Chapter 7 – Brothers On Screen Together (1/2)

Fang Hua, who was at present Rong SiQi’s manager, was one of Total Entertainment’s most powerful managers.

She can be considered an elder of Total Entertainment. When Total Entertainment was founded, she was one of the first people they had dug over. Other than her there were two other famous and resource-filled managers: Qi Ming and Li HuangDe. It was them that helped Total Entertainment expand and lay down its roots. Right now Fang Hua had also been promoted to Total Entertainment’s vice president, and was considered a small boss under big boss Qiu.

In his past life Bai Lang never had this kind of opportunity in the beginning to get close with this kind of high-ranking company employee. When doing his contractual activities, he was simply given the next manager in line.

It wasn’t until the incident with the yacht filming that Bai Lang had the chance to encounter Fang Hua. After all that yacht really belonged to the Qiu family’s businesses. That day it was Qiu Qian’s birthday party. Seeing that he still owed Qiu Qian so much money, Bai Lang had consented to attend. In the events that followed after, during the crucial time, Fang Hua actually didn’t help him much. However Bai Lang had come to know her during this time.

She had her customary efficient short hair and pantsuit. Her features were very handsome. Perhaps because of this reason, Fang Hua always liked to wear very red lipstick. In her earlobes shone shiny earrings. It was impossible to mistake her for anyone else.

She appeared together with Hong Hong by Bai Lang’s side. Fang Hua saw Bai Lang turn around and made a generous greeting. “Mr Bai, nice to meet you for the first time. My name is Fang Hua.” After speaking she reached out her hand and shook hands with Bai Lang.

Bai Lang was also very polite. “Vice president, I’ve admired you for a long time. Thank you for taking care of me this time.”

“Just call me Sister Fang.” Fang Hua smiled. “Also I don’t dare be called “taking care of you”. I was just wondering how come I saw Er Hong, turns out he is your assistant now, scared me to death. With his care, you definitely won’t need me ah.”

These series of words expressed to him a lot of things but at the same time didn’t say anything.

The person who thought too much would definitely find it ugly to hear, but the person who didn’t think much would only hear the words on the surface.

Thus Bai Lang remained calm. He only smiled and replied, “It’s all thanks to Brother Qiu’s care. Brother Hong’s help is my good luck.” Since Hong Hong and Fang Hua were acquainted, there was no point hiding anything from her.

Fang Hua’s eyes flashed with surprise but it quickly passed. “It seems like all the new people in the company have such bright futures. Mr Bai’s drama is becoming more and more popular. As the vice president, I feel as though I can retire early to enjoy my life.”

“Sister Fang is too polite. Mr Rong is the one who is the most talented.” Bai Lang replied.

At the same time, the photographer on the set cried out loudly. “Not good!! Once again!!!”

The sweater in one set of clothing had been designated a fifteen minute shoot, but Rong SiQi had already used up forty minutes.

A helpless expression floated onto Fang Hua’s face. “Do you really mean that, or are you only trying to comfort me?”

***

Bai Lang waited until people’s notice had been transferred to the photographer.

At this time Rong SiQi’s expression was slightly pale. On his forehead there was some sweat. Underneath the strong lights, the set was really somewhat hot. Seeing the dried sweat on his hairline, the dissatisfied photographer asked people to come and fix Rong SiQi’s make up.

Once Rong SiQi stepped off the set, his originally frozen expression indeed showed some obvious frustration. His lips were pressed together tightly in an annoyed line. Thus Fang Hua said goodbye to them and hurried over to help him adjust his emotions.

In order to save time, at this time they switched to Bai Lang to film. At this time the photographer’s was sighing and his face was filled with impatience.

The him of ten years ago probably would have felt some emotional pressure but the Bai Lang of right now had some confidence.

In his previous life, Bai Lang only had one movie role which was “Sunset”, the rest were all TV roles. The reason for this was mostly because of Bai Lang’s bad fortune, but the other reason was because Bai Lang had been enlightened very late. As for the reason that Bai Lang had finally been able to break through and progress his acting ability from TV standard to a new level, was because of the MV he had filmed just prior to his role in “Sunset”.

Bai Lang had learned a lot from the old director Zhu Kuan of that MV. From on screen presence to how to utilise light and shadows, Zhu Kuan had pretty much re-taught Bai Lang everything from the beginning once again. The reason was because he said he had never met anyone as unlucky as Bai Lang. Most people if they weren’t going to be famous never got famous; someone like Bai Lang who got famous twice but was then dragged down again, was really among the few that was extremely misfortunate.

And Zhu Kuan was always reminding Bai Lang that good actors were able to immerse themselves in their roles, however after immersing then you would have many brimming emotions that you wanted to express, however if you couldn’t let convey it to your audience, then it was just wasted.

Other than emotions, the ability to show and express was the most important part of an actor’s ability.

Of course there was another school of thought, and that was that when an actor was truly immersed then his every action and movement would permeate with the requisite qualities of the role. Zhu Kuan also agreed with this but he told Bai Lang to wait until he had been acting until he was 60 years old to use this technique.

So Zhu Kuan told Bai Lang he needed to discipline himself. He needed to turn off the movie sound and subtitles and look purely at the actor’s expressions and movements. He had to watch how they expressed themselves and used their facial and body language to show what they wanted. This was completely like returning to a very old school form of acting, when he first started doing this Bai Lang pretty much fell asleep every time.

However if he watched it once and didn’t understand then he could watch it twice, three times. Once he watched it more then without the interruption of the plot and sound, Bai Lang really came to experience it. The pictures that Zhu Kuan picked for him were all classics from a past age, every movement of the actors head and every blink of an eye had its own meaning. The more Bai Lang looked, the more he understood how to suitably express things.

And when Bai Lang finally understood things to this level, Zhu Kuan then sent him to get familiar with himself. Just like learning to dance, seeing someone else doing it may appear easy and understandable but when doing it oneself it was a completely different matter. One’s movements in the beginning would be ugly and unable to be looked at, however one could only practice repeatedly.

Acting in a movie was also this way. Some people looked as though they simply threw their hands to one side in a cool manner, and raised their eyebrows carelessly. However Zhu Kuan wanted Bai Lang to practice all these things. And not only in his mind, but in real life to show the effect on different mediums and angles. This was similar to many famous actors who taped their performances so they could carefully review it over and over again. In Zhu Kuan’s opinion all grand and moving performances came from the actor’s own self reflection.

The fortunate thing was, Zhu Kuan really felt that Bai Lang had natural talent in terms of acting. So in his early days even though his knowledge and ability was shallow, when doing those kind of easy-to-please roles, his natural talent was able to ameliorate his defects. However if hard work and discipline was added on top of that natural talent, then Bai Lang’s performance would be even more dazzling.

As for the reborn Bai Lang, he didn’t forget these things. How he was before he died, was how Bai Lang was now.

The difference was that in this life, he had more time to experience more opportunities.

Zhu Kuan had given Bai Lang his enlightenment and really opened Bai Lang’s eyes as to what the art of acting was.

Right now he was supposed to be a sunny and open young person? Bai Lang sat down on the only prop which was a chair, and sat astride while hugging the back of the chair…

The sound of [ka-cha-ka-cha] quickly filled the room.