Abstract Art Award Winner

Besides being able to sense that Zhang Yi is actually ambitious.

Or rather, most of the directors who are even slightly famous in China are ambitious.

Older directors like Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige, and Feng Xiaogang have even greater ambitions.

When I was young, I always wanted to compete for some foreign awards, such as the Cannes Film Festival in France, to win a Golden Bear or an Oscar.

But foreign awards are not easy to win; only a handful of people can win them.

In terms of overseas development, Zhang Yi has actually gone further than others, after all, Zhang Yi has a son-in-law who is involved in the cinema industry abroad.

The only slight drawback of this movie is the presence of Lau Ho-yin.

It's not that I have a prejudice against Liu Haojian, but compared to the other actors in the crew, he's not considered very mature.

Everyone knows how the other person got into the production crew, but that's not unusual.

When you're out and about, who doesn't rely on connections?

I tried it myself back then, but it was just a matter of seizing the opportunity to maintain traffic, and if I couldn't, I was prepared to be ridiculed by everyone.

This has always been the case. People don't actually dislike people who have connections. As long as you play your role well, what does it matter if you have connections? Nobody cares.

But if you use connections but still can't perform well, neither your colleagues nor the audience will be lenient with you.

So, on the first day, they arrived in Harbin and didn't go out that night. They didn't leave until early the next morning when they took a car to continue their journey to Xuexiang.

Winter arrives here earlier than in other places.

They used to wear short sleeves in Beijing, but now they need to wear jackets.

They traveled for more than seven hours by bus, taking two or three breaks along the way.

"Even inside the car, you can feel the outside temperature starting to get cold."

"But director, will it snow if we go there now?"

Liu Haojian asked curiously in the car.

"It should happen around that time. The first snow usually falls in mid to late October. We'll go there to rest for a day or two, make some preparations, and then have a meeting. That'll be around then."

Liu Haojian nodded, his face full of innocence.

Zhou Le sighed inwardly. He didn't really think there was anything wrong with a girl being cute, even if she seemed a little pretentious. It was actually quite normal, after all, Yu Shuxin was pretty pretentious to be honest.

But he's not the same kind of person as Liu Haojian.

Yu Shuxin's "pretending" is the kind that is pure and very straightforward. You can tell at a glance that it is a fake clip, without any concealment.

But Liu Haojian's performance falls somewhere between deliberate and natural. You could call it natural acting, but the problem is that it doesn't feel natural at all.

However, it must be said that, purely in terms of appearance, the other party is indeed quite good-looking.

As the car drove on, the weather gradually became gloomy.

At first, they thought it was just that it got dark faster here, but after a while, a strong wind started blowing outside, and then snowflakes began to fall from the sky.

"Snowing!"

Everyone was quite excited. Although northerners don't find snow unusual, it was still the first snow of the year, and it was only October.

In Zhou Le's memory, snow this month is only common in Shanxi, specifically in the Wutai Mountain area.

After the snowfall, the driver drove with extra caution, and it wasn't until the afternoon that they finally arrived at their lodgings.

"Everyone, go back and get some rest. For the next few days, we'll have at least five hours of script meetings every day. In the remaining time, you'll need to figure out how to perform on your own. You can talk to each other about it, and if you have any questions, feel free to ask me."

But you absolutely mustn't wander off; your activity area should stay within the vicinity of where we live now.

After giving some instructions, Zhang Yi went back to his room.

As the lead actor, Zhou Le naturally had the best room, both in terms of the floor and the view from the window.

But after Zhou Ye arrived, things got a little boring, since she wasn't an artist, just Zhou Le's assistant.

The problem is that Zhou Le is always very easy to manage when he comes out, and there's not much for his assistant to do every day.

"If you're really bored, just pretend you're a character in a movie. You're just sitting there anyway."

Zhou Ye thought about it and agreed that it was a good idea.

"Then who should I play? There aren't many young female characters in this show. I can't very well play Liu Haojian's character, can I? I don't care about myself, but if people find out, they'll think I'm trying to take over someone else's role."

"Then you can decide. You can play the role that Hailu played."

Zhou Le said it casually.

"That's fine."

So for the next few days, they spent their days either holding script meetings or going over their lines with each other. Zhang Yimou had to host the script meetings to see how everyone performed, and he also had to take care of the set arrangements.

Because the overall environment here is quite harsh, it is essential to have a doctor on hand.

In addition, to prevent insufficient snow, or the direction of snowfall during filming not being as desired, Zhang Yimou also had to prepare some additional professional equipment.

Although it has been snowing for the past few days, the snow depth has not met Zhang Yi's requirements, so he has been saying to wait a little longer.

Finally, the day arrived. Zhang Yi checked the weather forecast in advance, which said that it would start to snow the next night. So during the day, he took out all the materials he had prepared in advance and held the opening ceremony.

These days, Zhang Yimou doesn't particularly care about the pomp and circumstance of the opening ceremony. He just goes through the motions and does whatever he wants, as long as the procedures are followed.

After filming began, the group of people involved in the shoot went straight up the mountain.

Zhang Yimou had already scouted the location, but the places they looked at on the first day were around the actual filming location.

In Zhang Yimou's own words, "I didn't want their footsteps to disturb the natural environment of the filming location."

They stood there on the high ground, with Zhang Yi pointing to the snow below:
"You'll walk over here in a bit. Let's try to film this scene in one take, preferably in one go. If we make marks in the snow, we'll need to find another location, or we'll have to wait for the next snowfall to cover them up. Memorize your lines beforehand to avoid any problems, and make sure you know your blocking positions clearly."

"Let's do a rehearsal when we get back today. If there are no problems, we'll move on."

"Okay, director." After they got back, they went through the script and lines several times until there were no problems at all. Then they began to rehearse the blocking, movements, and expressions for the occasion.

Although the filming wasn't taking place on a formal film set, the surrounding setup, including the camera and lighting, was completely designed to resemble the actual filming location.

Zhang Yi sat behind the monitor, constantly watching and adjusting Zhou Le's positioning, expression, movements, and lines.

Liu Haojian did put in a lot of effort to play the role well, and he memorized his lines without any problems, but his acting skills were slightly lacking.

The acting of everyone else was fine. The reason for the changes was that Zhang Yimou directly altered part of the lines in the script.

After all the problems were resolved, they discussed safety issues again that evening, and set off up the mountain early the next morning before dawn.

Filming scenes in the snow was extremely difficult, but after they prepared themselves, everyone immersed themselves in their roles. This was their first scene to film in "Cliff Walkers".

The cold wind whipped up snowflakes, scraping against exposed skin like knives. The group trudged through knee-deep snow, each step causing their bodies to lean forward uncontrollably.

They conducted an on-site inspection yesterday, and although the location is a bit higher up the mountain, the situation is about the same.

But when I came, it wasn't snowing and it wasn't this early. Now, just taking a breath feels like my lungs are being pierced by the icy air.

If Zhou Le was like this, the others weren't much better off. They had to do whatever they were supposed to do just to film a movie, even if they felt uncomfortable.

After all, not everyone has the opportunity to work with Zhang Yimou.

As she walked and gasped for breath, Zhou Le felt tiny icicles forming on her eyelashes. The subtle movements she had designed during rehearsals were now completely replaced by the stinging pain from the cold.

Even so, Zhou Le could only do his best to complete his lines and scenes.

That is, I had heat packs stuck to some of the more sensitive areas of my body, otherwise, let alone myself, others probably wouldn't have been able to endure this kind of environment.

After a few lines of dialogue, it finally came to their action scene.

After getting moving, I actually felt better. At least my body wasn't so stiff anymore, and I was able to express myself more effectively.

Not far away, Zhang Yi, wrapped in a thick military overcoat, stared intently at the screen with sharp eyes. As he watched, he held a palm-sized color swatch in his hand, repeatedly gesturing towards the gray sky and snow-covered ground.

"Sigh, no, the performance is good enough, but the lighting is a bit flat, not blue enough..."

Zhang Yi was rambling on and on. His assistant director, who was standing next to him, naturally knew his personality. He had a very strong artistic pursuit when it came to the works he liked, especially in terms of color and camera work.

Hearing this, the assistant director looked at the actors with a hint of sympathy.

Under normal environmental and weather conditions, it wouldn't matter, it would just be a bit tough. But in such icy and snowy conditions, it would be pure torture.

But he couldn't care less; after all, he was just an assistant director.

After the first performance, everyone was freezing.

"Go to the car and rest. There's air conditioning. Drink some hot water so you don't get cold. I'll come and say a few words to you later."

The group nodded, then returned to the car, where they drank tea and chatted quietly.

"Director Zhang, are you going to make us reshoot later? I feel like there's nothing wrong with our acting."

Liu Haojian thought for a moment, then spoke.

Zhou Le nodded. Although Liu Haojian's performance wasn't that strong during the rehearsals, his performance in the snow was decent. It wasn't particularly outstanding, but at least it was decent and he didn't make any mistakes. He showed what he was supposed to show, and even if it wasn't perfect, it was still excellent.

"I don't know, we'll just have to listen to the director."

Zhou Le said with a smile.

Lei Jiayin nodded in agreement: "Yes, listen to the director. We'll film whatever the director tells us to film. We don't need to think too much. When working with Director Zhang, all we need to do is obey."

Liu Haojian: "..."

Are you two old geezers bullying me? You were clearly worried about this issue too; I heard you whispering about it when you got into the car. Now you're using this kind of rhetoric? You two are such sly old foxes.

Liu Haojian thought about it for a moment, and realized that he should speak like them in the future, and absolutely not give them any reason to criticize him.

Sure enough, Zhang Yi arrived quickly and mentioned the color issue. Although it could be adjusted in post-production, it wasn't the color he wanted; he preferred something more natural.

“I observed that if we could have filmed about 10 minutes earlier, it would have been about right.”

"No problem, let's film this scene tomorrow. We still have time today, so we can film other things."

Lei Jiayin said.

"Yes, although we had to reshoot that scene because of the color tone, we've already gotten into character, so we can strike while the iron is hot and continue filming."

Seeing that the two "old foxes" had both spoken, Liu Haojian felt he had to say something too.

"Yes, that's what I think too."

But as soon as she finished speaking, she felt that everyone on the bus was looking at her, and she became a little shy.

"Haha, okay, let's move on to another location and continue filming. You guys can take another look at the script on the way."

They glanced at the script again during the scene change, but by the time they moved on, it was almost dawn. For this scene, they planned to film the part where Zhou Le and Liu Haojian are buried in snow.

In Zhang Yimou's words, "Finish the most difficult part first, and then all that's left is sweetness."

Zhou Ye is now standing next to Zhou Le, listening to Zhang Yimou explain the play:
"You two will be buried in the snow in a little while, but you must be careful. If you feel uncomfortable or anything is wrong, come out immediately."

However, if they can hold on, Zhou Le will come out first, followed closely by Hao Jian.

The props team is also ready.

After Zhou Le and Liu Haojian had mentally prepared themselves, they lay down on a pre-selected patch of snow, while the stagehands took shovels and went up to bury them.

"Start from below, bury the legs first, don't make it too thick, but don't make it too shallow either, or it will be obvious when it's filmed."

Zhou Le felt the snow gradually covering him.

"Put the left shoulder first, then the right shoulder. Make sure to cover it little by little on top, so that the gaps between the snowflakes can allow them to breathe."

Zhang Yimou kept directing the crew through a megaphone, seemingly afraid that a single mishap by the crew would bury his actors completely. (End of Chapter)