blueteamnovel Chapter 23 filming in progress
Chapter 23 filming in progress
Lin Ruiyang woke up before dawn the next day.
The fat man in the next bed was snoring, his rhythm even, showing no sign of waking up.
Thankfully, Fatty doesn't have the bad habit of grinding his teeth. Thinking back to his past life, he once had a roommate in a film crew who ground his teeth, snored, and talked in his sleep—it was so torturous.
Lin Ruiyang turned over, picked up the storyboard from beside his pillow, and turned to today's scenes by the dim light of the streetlamp.
There was no press conference, no reporters, and no public presentations today; the only focus was on the actual filming.
The crew will become more direct and less reserved, and differences in their working styles will come to the fore.
Today we're filming a scene depicting the father's daily life with the nanny. It's not a big scene; the script is very simple: the nanny wipes the father's face while the father sits on the sofa.
When I arrived at the film set, it was just dawn. The staff had already started setting up equipment, running wires from the doorway into the room, and erecting light fixtures one by one.
People carrying breakfast occasionally hurried through the corridor.
Li Baotian had arrived. The old man was sitting on a prop box with a script in front of him.
Yan Bingyan was a little late with her makeup and styling done. She was wearing a faded plaid shirt with the cuffs rolled up to her elbows. After she came out, she sat down next to the old man.
Lin Ruiyang walked up to the two men and briefly explained the staging of the scene.
"Director, I have an idea for this scene," Yan Bingyan said.
Lin Ruiyang looked at her, signaling her to continue.
"The script only said to wipe my face, but I went through it myself yesterday. Before wiping my face, I had to test the water temperature. If it wasn't hot enough, I had to go back and add hot water."
"Can."
"So, Professor Takarada, what are your thoughts?"
"No, I'll just follow along with her."
After everything was coordinated, the actual filming began.
Yan Bingyan brought a basin of hot water from the kitchen and placed it on the coffee table. She tested the water temperature, soaked a towel in it, and wrung it out.
Li Baotian sat on the sofa, his face expressionless. When the towel touched his cheek, his eyelids twitched slightly. He didn't flinch, but his body instinctively shrank half an inch into the sofa.
After wiping his face, Yan Bingyan draped the towel over the edge of the basin, picked up the basin, and returned to the kitchen.
The two did not exchange a single word throughout the entire process.
"That's over, get ready for the next round."
The second scene follows the first, and the staging is more complex. This is also the point of conflict in the play: the nanny encounters difficulties when changing the old man's clothes. The old man's body is stiff, and she cannot turn him over by herself.
In the original film, the hesitation at this point was triggered by religious taboos, but in the Chinese version, Lin Ruiyang changed it to a more direct fear of reality.
Young caregivers are unreliable; there's the fear of being accused by family members of being physically indecent, petty theft, or injuring the elderly with excessive force; and the discomfort of dealing with elderly people of the opposite sex.
Before filming, Yen Ping-yen tried changing clothes three times. The first two times, he either lacked strength or his movements were too stiff.
On the third attempt, Li Baotian deliberately shifted his body weight to one side, using his limbs to help her find the right balance.
"It's my body that's not cooperating; you're just doing your job." This line is addressed to the character, but it's also what the old man wants to say to those in the industry.
As filming began, Yan Bingyan, following the previous rhythm, supported Li Baotian's left shoulder and back with his right hand, attempting to lean his body forward.
Following the script, Li Baotian's body stiffened as he sank downwards.
Yan Bingyan tried twice but couldn't move it. She stopped, her chest heaving with noticeably faster breathing, and she kept repeating the key points of the movement:
"Shoulders and waist should press against the knees, hands should support the back, don't use your waist... don't use your waist."
Her wrist trembled slightly during the attempt.
"Cut!"
Lin Ruiyang walked out from behind the monitor: "Sister Yan, was your trembling just now genuine nervousness or was it staged?"
"It's true, I'm afraid of hurting Teacher Li."
"Okay, let's do one more, but a little lighter."
Secondly, Yan Bingyan moved even more gently. She supported Li Baotian's back and tried three times before she could lean his body forward by less than ten centimeters.
The old man cooperated as much as possible throughout the process, and his forehead was covered in sweat afterward.
The next scenes to be filmed are all outdoor shots of everyday life from the storyline. Laying the tracks and adjusting the equipment will take a little more time, but the filming process is still very smooth.
Soon it was noon, the film crew wrapped up for a break and distributed boxed lunches.
Lin Ruiyang sat under the tree, unpacked his chopsticks, and prepared to eat. Yan Bingyan brought over a boxed lunch and sat down next to him.
"Director Lin, when we started filming the scene where I was changing clothes this morning, I remembered how the caregiver turned my mother over in the hospital when I was taking care of her. She said she was afraid that the family would come looking for her and she would be held responsible."
"So your trembling is a conditioned reflex?"
"Yes. I once saw a caregiver at the hospital who used too much force when turning an elderly person over, and the next day the family came to the hospital to make a scene."
Later, the caregiver would always ask the nurse to watch over her to prove that her movements were correct.
She poked at her rice with her chopsticks, her mood low: "When I was acting, I kept thinking about her. Only when the roles were reversed did I truly realize how difficult it was to play both sides."
The scene we filmed this afternoon was a group scene.
The location was the nanny's room next to the kitchen, a cramped little cubicle, with a nearly withered pothos plant on the windowsill.
Guo Xiaodong knocked on the door, Yan Bingyan opened it, and the two faced each other on opposite sides of the threshold. Zu Feng, who played the nanny's husband, stood at the far end of the cubicle, his presence like a dark cloud pressing down.
Zu Feng had been staying in the corner of the cubicle since before filming began, with only one side of his face illuminated by the lights, while the other side of his face was hidden in shadow.
During filming, Yan Bingyan slightly turned to the side, blocking the door frame and isolating Zu Feng behind him. This action did not occur during the actual blocking; it was an instinctive reaction on the spot.
After filming this take, Lin Ruiyang secured another one.
After filming, Zu Feng asked him, "I was thinking, did this character never say a complete sentence from beginning to end?"
"It's not that you can't speak, it's that you dare not speak. You've been holding back your anger in silence, and if you open your mouth, it will explode out of control, so you choose to remain silent."
He instructed Zu Feng to interpret the character as someone who suppresses anger into silence in exchange for bargaining power.
Sometimes silence is the only weapon the weak can wield in a power struggle where there is an imbalance of power.
Zu Feng nodded in agreement after listening, then walked back to the back of the cubicle and stood in that corner again to wait for the next call.
After finishing work in the evening, Lin Ruiyang and Fatty randomly chose a restaurant to eat at, as usual.
As he ate his rice, the fat man talked about his work for the day: "Wang Hai asked me to keep an eye on media reports today, in case there are any negative news stories."
The daytime news focused on the cast of "The Return of the Condor Heroes," Huang Xiaoming's new stills, and Liu Yifei's meet-and-greet. Later, there was extensive coverage of the preview screenings of "2046" in Shanghai.
Our crew didn't make a ripple at all.
"It's a good thing that no one is paying attention, so that reporters won't be waiting at the door and affecting the old man's mood."
The fat man thought about it and agreed, so he didn't say anything more and continued eating.
Back in his room, Lin Ruiyang spread the script supervisor's sheet on the bed. There weren't many scenes to shoot today, but they were at the pace he wanted.
These kinds of family dramas can't be rushed. Each take requires the actors to peel away the layers of their emotions until their true nature is revealed.
After briefly summarizing the events of the day's filming, he put away his notebook and turned off the lights.
The shooting schedule for tomorrow still needs to be completed...