Pains of a Creator

Although there was a common practice in the industry, YNG had its own set of rules. For example casting.

The wheel cannot be reinvented, but it could be strengthened. YNG's castings were fair and open to other artists, but the company's decisions were absolute and there were no back door deals. As one of the top ten producers in the country, each of YNG's castings would have people line up endlessly at their doorstep. To prevent that, the company sent out invitations in advance. Only trustworthy talent agencies would receive a summon. And by experience, they would never send more than two people to audition for the same role. Some sent only one to emphasise the confidence they had for their candidate.

With only 10 invitations sent, the total number of candidates was 14, including Bai Jingyi. That number was almost... nothing. Because this was Jie Jie's first movie, she thought it was normal until Jingyi told her otherwise. Most castings took days to decide on a person because of the number of people lining up. Not so at YNG. The company took only one day to decide on an actor.

Out of twenty-odd actresses, Wang Lin was chosen on the first day for the role of the female lead, Hong Rui. On the second day, with the cooperation of Wang Lin, they chose Jiang Liuxian as the male lead Lan Cheng.

Now that both the female and male lead had a face, it was time to chose the supporting roles - like the antagonist, the second male lead and the love rival.

The appearance was very important on the big screen, so it was necessary to find an ensemble that matched well with each other.

"Very good! Please stand next to each other and just smile into the camera!"

"Now look at each other! Please keep your leisure posture for the next one!"

The photographer took shots at lightning speed. Rather than going for artistic value, his pictures looked more like snapshots.

"We are taking casual pictures of the female lead and the second male lead to see if they have chemistry. Even if they won't end up together, the audience will still fall for the trap and invest more emotions if they look good together."

Min Lee had told Shin Jie Jie as she had asked why Wang Lin had to come to the audition for the second male lead.

"And why is Jiang Liuxiang here?" She pointed towards the male lead. "Don't tell me he also needs chemistry with the second male lead? Are you trying to open up a new market?"

Min Lee laughed at her question.

"What kind of market would that be? You want the female lead to go home alone?" He joked. "We need to take pictures of him and the second male lead, too. Rivals also need some kind of chemistry on screen. Also, we have to see that the person playing the supporting role won't overthrow the momentum of the lead actor. The support must stay the support."

"Ah, I get it. The screen isn't any different from the paper." Jie Jie concluded. "When we write, no matter what the support role does, the protagonists are always slightly better. And no matter how good the second lead is, he is either faulty or not as good as the main love interest. Otherwise, it would be hard to explain why the heroine didn't choose the guy who treats her better."

In that case, the heroine would be damned as shallow and dumb.

Well, there is always fate, of course! An author's best weapon to shut up dissatisfied consumers!

She had seen stories where the audience had fallen so deeply for the supporting lead that the author had to change the flow and give him an unexpected fault. Either abusing him or letting him go out of character so he would fall out with the audience. She had seen it all. One or two authors had to jump ship though - abandoning their male lead because of the audience's objection. Not to talk about the main character. If you fail to sell your main character, why even bother to continue writing?

She could fathom the concerns of the crew from her own experience ever since she wrote with a live audience in mind. Her days of casually writing a few words randomly had come to an end the moment she signed the contract and became a slave to money!

There was an established author who, like Jie Jie, got her book serialised and having it picked up as a drama series, only to get thrown out of the crew afterwards because she wanted to change the male lead in the later stages of the process. A ghostwriter has been continuing the serialisation under her pen namer afterwards. Thinking about it made Jie Jie shudder. It was as if you have to watch your child being taken care of by its new stepmother.

If the supporting character left a mark too deep in people's heart, maybe the audience will want to switch gears, that would be fatal!

People always assume that the author is the God of the novel. But they can't even imagine their influence! A casual word of dissatisfaction can go miles ahead and change the whole story to come!

An author's job was to love their characters and make sure they get their happy end no matter how misbehaving they have been on the journey. That's why most of the scumbag male leads prevail until the bitter end. They still get the woman, the prestige and all the forgiveness in the world! As their parent, all the author could do was to make sure to show the audience how much of a tortured soul he was and ask for pity. Same goes for naive-to-a-fault heroines. It's all about raising the favourability until the audience is hypnotised!

"An acquaintance of mine changed his whole epic adventure saga into a comedic harem story because of the crowd. I laughed at him because he had no backbone to stick with his original storyline, but now..." Jie Jie sighed and complained but then stopped abruptly.

'Almost busted myself....'

She looked warily at Min Lee, but the bespectacled young man just laughed without appearing to realise. During the auditions, Min Lee tends to wear glasses to give himself a more mature vibe. Like her, he was going for a different look at work. She felt like they were brother and sister in arms.

"Yeah, public opinion is a curse and a blessing. It would be much easier if we could just do what we want to do. But even as creators, the viewers are our customers - in the end, their expectations decide what we can and cannot do."

Min Lee was good at grasping the audience's preferences without going overboard. He was able to constantly grasp the changes in the market. That's why he has become head of his department at such a young age. Nonetheless, even he felt somewhat bitter sometimes. Not all of the scripts he delivered were things he could fully invest his feelings in. A young person's dream was always bigger than reality.

"I would love to go away from the mainstream once in a while." He muttered to himself. "But all we ever sell is cliched love stories with happy endings with as many coincidences and misunderstandings as possible."

"So sorry about writing cliched love stories..." Jie Jie pouted. She couldn't but felt offended slightly. The fact that YNG chose her book - does that mean she has written a cliched love story? The kind of mainstream that Min Lee has been talking about?

"Don't be. It's good that you can make a living out of it, right?" He laughed.

!!!!!

Shocked stiff, Jie Jie didn't know how to respond. So the reason her book was well received by the readers was that she was mainstream...? She wanted to look for a hole to crawl in.

"I was joking!" She blabbered. She had hoped that he would tell her that her book was different from the rest! But now, she was offended!

"Haha... me too?" Min Lee just laughed incomprehensibly and changed the topic: "Look, Tian Yu's turn is almost over. Now it's time for our last candidate!"

Of course, the last candidate was the person he had personally put on the list, Bai Jingyi. Min Lee was curious as well as to how far Bai Jingyi would come.

"I must admit that Tian Yu is better than I thought." Jie Jie was glad to change the topic since she didn't want Min Lee to rip her pride apart any longer with his sincerity. If she had known that Min Lee wasn't even planning on joining the team in the first place, she might have fainted.

Tian Yu looked like a prick, but in front of the camera, he changed his whole countenance and made quite a decent figure. His haughtiness gave a kind of youthful confidence that would make young girls swoon over him for sure.

"Tian Yu has a big future ahead of him if he could adjust his mood swings a little bit in front of others. It is good to have some pride as an artist, but he is young and too arrogant because he comes from a good background. At least he takes his work seriously now."

"So he's a young master, huh? Sounds like a cliche, too." Jie Jie was not at all impressed by that so-called young master. If he's from a well off family, then he would have all the money in the world to come this far. On the other hand, people like Bai Jingyi had climbed up on their own, not riding on the coattails of others!

Min Lee smiled at her obvious contempt towards Tian Yu.

"I know he left a bad first impression on you, nonetheless, if he gets the role, I hope you won't say anything. I can assure you that we do not discriminate against anyone for whatever reason."

'Moreover, it's your candidate who has come in through connections.' Words not spoken could still be heard. Jie Jie knew that he tried to remind her of the fact that Bai Jingyi would not be here if not for her recommendation.

Min Lee has been very open towards her but now that they're doing business, his countenance was slightly different. He joked less than before and all he ever talked about was related to work. Jie Jie felt a slight thump in her heart when she recalled the professionalism of how everyone has done their job so far.

'It's like I've finally made a step forward.' She thought to herself. 'I need to get a grip on myself, too!'

Whenever she came to YNG, meeting everyone who tried their best to do their job, she felt like stepping into a whole new realm. Different than initially planned, she wanted to be an actual part of this project, to be acknowledged by them! It has been a long time since Jie Jie had felt this way.

"Still, I believe in Jingyi." She watched Jingyi standing next to the female lead, getting his photos taken. Jie Jie was probably the sole person in the world who knew the reason why Jingyi was perfect for that role. The smile under her mask was that of a person who was sure of his success.