Chinese Entertainment: Academic Director

Chapter 264: Talking about Drama
Among the characters in "Inception", Mel, the wife of the male protagonist Cobb, does not have as many roles in the movie as the "dream builder" Adrian or Pang Bing, but she also has quite a few roles.

Moreover, since almost all the scenes are opposite Depp, such a role is very good for the actress and it is easy to attract attention.

Cao Yang's original plan was to have Anne Hathaway play the role.

But for Dong Xuan's Best Actress award, he reached an agreement with Claire Denis of the Venice Film Festival jury. Claire Denis supported Dong Xuan and she got the role.

This was a complete surprise for Claire Danes.

You just need to be the first one to speak up and support Dong Xuan within the jury. There is no need to bang the table and be stubborn. You don't need to worry about what happens after you speak up.

Just a few words can get him an important role in a $1.8 million mega-project, a rival role with Johnny Depp, and a good friend of Cao Yang...

It really kills two birds with one stone.

What's more, after watching Dong Xuan's performance in "Black Swan", she had originally planned to support Dong Xuan in winning the Venice Film Festival Best Actress Award.

She even felt that Dong Xuan's acting skills were definitely the best among so many nominated films.

Therefore, at the internal meeting of the jury, she was not only the first to propose that Dong Xuan win the Best Actress award, but was also prepared to slam the table and protest.

However, she did not slam the table in the end. After she made the proposal, people seconded it one after another.

With seven judges on the jury and her five supporters, Dong Xuan won the Best Actress award without any suspense.

This made Claire Danes feel somewhat relieved. Although she had made a decision that went against professional ethics and traded with others using her status as a jury member, fortunately, it was the right choice.

She felt that this was not against professional ethics, but respect for the profession and having a bottom line. If it was someone with poor acting skills who did it, she would definitely disagree.

Well, anyway, this "money" was so easy to make that Claire Danes was a little embarrassed at the time.

Then I sighed and said that Director Cao Yang is really amazing.

She even felt that, let alone Dong Xuan, a minor supporting role in "Black Swan", such as the former lead dancer, had much better acting skills than herself.

This made her think more. If Director Cao Yang was willing to support her, it seemed that winning the Oscar for Best Actress was also within her reach.

After the Venice Film Festival ended, she came to China as agreed.

According to her agent, she came to China this time to participate in a "training" before the filming of a movie.

She actually knew this and had heard a lot of rumors in the film industry.

Director Cao Yang is world-renowned for his ability to train actors. Currently, most people in the industry agree that the secret of Director Cao Yang's ability to make actors perform beyond their normal levels is the "training" before filming.

This has led many aspiring directors around the world to follow suit.

As for the effect, according to these directors, there is some.

To sum up, as long as the director conducts pre-job "training" seriously, at least the actors can understand what kind of movie it is, what story the movie is going to tell, and what kind of person your character is...

There are also many directors who claim at famous and unknown film festivals around the world that their films were shot according to Director Cao Yang's method, which is why they were selected for the film festivals.

Well, Claire Danes doesn't know whether these people are hyping it up or whether it's true.

She studied at Yale University, majoring in psychology. Although she dropped out in her sophomore year, she is not a naive person who is easily deceived.

She always firmly believed that there was only one Cao Yang in the world.

Cao Yang's method does not seem to be surprising. Many directors will also conduct rehearsals and read the script before shooting a movie. In fact, there is no essential difference from Director Cao Yang's method.

However, only director Cao Yang was the most successful.

So, she thinks Director Cao Yang is the "special" one, and she came here out of curiosity to find out the truth.

She really wanted to know if Director Cao Yang had any hidden tricks or unique speaking charm.

However, what disappointed Claire Denis was that she did not meet director Cao Yang immediately after arriving in Beijing.

The person who "trained" these actors was a director named Ning Hao.

The news Claire Denis received was that director Cao Yang went to Canada, which is one of the filming locations of "Inception".

In addition, Director Cao Yang was hired as the chief consultant by the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee. Even if he returned from Canada, he had to go to select the director of the Olympics first. This time would take about ten days in total.

In other words, it would take about ten days before Director Cao Yang could come and explain the play to them.

Claire Denis was a little disappointed. She didn't pay much attention to this man named Ning Hao at first and just thought he was an ordinary assistant of director Cao Yang.

It wasn't until her agent told her that this young director was also very talented. He was noticed by director Cao Yang and was kept by his side for training before he even graduated from the film academy.

He has served as assistant director for several films directed by Cao Yang. He was the assistant director of "Black Swan" and "Inception".

Moreover, just this year, a movie tailor-made for him by director Cao Yang was released, which earned 2000 million US dollars at the box office in China, and the overseas copyright also sold for nearly 1000 million US dollars.

Claire Denis heard the box office and thought that it was good enough for a new director. But she was surprised when her agent told her that the investment in the film, including publicity and promotion, was only over 3 million US dollars.

Even in Hollywood, this profit ratio is astonishing, and such a director can already be called a "future star."

However, in the eyes of Claire Denis, Ning Hao's explanation of the play is not much different from that of a teacher on the podium. He is just trying his best to make everyone understand what the movie is about.

In fact, Claire Danes was confused at first and didn't understand at all. How could she "plant" dreams for people?

what is that?
During the day, she listened to Ning Hao talk about movies, and at night, she went back to read the novel of the movie given to her by her agent.

Slowly, she finally understood a little.

Precisely because she somewhat understood it, she was astounded by the novel written by Director Cao Yang. It was so creative and full of ideas.

This movie is absolutely subversive.

It turns out that the novels written by director Cao Yang are so good.

She heard from her agent that director Cao Yang’s “Cao Yang’s Fantastic Journey” has already published six books, so she decided to go back and buy all six books. She believes that director Cao Yang’s other short films and novels must be good as well.

Just as she was marveling at this, someone came to the crew whom she was somewhat reluctant to see.

Because Leo was busy with work, he delayed reporting for a week.

Claire Danes was not familiar with anyone else in the crew, including Depp, and only became familiar with them because of their acting opposite each other.

But Leo is different.

The two collaborated on "Romeo and Juliet" which was released in 96, and the collaboration was quite unpleasant!
In a word, her impression of Leo at that time was extremely bad.

When filming this movie, Claire Denis was not yet sixteen years old. She played Romeo and Juliet respectively in the movie with Leonardo DiCaprio.

It would have been fine if they just played a couple in the play, but Leo also pursued her outside the play.

She knew that Leo had a girlfriend at the time, who was a model, and she often came to visit him on set.

This is what’s so hateful about Leo. You obviously have a girlfriend, so why are you doing this?
Therefore, Claire Danes, who was under the age of sixteen and still had childish ideas, didn't like to pay much attention to Leo when she was not filming.

The more she ignored Leo, the more excited he became. He would pester her after filming every day and play some very cheap jokes on her.

As a result, she wanted to pay less attention to Leo.

To the extent that, after filming "Romeo and Juliet", Cameron invited her to be the leading lady in the movie Big Boat, intending to hype up her collaboration with Leonardo DiCaprio and also stir up a scandal between the two.

She was extremely annoyed at the time, thinking that the theme of the ship story was exactly the same as "Romeo and Juliet", both of which were love tragedies. Moreover, she was unwilling to work with the playboy Leo.

So she made a decision that she would regret for the rest of her life - she rejected Cameron.

She still hates Leo now. If this playboy hadn't pursued her in the first place, how could she have rejected him in a fit of anger?

So, when Leo came to the crew and greeted her, she responded coldly.

Claire Danes originally wondered if Leo still had feelings for her, but then she changed her mind and realized, based on her understanding of Leo, that this philandering man only liked girls in their teens and twenties.

Sure enough, Leo treated her as just an ordinary friend and did not bother her.

Haha, he is indeed a playboy!
Pooh!
Cao Yang was not free until September 9th. He first invited several actors from the crew to dinner before explaining the play to them.

Ning Hao had actually laid a solid foundation, spending more than ten days to make these actors familiar with and understand the content and characters of the movie.

Cao Yang asked them to write about their understanding of the characters, a little bit every day, with no limit on the number of words.

If there is any deviation in the understanding of the characters, Cao Yang will correct it.

Pang Bing, in particular, had a big deviation in her understanding of the "dream builder" Adrian, so Cao Yang kept her at night and gave her individual tutoring.

However, Pang Bing did not think he was wrong and was very unconvinced. He even dared to ride on Cao Yang and act arrogantly.

This is certainly intolerable. As a director, his authority must not be challenged.

Cao Yang punished her and spanked her if she didn't understand, making her scream.

In the end, under Cao Yang's careful guidance, Pang Bing finally understood the connotation of the role, and kept praising Director Cao for his ability to train actresses.

This went on until October 10th, when Cao Yang felt it was almost done, mainly because the preparations for the film were completed, all the props were ready, and the studio was set up.

Then let’s shoot.

So, we took the actors and set off to Ludong Island first. All the seaside scenes in the movie were shot on Ludong Island.

He was very familiar with Ludong Island. Several movies were shot here, and the local government was very welcoming and supportive, with the support not much less than that of the places chosen by Colombia for tax refunds.

(End of this chapter)