Chapter 8: Box Office Poison
All the companies in Taiwan had already sent people to arrange it in advance, so after arriving in Taipei, the group checked into a hotel near the airport, and chose this place because several of the advertised attractions are not far from here, including the air force training base.
After a night's rest, the next morning Zhou Yunfa, who played the leading role, came from Hong Kong and joined the film crew.
The first shooting location was in a large warehouse, which was rented from the airport, and was used to shoot the wedding and prom of the male and female protagonists.
Since the script had been handed over to Zhou Runfa the day before yesterday, for a senior and powerful actor, two days is enough time to thoroughly figure out an advertising script with only a few pages, so except for a few NG times at the beginning, Zhou Runfa's performance has been very stable.
In contrast, the performance of Li Jiaxin, who also got the script the day before yesterday, can be described as very different, and her acting skills can only be described as miserable, not to mention Li Chengyi, the director, even Wei Xiong can see a cold sweat on his forehead, no wonder this acting skill can only be a vase forever.
There are a total of three shots in the first scene where Li Jiaxin appeared, one of which is a long shot, and the other is a side shot, and the time of each shot is only a few seconds, and it took more than three hours to shoot, and finally barely passed, and Li Chengyi couldn't help but scold several times.
Seeing that Li Jiaxin was so aggrieved that he wanted to cry, Wei Xiong did not intervene, although Li Chengyi's reaction was inevitably suspected of playing on the topic, but Li Jiaxin's performance was really bad enough, and he deserved to be scolded, Wei Xiong felt embarrassed if he wanted to excuse Li Jiaxin.
Lunch was eaten at a nearby restaurant, because it was only one day, and it was a big production, and the company didn't care too much, so the standard of lunch was still very high. No, Zhou Yunfa joked that it was the first time he had eaten such a high-end lunch in the crew.
Because Li Jiaxin wasted too much time in the morning, and the shooting task in the afternoon was very urgent, so after lunch, the group did not take any rest, and immediately drove to the air force training base not far from the airport, this air force training base is responsible for the primary training of Taiwan's air force pilots, and the training aircraft used is an old-fashioned propeller aircraft, which is basically the same as the fighter planes in World War II.
Surrounded by wasteland and overgrown vegetation in the Air Force training, Wei Xiong walked around, chose a suitable place, and prepared to shoot a set of shots first.
"Titashi commercial, second scene 1 shot, Eksh. ”
As the director's voice fell, Zhou Yunfa rode a bicycle, Li Jiaxin sat sideways on the bar in front, and the two were playing while riding. This scene is about the newlywed Yan Er of the hero and heroine, who goes out on a bicycle and goes out on a bicycle, with constant laughter along the way, and finally throws people and cars to the grass on the side of the road.
Just as the two were lying on the grass and playing, you and me, there was the sound of the propeller turning and the whistling of the plane in the sky, the smile on the actor's face instantly froze, he slowly raised his head, and several fighter jets whizzed past him and the heroine's heads.
It may be that the shooting in the morning gave Li Jiaxin some practical experience, although these sets of shots are still NG many times, but they are already much better than in the morning, it only took more than an hour, which is also thanks to the willingness of the training base to cooperate, after all, there are several shots that need to be flown out of the country.
After a short break, a dozen extras were brought in by a minibus, and then the film crew came to the training base and began to shoot the next set of shots - the heroine and many people who saw them off stood outside the barbed wire fence of the airport and watched the fighter jet piloted by the male protagonist take off and go away......
By five o'clock in the afternoon, all the shots in Taipei had been filmed, and there were still some shots left to be refilmed when they returned to Hong Kong, which was still quite fast compared to a large-scale TV commercial with an investment of millions, and if it wasn't for Li Jiaxin's drag, the speed would have been even faster.
This is all thanks to the fact that the script created by Wei Xiong is a storyboard script, which is rare in Hong Kong in this era, and director Li Chengyi only needs to follow the script and draw a scoop according to the gourd, almost without wasting an inch of film, without shooting an extra shot, and the speed is not slow.
On the way back, Wei Xiong did not sit with Li Jiaxin, but sat with Zhou Yanfa, the two must not have known each other before today, but under Wei Xiong's intentional approach, the atmosphere between the two became warm unconsciously, and it seemed that they were chatting quite happily:
"Actually, the term 'box office poison' is quite funny, the success of a movie is important to the actors, but a good script is equally important, and even I think the script is more important than the actors, if the premise of the script is not good, then there is no need to say anything else, so I think the reason why you can't make a movie that sells well at the box office is not your problem, it's that you haven't encountered a good script. ”
Zhou Yunfa smiled bitterly: "But the film company and the audience don't think so, in recent days, some media have nicknamed me 'Poison Hair', if the movie I'm shooting in my hand is still hitting the street, I don't think any film company in Hong Kong will dare to ask me to film anymore." ”
Zhou Xian...... I'll call you Brother Fa, this ......"
Before Wei Xiong's words were finished, he was interrupted by Zhou Yanfa: "Don't, Supervisor Wei, you still call me Ah Fa, it sounds more comfortable this way." ”
With Zhou Runfa's popularity in Hong Kong, Macao and the whole of Southeast Asia, Wei Xiong can completely afford to call him a brother, but now he is at the lowest ebb of his career, and he has to put his posture low, after all, Interstellar is also a large-scale advertising company.
"Then don't call me any producer, just call me Ah Xiong. To tell you the truth, I also wrote two movie scripts and sent them to Golden Harvest and New Art City, but unfortunately there has been no response, I created these two scripts with you as the leading actor, and if they can be made into movies, they will definitely sell well. ”
Zhou Yunfa suddenly didn't know what to say, because he couldn't figure out whether Wei Xiong was confident in his script or in his 'poison hair', but no matter which one it was, he was still very happy that Wei Xiong could use him as the male protagonist to create the script.
Wei Xiong also found that he seemed to be a little overconfident, so he smiled: "I think every screenwriter is the most confident in his work." ”
Zhou Yunfa also smiled: "Actually, your script is really well written, just like this advertisement, although it is very short, it is very romantic and profound." ”