Chapter 51: Do You Want Me to Be the Female Lead?

Chapter 51: Do you want me to be the female lead?

The two of them went to the campus’s Four Seasons Café and casually bought two drinks.

This place was considered one of the scenic spots at Beijing Film Academy. Usually, there were many people gathering here—couples in love, people chatting idly, and those discussing scripts, you name it.

"What's wrong? It's rare to see you looking troubled," Zhao Tiantian said.

"It's not really trouble, maybe I've just been idle for too long... It's probably because of the early stages of starting a business; there's no one under me, and I have to do everything myself," Li Jingkun said.

"You started a business?"

"I plan to shoot a short drama and start a new chapter in my life. Does that count as starting a business?"

"Then you can hire people."

"It's not quite time for that yet," Li Jingkun said. "Never mind, maybe I was just too comfortable before and felt a bit annoyed when things suddenly got busy."

"...You consider yourself comfortable? I thought you were pretty busy before too," Zhao Tiantian said. "You're going to shoot a short drama? What kind of short drama?"

"A campus short drama, a very simple story."

"Short dramas are hard to sell, aren't they?"

"A short drama filmed by a freshman, who else do you expect to sell it to?"

Video websites had existed for a while already, and they had also realized that they could independently invest in producing some web dramas or short films. This required much less investment compared to buying television dramas from others.

Yet, it still came down to that same point: who would dare—or even want—to buy a web drama made by a freshman?

It would most likely result in a loss or just not be cost-effective, right?

"Then why are you still going to shoot it?" Zhao Tiantian asked.

"Most new directors' first one or two works don't make money. Just like you actors, a lot of the shows you film never even get the chance to be broadcast," Li Jingkun said.

Zhao Tiantian was quite curious about his project, so Li Jingkun briefly filled her in. The script was finished, and the storyboard was still being drawn, but not a single actor had been cast yet.

Zhao Tiantian suddenly realized something and said, "You don't want me to be your female lead, do you?"

Li Jingkun replied, "No, I can't afford you. I plan to start filming during the summer vacation, so actors aren't urgent. We'll deal with that in a bit."

Zhao Tiantian nodded. A few days would be fine, but Li Jingkun planned to film for half a month. She certainly didn't have that much time to help out, seeing as she had her own television dramas to shoot.

In the days that followed, aside from attending regular classes, the focus was naturally on preparing for the short drama.

Some people seem fine when getting along casually, but once interests become involved, their true worldviews are exposed.

During military training, Li Jingkun shared a dorm with Wang Yang, Guo Junli, and Fang Weida, so they were closer. The worldviews of the other two were relatively similar to Li Jingkun's, but Fang Weida occasionally said some very strange things.

Whenever they went out to eat, Li Jingkun usually paid the bill, and Fang Weida never chipped in a single time.

Yet whenever Li Jingkun treated them, Fang Weida offered plenty of flattery. He would praise Li Jingkun for knowing how to make money even as a freshman, and say how great it would be if Li Jingkun didn't live off-campus, so he could take better care of his dormitory brothers.

Usually, Li Jingkun didn't care about such things. But now that he was preparing his first short drama and offered Fang Weida a salary of three thousand yuan to help out, Fang Weida actually insinuated that the pay was too low.

Perhaps it was a bit low, but that was all he could afford to offer right now. If Fang Weida thought it was too little, they would simply have to wait for another opportunity to collaborate in the future.

To his surprise, when Li Jingkun told him that his help wasn't needed for now, Fang Weida's expression completely changed. He claimed that a relative had originally introduced him to a summer job, but he had turned it down to help Li Jingkun out, and now Li Jingkun was telling him he wasn't needed?

Speechless. Summer vacation was still at least a month away, and your relative was already introducing you to jobs? How was he supposed to believe that?

Besides, with a month left before summer vacation, it wouldn't be hard to tell your relative you were available after all, or to find another summer job, would it?

Or perhaps, even if he found one, the pay wouldn't be as high as three thousand yuan?

Li Jingkun couldn't be bothered to argue with him and simply made it clear to him.

"Which school are we going to use for this?"

"Our school definitely won't work. What we need to shoot is the life of high school students, and high school classrooms are different from university classrooms."

As the assistant director, Wang Yang, and Guo Junli as the cinematographer, both needed to participate in location scouting, script discussions, determining the visual style, and various other tasks.

In truth, whether shooting a television series or a movie, the preparatory work in the early stages is tedious and crucial. Sometimes, the preparation period for a film is even longer than the actual shooting period.

However, if the preliminary preparations are thorough enough, the subsequent filming process will go much more smoothly.

Actually, classroom settings were relatively easy to find, and since it would be summer vacation, there would be even more choices. Still, they had to visit the locations in person and take a few photos to keep on file.

Auditions for actors began in June. Aside from the teacher roles, which needed to be cast from outside, the other roles would prioritize students from the school.

Therefore, they posted a notice on the bulletin board recruiting lead actors and actresses, supporting roles, and so on. The recruitment period would last half a month, and the positions were paid.

This recruitment notice actually caused quite a stir. After all, a considerable number of personnel were needed—not just actors, but also people from other specialized fields. It seemed like quite a sizable operation.

However, Li Jingkun and his team would also hold auditions for the actors. If the professional standard fell short, they would rather seek out those who were famous, a bit more expensive, but possessed better acting skills.

Sometimes spending a little more money upfront makes things much more cost-effective later on.

They scheduled the audition times for the weekend. The casting directors were Li Jingkun and Wang Yang, while Guo Junli and two or three other classmates (who had previously collaborated on short films) helped receive the interviewees and handle other preparations.

On the day of the auditions, they did run into a problem: the attitude of the auditionees.

Li Jingkun guessed whether their crew was being looked down upon—did people think that because it was a student-organized project, they could just breeze through it casually?

During the recruitment notice, it was clearly stated that applicants needed to bring their own resumes, yet many people showed up empty-handed. Secondly, their answers during the auditions were somewhat perfunctory, and some seemed completely indifferent as to whether they would be selected or not.

Because of this, they added one or two extra questions later on, such as "Why did you choose to participate in this audition?" and "If you pass the audition, what are your expectations for this performance?"

To be honest, this short drama didn't have very high demands for the actors, and the acting skills didn't need to be exceptionally polished either. But if the attitude was wrong, the chances of it turning out like *The Road to Dream* were very high.

Students from the performance department also showed up, which was what Li Jingkun had been hoping for. After all, it was a relevant major, and they had entered the school through fiercely competitive entrance examinations. Most of their appearances suited the characters. However, there were only a few lead roles, so they could only select the very best.

"Please give a brief self-introduction first."

"What strengths do you feel you possess?"

"Please read these few lines of dialogue."

"If you aren't chosen as the female lead, would you consider other supporting female roles? Because this is a short drama, the screen time for the supporting female roles might not be very much."

Li Jingkun's attitude was undoubtedly very serious. Since it was his own project, he was determined to strictly follow standard procedures.

The same went for Wang Yang and Guo Junli. If the project turned out well, it would look great on their future resumes. Therefore, they completely agreed with Li Jingkun's formalization of the process.

"My name is Lǘ Xinting, class of '08 performance department."

"I came here because of a recommendation from Teacher Yang Lin. Teacher Yang Lin said my acting and image are both pretty good, but suggested I should hone my skills more. Do you guys know Teacher Yang Lin?"