"Dark War" is about to start filming, and it will take a few days for Johnny To invite people there, but Chen Xuanting is not in a hurry, because he expects it to be released during the summer vacation, and now there is still more than a month to go!

After finishing the movie for the time being, Chen Xuanting immediately devoted his energy to the filming of the ATV TV series "The Godfather of China".

Someone has to ask, isn't Chen Xuanting the boss of wireless? How can you be so worried about ATV's TV series? The reason is very simple, because Chen Xuanting had already acquired Hong Kong ATV for 4 billion Hong Kong dollars before going to Yueben!

In Chen Xuanting's view, Hong Kong's two major TV stations, Wireless and ATV, can be fully controlled in their own hands, which is the ultimate. In addition, he did not merge the two television stations together, as rumored outside, but instead asked the two television stations to compete with each other. Originally, ATV was weak and could not resist wireless attacks, but Chen Xuanting invested heavily in cultivating TV talents and encouraging ATV script creation, and in just half a year, ATV has filmed several TV series with a good reputation, such as "Jingwumen", "I Have a Date with Zombies", "King's Landing" and so on.

Seeing ATV ZTE, Chen Xuanting is very happy, as the saying goes, there is competition to make progress. The three small students of ATV he cultivated, Chen Tingwei, Jiang Hua, Lu Songxian, and the three beauties, Wu Yongwei, Cai Xiaoyi, and Wan Qiwen, have now become the gold medal guarantee of ATV ratings.

Chen Xuanting was planning and helping, Huang Yuehua, Jiang Hua and Lu Songxian to create "Silver Fox", and at the same time busy helping Chen Tingwei's "The Godfather of China" to compose music.

Although Chen Xuanting is a film and television screenwriter, objectively speaking, his reputation for music creation achievements even surpasses his name as a screenwriter. A song is a red singer, like Chen Xuanting. Every time you create a song, you can send a stir up the music world, which is unprecedented.

Chen Xuanting does not attach as much importance to music as movies, but he has not relaxed about this art form, so he will create Thunder Records, which will allow Li Ruotong to show his strength in the Taiwanese music scene. Even in order to use his music company to score his own films, he even hired top music producers from Hollywood to take on important positions.

As for why Chen Xuanting is so concerned about the drama "The Godfather of China", the reason is very simple, his favorite TV series in his previous life was this drama!

I remember well, in his previous life, Chen Xuanting watched this drama during the Chinese New Year, and whenever the Chinese New Year was over, local TV stations would bid for local companies and spend money to broadcast some good-looking TV series, most of which were Hong Kong martial arts films. And one year, the TV station broadcast the TV series "The Godfather of China", also known as "Goodbye Huangpu Beach", which mirrored the Shanghai beach tycoon Du Yuesheng!

Chen Xuanting clearly remembered the storyline in it, especially when "Du Guosheng" starring Chen Tingwei performed the flying knife stunt, he was even more excited, and felt that it was even more powerful than Xiao Li's flying knife!

Because of this, Chen Xuanting is so interested in this drama. As the music creator of this play, Huang Zhan didn't understand, why did he create so many episodes by himself, and Boss Chen was not satisfied? How did he know that in Chen Xuanting's memory, the theme song of this play "Surging River" is irreplaceable by many songs.

At this moment, in the music creation room, Huang Zhan gave Chen Xuanting a new piece to listen to.

Chen Xuanting shook his head after hearing this. "That's not what I wanted." ”

Huang Zhan was depressed and said, "Ah Ting, this is just a TV series, there's no need to be so serious, right?" ”

Chen Xuanting smiled and said, "Isn't it good to be serious about doing things?"

Huang Zhan smiled bitterly: "But it doesn't matter if you're serious, but it's bitter for me!" ”

Chen Xuanting: "You, when you finish this job, I will invite you to drink Lafite in '82!" ”

Huang Zhan's eyes lit up: "Eighty-two years of Dilafi? Hahaha, that's the best wine, you have to count! ”

Chen Xuanting asked rhetorically: "When does my speech not count?" ”

Huang Zhan: "Okay, just wait, I'll make this theme song!" ”

Chen Xuanting smiled: "Okay, I'll wait!" ”

After leaving the music room, Chen Xuanting casually walked around his company building.

The office building covers a total area of about 4,000 square meters, with a total of 9 floors, and all of Chen Xuanting's foundation is also here.

The entire building, including the basement and parking lot, has been transformed into what he had in mind, and the first floor is a raw material warehouse, so there is nothing to say!

On the second floor, there are three record production lines like Warner, which can be said to be of international level, and if you go all out, you can produce 500,000 tapes or 200,000 videotapes per day, which is completely enough!

On the third floor, there is a film tape development, editing, dubbing studio and mastering studio, but it is still an empty shell. After all, first, there is no film tape to develop, and second, tape processing is a very professional thing, and he has no talents in this area for the time being!

The 4th floor is completely a fitness gym and a professional artist training room, which has a soundproofing studio and well-equipped fitness equipment.

There is nothing to introduce above the 5th floor, because from the 5th floor, the higher you go, the higher the status of the people who live there, and it is basically the office of the reading power! Wang Jing, Lao Huang, and Lao Gu are on the 7th and 8th floors, and Chen Xuanting's office is on the highest 9th floor.

Standing at the window of his office and looking out, he could see the TVB TV Building and the ATV Broadcasting Building not far away.

They are indeed tall and luxurious compared to Chen Xuanting's building, but this also gives Chen Xuanting the pressure and motivation to keep forging ahead. Looking at the TVB building that was shining brightly by the sun, Chen Xuanting couldn't help but feel a sense of pride surging from the depths of his soul, as if he wanted to use the shout to relieve his heroism from the soul!

Huang Zhan, who was thinking about how to compose the theme song for "The Godfather of China", sat on the chair and thought, suddenly trembled, and then raised his head and looked out the window, where it was clearly Chen Xuanting's domineering smiling face!

With a thought, "Wow......!" Huang Zhan immediately picked up the pen and quickly wrote on the paper!

The surging river is rolling eastward, and it is as heroic as a song, like the wind, like thunder, and I wish to be with him, and I don't want to wake up and get drunk...... After finishing this theme song, Huang Zhan threw his pen and sighed: domineering, the wind of the king!

Three days later, the big boss of Thunder Pictures, Chen Xuanting, made a cameo appearance in the big movie "Dark War" and finally started filming in Mong Kok, Hong Kong.

An office building in Mong Kok.

Looking at the after-work time, there is a lot of traffic and crowds. Many local Hong Kong police films like to shoot here, because it is the place where Hong Kong's unique "cosmopolitan city" characteristics are best highlighted.

"Ready...... Begin! Run...... Run, run, run......"

The rail car on the busy road was spinning its wheels rapidly, and two groups of photographers and three machines followed closely from three angles to take pictures of the police force led by Senior Inspector Wong Kai Chi rushing to the high-rise building to arrest the thief.

Director Johnny To watched nervously from the monitor. One machine takes a long shot, one machine captures the faces of the policemen, and another machine captures the shocked expressions of pedestrians who encounter emergencies.

"Okay, stop!"

Du Qifeng stood up from behind the monitor, held a megaphone, and said happily: "This one, pass!" Let's rest, let's eat! ”

"Wuhu! Haha......"

The policemen in police uniforms, the white-collar workers with briefcases, these people all cheered, as actors, it was a very happy thing for them to have something to eat. It was too hard to watch the crowd on the streets of Mong Kok, repeating and repeating a few shots.

When watching the movie, the big scene of the police chasing the international thief is very enjoyable, hula, a large group of police surging up, and then shouting: "You have been surrounded by the police, quickly put down your arms and raise your hands to surrender", the audio-visual effect of the movie theater is very shocking and bloody.

But when it comes to the process of filming these scenes, it is simply an extremely boring thing, and it is tedious enough to break down and commit suicide.

First of all, it is necessary to hire some extras with better physical fitness; Then an extras prop master has to prepare various types of props, police uniforms of different ranks, white-collar clothing, briefcases, taxis, police cars...... Wait a minute. All the details have to be conceived in order to come out with that feeling of "capture", a little sloppiness gives people the feeling of a group of children playing at home. And that's not all. The director has to calculate the route of the capture, the camera has to be in position, and the actors have to keep running up and down the stairs to find the best feeling.

These stairs alone are enough for those tricks, not to mention the leading actors in this play.

The most troublesome part is the actual shooting process. Cooperate with the assistant director and the director tacitly, after all, they are also two people, and they think about things in their heads. One is directing on the spot, responsible for communicating with the extras, and the other is watching the effect behind the monitor, often the director thinks that he has fully explained and described his own requirements and feelings, but as soon as the assistant director executes it, he finds that it is not the case at all; This is not the most annoying, dozens of extras are installed in one shot. As long as there is a mistake, all the shots have to be cut out and restarted. These bastard actors are not Stephen Chow in "The King of Comedy", they don't have the consciousness of "I'm an actor" at all, their only purpose is to mix a box of barbecued pork rice. When you talk to him about art, he feels like he must not understand. can only mechanically tell him what to do, but if the explanation is too detailed, the performance problem will come again, and it will be easy to lose instinct, which is very unnatural.

This is still something that can be controlled by humans, not to mention the pedestrians who suddenly broke into the camera at the scene! There are a lot of people in the Mong Kok area, and you know who would break in without saying hello, and then look blank and say, "Oh, it's filming", and the fart will leave, and you have to start over again with the shot that has been basically taken.

Therefore, filming police and bandit scenes on the crowded streets of Mong Kok is compared with ordinary romance films, gangster films, martial arts films and other themes. The difficulty is often exponentially multiplied, and the cost is staggering.

Chen Xuanting invested, and this "Dark War" directed and filmed by Johnny To is like most commercial blockbusters, without considering the schedule collision with big star actors, first bring the big scenes that are difficult to shoot to the front to give priority to shooting, and finish filming it as soon as possible, at most interspersed with some actors' performances that need to be carefully pondered. This can greatly shorten the time for extras and some small supporting roles to accompany the group, saving a lot of money, because in Hong Kong, the remuneration of these actors is calculated on a daily basis; The corresponding venue rental fees and the wear and tear on the rental of props and their raw materials will also be greatly reduced.

At the end of the day, various expenses include props, recording equipment, art input, venue rental, extras, and the salaries of makeup studio workers. Add to that the loss of film, the loss of large piles of props such as rail cars, and the equivalent remuneration of actors, photographers, American fingers, recording crews and actors...... In short, as long as a large-scale scene is filmed, the cost of a day is probably about one million.

This huge cost is not the most worrying thing for the great director Johnny To. The most infuriating thing is that you can't shoot anything after spending money. In the past, Du Qifeng was still an apprentice at wireless, and when he was not a director, he often watched those directors in the entertainment news worship God and Buddha when they turn on the film, burn incense and offer suckling pigs, and ask the master Wang Tianlin funny, who set the rules, what is the use of praying to God and worshiping Buddha? At that time, his master Wang Tianlin's answer was that as a director, you must at least be worthy of your investment boss, give him an explanation, and give him peace of mind. Later, when I got into this business, I realized that it was really difficult to become unsuperstitious in that environment. Sometimes I can't shoot a scene in a day, and I spend so much money in vain, either this extras laugh or another scene worker accidentally enters the painting; Otherwise, it's just that the shooting is down, and suddenly the props or lights or the recording or something give you a small situation. In short, if it is not good, it is not good, and the ghost makes the gods worse, and the root work cannot be explained by scientific laws.

But sometimes, it doesn't make any sense at all, it can shoot six or seven big shots a day when it's right, and once it's smooth, it's smooth to the end, and I can't explain what the reason is. is obviously the same team of people and the same way of working, maybe you can't get a shot for a day yesterday, and it's a waste of money; But the next day, I only filmed for half a day, and the work harvest was three times that of yesterday, as if I had fallen into an evil spirit. Watching the boss who trusts him smash down bundles of banknotes, but he can't even shoot a fart, do you say that in such a situation, is it okay to be a director who doesn't believe in gods and Buddhas?

Just two days ago, when everyone was shooting those sets of shots on the balcony, Du Qifeng also lost his temper in front of the two big names Andy Lau and Liu Qingyun. It is said that Du Qifeng is usually quite arrogant, and when he does not involve issues of principle, he always takes into account everyone's feelings, even if he is not gentle, at least he is not a short-tempered person.

But when he was on the same shot again and again, he had to repeat the details he had just explained, and then begged Hua Tsai and Qingyun to make enough eyes in the tone of begging grandpa to tell grandma, so as not to make mistakes again. That kind of frustration that goes over and over and over is enough to break the spirit of the most patient man in the world.

So Andy and Qingyun were approved by To Qifeng for dog blood.

In fact, the director's scolding on the set has also become one of the most commonplace things in this industry. Especially when the same person has the same or similar mistakes that affect the progress of the whole group multiple times, the anger is simply maddening. In his previous life, when Johnny To was filming "Gunfire", once, for a whole morning, there was an actor who always made mistakes, and went wrong again and again, either laughing or painting, or wearing props on his body.

At that time, it was too late to fire him and replace him, because the play was about to be completed. The assistant director of the crew patiently explained and explained to him again and again, and hundreds of people in the whole group repeated all kinds of preparations over and over again, but as soon as the camera was turned on, it was still this person's mistake. It wasn't until six or seven times in a row that the naturally optimistic brother was still laughing. The assistant director scolded him, and he looked indifferent with a hippie smile.

Du Qifeng didn't say a word, stepped forward to pull away the assistant director, and kicked this guy over, like thunder. Fortunately, more than a dozen people on the left and right desperately hugged Du Qifeng together, otherwise it would be troublesome enough to be processed by the paparazzi.

Since then, Johnny To has been dubbed a "tyrant" in the entertainment industry, especially the cover of his far-sighted eyes while biting a cigar, revealing a trace of ruthlessness and imperiousness. But who knows, Du Qifeng in private is very good to actors, if you don't make mistakes in principle, he will never "poison" you.

During this time, Johnny To was filming the drama "Dark War" as a great director, and Chen Xuanting watched it almost all the way. He kept the promise he made when he asked Johnny To to direct the film - he would never interfere with any filming work.

Even when he saw his friend Andy Lau being scolded because of the wrong scene in his eyes, he didn't step forward to help say a good word. Because in his opinion, as a director, you should have the courage to control and subdue everyone, in front of the director, no matter how big you are, you must learn two words - obedience!

(To be continued)