73 Lights, Camera, Action!

Seeing Yuan Ge coming from a distance, Amélie shrugs and makes a gesture of hopelessness. Yuan Ge shakes his head slightly in understanding, then he takes over the situation and says to Yin Fenghua,

"Mr Yin, you are right, the conditions of our film crew are suboptimal, I do apologise for that and I really appreciate the sacrifices you have made to come to us. We are at the start-up stage, and I'm sure you can understand the difficulties that Mr Chow is facing. Even as we speak, he is still running around for sponsorship due to lack of funding. We will do our best to remedy these problems you have pointed out, but it is also true that we are short of people and money, so please bear with us and let's work together to get the film made efficiently with the least amount of the waste of time, money and effort."

When Yin Fenghua hears Yuan Ge's words and sees his courteous yet firm attitude - he has obviously heard his shouting earlier questioning his directing ability - so he feels slightly guilty and cannot continue to display his arrogance, restraining himself a little and saying, "The schedule is so tight that you are shooting immediately after the opening ceremony... I'm joining you guys this time purely as a favour to Brother Run. Well, I guess I will have to suffer for a while. Just tell me, which scene do you want me to start shooting and what do you want me to do?"

Yuan Ge has actually predicted that Yin Fenghua would not have a good attitude after joining the set. He has come in three weeks late, and with his own celebrity status in the entertainment circles, he must have felt superior to a small, unknown company with a bunch of fresh actors. Still, Yuan Ge is surprised to see him behaving so arrogantly before a single scene has been shot, condescending to others, making everybody tiptoe around him and cater to his every whim. But as a director, he has to manage the whole crew, so he has to be the most tolerant one in order to make the team work together.

Thinking of this, Yuan Ge calms down, ignores his rude remarks and begins to explain to him about today's scene.

"When Qiuchen joined the Rong household, he was reduced from a stage idol - a winner of Flowers of the Opera Stage - to a mere servant of the Third Lord's household, or a toy boy to put it bluntly. He has lost his family, the Jinyu Troupe, his faith in love, and his beloved opera. He is extremely depressed and pained inside. At this point, his second elder brother in the former Jinyu Troupe, the only one with poor characters and fond of currying favour with the powerful, Luohua, comes over to add insult to injury …"

"Lights, Camera, Action!"

***

The little maids in the mansion were all kind to him, treating him just like a young lord of the house.

Qiuchen looks at his own reflection in the pond - a handsome young man dressed elegantly who would make any young girl blush - but the thought of his life being reduced to being pampered and enjoyed like a pet makes him frown and the pain in his heart wells up again.

Unable to eat, he leans against the railing at the water's edge and watches the autumn breeze sweep casually across the empty garden and over his equally empty body.

… …

***

Yuan Ge sighed as he watched Yin Fenghua's performance on the monitor. As the actor playing the Third Lord isn't here today, he skipped the intimate scene between the two at the fish pond and filmed Qiuchen's subsequent inner monologue scene. There is no need to recite lines or do any difficult action, all that needed to be presented is Qiuchen's inner sadness.

However, this simple scene had been repeated several times. Although he is wearing Qiuchen's clothes, his face doesn't reflect Qiuchen's sorrow.

"I say, Director Yuan, you keep NGing and saying it's my acting that's wrong, I rather think it's your script that's wrong. Rong Qiuchen enjoys the same treatment as a young lord in the House of Rong, that kind of life is not so painful, is it? In those days, actors were almost the same as brothel girls, and the best they could end up with was becoming male concubines or toy boys in the houses of the dignitaries. The Rong family was a first-grade official, how could that be considered being treated badly? Even if the Third Lord always wanted to be physically intimate with him, didn't he still dote on him? His life wasn't so miserable. I don't think there is a problem with the way I performed his emotions!"

You are interpreting only what you have in mind, which is entirely the world's superficial understanding of an actor at the time. If I were to go by your way of thinking, there would be no point for my story, my Rong Qing, to exist.

Seeing how arrogant and ignorant Yin Fenghua is, Yuan Ge could only suppress his irritation and explain patiently, "Qiuchen's senior brother Luohua's persona is the kind of actor you're talking about. He entered the Rong Mansion earlier than the others and was not happy with the Third Lord for taking in Qiuchen. One of their rival scenes will highlight the difference in character."

"Then let's shoot the next scene now. NGed so many times, it's kinda boring for me to keep doing solo scenes."

Seeing how frustrated the crew on the set are with Yin Fenghua, Yuan Ge really don't want to waste any more time repeating this scene and has to force himself to accept the imperfection and push forward to the next rival scene between Luohua and Qiuchen.