lcionline Chapter 52 College Entrance Examination, Central Academy of Fine Arts Artist, Storyboard
Chapter 52 College Entrance Examination, Central Academy of Fine Arts Artist, Storyboard
On July 7th, early in the morning, the air was as stuffy as a steamer.
Li Si'an and Tang Yun came out of the store, both wearing white shirts, one in dark gray pants and the other in a plain skirt.
Chen Dong leaned against the counter and waved to them: "Do your best on the exam, don't embarrass our store."
The examination venue is located at the High School Affiliated to Beijing Institute of Technology, which is just west of Zizhuyuan Park. It takes less than ten minutes to get there by bike.
When we arrived at the school gate, it was packed with people, more parents than students. Some were fanning themselves, some were carrying mung bean soup, and some were craning their necks to peek inside.
The iron gate was not yet open, and there was a cordon at the entrance. Several uniformed security guards stood there with serious expressions.
Tang Yun clutched her exam admission ticket so tightly it almost tore it apart. Li Si'an glanced at it and gently patted her waist.
"nervous?"
"A little," she said honestly.
"What's there to be nervous about? It's just a 300% chance."
Tang Yun rolled her eyes at him, but her lips weren't pursed as tightly anymore.
The bell rang. The iron gate rattled open, and the crowd surged in. The two were separated; Li Si'an only had time to turn back and shout to her, "Do your best on the exam!"
Tang Yun stood on tiptoe in the crowd and waved to him.
The exam room was on the first floor. The classroom was small, and the fan on the ceiling was whirring, making the hot air in the room swirl back and forth.
Li Si'an found her seat and placed her admission ticket and pencil case on the table. All around her were unfamiliar faces; some were flipping through books, some were wiping sweat, and some were staring blankly at the blackboard.
He wasn't particularly flustered. He had taken the exam once in his previous life, and his mind was sharper in this life than before. When the test papers were handed out, he glanced at them and already knew what to expect.
After three days of exams, Li Si'an held a pen in her hand, but was thinking about something else.
With his current mental capacity of 19, he can remember everything he sees and almost never forget anything he has seen.
If the exams were truly open to everyone, not to mention anything else, in history and politics, those dates, names of people and places, significance and impact would be like they were imprinted in my mind, and I could write them down as soon as I picked up a pen.
If you had a good foundation in English from a previous life, then with your increased vocabulary in this life, it will be a piece of cake.
Math will take a little more effort, but I should be able to get around 120. With all subjects combined, I should have no problem getting over 600.
The problem is, he can't get such a high score.
If someone who consistently ranks at the bottom of their class from elementary to middle school suddenly scores over 600 points on the college entrance exam, wouldn't that make them think twice?
His uncle would ask, his grandfather would ask, and Chen Nan's mouth would keep nagging. Where could he possibly explain himself?
That's good enough. It's enough to get into a good university and satisfy my grandfather.
So he held back, answering only what needed to be answered and leaving only what needed to be left unanswered. After three days, he mentally estimated his score to be around 512, with a fluctuation of no more than 10 points.
enough.
After finishing the last exam, when Li Si'an came out of the exam hall, the sun was already setting, casting long shadows on the playground. She stood on the steps at the entrance of the teaching building, squinting at the sky.
Tang Yun came out of another exam room, her face flushed, whether from the sun or the exam itself, it was hard to tell. She walked over and stood next to him.
"How is it?" Li Si'an asked.
"It's alright." Tang Yun thought for a moment, then added, "You explained the analytic geometry problem to me before the exam, and it was pretty much the same."
Li Si'an chuckled. "Then you have to treat me to dinner, right?"
Tang Yun smiled, pursing her lips, but didn't reply. The two walked side by side toward the school gate, where crowds surged in from all directions, forming a bustling flow of people.
Some students were cheering, some parents were waving, and some were already discussing where to have a meal that night.
Li Si'an put her hands in her pockets and walked on. Suddenly, she felt her steps become much lighter.
The college entrance exam, from his past life to this one, is finally over. What awaits him ahead is the recording studio of China Record Corporation, Lao Sun's mixing console, and songs like "Fairy Tale," "Running," and "The First Time."
He glanced at Tang Yun. The setting sun cast a soft golden glow on her face and her eyelashes.
"Let's go back."
"Um."
The two squeezed out of the school gate and disappeared into the July evening breeze.
That evening, Li Si'an and Tang Yun returned from dinner. As soon as they entered the store, Tang Yun was still changing her shoes when the phone on the counter rang.
He walked over and picked up the microphone.
"Feed?"
"Finished the exam?" came Zhou Weidong's voice.
"The exam is over."
"How is it?"
Li Si'an leaned against the counter. "The art student line, no problem."
Zhou Weidong hummed in agreement on the other end of the phone, without pressing further. He knew his nephew's usual behavior; as long as he was within acceptable limits, that was enough, he didn't expect much more.
"Take a couple of days off," Zhou Weidong said. "Xu Zhongmin called; the studio is set for the 12th. China Record Corporation, Lao Sun will record it for you personally."
Li Si'an gripped the microphone, her fingers tightening slightly. The 12th. She just finished her exams today; there are only two days left at most.
"Be careful these next few days. Don't stay up late, don't drink alcohol, and avoid spicy and oily foods. Take good care of your throat."
Zhou Weidong spoke as if he were instructing a child, listing things one by one, "If your voice isn't in good condition when you get to the studio, the studio fee is 2,500 yuan a day. You can decide for yourself."
"understood."
"Also, don't catch a cold. It's hot today, so don't let the fan blow directly on you."
"OK."
After hanging up the phone, Li Si'an stood behind the counter for a while. Tang Yun changed into slippers and came over, glancing at him.
"Your uncle?"
"Yes. They said we'd be entering the shed on the 12th."
Tang Yun's eyes lit up. "Then it won't be long."
"Two days." Li Si'an sat down and tapped her fingers on the counter.
In two days, he had the melody in his mind and the lyrics memorized. His throat—he touched it; he really needed to be careful these next few days.
But there was one thing that worried him more than his voice.
That day on Tianning Temple Street, Hsu Chung-min asked him why he insisted on shooting music videos on film. He hesitated for a long time before finally blurting out, "It's just different."
Xu Zhongmin didn't ask any further questions, but he remembered that look clearly—it was the look of someone looking at a fool.
He placed his bet, and Xu Zhongmin accepted.
But when he gets to the set and the director asks him how to shoot this scene or what the feeling of that scene is, can he still only manage to say, "Anyway, it's just different"?
He had that image in his mind—a girl lying in a hospital bed, wearing an oxygen mask, clutching a cell phone in her hand. The sound coming from the phone was the boy playing the piano in the concert hall.
These images are crystal clear in his mind, every single frame. But he can't describe the details—the composition, the framing, the lighting, the camera movement...
He's just a programmer, how would he know these things?
He needs someone to translate the images in his mind.
The next morning, Li Si'an hailed a minibus on the roadside and said, "To the Central Academy of Fine Arts." The driver nodded, and the car headed towards Wangjing.
The July sun was scorching, making the asphalt on the road gleam. There was no air conditioning in the car, so the windows were rolled all the way down, and the wind howled in, making it hot and stuffy, like a hairdryer.
When I arrived at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, the campus was deserted during the summer vacation. The teaching buildings were empty, and a few students who hadn't gone home were playing football on the playground.
He wandered around and bumped into a tall, thin boy at the library entrance. The boy wore glasses, carried a sketchbook, and held a bag of steamed buns in his hand.
Li Si'an stopped him. "Hey, I want to ask you something. Does your school have any illustrators? You mean, the kind who can turn stories into comic strips?"
The bespectacled boy adjusted his glasses and thought for a moment. "You should ask Xu Zheng. He's in the oil painting department. He didn't go home for summer vacation; he spent all his time in the studio. He takes on freelance work, doing all sorts of illustrations and posters."
"Where is he?"
"The studio at the very back on the third floor of the main building."
Li Si'an thanked them and went up to the third floor. The door to the studio at the end of the corridor was half open, and inside were easels, paint buckets, and several stretched canvases.
A folding bed was propped up in the corner, covered with a straw mat, and a copy of "Van Gogh's Biography" lay beside the pillow. A boy sat with his back to the door in front of the easel, shirtless, wearing shorts and slippers.
His hair was a mess, and he didn't know how many days it had been since he'd washed it. The canvas held a half-finished oil painting in grayish-blue tones, from which one could vaguely make out a body of water.
Li Si'an knocked on the door frame.
The boy turned around. He was in his early twenties, with a narrow face, high cheekbones, small but bright eyes, and a layer of bluish stubble on his chin. He looked Li Si'an up and down.
Who are you looking for?
"Find someone named Xu Zheng and ask him to draw something."
Xu Zheng put his paintbrush in the brush holder and turned around. "That's me. What do you want me to paint?"
"Storyboard. It's like a comic strip, with each panel showing a story."
Xu Zheng pulled out a pack of cigarettes from beside the easel, took one out, lit it, and took a drag. "What's this for?"
"Shoot a music video."
"MV?"
"Yes. A music video. I have a story, but I can't explain it to people all at once."
I'll tell you the story, and you can draw it for me. It doesn't need to be too detailed, a sketch will do, but the image needs to be clear—where the characters are, where the light is coming from, and what the general feel of the camera shot is.
Xu Zheng leaned back in his chair, exhaled a puff of smoke, and frowned slightly.
"You should ask the director to do the storyboarding. Storyboarding is the director's job. If I, an artist, draw it for you, and the director doesn't approve it, wouldn't you be wasting your money?"
Li Si'an pulled up a chair and sat down. "I just took the storyboard to the director."
Xu Zheng raised an eyebrow, looking at him with some doubt.
"What's in my head is hard for me to explain to the director in a short time," Li Si'an said, looking at him.
"But I take the time to explain it to you in detail, so you can draw it clearly. Once you've drawn it, I'll put the script in front of the director, and he'll know what I want. Then he can just shoot it according to my instructions."
Xu Zheng stared at him for several seconds, a cigarette dangling from his lips. He was probably trying to figure out what kind of person this guy was.
An eighteen or nineteen-year-old kid, just opened his mouth and wanted to shoot a music video, even planning to use a storyboard he'd commissioned to direct the director. Anyone else would probably think he'd gone mad.
But Xu Zheng spent his summer vacation in the art studio, doing nothing but painting and sleeping, and was incredibly bored. Whether he was crazy or not was irrelevant to him; he'd do anything for money.
How much money can you give?
"you say."
Xu Zheng took another drag of his cigarette and thought for a moment. "Fifty yuan per painting."
Li Si'an thought it over. The whole story only had seven or eight core scenes. Including transitional ones, there were at most twenty. Fifty for one, twenty for a thousand.
"Okay. But I have one request."
"explain."
"Draw exactly what I say. Don't improvise."
Xu Zheng flicked his cigarette ash, and the corner of his mouth twitched, it was hard to tell whether it was a smile or something else. "You're quite domineering."
"It's not about being domineering. It's about what's in my head, and I need to bring it out exactly as it is."
Xu Zheng stubbed out his cigarette on the lid of the paint box, pulled a sketchbook from under the easel, and turned to a new page. He then pulled out a few charcoal pencils from the pencil holder and weighed them in his hand.
"Tell me. How should we draw the first shot?"