Today's article is quite special. It is not a big director or a big star. He is my college classmate.
He is not easy! He went to Hebei University in 2010. There was an exchange place in the foreign college. He went to Japan as an exchange student, and later went to Waseda University as a graduate student. Before graduating, he joined the crew of "Eight Hundred" . His name is Hesong, from Handan, Hebei.
You must be wondering, what's going on? A student hasn't graduated yet, why did he start filming with Director Guan Hu?
On the day that "Eight Hundred" was set, call my old classmate.
He was filming in a crew in Guangdong and was very busy. In this interview, we had two conversations before and after.
A complete review of his story with "Eight Hundred".
The first director (ID: diyidy) issued a business card called Hesong today. The official title of "Yao Bai" is the Japanese assistant director .
But he did more than that.
He joined the team from the early stage, worked as Guan Hu's assistant, then went to the studio to do the training of the Japanese army, and then went to the South Bank to arrange the scheduling of the group performance... We talked about many details.
"There is a senior general of the Japanese invasion army called Takeo Imai. His son is in his 80s, and I found him to investigate a lot of things."
"In the fund-raising scene, there were more than 2,000 people in the crowd. When many people were collecting donations, there were still people stealing things. There are such small details."
"Brother Hu patted and patted, and suddenly found that my grass and beard are all white, either all white, or too much white." It can be said that he repainted "Eight Hundred" from the other side. This is He Song's first play. The thing he learned the most from Guan Hu was to pay attention to people themselves. Because Brother Hu said: The reason why "Eight Hundred" is "hundred" is because of the "people" next to it .
01 Brother Hu said that I want to shoot "Yao Bai", will you come?
The thing I wanted to do most since I was a child was to be a director when I grew up and to be able to make movies. In 2009, I participated in the Beijing Film Academy's art examination. That year, I didn't recruit the director department. In order to be able to enter the director department of the Beijing Film Academy, I repeated it for another year, but I didn't pass the entrance examination in 2010. I came from a small area, and I remember that the examiner asked me such a question at the time, how long would it take to take the elevator from the first floor to the fifteenth floor, I said it might take five minutes.
The tallest house in our county is the teaching building of our high school. At that time, no one ever took the elevator, thinking that the door to the movie was closed for me. But that year my grades in the culture class were good. I was admitted to a good university in the province, Hebei University, and entered the School of Foreign Languages to study Japanese. Later, I was lucky enough to go to a Japanese university as an exchange student. Later, I went to Waseda University as a graduate student to study as a master student. (It is called a graduate student in China), and start a business while studying in Japan.
At that time, my grades were good, and I was still holding a scholarship. Then I started a jewelry business, and I stayed in Japan for five years. At that time, I was very comfortable in Japan, and I didn’t expect to be able to make movies.
In my third year in Japan, in April 2014, when the cherry blossoms were in full bloom, I met Director Gao Qunshu through Weibo. Director Gao Qunshu happened to be an alumnus of Hebei University .
That night, director Gao Qunshu said that he had a director friend who was also in Tokyo and asked if he wanted to drink together. He said the director had made "Bull Fight" and "Killing". I immediately reacted, I want to see Director Guan Hu.
On the day of drinking, at the Japanese izakaya next to Takadanobaba, I even took them on a walk to Takadanobaba in the early hours of the morning. This was the first time I met Brother Tiger.
On my way into the industry, director Gao Qunshu was my first and most important benefactor, and then my first film was with Brother Hu.
In 2015, they came to Tokyo for a medical examination . I brought Gao Qunshu, Guan Hu, Liang Jing, and their producer Wang Donghui to the medical examination. After drinking, Brother Hu told me that he was going to make a movie in the future, and you happened to be able to speak Japanese. come over? It was "Eight Hundred" at that time.
Around August 2016 , "Old Pao'er " participated in a unit of the Tokyo International Film Festival called China Film Week. At that time, I volunteered in it. Brother Hu told me that he was coming here, and I said I was there, so I took Brother Hu to play. Brother Hu said that I was going to shoot "Yao Bai". Come here, this is the second time that you have told me that I will go. At that time, I was a first-year graduate student in Waseda.
In the second year of graduate school, I took a leave of absence and returned to China.
02 100,000 business is not done, 5,000 yuan per month with the crew
I came back to Beijing on January 9, 2017. I came back in the first semester of the second year of graduate school and joined the group as a working assistant for Brother Hu.
At that time, I started a business in Japan and made jewelry. Later, when I was a graduate student, because I liked ramen, I opened two Japanese ramen restaurants in Xiamen with my friends. At that time, I made jewelry for more than 100,000 yuan a month.
But because of "Eight Hundred", I quickly went through the suspension procedures, and the jewelry business stopped working. I originally agreed to take a leave of absence, but I stayed on the "Yao Bai" crew for more than 15 months, and later dropped out of Waseda University. .
At that time, my parents thought that I was fine in Japan, and suddenly gave up everything, which was very incomprehensible.
And at that time, the salary of "Eight Hundred" was only 5,000 yuan, and my domestic expenses might be almost 20,000 yuan a month .
No way, "Eight Hundred" attracted me like magic, I burst into tears when I read the script for the first time. Brother Hu said that he has to do a lot of things related to Japan, including the collection of some historical materials and the sorting of materials.
Part of the preparatory work for "Eight Hundred" was done by me for Brother Hu. The preparatory work included the form of the Japanese army at that time, such as the reference of military uniforms and weapons, as well as the humanistic form of old Shanghai in the 1930s.
There was a high-ranking general of the Japanese army that invaded China, called Takeo Imai . When I was studying at Waseda University at the time, Takeo Imai's son, who was in his 80s, was also auditing some courses in Waseda. Later, I found him and researched a lot of things. Later, he also put us in touch with a Japanese military adviser.
The Japanese military advisor is called Hasebe Hiroyuki. We have trained Japanese soldiers together for about a few months. In addition to the basic military essentials, there are also aspects such as formations.
When it comes to the Japanese military training in "Eight Hundred", such as the posture of the Japanese holding the 38 guns, the average height of the Japanese at that time was about 1.55 meters, and the length of the 38 guns was higher than these people. In domestic film and television dramas, it is wrong for the Japanese to hold 38 guns with a bayonet, or without a bayonet, with the muzzle pointing downward. The Japanese must hold the gun with the muzzle pointing upwards, about 45 degrees . One is to avoid fire. After that, the soldiers who were lined up in front were hurt. Second, it had a lot to do with their height.
During the early preparations, I also did some data collection work for the director, such as how to reflect the strength of the Japanese army at that time.
In one scene, Yang Huimin wrote a letter to the soldiers in the warehouse. I said that the Japanese are strong, they are strong spiritually. Although the Japanese were small at that time, their literacy rate was very high, while the Chinese literacy rate was very low .
Brother Hu listened to these suggestions, added these things, and the production also saved a lot of money. Thinking about these is still very happy, and I can show some of my ideas in the film.
03 Make a big scene, my character is getting worse and worse
Launched on September 9, 2017. Because the Japanese army did not have so many scenes, as the amount of scenes decreased, I couldn't let myself be idle in the crew. I went to work with Qiao Heping , the first executive director of "Eight Hundred", to do most of the large-scale work on the South Bank.
Everyone in the director's team has more experience than me. When filming "Yao Bai", they rehearsed the scheduling of the big scene on the South Bank with their passion and understanding of the script.
We are going to rehearse everyone's schedule, what everyone is going to do, what everyone thinks, and what is everyone's professional identity.
In the era of the Republic of China, there were many identities, such as shoe shiners and refugees. There were also many types of refugees. There were refugees who ran rickshaws, and there were also refugees such as bankers and capitalists.
What is the purpose of our rehearsal? We made these group performances look like people in the Republic of China in 1937 in the shortest possible time .
We will tell him a lot of things, of course, we will talk about what the Sixing warehouse is doing in advance. As the Chinese people of that era and your identity, what was our reaction to the Sino-Japanese War of the Four Elements Warehouse?
For example, in the fund-raising scene, there were more than 2,000 people in the crowd. When many people were raising funds, some people were stealing things. There were such small details. This is also a very normal thing for Chinese people.
For example, Fang Xingwen also had a very popular street drama in the street of the funeral, called "Put Your Whip Down" , which was requested by Tiger Gothic.
Details like this are numerous in "Eight Hundred". Because the appearance and appearance of the people in the Republic of China are actually different from ours, and there are many people, so our group performances are basically lined up , 50 people in a large team, 10 people in a small team, and if there are 1,000 people, we will only 20 brigade.
With so many teams, Master Qiao and Pingqiao went to do it. At first, I followed and learned, and then patted and patted, he did half of it, and I did half of it.
Later, my character became more and more bad. Because I had to control such a big scene, I was a freshman who just returned from Japan and became a grumpy uncle.
Thanks to the production team of "Eight Hundred" and director Guan Hu for creating a suitable rest space for thousands of group performances, as well as the logistics such as heating, because "Yao Bai" spans the winter.
Thanks to people from various departments in the crew, whether it is a scene of 1,000 people or a scene of 800 people, as long as an order is given, all the group performances will be in their places within a minute.
We had a long shot of holding a fundraising banner and walking from Back Street to Front Street.
There were almost 2,000 people on that day, 100 people per unit. What are we going to do?
For example, how many people are holding the flag, how many are the rickshaw teams in front, how many people are standing on the rickshaws and shouting slogans for fundraising, then how many people are bicycle teams, and finally the ordinary citizens holding the flags, there are a few every three or five, every one or every other. There are some of the two holding flags, and it is divided into several sides to rehearse. It is efficient and the picture will look good.
There were about 150 people upstairs, who spread leaflets on various floors, calling on everyone to raise money. Then there are those who throw things upstairs, all in one piece.
The working habits of Mr. Qiao and I are like this. We are used to arranging everyone's scheduling and arranging everyone's actions by ourselves. In the scene of throwing things upstairs, I ran up and down to arrange fundraising for each of them. I was exhausted.
Director Guan Hu has extremely high requirements for group performances, and hopes that they will enter the state as soon as possible and become a living person from all walks of life in the Republic of China in the 1930s.
What impresses me the most is that I think when the extras are truly devoted , they are more powerful than acting. They constitute all the background of this play, and there are real people in all the backgrounds.
04 After reading "Eight Hundred", I feel somewhat regretful
I recently worked as an executive director in a production crew in Guangdong, and it happened that our male lead was the old actor of "Yao Bai" - Mr. Jiang Wu. We talked a lot about "Yao Bai", and we all thought that this would be impossible for us in the future. experience again.
After the filming a few days ago, I invited dozens of colleagues from the crew to watch "Eight Hundred" together. After watching it, I felt a little regretful.
Part of the mustard gas scene was preserved. Some people jumped in the river and then some people climbed up from the boat. These materials were arranged by me.
It was a pity when the bridge was crossed at the end, the reaction of the people on the south bank was actually much less. There is also flag raising. The reaction to raising the flag was rehearsed a lot, but it was less in the final film. There is also a scene where the Japanese army goes to the south bank, because the old abacus played by Zhang Yi escaped to the south bank, and the Japanese army wanted people on the south bank.
When the Japanese came, they did not dare to go ashore when they confronted the British. I arranged for the Chinese to respond. Especially funny, the Chinese threw some fruits, vegetables and brooms at the Japanese, and finally made the Japanese angry.
The Japanese went directly ashore, and the Chinese ran in various ways. I designed a person who pushes a bicycle. Originally, he pushed the bicycle. When he saw the Japanese ashore, he threw the "bang" bicycle, and the person ran away. It's a pity that these things didn't survive.
And Ruan Jingtian's play. In 2012, the year I went abroad, many anti-Japanese demonstrations broke out in China . Some people drove Japanese cars and smashed Japanese cars.
Ruan Jingtian was also in such a scene. Ruan Jingtian spoke Japanese and said to the Japanese on the north shore, stop beating, stop beating these prisoners, stop beating the prisoners, you are violating the laws of war, and then Ethan Ruan was killed by the Chinese for speaking Japanese killed.
This game has not been preserved. This is actually some criticism of Brother Hu on the present.
05 There are some things you can't forget, and the four-line warehouse is one of them
Up to now, I have been an executive director one after another, and I have made some movies for some domestic directors. Although every play has some regrets, it is good to have a clear conscience.
Brother Hu and I lived opposite the door when we filmed "Yao Bai", and he was actually under a lot of pressure. Because I met Brother Hu when I was in college in 2014. At that time, Brother Hu was very young, really young.
Later, I patted and patted. In fact, during the New Year (2018 Spring Festival), I suddenly found that my grass and beard were all white, either all white or too much white .
His anxiety and pressure, I think the main reason is that he wants to present a particularly good story to the audience. When I first met him, he felt that young people today don't know about it.
Before the feature film, we actually had an interview, which asked the Chinese if they knew about Sixing Warehouse? Do you know Yao Bai Zhuang?
Unsurprisingly, many of the people interviewed did not remember this thing.
I think this is a sense of responsibility of Brother Hu, he wants to shoot this. There are some things you can forget, but there are some things you can't, and the Four Lines Warehouse is one of them .
Because some people can wake up, and some people can't wake up. Brother Hu wants to put these things here. If Brother Hu doesn't do this, it is estimated that there will be no other director who can bear such a lot of pressure to do it.
I hope that "Eight Hundred" will be seen by more people and let them remember that we have such a past. Brother Hu did this, it's awesome!
The thing I learned the most from Brother Hu is to pay attention to people. Brother Hu said that the reason why "Eight Hundred" is Bai is because of the people next to him .
Because it was my first play, I mainly went with a learning attitude, but thanks to my ability to learn quickly, I was able to help Brother Hu to do something.
I think this is the happiest thing for me, and it also proves that I may be suitable for this meal. After all, I really like movies.
Thanks to "Eight Hundred", director Guan Hu, and everyone who helped me.
Later, many people asked me whether I regretted dropping out from Waseda University to film "Yao Bai".
My answer will always be: I don't regret it, because participating in "Eight Hundred" is a supreme honor! ! !
( Interview, writing / Jun Wei )
* This article was first published on WeChat public account: the first director (ID: diyidy), welcome to pay attention.
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