The Heiress's Game

When the first batch of finished footage arrived, Gu Yunjin was in her study reading the AI ​​project progress report sent by Zhang Zhuoran.

Lu Xiao connected the hard drive, lowered the projection screen, and the screen lit up.

Li Chunjing sat on the edge of the sofa, a notebook spread out on her lap, her expression one of focused concentration, as if she had been preparing for a long time and was waiting for the results.

The finished film is ninety minutes long. Gu Yunjin watched it from beginning to end without fast-forwarding, pausing, or saying a single word.

The scene depicts the daily life of Chen Cui's family of six in their old house—picking vegetables, cooking, arguing, making up, and eating around a round table with peeling paint.

The younger brother is arguing with the mechanic at the auto repair shop, the older sister is rolling her eyes behind the supermarket checkout, the younger sister is practicing makeup in front of the mirror, and the half-sister is squatting at the gate of the yard teasing the dog.

Chen Cui's mother was sitting in the yard washing clothes, her hands soaking in a plastic basin.

There were conflicts—the younger brother slammed the door, the younger sister talked back, and Chen Cui had a six-minute conversation with her mother about dropping out of school years ago. Her mother cried halfway through the conversation, while Chen Cui didn't cry, but her eyes reddened.

It has all the elements you'd expect: melodrama, conflict, tears, family ties, and good looks.

But after Gu Yunjin turned off the projector, the study was quiet for about ten seconds before she said something.

"What the hell?"

Li Chunjing's pen stopped on the notebook.

"A documentary about rural life." Gu Yunjin leaned back in her chair, her hands folded on her knees.

"The audience wants to see sensational gossip, and you've given them that. But if I were a viewer, I'd switch to the next channel to watch a family mediation show, where ordinary people argue even more fiercely than you do, and you don't even need a membership."

It's so tacky. This scene looks like a tragic drama, it just screams poverty.

"If that's your positioning, fine. Then go tell the publisher we're targeting the lower-tier market, cut the price in half, and replace all the GG clients with fertilizer and hemorrhoid cream."

Li Chunjing gripped the pen tightly. She didn't argue. She knew it was useless. Having followed Gu Yunjin for so long, she had figured out a pattern—Gu Yunjin never raised her voice when she scolded someone, but every criticism she made was aimed at the most critical spot.

And she's right. Li Chunjing was moved the first time she saw the 90-minute film, but being moved doesn't mean it's good.

Feelings are cheap; beauty is what's valuable.

Gu Yunjin pushed a magazine onto the coffee table. "The most important thing is to make the vulgar feel high-class, to make every frame smell of money, and to make every conflict seem like it has been carefully arranged."

It's not that you can't photograph rural bungalows; it's that you can photograph bungalows with quality—is the lighting good enough?

Has the color grading been done? Has the background been cleaned up? Putting Chen Cui's face in a messy kitchen is a waste.

Give her a clean window, a beam of sidelight, and that's a different story.

She paused, then turned her gaze to Li Chunjing.

"I know you're not a producer, and I don't expect you to carry the equipment and edit the film yourself."

You know what I'm dissatisfied with? It's not that you're incompetent, it's that you lack the awareness to realize that something is wrong.

Professional managers are professionals, but they are not Gu Yunjin's confidants.

You represent me on set. When you saw the sample footage, did you feel that it wasn't high-quality enough?

Don't you think it's unworthy of Chen Cui's face? If so, why didn't you mention it back then?

If you mentioned it, did the production team make any changes?

If you didn't mention it, then that's your problem.

The study was silent for several seconds. Li Chunjing looked down at the dense notes in her notebook. The script notes and annotations that she had previously been very satisfied with now looked as if every word had been crossed out.

But she was neither frustrated nor aggrieved.

She mentally dissected and reassembled each of the criticisms she had just received, word by word, and then she looked up.

"We have three problems."

"First, the lighting and art direction. The shooting location used natural light plus basic fill light. There was no set art design. The kitchen was cluttered with so many things that it was so realistic that it was chaotic."

Second, the editing pacing. The conflict segments rely too much on the main characters' dialogue to drive the emotions, but variety shows are not documentaries; viewers need a faster pace and clearer emotional labels.

third--"

Li Chunjing paused for a moment, then said the most crucial sentence:

"The clothes Chen Cui's family is wearing are inappropriate. It's not that they have to wear designer brands, it's that they can't dress too realistically."

If it's too realistic, it becomes a documentary, not a reality show.

Reality shows are something between reality and performance; they require a designed sense of authenticity.

Gu Yunjin looked at her and remained silent for a few seconds.

The entire first season was reshot. The art director and colorist were all replaced, and a new costume and styling team was created.

I told the professional manager that I would increase the budget, but if the second draft of the sample still had this quality, I would switch to them.

"Go talk to Chen Cui. Tell her that the first episode needs to be reshot, not because of her poor performance, but because we have higher quality requirements. She knows what higher requirements mean."

When Li Chunjing went to find Chen Cui, the filming team was setting up the studio for the second episode in the factory.

Chen Cui sat in the dressing room taking off her hair. Her face was reflected in the mirror. She had already removed half of her makeup, half of which was the exquisite look she had in front of the camera, and the other half of her tired, bare face.

"Retake?" Chen Cui looked at Li Chunjing in the mirror, her hand resting on the hair clip.

"Miss Gu has seen the final cut and is not satisfied."

Li Chunjing pulled up a chair and sat down. "She said the quality wasn't there. It wasn't the content that was the problem, it was the visuals, the costumes, the props, the overall tone. It was tacky."

Chen Cui remained silent for a moment, then removed the last hairpin and placed it on the table.

"If we reshoot, the process will take longer—"

"Miss Gu will increase the budget. Your compensation will not be affected; it will only increase, not decrease."

The entire art and lighting team has been replaced; the first episode will be rebuilt from scratch, resulting in a significant improvement in quality.

Chen Cui didn't answer immediately. She looked at herself in the mirror, remembering the days when she carried bags for Gu Mingyue, the nights when netizens scolded her for having a "maid's fate," and the vow she had made to seize this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to transcend social classes.

Then she slapped the cotton pad on the table, turned to look at Li Chunjing, her eyes bright.

"Okay. Let's reshoot. You tell the director which shot to start the first take, and I'll start from that shot."

Looking at her, Li Chunjing suddenly felt that Chen Cui and Gu Yunjin were similar in some way—both were the kind of people who could be ruthless to themselves.

She stood up, picked up her phone, and sent a message to Gu Yunjin: Chen Cui agreed.

Gu Yunjin replied almost instantly: "Nonsense, if she didn't agree, she wouldn't be Chen Cui. You two will have to work hard these next few days; I want to see something different in the second version."

It was already dark, but the props team's truck was still parked at the door unloading goods. Someone was shouting, "Move this sofa half a meter to the left." Light leaked out from the gaps in the tin roof, casting bright spots on the ground.

Li Chunjing stood at the door, took a deep breath of the night air, opened her notebook, and began to rewrite the plan.

Then she wrote another line below, pressing the pen so hard the tip almost pierced the paper: We can't lose.