Many of the contracted supporting actors in the crew did not show up. On this cold morning, they were probably all sleeping soundly in the hotel. When there is no filming, no one wants to come out and suffer this.
The reason why Tao Cen has today's fame and status, in addition to her acting skills and talents, may be that this quality is also the most important reason why she is famous in China.
"Everyone, take your positions."
The stage manager held a loudspeaker and started shouting. The lighting technicians and photographers were already ready. The closed doors of shops on the street made this cold, foggy morning even more desolate.
Tao Cen, who entered the set, was no longer as relaxed as she was during the activities, and her expression was extremely serious. She came here today to see Jiang Se's acting skills.
Although she had known for a long time that Jiang Se had a good reputation in recent years, the movies he had participated in had good box office, and the movies he starred in had good reputation and attracted a lot of attention, she still wanted to observe how Jiang Se was during the filming and whether he was qualified enough to be valued by her.
In Tao Cen's heart, he always felt that Jiang Se's fame was somewhat exaggerated. The two films of hers that were shortlisted for the French Film Festival in recent years were both based on cooperation with Liu Ye, and the director himself was good enough and could train people.
Liu Ye has been in the industry for many years, his acting skills are unquestionable, and he is also very good at conveying his emotions to newcomers.
If Jiang Se's "fame" was based on external things rather than herself, she might have been suppressed by herself in this movie and become an insignificant background board.
This kind of suppression may be more fatal to Jiang Se than other methods.
Tao Cen felt a little excited when she thought of this. She needed to cultivate this feeling, so she had no intention of suppressing it. She let it grow and ferment so as to connect with Shen Xunran's state of mind in "Criminal Suspect" who was trying to bring Su Yi, the "criminal suspect", to justice.
Tao Cen ignored the cameras and crews around her. She didn't hear what Song Yi whispered in her ear. In the foggy morning, a quiet street appeared in her eyes. Faintly, there seemed to be a "click" sound coming from it.
Before the person arrived, Tao Cen had already sketched out a picture in his mind: a woman in high heels, slowly coming towards him with blood all over her body. Maybe her expression showed the panic and helplessness after killing someone. Maybe she was still a little embarrassed and flustered. Maybe her hands were shaking, and she lowered her head, not daring to see anyone.
The scenes in the story flooded into Tao Cen's mind. In addition to panic, Su Yi was probably also feeling a little excited after killing someone.
Her hands would be in her coat pockets, where there was a high probability that the murder weapon was hidden.
"Sister Tao..."
Someone called her, but Tao Cen didn't even turn around:
"Shh, she's coming, don't make any noise!"
A tall and slender figure appeared at the corner of the street and officially entered the camera. It seemed consistent with what Tao Cen had imagined, but also somewhat unexpected.
Jiang Se did have her hands in her pockets. The beige long windbreaker was buttoned neatly, and the belt around her waist outlined her slender waist, which was so thin that it seemed impossible to hold it with one hand. Under the windbreaker was a pair of beautiful long legs, and on her feet were a pair of high-heeled shoes. Her ankles were incredibly beautiful against the backdrop of the high-heeled shoes.
The sleeves of her windbreaker were about nine-tenths long, revealing her white wrists. She walked around in the quiet morning with a smile on her face, like an elf who had accidentally entered the mortal world. But in the next second, she seemed to have discovered someone peeping at her, and subconsciously raised her head, slowly raised the corners of her mouth, revealing a few neat white teeth, and gently blinked at the camera. That blink of a smile was like the finishing touch, making the whole picture come alive.
For some reason, that smile was so beautiful yet so frightening that it infected the people around her. They could keenly sense the malice in her smile, yet they could not help but be attracted to her.
The Su Yi created by Huo Zhiming, who is "graceful and elegant", "brightly smiling", "murderous" but "as attractive as a poppy", has come to life from the words of the script into reality.
"Trouble", these three words emerged in Tao Cen's mind at this moment.
Jiang Se's performance was not what she had imagined. Just this slight smile had revealed a lot of information for people to guess and discuss.
This scene is the opening of "Criminal Suspect". Tao Cen can imagine how many audiences will be infected and amazed by her smile when it appears in the movie.
Jiang Se is not the vase she imagined. Maybe this time in the movie "Suspect", not only will she not be able to suppress Jiang Se, but she will also meet a biggest rival. If she does not perform well, she will most likely be suppressed by her.
The smile on Tao Cen's face disappeared and his expression gradually became serious. Jiang Se's performance bewitched many people on the set, including Huo Zhiming.
He had seen Jiang Se's performances. When he confirmed that Jiang Se would star in his "Criminal Suspect", he had already seen all the movies she had participated in, including Doukou's melancholy in "Peking Events", Zhou Wei's regret in "About I Love You", Zhang Yuqin's deathly pale face in "Devil", and Tang Jing's self-redemption and affirmation in "A Glimmer of Hope".
Jiang Se has given each role a completely different life. Except for the early films that relied solely on appearance as a selling point, she has successfully created many classic and different characters.
She brought numerous surprises to the director and the audience, but Huo Zhiming never expected that she would give him another surprise.
Jiang Se's winking smile was not what Huo Zhiming had originally expected. In the script, for the scene where Su Yi walked out of the street, he had originally thought of a feeling that 'Su Yi' was out of place here, in order to highlight her alienation from this place. When the camera was pointed at her, she should glance at it indifferently and then turn her face away.
But when she smiled, it was more stunning and special than Huo Zhiming had expected. He immediately stopped, picked up the loudspeaker, and shouted for it to happen again.
It was not a long street, but Jiang Se walked back and forth for nearly an hour from six o'clock just to shoot these few seconds of footage.
The mist soaked her hair. One day later, a murder case would occur here, shocking the entire Wangjin. Huo Zhiming wanted Su Yi's appearance to make the audience immediately associate her face with the horrific murder case, giving the audience a clever psychological hint.
With this in mind, Jiang Se walked out of the hotel. Her hair should not be wet.
At 7:30, Huo Zhiming was still not satisfied with the shot and asked the stylist to blow-dry Jiang Se's hair which was moistened by the mist and tie it up neatly again.
The set took a break. Jiang Se had been walking for so long that his calves were exposed and were a little painful from the cold.
Mo Anqi, Chen Shan and others took the prepared hot water bottles and put them on her calves. Another assistant took off her shoes with some heartache and rubbed the blisters and red marks caused by her high heels.
Jiang Se's endorsement ability in recent years is obvious to all. Many brands are eager to work with her, but they were turned down by Xia Chaoqun.
Some savvy manufacturers set their sights on sponsoring the clothes, shoes and bags she wore in the movies, using this as another way to let Jiang Se indirectly "advertise" for their company.
Apart from the fact that she played a mother in "The Devil" and that her clothes and shoes were intentionally ill-fitting to suit Zhang Yuqin's identity, the clothes, shoes, bags and even jewelry she wore in every movie have become a symbol of fashion for young Chinese girls.
As soon as the news of Jiang Se's joining the show "Criminal Suspect" was released, in addition to investors contacting Huo Zhiming one after another, many clothing, shoe and bag manufacturers also extended olive branches to Huo Zhiming.
These businessmen suggested that as long as Jiang Se or Tao Cen were willing to wear clothes, shoes and socks from their own brands, they would be willing to pay a large sum of money.
Jiang Se is especially popular. She is very popular among young people. Tao Cen is a little older than Jiang Se, and her fans are not young people. Most of them are people like Mrs. Zhou and Mrs. Weng who have a certain social status and economic foundation. It is unlikely that they will buy clothes based on the characters in the movie.
In addition, her identity in the movie is not like Tao Cen, who is stereotyped as a police officer. This identity restricts her dressing style to a certain extent, and she is not as free as Jiang Se. Therefore, manufacturers tend to target Jiang Se more when they want to cooperate with her.
Huo Zhiming had been ignored a few years ago because he was the type of person who was "tired of being poor", so he was naturally delighted by such sponsorship.
Of course he would not refuse if he could provide costumes for the crew and also pay a certain amount of money so that the crew could spend the money on more appropriate things.
Fortunately, the crew members of Huo Zhiming's crew have good vision and the clothes they choose are of good quality and can be considered light luxury brands.
But the shoes were not so good. The stiletto heels looked beautiful and very feminine, but they really rubbed the feet. Huo Zhiming was really strict, so a short film was shot over and over again for more than ten times. Jiang Se's skin was tender, so after walking for more than ten times, she had several blisters on her feet. The young assistant was shocked and even looked at Huo Zhiming with a complaining look in her eyes.
Wangzhou has a special terrain, like a basin, so the fog is thicker than in other provincial capitals in China and dissipates more slowly.
But as the sun comes out, the fog will still slowly dissipate, and this scene still needs to be shot quickly, otherwise it will have to be postponed until tomorrow to reshoot.
Huo Zhiming planned to move to other places after finishing the filming of Wangzhou scenes, so it would be best to finish it today. After resting for a few minutes, Jiang Se's legs had not yet warmed up and her hair had just been blown dry, but Huo Zhiming on the other end had already started urging her to continue filming.
Fortunately, this scene lived up to expectations. After Jiang Se reshot it three times, it finally passed.
After shooting several rounds back and forth in a thin windbreaker at this time in the early morning, Jiang Se was almost frozen. When she sat next to the camera, her hands were a little out of control.
The skin on my wrists was covered with goose bumps. Tao Cen, who was originally sitting next to the camera, was nowhere to be seen. She must have returned to the hotel to prepare for her first scene.
She got up too early, so Mo Anqi took her coat and wrapped it around her, while persuading her to take off her makeup and go back to the hotel to rest. Jiang Se shook her head and wanted to watch the scene she had filmed earlier.
After filming this scene, the crew temporarily stopped working. Hearing Jiang Se's request, the photographer obediently pressed the clips she had shot previously and played them back for Jiang Se to see.
Huo Zhiming pulled a stool over. This stubborn old man rarely showed what he thought was a good face to Jiang Se, and he was obviously a little proud of today's filming.
"Want to see the replay?"
He asked and Jiang Se nodded. This was her habit. After filming a segment, she would always check her performance to see if there was any possibility of further improvement.
“See if there are any deficiencies that need to be improved.”
Her words made Huo Zhiming look at her unexpectedly, and the smile on his face deepened.
Today's collaboration with Jiang Se made Huo Zhiming refresh his original view of Jiang Se. He knew his temper. She felt very good when she filmed a scene like today for the first time. The tension was full and her emotions infected everyone who looked at her. The picture was also beautiful. In the eyes of many people, this film should have been passed in one take, but Huo Zhiming made Jiang Se repeat it countless times.
Jiang Se's assistants were all a little unhappy. This kind of situation had happened many times in Huo Zhiming's decades-long career as a director. When he was still famous in his early years, celebrities of all sizes would give him some face.
Later on, his fame declined and he talked a lot. Some stars who were not so famous would argue with him to gain his respect. The set was usually filled with tension and was very disharmonious.
Compared with the stars that Huo Zhiming had worked with in the past, Jiang Se's status and reputation were naturally not comparable to the stars that Huo Zhiming had worked with in previous films. She was the undisputed pillar of Century Galaxy, alongside Tao Cen, and the most charismatic and influential actress in the Chinese film and television industry. In this situation, she could have lost her temper, but what amazed Huo Zhiming was that once he shouted "start", she would always go back to the original position and start over again, without even asking why he thought this part was "NO GOOD".
"It's good for young people to have this kind of self-reflection ability. Zengzi in the Analects of Confucius said that one should reflect on oneself three times a day." He said this with a bit of pride, and his eyebrows raised, which made Mo Anqi gnashing with anger:
"But with me, there is no room for you to reflect on this part."
He was so confident that Chen Shan suddenly became unhappy and couldn't help but sneer:
"Director Huo, since you have no room for reflection here, why did you let Sese walk around so many times before?"
The little girl suspected that Huo Zhiming was deliberately playing a prank on her and looked at him with dissatisfaction.
Jiang Se has a good temper and good manners. She didn't bother with him. After the shoot, she was still humble and worried that her performance was not good enough, but the people around her couldn't help but get angry when they heard what Huo Zhiming said.
Huo Zhiming didn't argue with her and signaled the photographer to play the previously shot clips for Jiang Se to watch:
"If you were dissatisfied during the filming just now and wanted to compete with me, and asked me to tell you what was wrong with the filming, I would not tell you."
This old man has a very strange temper, and he seemed a little happy when he said this:
"But you didn't ask just now, and now it seems that I like it very much, so I can teach you."
He let Jiang Se read it first without reminding her. (To be continued)