This actor has something

Chapter 353 Booting up

This year, Beijing is unusually cold, so cold that He Daqi is quite worried.

He thought things would get better after the Lantern Festival, but it turns out he was wrong. Just two days ago it was around -6 degrees Celsius, but today it suddenly plummeted to -12 degrees Celsius, as if it were a joke.

Looking at the layer of frost on Ning Hao's eyebrows as he stood opposite him, He Daqi sighed helplessly.

It's not funny at all, really, because He Daqi feels like his eyebrows must be frozen too.

"What should we do? Should I change the shooting order?" Ning Hao kicked a piece of ice that had fallen from the eaves and asked with a frown.

"...That's all we can do. Luckily, they didn't say filming would start today, otherwise I don't even want to imagine how much fun it would have been."

He Daqi smiled speechlessly. At this moment, a cold wind blew by, making the two of them shiver. They quickly hid inside the palace complex. However, it wasn't much better inside than outside, except that it was windless.

The original plan was to film Jackie Chan's scenes first, but that's out of the question now. In this kind of weather, how could Ho Tai-kai dare to let Jackie Chan jump around like that? He'd probably break an arm or a leg if he bumped into something. It'll be better to wait a few days until it gets warmer. This year is unusually cold. Hopefully, it will get better in eight or nine days.

Ning Hao put his hands in his pockets and looked around the palace. After a while, he turned to look at He Daqi, who was stiff and listless, and chuckled, teasingly saying:

"I think I've figured it out now. You lose all your energy whenever you're working. When we came here, you were staring at the ice on the river outside, wondering if you could break it to fish. But after wandering around the film studio for a couple of minutes, you were all listless. What's wrong? Didn't you enjoy the New Year?"

"You're the one who's having a bad time. Give me back the big red envelope I just gave you. I suddenly don't want to give it to you anymore." He Daqi rolled his eyes.

"Hahaha, you want to go back? No way!" Ning Hao laughed, then his expression turned serious as he said, "This afternoon, let's tell them to go to Huairou for the opening ceremony first. I'm thinking we need to make some changes here. At least we need to install air conditioning, and we need to tell Jackie Chan's fight scenes to be changed to indoor scenes."

He Daqi nodded and hummed in agreement, without saying anything else.

The two strolled around the palace complex a few more times, mainly to check the set design and props that the team had worked overtime to set up during the Lunar New Year. Finding that there were no major problems, they hurriedly got into the car to warm up.

As soon as he got in the car, He Daqi called Liu Ying and told her that the opening ceremony had been moved to the Huairou Film and Television Base, and asked her to inform the crew and actors.

Then he called Zhou Huimin and asked her to bring him a military overcoat from home in the afternoon. It was too cold, and he would have to stand for a long time at the opening ceremony that afternoon. If he weren't the lead actor and couldn't be absent, He Daqi wouldn't want to suffer like that.

……

……

There were many things on the offering table. At the back was a statue of Guan Yu, in the middle was a roast suckling pig, and in front of it were fruits: apples, oranges, dragon fruit, and pears. Further in front of that was a large incense burner.

Ning Hao poured three cups of baijiu, lit incense and bowed. He Daqi followed closely behind, followed by Sun Honglei and Cheng Long.

It's interesting to say that Ning Hao learned this ritual from Du Qifeng in Hong Kong a couple of years ago. Before, it wasn't this formal; people would just set out some chicken, duck, fish, and meat and offer a perfunctory prayer.

Unlike now, the formalities are quite complicated. After the main cast and crew finished their prayers, the logistics team brought over a big cake with "Good Luck on the Start of Filming" written on it and a few ears of barley stuck on top.

While cutting the cake, Ning Hao said, "It's a bit cold. Let's just shoot a quick scene later. Let's put the big scenes aside for now and find something simple to shoot later. I've been thinking, and I think two scenes are suitable: one is the scene of Wei Zhongxian talking to Chongzhen, and the other is the scene of Chongzhen chatting with the Empress in the study."

At this point, Ning Hao handed Jackie Chan a piece of cake and asked, "Big brother, you're in both of these shots, which one do you prefer to film first today?"

Without even considering it, Jackie Chan said, "Let's film me chatting with the Empress in the study first."

Are you kidding me? Do you even need to choose?
Jackie Chan didn't want to act opposite an old eunuch in his first scene.

Ning Hao nodded, then glanced at Lu Yang.

Lu Yang was slightly taken aback, but then he realized what was going on and immediately grabbed a megaphone and shouted, "All units, get ready! We'll start by filming the scene where the emperor and empress are chatting in the study. Check the set design again. The camera crew, come with me to set up the equipment. The empress's makeup is quite heavy, so let's start the makeup now."

The crew got moving, immediately splitting into three groups to do their own things.

This scene is simple, with only two lines of dialogue, and the study is easy to set up, so it won't take long.

Half an hour later, Cheng Long, dressed in a bright yellow dragon robe and with his makeup done, entered the study.

Xu Jinglei didn't keep everyone waiting for long; she soon came out wearing a long red dress and a red wide-sleeved robe.

Actresses are ruthless! He Daqi was freezing like a coward, huddled up in his military coat, while Xu Jinglei, wearing a half-off-shoulder dress, was perfectly fine, swaying gracefully as she walked. If He Daqi hadn't had good eyesight and noticed Xu Jinglei's hair standing on end, he would have really thought she wasn't afraid of the cold.

The others were quite energetic and willing to go over and watch how the first shot was filmed, but He Daqi didn't have that curiosity. Seeing the crew getting busy, he quickly jumped into the van.

Coincidentally, producer Zhou Huimin had the same idea and got into the car right after He Daqi.

"Why is it so cold? No wonder you called me this morning asking me to bring you a military overcoat." Zhou Huimin pulled open He Daqi's military overcoat, snuggled up to him a couple of times, and then snuggled comfortably into his arms.

She exuded a chill that made He Daqi shiver. Fortunately, the car's air conditioning was on full blast, otherwise He Daqi would have wanted to kick her aside.

"Sigh, I'm worried about filming my movie tomorrow. I only thought about how good-looking the costumes would be when I was designing them. I never thought it would be so cold during filming. Most of my scenes are outdoor and night scenes. Damn it! We started filming too early. In order to catch up with the progress of 'Curse of the Golden Flower,' we started filming in the dead of winter. We're just making ourselves suffer."

"How about we extend the timeframe a bit?" Zhou Huimin suggested softly, nestled in his arms.

"No, post-production special effects take too much time, we have to shoot now," He Daqi said dismissively, shaking his head.

He knew the release date of "Curse of the Golden Flower," but he couldn't tell Vivian Chow. After all, the filming of "Curse of the Golden Flower" hadn't even started yet. If he said that "Curse of the Golden Flower" would be released at the end of the year, Vivian Chow might think he was delusional.

Thinking of this, He Daqi hugged the soft and fragrant Zhou Huimin closer and began to wonder if it would be okay to wear two sets of thermal underwear when filming tomorrow.

As it turns out, He Daqi was overthinking things...

The next day, he left the film crew's dressing room with a long face.

He can't even wear one set of thermal underwear, let alone two.

The Jinyiwei uniforms worn at the beginning were specially customized to fit the body shape, and wearing any clothes underneath would not bring out the amazing effect of the original design.

Flying fish robe, wasp waist, mantis legs, embroidered spring knife. Seeing He Daqi trembling as he walked out, Zhou Huimin, hiding in the nanny van, suddenly widened her eyes in surprise.

A bit handsome!

Clearly, Zhou Huimin wasn't the only one thinking this; the other members of the crew were also secretly thinking the same thing.

Especially after Sun Honglei and Jia Nailiang, who followed closely behind He Daqi and were dressed in the same outfit as He Daqi, were compared with him.

He Daqi had no time to care about what others thought. He shivered as he approached Ning Hao and asked, "Senior brother, wasn't this supposed to be a night shoot? Why were you called over so early in the morning?"

"Aren't you cold?" Ning Hao asked with a smile.

"Isn't that obvious?" He Daqi replied irritably.

"Hehehe, don't worry, I came up with a brilliant idea last night. I can't guarantee anything else, but I'll definitely be able to film night scenes."

Ning Hao smiled and pointed behind him. He Daqi looked over in confusion and then realized that the crew seemed to have set up a high scaffold overnight. The scaffold had a chassis and wheels, so it looked like it could be moved.

Before He Daqi could figure out what this was for, Ning Hao patted Lu Yang's arm beside him.

Lu Yang immediately grabbed the megaphone and began directing: "Attention all units! Follow the arrangements made this morning. Find your positions. I'll count to three, and then we'll start pulling! Ready! One...two...three...pull!"

As Lu Yang shouted the last word, "pull," a group of crew members began to pull ropes around the scaffold. Soon, a circle of black cloth was pulled up, surrounding the entire crew in the middle. The cloth also covered their heads. Once the black cloth was pulled up all around, the scaffolds were also covered with black cloth by pulling the ropes between them.

The film crew was in artificial darkness, or rather, light was still filtering in, so it felt like dusk.

Next, a cabinet-style air conditioner was pushed under each shelf, with the outdoor unit of the air conditioner directly attached to the shelf. There was a black cloth for insulation, which was equivalent to setting up a super-large artificial photography studio with black cloth.

He Daqi quickly felt the temperature rise.

"Was this money well spent?" Ning Hao nudged He Daqi.

"Worth it! Absolutely worth it!" He Daqi said, giving a thumbs up.

Whether it's worth it or not, as long as I'm comfortable, that's all that matters.

Ning Hao seemed a little dissatisfied and clicked his tongue, saying, "We haven't filmed big scenes before, so there are some things we don't understand. Actually, we should rent a large studio. That would make things much easier. I came up with this idea after hearing Brother Cheng Long casually complain about it yesterday, and I found someone to set it up overnight."

What did Jackie Chan complain about?

"He said that when they were filming at Taihu Lake, the set was set up directly in the studio, which had a large central air conditioning system, so it wouldn't be this cold. But when they came here to film, they were so cold that they almost couldn't speak their lines properly. When I heard him mention the studio, I realized that we usually film in the spring or summer and have never really struggled in the winter. So those large studios that other people build aren't just for show; they're really useful."

Ning Hao's words carried a hint of regret, clearly indicating that he wanted to experience what it was like to film in a super-large soundstage.

"Let's not discuss this for now, senior brother, let's start filming! Hey! Right! If we do it this way, can we film Brother Cheng Long's fight scenes first?" He Daqi said, then suddenly realized something.

Ning Hao realized what was happening, pursed his lips, touched his nose, and said somewhat embarrassedly, "Last night I was only thinking about surprising you today, and I didn't think about Brother Cheng Long. It's okay, we'll film yours first today. I'll find someone to set up the scaffolding in Xiaotangshan right now, and we'll go there to film tomorrow."

He Daqi shrugged, turned around and walked in front of the camera.

"After I bloom, all other flowers wither, Act II, Scene 1, Three, two, one, begin!"

……

……

Jackie Chan takes fight scenes with extraordinary seriousness.

To support his own acting, he actually brought over the Jackie Chan Stunt Team from Hong Kong.

What's a bit awkward is that the action director for "After the Flowers Bloom, a Hundred Flowers Kill" was found by Ning Hao from the Beijing Film Academy. His name is Sang Lin. This guy studied for a master's degree at the Beijing Film Academy and has been working behind the scenes since graduation. Most importantly, he learned a few moves from Corey Yuen...

Isn't that awkward?

When Cheng Long heard that Sang Lin had studied under Yuan Kui, he was immediately delighted. Shouldn't he call him his junior apprentice?

Even apprentices speak with a touch of humility, let alone someone of Jackie Chan's stature who is instructing him.

Sang Lin gave up entirely. Seeing He Daqi, Ning Hao, and Cheng Long causing trouble, he just wanted some peace and quiet. He happily watched Cheng Long lead a group of Jackie Chan's stunt team members in rehearsals every day, never saying a word.

Fortunately, what Jackie Chan said about giving Ho Tai-kei a surprise when filming started was a real surprise. Jackie Chan had been designing this palace assassination scene since before the Lunar New Year. He even practiced for several days at home by setting up a lot of furniture when he had nothing else to do. Now that filming has started, the movements are smooth and graceful, and it is a pleasure to watch.

A group of masked assassins chased Cheng Long, who was dressed in a dragon robe, through the palace with knives. Cheng Long used his passive skill as a war god, jumping around pillars and furniture. It looked both thrilling and dangerous, as if if he were to be hit by a knife while not paying attention, Chongzhen's days would be over.

To be honest, the action scenes they filmed were really well done. Regardless of whether it was a one-trick pony, the dedication to achieving the desired effect is something that He Daqi could learn from for years.

If Ho Ta-Chi were to film these action scenes himself, he'd probably get tired of them in a few days. Without some kind of cheat code, he'd be incredibly unprofessional and let the director gloss over them.

Watching Jackie Chan jumping around like this, He Daqi and Ning Hao thought the filming was really good, but Jackie Chan himself wasn't very satisfied after watching it.

After discussing it at length with the Jackie Chan Stunt Team, they decided against filming it in one continuous shot. Instead, they filmed each action separately, which took almost half a month to complete.

This is the same as his initial goal, but the process is different.

At first, Jackie Chan wanted to find some problems to delay the filming for half a month if it went smoothly, but now he is really serious about filming and has spent half a month polishing it up.

This guy exhausted Jackie Chan, making himself suffer a lot. When he finished filming the action scenes and was about to film the dramatic scenes, he felt back pain and realized that he must have gotten a little carried away with his cameo appearance.
He Daqi and Ning Hao had no idea what Jackie Chan was thinking. These two guys now had immense respect for Jackie Chan; no wonder he was an international action superstar! Goodness, he didn't even lie down after all that commotion! Especially since he was the one who did it to himself.

(End of this chapter)