Entertainment: I just want to be the boss behind the scenes

Chapter 35 The first scene
"I found out that Penguin Video's "Darker" should start airing after the Chinese New Year. If we hurry up, we can get there before them."

At the entrance of the "Convenience Store" set, Meng Bai and Wu Bai sat aside waiting for the lighting technicians, photographers and other staff to set up the scene, and chatted about the situation of the "friendly drama" by the way.

Wu Bai frowned and said, "Actually, there is no need for us to get ahead of them, right? Our subject matter is supernatural suspense, and their subject matter is criminal investigation and crime. There is no conflict between the two."

"But the audience's attention span at the same time is limited, and the popularity of the two dramas will inevitably be tied to each other," Meng Bai explained.

Although the two dramas are about two different themes, the main audiences are college students and young people under the age of 28, and their attention and topics are limited. If the two dramas are broadcast at the same time, it is inevitable that there will be diversion or suppression.

In fact, there is another option, which is to broadcast "Soul Ferry" later, which can also avoid competition.

But unfortunately, Meng Bai found out that the "Darker" on Penguin Video was a syndicated broadcast of seasons one and two, totaling nearly fifty episodes.

At the broadcast frequency of one episode a day and five episodes a week, it will take more than two months to complete the broadcast.

More importantly, this also involves a key issue, which is the membership recharge of the video platform.

The membership fee of fifteen to twenty yuan a month is an expense that young viewers who are still in school or just starting to work feel is "not much money, but it always makes me feel uncomfortable spending it."

If it was just one platform, it would be fine, but since the two dramas involve two platforms, the "uncomfortable" feeling brought by this kind of consumption would be doubled.

Therefore, the behavioral habits of many viewers are to first reluctantly become a member of a website, and then when they need something, they go to QVOD or Tieba and shout "Boss, please help me", and then naturally a "wild" resource will appear in front of them.

Therefore, viewers are more likely to subscribe to the platform that broadcasts the drama first.

The number of member recharges is an important profit point for both video platforms and producers.

In the revenue sharing contract signed between Meng Bai and Leshi.com, one of the important profit sharing items is the recharge made by members within the series.

Since the matter concerns his personal interests, Meng Bai naturally has to consider it as carefully as possible.

"So, brother." Meng Bai patted Wu Bai's arm and said in a tone of entrusting him with an important task: "I'll have to count on you for the next shoot!"

"...I try my best."

……

The biggest difference between text and pictures is the degree of intuitiveness for the audience.

When reading a text, the author may not write clearly in many places, and the readers can rely on their own imagination to fill in the gaps and feel the atmosphere of the plot scenes.

But it’s not the same with movies and TV dramas. The information the audience receives is what’s shown on the screen.

As a supernatural suspense drama, the most important point of "Soul Ferry" is to make the audience feel the atmosphere of horror, suspense, tension and excitement.

So how do we reflect this atmosphere?
It's simple, just fill the picture with darkness and shadows.

In other words, shoot at night.

The majority of scenes for the "Pendulum" crew are night scenes, after all, night itself has a horror atmosphere.

The first scene to be filmed in the entire drama was a night scene.

"Lights in place!"

"Recording in place!"

"Camera confirmed!"

"..." Listening to the various departments of the crew taking their positions, Wu Bai, who was sitting behind the monitor, stood up and said loudly: "OK, all groups are in place, and the scene remains silent. Script supervisor, prepare to make the decision!"

"Soul Ferry, one scene, one take, one shot, bang!"

"start!"

As Wu Bai's order was given, the scene immediately became quiet, leaving only the subtle operation of various filming equipment.

"Wow—"

The door of the convenience store was pushed open, and Yu Yi, with a slicked-back hair and a black slim-fit suit, strode in.

"welcome!"

Zhang Ruoyun, who was wearing a convenience store employee uniform, hurriedly greeted him. Just as he was about to ask if he needed any help, he saw Yu Yi directly pick up a can of drink from the shelf, opened the lid and started drinking it naturally.

"Hey, what are you doing?"

"I'm Zhao Li, the night shift waiter here, your new colleague."

"Impossible. The boss stipulates that only one person can be on duty at night."

……

The first scene of "Soul Ferry" was not filmed from the first scene of the script, but the second half of the first episode was filmed first.

Whether it is a TV series or a movie, it is rare to shoot in the order of the plot. Most of the time, what is shot first and what is shot later are usually arranged according to the order of actors, weather, scenes and props preparation.

The actors are definitely the most important. After all, if an actor in a scene takes a leave of absence at the last minute, there is no way to make adjustments.

Therefore, some crews that have signed big-name actors will choose to give priority to filming the scenes with the big-name actors in order to save the actors' schedules.

The second thing is the weather. For example, if it rains, snows, or is at dusk or dawn, or other specific weather conditions, the crew will definitely rush to shoot as soon as possible if necessary.

Of course, if the weather conditions are not favorable, the crew will naturally have ways to intervene manually, such as spraying water, artificial snow, or covering the glass in the room with black cloth to simulate night.

A little-known fact about the crew: for a long time, the crew used nitric acid fertilizer to simulate snow scenes, because when it was sprinkled on the ground, it turned into fine white powder. The picture looks very beautiful, but the smell on the scene is really "strong".

After the weather changes, the plot of the same scene will be shot together most of the time.

For example, in the TV series Legend of Zhen Huan, there are many scenes of the emperor and his concubines sleeping together. It is impossible to set up the scene every time they shoot. In fact, all the scenes of the emperor and his concubines sleeping together were shot in one go in two days.

Therefore, the fatigue on the face of Chen Jianbin, who plays the emperor, when the concubine serves him in bed in the later part of the plot, is not entirely acted out.

Finally, there are props. Some props, especially food ones, have a shelf life, so the crew will often finish filming the related scenes before filming other ones.

Therefore, the choice of the first scene of "Soul Ferry" roughly follows this order - the three main characters are all there, the night scene, and the convenience store concentrates the plot.

Like Wu Bai, Meng Bai also sat behind the monitor and watched the images captured by the camera.

He is a "live-type" screenwriter, which means he will watch the actors' performances on the spot, and then adjust the characters and lines appropriately based on their performances to make them more compatible with each other.

There are also those "textbook-type" screenwriters, whose characteristic is that they will not make any changes to the script once it has been written, even the modal particles in a line cannot be changed.

It doesn’t matter which of these two types of screenwriters is better or worse, as long as the final plot effect that the audience sees is exciting.

(End of this chapter)