In August 2007, the huge sun scorched the earth, and the smell of prop glue hung in the air.
On the set of The Forbidden Kingdom, outside the green-screen soundstage, Wu Guoqiang walked while wiping the sweat from his forehead, rubbing his rough palm against his work clothes.
His instructions kept coming like a faucet that couldn’t be tightened. “After you join the crew, don’t look around or run your mouth. Don’t sit in any chair that doesn’t have your name on it.”
“Don’t walk back and forth in front of the camera, don’t go asking actors for photos, and keep your phone on silent.”
Qin Xuan followed behind his uncle, his canvas sneakers stepping over the scattered cables, while his gaze drifted into the soundstage.
The green screen hung from the steel frame like a massive sheet of green silk, and several stagehands, sweating profusely, were carrying prop trees inside.
Everything here left him both dazed and strangely familiar.
Because this was where, in his previous life, he had first entered the entertainment industry. Starting from the very bottom as a stagehand, he had struggled for more than ten years, worked as an internet celebrity, and filmed skits.
After much difficulty, he had finally become a web drama director and, riding the short-drama boom, accumulated a large fortune.
With money in hand, he had gone off to make movies, only to run headlong into the winter of the film and television industry. Not only had he lost everything, the wager agreement he signed with capital had nearly crushed the breath out of him.
At over forty years old, there was no longer any hope of starting over. Yet after one indulgent bout of drunkenness, he had returned to the age of twenty-one.
Back to the days when he had little education, had dropped out after high school, and had to become a beast of burden all over again.
“Your parents passed early. From now on, you’ll stay by my side and learn. Having a trade means having a bowl of rice to eat. It’s just that this line of work is pretty hard. You have to be able to endure hardship,” Wu Guoqiang was still nagging.
Qin Xuan nodded in response. His uncle was forty-five this year, his skin dark and rough. After more than ten years in this business, he had barely managed to become a technician—basically, someone who installed equipment.
In this industry, aside from the true chief lighting technicians, the rest of the work didn’t have much technical threshold. If you wanted in, all you needed was someone to bring you along.
In his previous life, Qin Xuan had been introduced into the industry by this very uncle.
As the two walked and talked, not far away, several stagehands were standing with their heads lowered while a foreigner with a high nose stood with his hands on his hips and cursed, “Shit!”
His spit was practically spraying onto their faces.
“Don’t bother with it, don’t listen. It has nothing to do with you.” Wu Guoqiang tugged him along.
With one glance, Qin Xuan knew what was going on. After all, he had experienced it himself in his previous life.
This crew had many Americans and Hong Kong people. Sometimes, when work was being assigned, the mainland crew couldn’t understand what they were saying, so they could only guess and muddle through. Mistakes were common.
And once a mistake was made, mockery and curses were inevitable.
The treatment was also worlds apart. For the same type of work and the same tasks, whether it was food, drinks, or supplies, there were two separate logistical standards. The discrimination was severe.
A very typical example was that the Americans and Hong Kong people had seafood meals specially delivered from big hotels, while ordinary mainland employees got the kind of boxed lunches sold at roadside stalls.
And in such hot weather, they had their own comfortable air-conditioned rooms, while the mainland staff could only live in temporary work sheds.
When they had been filming in Dunhuang before, it had truly been scorching to death during the day and freezing to death at night, yet they could only endure it. Supposedly, the conflict had erupted once before.
“Our entire background for this scene is green screen. Mountains and rivers will be composited in during post-production. These prop trees need lighting to create shadows and highlights, otherwise they’ll look pasted on when filmed. See if you can use lighting to simulate the light-and-shadow effect, as realistically as possible.”
“The space is too large. To light up the whole green screen and then simulate natural light—the circuits simply can’t handle it.”
“It’s about to shoot soon. Think of a way to make it work.”
When Qin Xuan and Wu Guoqiang arrived, they happened to hear the lighting director and the cinematographer discussing how to arrange the light and shadow effects.
The lighting director was called Wang Bide. Qin Xuan was not familiar with this man; in his previous life, after this film finished shooting, he had never seen him again.
But he was familiar with the cinematographer beside him. His name was Bao Dexi, a well-known veteran cinematographer from Hong Kong, someone often seen at major award ceremonies.
With this man involved, the production setup could be said to be top-tier.
At this moment, after hearing Bao Dexi’s request, Wang Bide was surveying the entire green-screen space.
Just as he was thinking about how to arrange the lights, he caught sight of two people beside him from the corner of his eye and could not help saying, “Why aren’t you working? What are you doing here?”
“Director Wang, Director Bao, hello. This is my nephew, Qin Xuan. He doesn’t have much to do at home and wants to find some work on the crew. Do you think…” Wu Guoqiang’s old face was piled with smiles, the wrinkles all showing.
He did not finish speaking, but his meaning was already clear.
“This is a place for filming, not a charity hall!” Wang Bide immediately pulled a stern face.
This man was a Chinese American and could not stand this kind of nepotism through relatives and connections. The crew was a place for filming, not someone’s home.
Why were there always people trying to stuff others into the crew?
“Yes, yes, yes. He’s very capable of enduring hardship, and he has strength. He can help carry things. Our lighting crew is short on manpower too, isn’t it?” Wu Guoqiang appeared extremely humble.
“Then let him be a stagehand. Go move things.” Wang Bide waved his hand, saying no more.
“Thank you, thank you, Director Wang, Director Bao!” Wu Guoqiang bent at the waist repeatedly and, in passing, tugged at his nephew’s sleeve.
“Thank you!” Though Qin Xuan was reluctant, he still had to say it.
These were the rules of society. The weak had to curry favor with the strong just to earn a mouthful of food. There was no choice—unless you simply refused to do the work.
Bao Dexi remained silent. He had done nothing!
Wang Bide paid them no further attention, waving his hand again to dismiss them, then turned back to continue discussing the lighting arrangement with Bao Dexi.
The green-screen soundstage was as large as half a football field, with steel frames crisscrossing overhead. To make the light evenly cover the space while also ensuring that the light and shadow on the actors blended with the background added in post-production was indeed a difficult problem.
He was staring at a corner of the green screen, pondering, when he suddenly heard an offhand sentence from behind him:
“Actually, you could set up a lighting panel array to illuminate the entire green screen, then build semi-translucent reflective screens between the actors and the green screen to light the shooting area.”
After Qin Xuan finished speaking, he followed his uncle and left.
Those words made Wang Bide freeze for a moment. He turned and shouted, “Stop!”