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Chapter 99 Graduation

"There are a few things I need to do right away."

Li Xinyu was notified to return to the company. The "Crazy Racer" project was underway, the script filing process was beginning, and she was instructed to contact Ning Hao to sign a contract, prepare the production team, and get ready for the Spring Festival release. Xinyu would be the producer.

"Okay." Xiaomei started taking notes.

"Notify Hao Wei that Zeng Li and Yan Danchen should clear their schedules for July and August to apply for visas to the United States for the three of them. I will handle the invitation letters. Tell them to come back and pick up the script when they have time."

"OK."

June in Beijing is so hot that you don't want to move.

The ginkgo trees on the Central Academy of Drama campus are still green; autumn is still a long way off, but graduation season has already arrived.

Director Shen called him and asked him to come to his office.

When Fang Yuan entered, Director Shen was on the phone and gestured for him to sit down.

After hanging up the phone, Director Shen took off his glasses, wiped them with a cloth, and put them back on.

"The graduation play is not one of those commercial projects you take on outside."

This is a summary of your four years of undergraduate studies, and your final assessment as a student in the Department of Dramatic Literature at the Central Academy of Drama.

You've completed all your credits and passed your thesis; this is the only one left. It's due by the end of June.

Fang Yuan said, "I know."

Director Shen leaned back in his chair, his tone softening.

"I'm not rushing you. I'm not worried about your creative ability, but for a graduation project, there is a basic requirement of at least 8,000 words, a complete dramatic structure, characters with arcs, and conflicts with progression."

You can't fool me with a movie script synopsis.

Director Shen took a form out of his drawer and pushed it in front of Fang Yuan.

"This is the graduation project registration form. Please fill it out first. Leave the topic section blank for now, and you can fill it in after you decide on the topic."

Fang Yuan picked up a pen and filled in his name, student ID, major, and advisor.

Director Shen glanced at the form and put it in the drawer.

"Graduation ceremony is on June 26th. Your thesis is due before then."

Back at the company, Fang Yuan sat in the office chair he was used to, turned on his computer, and created a new document.

The title reads: Graduation Play - Tentative Title.

Then the cursor blinked on the screen for almost half a minute, but he didn't type a single word.

He picked up his phone and sent a message to Director Shen: "Title: Reincarnation." Director Shen replied: "Okay."

"Reincarnation" is a one-act play in which four characters are trapped in the same space—an abandoned underground waiting room.

They didn't know each other, nor did they know why they were there.

There was no exit, no windows, only a fluorescent light buzzing overhead.

Every so often, the lights go out and come back on, and then the scene resets—the same door is pushed open, the first person walks in, and says the same thing.

But in each cycle, the characters leave behind some faint marks: a line of writing on the wall, a cigarette butt on the ground, and an extra piece of memory between them.

They gradually realized that this was not the first cycle, nor would it be the last.

The core conflict of the plot lies in the fact that they have found a way to break the cycle, but one of them needs to volunteer to stay and bear the cycle for everyone else.

Fang Yuan spent an entire afternoon writing.

The script, 8,000 words long, was written in one go.

Xiaomei came in once to bring coffee. She saw him typing, didn't say anything, put the coffee on the table, and left.

Fang Yuan stopped writing when he reached two thousand words and took a sip of coffee, which had already gone cold.

It was already 7 p.m. when I finished writing the last period.

Fang Yuan saved the document and read it from beginning to end. The first act was a bit slow-paced, so he compressed the first two paragraphs.

The conflict in the third act wasn't strong enough, so he added a diagonal scene in the penultimate scene, where the two characters see different things in a blurry mirror on a prop wall.

These changes are minor, but the structure is more compact.

He marked the word count in the lower right corner of the document: 8,600 words.

Then I sent the document to Director Shen's email address, with the message: "Professor Shen, please check your email for the graduation drama script 'Reincarnation'."

The next morning, Director Shen's reply arrived.

"Received. The structure is complete, and the relationships between the characters are engaging."

The mirror scene in Act III was very clever. However, there are a few technical issues that need to be addressed:

The long monologue in Act II is too lengthy. We can start by reducing the amount of extra space by breaking the monologue down into a dialogue between two characters.

Additionally, leaving the ending open-ended could be a way to subtly hint that a character actually remembers everything without giving a definitive explanation, allowing the audience to continue speculating after the show ends.

If it's convenient for you, come to the office next week and I'll mark it for you.

Fang Yuan replied, "Okay. I'll go next week."

He sent Xiaomei a message: "I'm going to see Director Shen at school next Monday at 2 PM. Don't schedule anything else."

Xiaomei replied: "Received."

On Monday, Fang Yuan went to Director Shen's office.

Director Shen placed the printed script on the table, with several points circled in red pen and annotations written next to them.

Fang Yuan sat down, and Director Shen pointed out the details to him one by one.

"This monologue, four hundred words long, is too long," Director Shen said.

"The audience in the theater couldn't sit still. So we changed it to dialogue, with another character interjecting and interrupting. We broke down the information over three rounds."

Fang Yuan looked at it and said okay.

"At the end, you wrote that the light went out and never came back on."

It's too abstract. I suggest the stage manager turn the lights down a bit before this shot.

I'll give you a concrete, tangible medium, grounding the abstract in a subtle change.

Fang Yuan wrote it down in his notebook.

"There are basically no other problems. Overall, this script is the best work you have done in your four years of college."

It's more like you than the things you sell for money.

2

Fang Yuan was a little embarrassed, so he smiled but didn't say anything.

Director Shen closed the script and handed it back to Fang Yuan. "Go back and revise it. Once you're done, just hand it to me directly. No need to send it to my email again."

Fang Yuan stood up. "Thank you, Teacher Shen."

Director Shen patted him on the shoulder without saying anything else.

June 26th, graduation ceremony.

Fang Yuan didn't go. Xiao Mei went to the department to collect his graduation certificate and degree certificate for him.

Fang Yuan still has his school dormitory; he plans to move out after he finishes this busy period and buys a house.

When the two red-covered certificates were delivered to the studio, Fang Yuan was looking at the storyboard for Ning Hao's "Crazy Racer".

The script has already been given to Yan Danchen and Zeng Li.

Just like Hao Weigang was when he first heard the news, the two of them were overjoyed.

After all, at this time, the opportunity to participate in Hollywood movies was extremely rare in the country.

That is, Zhang Ziyi's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," and the film just won multiple Oscars. It would be a lie to say I'm not envious.

After all, they graduated at the same time; Zeng Li and she were in the same class.