Chapter 127: Filming Begins, Broadcasting Begins, Are the Trash Stars Ready?

On March 19th, Lin Xing and Kong Tian arrived in Port City together.

After a long period of preparation, "Bad Child" was finally about to officially start filming.

When Lin Xing met with Deng Ying and the others earlier, Lan Lei had mentioned that since they still needed to set up the scenes in Port City, the filming of "Bad Child" would begin no later than the 20th.

And that was indeed the case.

The final scheduled start date for "Bad Child" was March 20th.

Initially, Lin Xing had planned to fly directly to Port City right after recording "Tonight's Drama Show". However, since the start of filming was postponed by a day, and he also wanted to meet up with Ma Wen and the others, he ultimately chose to fly to Port City on the 19th alongside Kong Wen.

"Teacher Lin, Teacher Kong."

As the director, Lan Lei came to pick up Lin Xing in person.

On the way, Lan Lei briefed Lin Xing on the situation in detail.

"The current set designs are basically all arranged. At the same time, we plan to start filming on the 20th, and then spend a week on script workshops..."

Lan Lei explained to Lin Xing and Kong Tian, "I'm generally at ease with the other cast members, but the three children are still a bit lacking. So, I figured we should thoroughly dissect the script first, and then..."

Lin Xing was not surprised by this.

Just as he had thought before, every director has their own style.

Since he had joined the crew, he would cooperate with the work to the best of his ability.

Kong Tian had even fewer issues.

Kong Tian's role in this drama was quite substantial. Furthermore, because he was playing the protagonist Ding Xi's father, he and the young actor playing Ding Xi also needed to get familiar with each other beforehand.

"Tonight, there will be a small gathering so we can all get to know each other."

Lan Lei said to Kong Tian, "Teacher Kong, you are the acting coach after all, so you'll need to give the young actors some advice and suggestions."

"Director Lan is too polite," Kong Tian quickly replied. "We're all learning together, and everything is for the sake of the script."

"Right, everything is for the sake of the script."

Lan Lei deeply agreed with this.

An hour later, Lin Xing and Kong Tian settled into their hotel, took a short rest, and attended a small gathering in the evening.

Present at the scene was the core creative lineup of "Bad Child".

Producer Deng Ying, screenwriter Ting Hai, director Lan Lei, and assistant director Niu Xiao. In addition, Lin Xing met the three young actors, who were considered the main leads of "Bad Child".

However, Lin Xing truly did not recognize any of them.

There were a few other actors present whom Lin Xing did recognize, though he couldn't recall their names for the moment, finding them only familiar.

This was the typical case of actors who had starred in many films and television series—you recognized them, but you had no idea what their names were.

Not only that, you couldn't even remember the titles of the shows they had acted in.

Yet, you still recognized them.

Next, Deng Ying made the introductions. The three young actors were chosen by themselves; they had some previous acting experience, though not much, and the reason for choosing them was that they shared certain similarities with the characters.

As for the remaining three adult actors, one played Ding Xi's mother, one played the older police officer in the show, and another played the younger police officer.

Everyone got acquainted with each other briefly.

The main purpose of this dinner was to break the ice beforehand.

"Everyone will be working together in this crew for a period of time."

Deng Ying said a few words, then raised her glass and said, "I hope our drama goes smoothly."

Everyone raised their glasses as well.

After the initial awkwardness faded, the atmosphere became much more lively.

Adult socialization was ultimately boring for children. Looking at the three young actors who looked awkward and had no idea what to do, Lin Xing shook his head slightly and said to Deng Ying, "President Deng, let the kids go back first. There will be plenty of opportunities tomorrow when we start filming and reading the script. It's inconvenient for the kids to be here while we are drinking and chatting."

"Teacher Lin is right."

Hearing Lin Xing's words, Deng Ying quickly said, "It was my oversight. Xiao Tian, take them back to the hotel first."

Xiao Tian, who served as the casting director, hurriedly stood up and led the three young actors out.

"Teacher Lin, Teacher Kong, I'd like to propose a toast to you both."

Gong Qiang, who played the older police officer in the series, raised his glass and said.

"Teacher Gong, you're too polite."

Lin Xing also picked up his glass and hurriedly replied, "I'll have to learn a lot from you on the set."

Kong Tian smiled as well and said, "Teacher Gong, it should be me proposing a toast to you."

Gong Qiang was also the kind of actor with formidable acting skills and strong character-portrayal abilities, yet he simply lacked opportunities.

Such a person still had many common topics of conversation with Kong Tian.

During this dinner, Lin Xing noticed that neither Tong Jing nor Dong Xia attended.

It seemed they were indeed resource-backed actors, enjoying treatment that was truly out of the ordinary.

The dinner lasted until around 10:00 PM. No one drank too much, and it was pretty much the same as the gatherings for "Anti-Crime Storm" and "Portrait Homicide".

It was nothing more than an early meeting and introduction to facilitate future cooperation.

Back at the hotel, Lin Xing called Sister Dao to brief her on the situation.

"This crew is reliable for now, and these actors are quite capable. But Ah Xing, sometimes the more reliable a crew seems, the more bizarre things can happen..."

Sister Dao admonished him once again, "Never open the door for anyone at night, whether it's a female artist or a male artist. If anything comes up, have Xiao Nan talk to me at any time..."

At the end of the call, Sister Dao added, "You must also keep your distance from those two resource-backed actresses to avoid getting dragged into any unnecessary trouble."

"Alright, Sister Dao, you don't have to deliberately remind me every single time. I know what I'm doing."

Lin Xing was left somewhat amused and exasperated. "I won't give anyone an opening."

"I believe you on that, but Ah Xing, you have to realize that some artists are willing to go to any lengths to become famous," Sister Dao said earnestly. "So being careful never hurts."

On this point, Lin Xing did agree.

After chatting briefly, Sister Dao brought up the promotional campaign for "Portrait Night Homicide". She believed that while the current promotional efforts had some effect, they failed to spark much interest among the general audience.

In addition, data showed that Lin Xing was the number one associated keyword for "Portrait Homicide".

Eighty percent of the people who clicked on the trending searches for "Portrait Homicide" did so because of Lin Xing, ten percent out of curiosity, and the remaining ten percent were pure passersby.

"The prediction for 'Portrait Homicide' is ninety percent flop, and one percent lukewarm—slightly better than a flop," Sister Dao analyzed rationally. "Big data doesn't lie, Ah Xing. You need to mentally prepare yourself. There will probably be a lot of people fiercely slamming you when the time comes."

"It doesn't matter."

Lin Xing waved his hand slightly and said, "The ones truly slamming me fiercely will probably just be some anti-fans. Passersby will criticize at most a couple of times, and it will blow over in a few days. No need to pay it too much mind. Besides, big data doesn't lie, but big data is artificial intelligence, not actual humans..."

If big data were really that accurate, there wouldn't be so many failed dramas, let's not even mention so many counter-attack hits.

Not to mention how Panda Video relied on big data analysis to determine which shows were worth investing in and which were not, ultimately turning into a laughingstock in the year 2023.

Data was ultimately just a reference.

To predict a show's failure without having read a single page of the script, relying solely on the cast, director, screenwriter, and a few promotional trailers—or even like Tencent Video, which read the script but failed to understand it deeply—

Lin Xing felt that such big data was far too broad.

It was probably no better than fortune-telling.

He might not understand other dramas, but when it came to "Portrait Homicide", Lin Xing did not believe in fortune-telling big data.

The next day, March 20th.

"Bad Child" officially commenced filming.

The launching ceremony could not be described as crude, but rather low-key.

There were no media reporters present at the scene, only the creative team of "Bad Child".

After completing the set of rituals, everyone gathered together for a group photo.

"Wishing 'Bad Child' a great start to filming!"

Everyone shouted loudly while holding up a banner.

At the launching ceremony, Lin Xing did spot Tong Jing and Dong Xia.

Because Tong Jing was playing his wife in the series, Lin Xing observed her a bit more closely. He had already checked her resume beforehand.

Ever since her debut, she had basically been playing minor roles. Her resources had improved significantly the year before last, starting to land third and second female lead roles, and she was gradually becoming familiar to audiences.

"Teacher Lin, hello. Please give me your guidance moving forward."

After the launching ceremony, Tong Jing actively walked up to Lin Xing, extended her hand, and said.

"Teacher Tong, you're too polite. Let's make progress together."

Lin Xing reached out, shook hands with Tong Jing lightly, and quickly let go.

A sweet smile still lingered on Tong Jing's face. "Alright, let's progress together."

Following the ceremony, everyone moved together into a studio set up temporarily. Aside from the studio space itself, there were areas designed for indoor shooting.

For instance, the mountain-climbing scenes would basically be completed right here.

They could just use post-production effects later.

"I have already understood my character thoroughly. I think this week of script workshops is a complete waste of time..."

On the other side, Dong Xia spoke indifferently to Lan Lei, "Director, just call me when my scenes officially start shooting."

Lan Lei replied, "Teacher Dong, the thing is, because your character undergoes a rather significant transformation from start to finish, we want to see if we can find a better way to portray it during the script reading. I think..."

"Director, are you teaching me how to act?"

Dong Xia interrupted suddenly.

Lan Lei: "??"

"I started acting when I was 16. Before that, I had also done a lot of commercials. Since I was 10, I've known how to face the camera and how to better showcase the charm of my character..."

Dong Xia said with a hint of detachment, "My acting doesn't need anyone to teach it."

With that, Dong Xia glanced at her watch and said, "I have things to do. Call me in advance when it's time to shoot my scenes."

Damn it!

Watching Dong Xia just turn around and leave right after saying that, Lan Lei couldn't help but curse out loud.

Standing not far away and witnessing this scene, Lin Xing was also somewhat dumbfounded.

Are resource-backed actors really this arrogant??

"Dong Xia has always had a bad temper," Tong Jing said from the side. "She is a very self-centered person."

Lin Xing glanced at Tong Jing without saying much.

Film crews were naturally a mixed bag, and Sister Dao was right about one thing: the smaller the crew, the more petty drama there was likely to be.

To think that a crew like "Bad Child" managed to gather two resource-backed actresses in one place. It seemed Tong Jing, at least on the surface, maintained basic decorum, whereas Dong Xia didn't care about giving face at all.

And Dong Xia truly meant what she said.

During the week-long script workshop, almost all the actors of "Bad Child" participated. In order to make the filming go even smoother, Lan Lei even specially invited some extra actors to come and listen in.

Not only that, Kong Tian genuinely set up a private acting training session. He didn't just coach the three young actors; Kong Tian even tutored some of the other minor actors as well.

Through this week of script reading, Lin Xing came to understand Lan Lei's working style.

A standard detail-obsessed control freak.

Lan Lei would mark out every single scene prior to filming and bring up scenes that required improvisational performance during the script workshops to discuss them with everyone.

Specifically, how should it be filmed to achieve the best effect?

One had to know that sometimes a script might only contain two lines of dialogue, but as an actor, the task was to perform those two lines realistically and well, or even improvise on the spot.

Sometimes, this was the true meaning of a script workshop.

While Lin Xing was staying with the "Bad Child" crew for script readings, online promotions regarding "Portrait Homicide" gradually gained a small wave of momentum.

However, what was truly popular online at the moment was the upcoming episode of "Tonight's Drama Show".

"It's about to air soon. I checked out the trailer, and it looks really good."

"Yeah, three different casts actually appeared on 'Tonight's Drama Show' together, and they all feature people I like."

"Who's to say otherwise? Though personally, among all those people, the one I like the most is actually Zhao Yining."

...

Currently, there were only three days left until the broadcast of "Tonight's Drama Show", three days until the premiere of "Portrait Homicide", four days until the premiere of "Good Men Aren't Easy", and four days until the premiere of "The Correct Way to Open Independence".

The three production crews appeared on "Tonight's Drama Show" together, and coincidentally, the premiere dates of their respective shows were quite close to one another.

Over these past few days, the show promoting itself with full firepower was "The Correct Way to Open Independence". It constantly stayed entrenched on the trending searches, and the topics were all currently trending buzzwords.

Subjects ranged from full-time housewives, independent women striving for success, so-called scumbag remarks, to child-rearing debates and so on.

You didn't even need to spend money to buy trending searches for such topics; as long as you threw out a topic, people would naturally discuss it.

For instance, today's trending topic was: "My husband domestic-abused me, should I have a second child to lock down his heart?"

This topic captured the essence of clickbait headlines to perfection.

Yet, in the trailer for "The Correct Way to Open Independence", there was precisely the line: "Women cannot lock down a man's heart by giving birth to children."

If you told anyone this wasn't pre-arranged, who the hell would believe it?

Very often, behind male-female debates on Weibo lay a battle for traffic and interests, with most people simply seeking to exploit that traffic.

Regarding this, Lin Xing had advised Ma Wen never to use such controversial topics to promote the show.

Promoting a drama through gender confrontation was the most likely to backfire.

"Portrait Homicide" dealt quite a bit with women's issues, but it took a neutral standpoint rather than opening with extreme statements like "One hundred percent of men are criminals."

That kind of extreme rhetoric would only alienate passersby.

Because when ordinary viewers watched a drama, they usually didn't want to engage in internet flame wars; they just wanted to discuss the plot, and if certain plots resonated with them, they might even recommend the show to others.

It was all much more moderate.

Only anti-fans and fanbases engaged in head-on clashes.

For example, when "Portrait Homicide" wrapped up filming, some people claimed the show was bound to bomb, and at the time, someone declared that if the show didn't bomb, they would stream themselves doing a handstand and defecating.

Sometimes, the more extreme such remarks were, the more traction they actually gained.

And lo and behold, that same 'Trash Xing' who uttered those words back then acted almost like an upgraded version of Old Wang 2.0, pulling a stunt identical to what Old Wang did during "Anti-Crime Storm".

...

...

(End of this chapter)