1990: Starting from Baojia Street

Zhou Yan wandered on the street until close to eleven o'clock, carrying large and small bags and walking towards the place agreed with Liu Qing and the others.

Liu Qing and the others had already arrived at the place in advance. When they saw Zhou Yan holding a lot of things, Liu Qing quickly ran over to help.

Looking at the big and small bags, Liu Qing said in surprise, Are these all melon seeds?

Only this bag contains melon seeds, and the other few bags are filled with snacks and dry goods. I bought them for you.

When he heard that he was buying snacks for them, Liu Qing couldn't help but said, You can earn more in a month, but you can't spend it like this. You must know how to save money when you are young.

Zhou Yan said domineeringly, Money is a bastard. I will make more after spending it.

Fatty He gave a thumbs up at the side, The door god has a pattern. Anyway, I'm not polite. If you give me any snacks, I'll take them all.

What can you eat? Liu Qing teased Fatty He.

After getting in the car, Liu Qing wrinkled his nose again, Why do I smell urea?

Brother Liu has a good nose. I smell this smell. Zhou Yan took out the note with the address from his pocket and gave it to Liu Qing, Here's this for you.

What's this?

The location and contact information of the county fertilizer plant.

Liu Qing knew what Zhou Yan meant. He put the note away with a smile, No matter whether it is useful or not, thank you, brother. Let's go and find a place to eat first.

…

Returning to the Qiao family compound in the afternoon, Zhou Yan first gave melon seeds to Gong Li, and then shared other snacks with the staff on the set.

Although Zhou Yan bought a lot, if it was distributed to everyone, it would only be enough to eat for a while.

Buying things for the staff does not mean that Zhou Yan deliberately wants to please them, but it is just a habit of his. After going out, he always wants to take something home. No matter where you go, if you don't bring something with you when you go home, you always feel like something is missing.

Here, Zhou Yan and Jiang Mengfei were sharing snacks with everyone. Zhao Fei came over and called him, Zhou Yan, Director Zhang wants you to go to his dormitory.

Okay. Zhou Yan grabbed two handfuls of snacks from the bag and kicked them into his pocket, then handed the rest to Jiang Mengfei, Mr. Fei, I'll leave the rest to you.

Jiang Mengfei said with a smile, You are not afraid that I will engage in corruption.

If you are not afraid of people's sanctions, just engage in corruption.

Of course Jiang Mengfei didn't dare, because now the people of the crew were staring at him.

…

When they arrived at Zhang Yimou's dormitory, Zhang Yimou smiled and waved to Zhou Yan, Zhou Yan, let me tell you something.

What's going on? Zhou Yan was now familiar with Zhang Yimou, and his tone became more casual. He walked over with a smile and joked, Director Zhang, do you want to add a scene to me?

If you want to add more, I can add two more for you. Zhang Yimou smiled, and then added, But it doesn't matter whether it will be cut in later.

Forget it, let's not waste the film.

Let's get down to business. Zhang Yimou took out the storyboard and a shot list, Tomorrow there will be the last scene before the snow scene scene, which is the scene where Yan'er is carried to the hospital. Director Gao has been too busy these two days. I don’t have my hands free, so please help me communicate with Zhao Fei and the others before shooting.”

Zhou Yan took over the storyboard and shot list and thought to himself that Lao Mouzi was really good at using them. He actually had full control over the communication before shooting.

In fact, this kind of communication before shooting is not particularly difficult. The main thing is that Zhang Yimou's storyboard and shot list have been prepared, and Zhou Yan only needs to convey Zhang Yimou's ideas to each team.

At first, when Li Jiehan was here, all these things were done by Li Jiehan. Later, when Li Jiehan was transferred, Zhang Yimou had to do these things by himself. It had to be said that it was indeed tiring. Now that Zhou Yan was here, he wanted to relax a little.

Zhou Yan's previous performance also proves that he is fully qualified for this job. Even if there are areas where communication is not in place, it will not be too late to make up for it on site tomorrow. It is not a particularly complicated scene anyway.

Okay, no problem, I'll go now.

Then it's hard on you.

Why are you so polite? I've been asking you questions during this period. There are always comings and goings.

Zhou Yan took the storyboard and walked out, and happened to meet Hou Xiaoxian who was coming back.

Hou Xiaoxian looked at the storyboard in Zhou Yan's hand and joked, This is director Zhang trying to make a man strong again.

This is Director Zhang's opportunity to practice. Zhou Yan said with a smile.

Hou Xiaoxian smiled and nodded, You have a good attitude, but if you really want to practice, you can usually find some scripts and try to write storyboards and storyboards. If you work on the set every day, no matter how skilled you are, you can only be an executive director.

I've really thought about this, but I just don't know how to start.

What's wrong with this? Just find a script, or find a novel and turn it into a script. If it's shorter, try to break it down into shots one by one. After you've become proficient in short stories, try breaking them down into longer ones. Yes, once you become more proficient later, you can consider starting to shoot... Of course, the threshold is high from the step of breaking down shots to starting shooting. The minimum requirements are a camera and actors.

Zhou Yan nodded. He had thought about the method Hou Xiaoxian mentioned before, but he had never put it into action because he didn't know how other people did it and whether it was really effective.

Now that he heard Hou Xiaoxian say this, he decided to go back and give it a try. Major directors have suggested it, so it shouldn't be a big problem.

Does Director Hou have any script recommendations? Zhou Yan asked.

Zhang Yimou suddenly said from behind, Don't stick to the script. You can break down whatever script you have on hand. In addition, Director Hou and I have some different opinions. We don't necessarily have to choose short stories at the beginning. Anyway, long stories can be broken down into short stories.

Hou Xiaoxian did not refute, What Director Zhang said makes sense. Long and short stories are just forms, not the core.

I understand. Zhou Yan nodded, Then I'll get started.

…

After coming out of Zhang Yimou's dormitory, Zhou Yan kept thinking about what Hou Xiaoxian said about training and decomposing scripts, so in order to make a quick decision when communicating with each group, he did not choose to communicate in groups one by one, but directly divided them into several groups. They all shouted together and a meeting was held for them.

Each group was very considerate and actively participated in the meeting.

Zhou Yan spent more than forty minutes communicating with each group about tomorrow's shooting. Each group also listed the problems they may encounter and discussed on the spot to find solutions.

After the matter was settled, Zhou Yan returned to his dormitory.

According to Hou Xiaoxian and others, if you want to practice creating storyboards, you must first find a script. He does not have a ready-made script on hand, but there are many well-written novels that can be adapted.

But Zhou Yan went through all the novels he had written recently in his mind, but he couldn't find one who had a strong desire to adapt them into a movie script.

Suddenly, he thought of the post-production issue mentioned by Hou Xiaoxian, and changed his mind. He could think of a script that would be easy to implement in post-production.

After pondering for a long time, Zhou Yan suddenly had a flash of inspiration.

Yes.

He came up with a very good short film script that was not only short, but also easy to shoot.