Chapter 350: Assembly Completed
The fourth day of the Lunar New Year.
In the snow on the bank of the Hun River, Xu Kun and Deng Chao, dressed in South Korean military uniforms, were making final preparations before filming.
Deng Chao held his bare foot and urged, "Kun'er, how long are you going to watch this?! Hurry up and give me your boots! I'm freezing to death!"
"What's wrong with a man standing up straight?"
Xu Kun pulled the tongue of the shoe hard, holding the combat boots and looking at them over and over again, saying, "Yesterday, the props were given to me in a confused manner. The one I took apart is completely different from yours. If a piece of meat is cut off by accident, do you think it will be mine or yours?"
"Then why don't you use your own shoes? Aren't these newly distributed pairs all the same?!"
"Look at you, you're so hypocritical~"
Xu Kun threw the boots to him: "It's not my pair that will be taken apart, and I don't think you're ugly..."
Deng Chao hurriedly put on his boots and stood up. Fan Datou stomped his feet and strolled back and forth, cursing, "Why didn't you look when we were on the bus earlier? You had to come out here in the wild to trick me, didn't you?"
"At that time, I was discussing with Director Feng whether to reshoot the scene at the Martyrs' Cemetery."
"Why did you suddenly reshoot it? I thought your scene was pretty good."
"Everything else is fine, but the monologue after the bottle was taken away felt a little off - I didn't feel it at the time, but now I feel it's too intense, a little overwrought, and should be a little more even, with that kind of sadness that comes from it."
Xu Kun said, and sat directly on Deng Chao's stool, performed a live show for Deng Chao, and asked: "What do you think?"
"not so good."
Deng Chao laughed and said, "Your face is frozen. Your eyebrows, nose and mouth are all moving, but your face is not moving at all."
"Hmm~"
Xu Kun took off the bag on his back, pulled out a hot towel from the thermos, and rubbed his face vigorously until he felt that all the frost on his face had melted away. Only then did he stop.
However, before he could perform for Deng Chao, Guo Xiaojun shouted that the landmines had been buried and asked the actors to hurry and get in position.
This segment depicts the following scene: Guzidi [Xu Kun] and Zhao Erdou [Deng Chao] were on the Korean battlefield. In order to guide the artillerymen to the enemy's coordinates, they were conducting a disguised reconnaissance. Zhao Erdou accidentally stepped on a landmine and was saved by Guzidi at the risk of his life.
The two of them joined up with several other extras and began to move and rehearse following the guidance of the stage manager.
After the rehearsal, someone came with a long-handled shovel and covered the footprints with snow again.
In fact, this shot was not that close, and even on the big screen, the audience might not notice the footprints that were made in advance, but under Feng Xiaogang's strict requirements, the crew still meticulously added them in.
These directors from the 2015s, s and s each had their own shortcomings, but there was no doubt about how dedicated they were to their films - of course, the situation was different around .
While shoveling snow, Xu Kun and Deng Chao wrapped their faces with scarves, then hunched their shoulders and turned their backs to the wind so that the muscles on their faces would not be so stiff when they were taking pictures later.
While you strive to be realistic in other aspects, you cannot strive to be realistic with this stiff and numb face, otherwise the emotions won't be reflected and you might even be criticized for having poor acting skills.
"Hey~"
Xu Kun suddenly thought of something, so he nudged Deng Chao with his elbow and said, "Why do these old mines have to explode when they are released? Wouldn't it be much easier to just step on them and they will explode?"
"Maybe they were afraid of danger during the manufacturing process, so this extra step is an extra layer of insurance - besides, if there weren't such mines, many war scenes wouldn't be filmed."
As Deng Chao spoke, he could not help stamping his feet: "Damn, you made my feet itchy, could it be that I have athlete's foot?"
"Get lost! You have athlete's foot on your hands!"
Xu Kun said unhappily: "I guess the soles of your feet were frozen just now, and they have thawed a little now." At this time Feng Xiaogang came over, and Deng Chao quickly put on a smile and called him "Director Feng".
Feng Xiaogang ignored him and said to Xu Kun: "I just watched it again and I don't think there's much of a problem with the emotions in that scene. But if you insist, we can reshoot it on the first Lantern Festival."
“Retake it.”
Xu Kun said without hesitation: "Give me a day when the time comes. I will prepare it in advance and make sure it is better than last time!"
After Feng Xiaogang left, Deng Chao said with envy: "The big director is still so powerful. If it were me, I wouldn't dare to ask for this 'afterthought'."
In fact, the situation where actors actively request to "change the play" has become more and more frequent in the past two years, but there are indeed not many who dare to ask for an account in front of a big director like Feng Xiaogang.
Seeing that Xu Kun didn't say anything, Deng Chao nudged him again and said, "If I become a director in the future, you have to come and play a cameo role."
"It's easy to make a cameo appearance, but if you have a bigger role, it depends on whether the script is good or not."
"Of course, I will find Teacher Tian and Teacher Liu Heng then..."
As he was talking, the tin horn sounded again. Xu Kun hurriedly took off his scarf and threw it to his assistant, revealing his unshaven face, and urged: "Stop talking nonsense, it's time for us to step on the landmine!"
This scene was originally intended to focus on the conversation between the two people; Xu Kun's action of removing his shoes to suppress the bomb was not the focus.
But Xu Kun still practiced his "sword skills" in advance. It can't be said to be smooth, but it seems that he has mastered the key to "steady, accurate and ruthless".
When the camera was facing Deng Chao's face, Deng Chao had an attitude of being ready to die. When the camera moved down, he also stared and glanced down, fearing that Xu Kun would accidentally cut off a piece of his flesh.
However, the real test is the shot where Zhao Erdou [Deng Chao] walks barefoot in the snow, looking back.
This scene was filmed thirteen times, and Deng Chao waded through the snow twenty-six times. Even though he had stuffed warm things in his socks in advance, he still got frostbite afterwards and couldn't walk properly for half a month.
Xu Kun also half-squatted and half-knelt in the snow for more than two hours.
In order to ensure that my facial expressions did not change, I had to apply a hot towel to my face before each squat. The combination of ice and fire was almost like having surgery on my face - without anesthesia.
As a result, when they were reshooting the Martyrs' Cemetery scene on the 13th day of the first lunar month, Feng Xiaogang said that the "farewell scene" was a bit redundant and might have to be deleted during editing.
Xu Kun & Deng Chao: "..."
Xu Kun then used his frustration and grievance in Guzidi's hoarse and choked accusation: "Old Liu, I don't have to be hypocritical with you... about whether I blew the horn or not.
"Forty-seven brothers from our Ninth Company...were all martyrs! How could they be considered missing?! Now that you are lying here, who can prove this to them?!"
No matter what the script's tendency is, at least Xu Kun has completely integrated into the character of Guzidi at this moment.
When Feng Xiaogang shouted "click", Xu Kun did not stand up from the tombstone. Instead, he leaned against the tombstone and stayed there for a long time without moving.
The former instructor of the 9th Company who was blown into two pieces.
Instructor Wang Jincun, who was once scared to the point of peeing his pants on the battlefield, but finally resolutely detonated a bomb and died heroically.
In order to preserve the last bloodline of the 9th Company, Jiao Dapeng, who was seriously injured and on the verge of death, lied that he heard the assembly call.
In order to defend his position, Jiang Maocai died together with the enemy tanks...
The familiar faces faded in Xu Kun's mind one by one, but they became more and more vivid and lifelike.
(End of this chapter)
