ended, shouldn't you want to go back to China to play with me?"

"No!" Yan Ke shook his head and said, "You are a big star now, I know that you are busy, when did we look for you when we returned to China?

"Have something to discuss?" Xiao Yao said, "Have you got your card counting model out?"

Xiao Yao is in the entertainment industry, and Yan Ke and others can almost be regarded as people from two worlds, and the only thing they can discuss and discuss is the card counting thing that they said at the beginning. However, in the past few years, Xiao Yao occasionally asked about their progress, and they always answered that it was far behind, so Xiao Yao didn't think about it immediately when he answered the phone.

"So to speak!" Yan Ke said.

"If you get it out, you get it out, if you don't get it out, you don't get it out, what can you say?" Xiao Yao said.

"Let me ask you a question first!" Yan Ke didn't answer, but asked, "Have you ever been to MIT?" or do you have any other friends at MIT?"

"No!" Xiao Yao said strangely, "Why do you ask?"

"After we came, we found out that there were not just three of us studying card counting in MIT. Yan Ke said, "In fact, there are many people who study card counting in MIT, and there are several groups. ”

"Really?" Xiao Yao was also a little surprised, and then said strangely, "But you have all been to MIT for so many years, and I haven't heard you say it before, did you only know about it recently?"

"It's not recent, but it's not that long, we only found out a few months ago. Yan Ke said, "These card counting groups are all operating in secret. Maybe it's because we're all undergraduates, and others don't look down on us, so no one looks for us. In the second half of last year, we were both admitted to MIT's master's degree program, and a member of the card counting team heard that we were also studying card counting, so they invited us to join. From them, I found out that there are quite a few people studying card counting at MIT. ”

"That's the case!" Xiao Yao nodded and continued to ask, "And then?"

"Then we joined a card counting group. Yan Ke said, "That group has already done a lot of research work, and the three of us have also done a lot. Even though we were new to joining, since we've been working on this thing since we were in high school, we worked on a few things, and then we synthesized each other, confirmed and discussed, and then worked together for a while, and now we feel that our model is almost there. ”

"Then, we took advantage of the spring break in March and went to Las Vegas to give it a try!" Yan Ke said, "We followed the card counting model and won some money in the casino, which proved that it was indeed feasible." ”

"What, you're leaving me to play by myself?" Xiao Yao said with a pretended dissatisfaction.

"No, we're not going to leave you. Yan Ke said, "We just plan to try it first, if practice proves that our algorithm is not good, we will go back and continue to study and modify, if practice proves feasible, and then notify you to do a big job." We know you're a big star, you're busy, and time is precious. The United States is so far away, we don't want you to make a trip in vain. ”

"And we've talked to the card counting team about you. Yu Gang added, "We told them that we also have a friend in Huaxia who is very good at mathematics. Although he is not proficient in mathematical models, he has very good mental power, and his memory and mental arithmetic skills are very strong, and he is a very good candidate to perform card counting. We started to do the mathematical model of card counting in high school, and it was your idea. Of course, we didn't say who you were, we didn't tell them you were an entertainment star. ”

"I heard that when you were in high school, you wanted to go to the casino and play blackjack by counting cards, and they were also interested in you. Chen Jiwei continued, "They have promised us that when you come, they will train and assess you." If you pass the assessment, you will be asked to join us on a mission to the casino. ”

"Do you still want training and assessment?" Xiao Yao said with a slight frown.

"The so-called training is to memorize some mathematical models and formulas, and then practice them on the spot. Chen Jiwei said, "All of us are trained first and then examined, and only after passing the exam can we go to the casino to do tasks." As long as your brain doesn't degenerate, it's fine. With your ability, I don't think the training will take more than two days!"

"Two days? That's acceptable. Xiao Yao nodded, and said a little excitedly, "Now that your practice has proved that your card counting method is feasible, then you notified me to go to the United States for training and assessment, and then go to the casino with you?"

Speaking of this, Xiao Yao's face suddenly changed, because he suddenly found a problem.

Although Xiao Yao holds a long-term visa to the United States and can go to the United States at any time, the TV series crew will start filming in two days. After the filming of this TV series, it is estimated that at least two or three months will pass. Now that Yan Ke has found an effective card counting method, it is when they are gearing up to do a big job, will they be willing to wait for themselves for two or three months?