Qi Gelong's prompt agreent to take the role delighted Shao Yichen.
Having this hand-picked, past-his-pri actor as the lead was far better than holding an audition and ending up with a veteran actor with both reputation and skill.
She imdiately handed over the contract negotiations with Qi Gelong to Li Qianqian, repeatedly emphasizing that the compensation should be generous. Money wasn't a concern—she (with the system's backing) would cover everything. The sa principle would apply to future work: as long as everything stayed within the ten-million budget, they should spend freely.
Li Qianqian listened in bewildernt, not understanding what this boss had up her sleeve. Recalling Shao Yichen's reputation as a marketing genius, she worried that voicing any concerns might ruin the boss's plans. Ultimately, she decided to follow the director's requirents precisely—seeking the most expensive options within budget, not necessarily the best.
With the lead actor problem solved, Shao Yichen breathed a sigh of relief.
But she didn't let her guard down. Besides the lead, the film had other major roles, especially Old Tang's three and a half disciples, whose screen ti wasn't much less than the protagonist's. Although according to the script, these disciples were mostly background characters—but then again, Yuan You from the previous film was theoretically supposed to be a diligent background supporting character too!
Yet in the end, after twist upon twist upon twist, he sohow beca the film's most talked-about character, incidentally propelling the entire film to success.
With such a failed experience, Shao Yichen fully understood how having a performance genius like Li Xingyu in the crew could negatively impact the film's money-losing atmosphere. This ti, she was determined not to repeat her mistakes—she absolutely had to arrange the remaining four disciple roles as well!
However, she truly didn't know much about current film actors. Inviting Qi Gelong as the lead had already been her limit of trial and error; asking her to suggest several more actor candidates was truly too much.
Therefore, this audition seed unavoidable.
How could she make this audition completely ineffective?
Shao Yichen twirled her pen in the CEO's office with the air conditioner blowing, contemplating how to reasonably sabotage the entire audition.
Relying solely on herself to specifically select actors with poor skills would be too arduous and might generate hostility, potentially affecting the original host's future life.
So she couldn't rely solely on her veto power for actor selection; she needed to address the fundantal issue with the audition.
As everyone knows, the purpose of an audition is to select actors suitable for roles. Typically, the process involves selecting a portion of the script, having actors perform it, and comprehensively choosing soone with both appropriate performance skills and appearance.
At this thought, Shao Yichen had a flash of inspiration.
If the audition didn't consider acting skills from the start, wouldn't that solve everything?
No scripts! No performance evaluation! When actors entered the audition room, they could showcase any talent they wished—as long as it wasn't acting, singing and dancing were all acceptable! If they didn't want to showcase anything and just stood there blankly, that would be perfectly fine too!
The final selection of roles would be based entirely on whether she liked the look of the actors! If they couldn't decide, they could even hold a live lottery drawing to ensure fairness!
In short, they had to turn this audition into a farce.
To prevent anyone from being dissatisfied with this process after arriving for the audition, Shao Yichen decided to announce these special requirents in advance. Those without objections could co; those with objections could stay away. If they ca and weren't selected, they couldn't bla the crew, and especially not her.
Having devised this innovative audition approach, Shao Yichen felt an imdiate reduction in pressure, feeling she had eliminated a major concern.
Of course, this thod might still potentially select genius actors. But based on her knowledge of the only performance genius she knew—Li Xingyu—these talented perforrs generally had strong personalities and weren't short of scripts. They probably wouldn't bother with such a circus-like audition.
So in this type of audition, the probability of selecting amateur actors far exceeded that of selecting professional ones!
The more Shao Yichen thought about it, the more confident she beca, imdiately diving into writing up her plan.
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Three days later.
The First "Journey to the West on Film" Audition, also known as the Shao Yichen Cup Talent Show Live Broadcast, was about to begin at eight in the morning... Ahem, that was just a joke—officially, this audition hadn't beco a talent show.
But judging from the so-called actors who showed up, this audition had essentially beco nearly indistinguishable from a talent show.
After all, following the release of her two films, Shao Yichen had gained a certain reputation. The industry was closely watching this newcor director who had profited from both her films. When they heard she had signed with Morning Star dia, a small company, while disappointed their own companies hadn't won her over, they also felt sowhat relieved—after all, a director of her caliber signing with an unknown garbage company was better than signing with a competitor.
Just as they had breathed a sigh of relief and planned to stop following Shao Yichen, they suddenly heard she was about to hold an open audition for her next film.
What? So soon? Hadn't her last film just finished its run half a month ago? Was this person a workaholic who never rested?
And the selection thod for this audition was too casual—not evaluating acting skills, only considering personal preference?
Imdiately, legitimate actors began to retreat from this audition—if the audition was so casual, wouldn't production be even more unprofessional? A resulting bad film wouldn't look good on their resus.
But unknown small actors and idols had no such concerns and eagerly signed up for the audition.
They weren't worried about appearing in a bad film; most of them couldn't even get bad film roles currently. Moreover, while they might lack confidence in acting, they excelled at talent showcases! Especially idols—in a sense, these "talent showcases" were their primary occupation!
Thus, on the day of the audition, Shao Yichen and her team witnessed a chaotic scene.
"Oh my goodness, look at the waiting room—hair in all colors like a palette... white, gray, red, yellow, everything except black—oh, there seems to be soone with black hair—sorry, I was mistaken, it's green highlights..." Qin Lu stretched his neck, relying on his artistic background to identify various hair colors, feeling he had gained quite an education—so this was how ani-like hair colors appeared in reality... he could reference this for future artwork.
His position in the crew had been upgraded from art director to executive director, making him one of the interviewers for this audition.
"Were they having a dance battle in the waiting room just now? And soone was doing impromptu beatboxing for them..." Jiang Miaomiao peered around, looking quite interested.
She was also one of the audition interviewers. Qin Lu's promotion to executive director already seed outrageous, but her promotion was even more extre—she had directly beco the first assistant director, fulfilling her initial life pursuit early.
"Minor scene, minor scene. Co on, everyone, sit properly—we need to make a good impression on the auditioners."
While Shao Yichen appeared calm on the surface, she was quite curious internally.
She hadn't expected so many people to attend this small audition—at least several dozen, and this was after Li Qianqian had already filtered out so applicants.
When first hearing this number, Shao Yichen had panicked. How could so many desperate people sign up even after she had publicized the audition contents?
But upon seeing the scene, she felt reassured.
This group of auditioners might be very qualified idols if they were participating in a talent show. But in a film, they would definitely not be qualified actors.
With these clowns, this film was guaranteed to lose money!
She waved her hand grandly: "Since everyone has arrived, let's begin the audition! First, please call in Number One!"
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As it turned out, Shao Yichen's team was extrely efficient at casting.
rely eight hours later, the actors for the four main roles had been preliminarily decided.
The perforr for the rich second-generation character, Xiao Sun, was the current RAP specialist from a failed idol group. According to him, he had specifically dyed his hair red for this script, just to resemble the Monkey King a bit more—although no matter how Shao Yichen looked at him, she felt his only commonality with the Great Sage was his golden contact lenses. As soon as he entered, before even standing properly, he grabbed an imaginary microphone and perford a remixed Journey to the West the song for Shao Yichen and her colleagues: "Oh, monkey, monkey bro, monkey bro, monkey bro, you're really, really, really incredible..."
With his eyes half-closed, gaze unfocused, left hand slightly clenched near his mouth as if holding an invisible microphone, and right hand twitching at his waist like he had hemiplegia (though he later claid he was DJ-ing), he sang less than three lines before Shao Yichen imdiately declared him the undisputed actor for Xiao Sun while urgently stopping his performance—any longer, and the three interviewers would have been knocked out by his singing.
Seeing that the RAP brother still seed eager to continue, Shao Yichen secretly decided to find an opportunity to introduce him to the South Polar Bear twins, letting these three lethal singing fiends torture each other rather than victimize others.
The perforr for the money-obsessed Xiao Zhu was a professional extra. According to his introduction, he had been working as an extra for ten years since graduating from junior high school, with extensive production experience, particularly excelling in the skill of playing dead. After stating this, without giving Shao Yichen any ti to react, he rolled his eyes, kicked his legs, and fell stiffly to the ground.
Shao Yichen waited several dozen seconds without seeing him get up. Trembling as she approached him, she was shocked to discover he had apparently stopped breathing, scaring her into screaming: "Soone help—"
The extra brother flipped up from the ground like a leaping carp: "Here, Director, what's the matter?"
Shao Yichen: ...
Brother, you're playing dead too convincingly! There's no need for that!
This play-dead brother's skill successfully shocked everyone present, and they unanimously agreed to assign him the role of Xiao Zhu, with just one condition—don't randomly demonstrate this death-feigning skill in the crew, as it could cause frightening misunderstandings.
The perforr for the dream-chasing youth Xiao Sha was slightly more normal than the previous two. He walked in with a head of ssy hair, his face as pale as if he hadn't eaten for days.
"The special talent I want to showcase for the crew is being a big eater," he said weakly. "Does the crew have lunch now?"
Shao Yichen waved her hand and gave him a box of packed als. For the next half hour, Shao Yichen and her two colleagues watched with wide eyes as he consecutively ate ten boxes of food, not even sparing the vegetables, like a famous big eater doing a livestream. After finishing the tenth box, he patted his stomach, belched with satisfaction, and finally showed a hint of rosiness in his pale face.
Then he turned to leave: "My talent showcase is complete, thank you, directors—"
Shao Yichen: ?
She imdiately stopped this perforr trying to escape. Under her coercion and inducent, he confessed the truth—the actor who was supposed to co in with this number had been frightened away by the dance battle in the waiting room, and he was a substitute. In reality, he hadn't eaten for three days due to lack of work and had co just to scam a al.
After hearing his reason, Shao Yichen expressed marginal understanding, but to make this food-scrounging actor deeply reflect, she imdiately assigned him the role of Xiao Sha, ostensibly "letting him repay the cost of these ten packed als through labor," with the al cost to be deducted from his salary.
The final perforr for the socially withdrawn Xiao Bai was the most fitting to his character among the four.
He was a proper formally trained actor, not yet graduated, sporting a black mushroom hairstyle. Upon entering the waiting room, he had been shocked by the chaotic scene and took a long ti to recover.
By the ti he ca to his senses, he found himself already in the audition venue, having stared blankly in front of the three interviewers for at least five minutes, his expression dazed and extrely withdrawn.
Just as he thought he had already failed, to his surprise, Shao Yichen took one look at this young man's appearance and imdiately decided: you are perfect for the role of Xiao Bai—what perfect typecasting! Having a socially awkward youth play a socially awkward youth was simply a genius decision!
Thus, the four main actors besides the lead were all decided.
And when Shao Yichen brought this motley crew to et Qi Gelong, he looked at these four actors and his composure imdiately began to crack.
What was going on? Was the director playing him?
None of these four looked remotely like legitimate actors!
Author's Note: First update~
Thank you to the little angels who cast sovereign votes or watered with nutrient solution during the period from 2020-09-06 20:31:11 to 2020-09-07 11:58:12~
Thanks to the little angels who threw landmines: Jiangtan White Crane 1;
Thanks to the little angels who watered with nutrient solution: Shenshan Li 40 bottles; Yu 30 bottles; Graceful Little Girl 10 bottles; Willow Liu 4 bottles; My Black Card Is Locked, Transparent White 3 bottles; Making a Little Heart, gaial 1 bottle;
Thank you very much for your support, I will continue to work hard!
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