Rebirth 2004: A lone figure in the literary world

Chapter 92 (Fourth update) Screenwriter, give Xiao Song Jia more scenes!

After selecting the male and female leading actors, the rest of the matters such as invitations, contracts, auditions, and forming a crew were no longer Zhang Chao's business for the time being.

In the following month, Zhang Chao spent his time writing novels in addition to attending classes. During this time, he also met up with his classmates at Yanda University and went on outings. He finally experienced the joy and freedom of college life again. During this period, he also took time to meet up with Song Shiyu to visit the Yanda campus.

Song Shiyu and Zhang Chao talked about Lan Ting's recent situation. After this girl was admitted to Xiamen University, she became a star among the freshmen. She participated in the poetry club, organized freshman debate competitions, and became a backbone of the Gulang Literary Society, publishing one article after another.

Zhang Chao smiled and said, "She is still as active as she was in high school. She didn't tell me these things. Sometimes when we chat, we just talk about trivial matters in life."

Song Shiyu said: "Maybe Lan Ting feels that what she did is too insignificant compared to what you did..."

Zhang Chao said: "How childish! What's the point of comparing this?"

Song Shiyu turned around and asked, "Am I the same? In your eyes, am I childish?"

Zhang Chao didn't know what to say, so he just remained silent.

Song Shiyu sighed and continued, "We three say we are friends, but I always feel that you are much more mature than Lan Ting and I. Sometimes, the way you look at us is really similar to the way our class teacher looks at us."

Zhang Chao thought to himself: "... Shiyu classmate, do you have to describe it so accurately..."

Song Shiyu said faintly, "Thinking back to the last six months of my senior year, it felt like a dream and it was so unreal."

Zhang Chao considered his words and replied, "In fact, there was a period of time when I was writing in the middle of the night, and I often stopped and asked myself whether everything today was a dream. But now I have figured it out. Whether it is or not, I must live my current life without regrets. That way, even if I wake up from the dream, I will have a clear conscience."

Song Shiyu said, "Is this the reason why you didn't even leave the illusion for me and Lan Ting?"

Without waiting for Zhang Chao to say anything, Song Shiyu suddenly said in a cheerful tone: "You are right, live your life without regrets, it doesn't matter whether it is a dream or reality."

Zhang Chao smiled and nodded, as if he saw this girl's brilliant musical career in the future.

"Zhang Chao, goodbye! Thank you for changing Lan Ting and me."

"……goodbye!"

In fact, it is not just Lan Ting and Song Shiyu who have been changed by Zhang Chao. Xia Da, who is far away in Hunan Province, has completely occupied his daily life with Your Name.

Since 2003, Xia Da has returned to his hometown in Hunan Province and has become an independent comics creator. He draws 20-30 pages every month, occasionally goes out to attend comic exhibitions, and spends the rest of his time tending flowers and playing with cats.

Since she started writing "Your Name", Xia Da's pace of life has become faster and faster. She is good at comics based on ancient costumes, but "Your Name" is a story that takes place in modern times, which requires her to do a lot of extra homework.

Now she goes to more prosperous urban areas every week to collect materials, and also searches for a large number of pictures of Yanjing and Shanghai for reference.

After Zhang Chao signed the contract with Shueisha, the pressure suddenly increased. Although this time it was only serialized in the niche monthly magazine "ULTRAJUMP", and the sales of each issue were only about 5 copies, but this was Shueisha after all...

However, Zhang Chao did keep his promise and gave her all the serialized royalties from Shueisha. Shueisha paid her 4000 yen per page, which was only the standard for novice painters in the island country, but it was more than double the domestic level. It meant that for the same workload, her income doubled.

For Xia Da, who now survives almost entirely on page royalties, this is both a huge motivation and a huge pressure.

Competition in Japanese comics is very fierce, and works can be cut short at any time, even by famous authors. Masami Kurumada, who once became a legend with "Saint Seiya", only serialized 8 episodes of his next work "Silent Warrior: Sho" and it ended without a single volume. Xia Da is a gentle person with a strong character. He is very ambitious and will never allow such a thing to happen. Therefore, he strives for perfection in storyboard design and picture processing, and spends almost half the time at the workbench every day.

But an email from an island country put Xia Da in a dilemma.

"Xada-chan, we want to transfer "Your Name" from the monthly magazine "ULTRAJUMP" to "Weekly YOUNG JUMP" for serialization. Do you agree?"

Although Weekly YOUNG JUMP is not a main publication like Weekly Shonen JUMP, its sales volume for each issue has exceeded 80 copies. This shows that the popularity of Your Name, which has only been serialized for two issues, in the island country is beyond people's imagination.

However, for cartoonists, the transition from monthly to weekly magazines means that the workload almost doubles (30-40 pages per issue of monthly magazines, 16 pages per issue of weekly magazines).

Xia Da is currently an independent artist, without an assistant, and does everything herself. She can only draw about 30 pages a month, which is her limit. But she is unwilling to give up this opportunity, so she has to ask Yan Baohua, the editor-in-chief of "Yanjing Cartoon", for help.

After listening to me, Chief Editor Yan suggested, "Don't take on everything by yourself. Your Name is with Zhang Chao. You should ask him first."

Xia Da hesitated...

When November comes in Yanjing, the weather turns from cool to cold, and you have to wear a coat when going out.

After more than a month, Zhang Chao finally met Zhang Aijia, He Jiping and others again. However, unlike the previous times when there were only a few cats and kittens, this time there was a full house of people - the crew of "Youth Like You" was officially formed.

Surprisingly, Zhang Aijia and Yi Zhe actually invited Zhou Xun and Zhang Zhen to the film at the same time, indicating that the film should have received additional investment. Of the two "second choices" Dong Jie and Xiao Songjia, who were originally selected to play Cheng Nian, only Xiao Songjia stayed, but played the role of Wei Lai.

With Dong Jie's current positioning and price, it is naturally impossible for her to accept such a villain who was eliminated midway. Although Xiao Song Jia has acted in several dramas, none of them became popular. Moreover, she had just come to Yanjing from Shanghai to "drift north", and was in the stage of being good quality and cheap.

Zhang Chao came today to participate in the "script reading session", which is more commonly known as "script review". It is the rehearsal of lines and script study between the actors and the main creators before the formal filming. It is between the script and the formal performance. There are no costumes, props and lighting, and there is no need to pay attention to camera movement and scene scheduling. You only need to read the script dialogue according to the role.

Zhang Aijia attaches great importance to this reading session. The main actors, screenwriters, photographers, sound engineers, editors, costume designers, etc. are all present to ensure that after filming begins, everyone knows what they are supposed to do in every scene.

When Zhang Chao listened to Zhou Xun, Zhang Zhen and other actors reading out his lines word by word with emotion, he felt a completely different pleasure from when the words were published in a magazine. The characters he wrote seemed to come alive at this moment.

The change in tone when an actor recites a line of dialogue may create a completely different character, which is a charm that pure words do not have.

Zhang Aijia specifically said: "Zhang Chao wrote a very good script this time, everyone must live up to this script!"

It goes without saying that Zhou Xun and Zhang Zhen are top actors, but it was Song Jia who caught his attention during this reading. When she read Wei Lai's dialogue, she was gentle but sinister when she was proud, and she was fierce but weak when she was afraid, which fully demonstrated Wei Lai's personality traits.

Zhang Chao's impression of little Song Jia still remains on Gu Qiuyan in the spy drama "The Cliff" a few years later, and of course the "master's wife" in the movie "Master" who had a charming appearance and a strong heart.

But she was already a mature actor at that time. I didn't expect that she had such superb acting skills not long after graduating from the Shanghai Theatre Academy.

Such performance naturally attracted the attention of Zhang Aijia. After the first day of the reading session, Zhang Aijia found Zhang Chao and said to him: "Little Song Jia's interpretation of Wei Lai is very wonderful. I think there is still room for this role to be explored. Why don't we give her two more scenes to try?"

Zhang Chao held his forehead and said, "I want to change the script again! ?

(End of this chapter)