CH 202 Cameo & Acting Yourself

Posted by NYXBIRD on SEPTEMBER 13, 2022

CH 202 Cameo & Acting Yourself

After leaving Longteng Entertainment, Tao Mu, who originally had plans to visit the set of “Fashion Storm”, was even more firm in his decision after Long Tianao’s phone call.

Because it was lunch break, all the cast and crew sat in the pre-built studio rest area to eat. Knowing that Tao Mu was coming, Long Tianao also instructed his assistant to go to the five-star hotel to order two more tables of dishes, which could be considered as extra meals for everyone.

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“You don’t have to be so polite. I can also eat a boxed lunch.” Tao Mu said with a smile. When he worked as a stand-in in H Town before, he couldn’t even eat the boxed lunches that the crew provided for the actors. He could only eat the communal meals that the crew had prepared for the group extras but he still survived.

“You can’t compare it that way.” Long Tianao disagreed with Tao Mu’s words: “It’s because we have suffered hard times before that we have to work hard. After earning money, we naturally have to enjoy ourselves, right? Otherwise, why do you work so hard? Why not just be a salted fish.”

Long Tianao’s mindset was that when he was a hedonistic playboy, he lived an indulgent life of luxury. Now that he was working hard to generate income for the family, his living conditions must be twice the better! Otherwise, he had worked hard in vain, and he might as well remain as an idle young master at home.

Tao Mu chuckled and thought that Long Tianao’s mindset was also quite interesting.

The director in charge of filming the weekly drama “Fashion Storm” was called Xiong Bao, a Taiwanese man who was over six feet tall and had big muscles. But when he spoke it was with the cutesy accent that was unique to Taiwan, and his inner heart was also very teenage pink. He was the most famous idol drama director and producer in Taiwan.

And he did not disappoint his famous reputation. At least two episodes of “Fashion Storm” have been broadcast, and the fact that it managed to reach the highest national audience rating of 3.5% for the ten o’clock evening slot was enough to prove that Director Xiong was indeed an impressive director.

And the most commendable thing about Director Xiong’s idol dramas was that he could dig out the most handsome, beautiful and attractive side of all actors and actresses. In other words, basically for every actor/actress who participated in Director Xiong’s idol drama, it became the drama that recorded the peak of their attractiveness.

With such a high aesthetic taste, Director Xiong was of course also appearance obsessed. When Long Tianao came to supervise the production, Director Xiong tried his best to persuade Long Tianao to play a cameo role. Now seeing Tao Mu’s overly perfect, 360-degree handsome face without any flaws to speak of, Director Xiong felt that he could hardly breathe.

“Is Mr. Tao interested in filming idol dramas?” Director Xiong sidled over with bright eyes, and examined Tao Mu’s face and figure with eyes that glowed a wolfish green. With his sharp eyes trained in idol dramas over the years, he was sure that Tao Mu must be physically fit and at least possessed six-pack abs. And there would also be beautiful dimples of Venus and a sexy Apollo’s belt hidden underneath.

Director Xiong tried his best to restrain his eager hands, and begged softly: “Mr. Tao, do you want to be in an idol drama? You are so good looking, it’s a pity not to do idol dramas. Just consider it as giving your fans a little benefit? And isn’t memorializing one’s most handsome appearance on the screen what all actors yearn for the most?”

“Mr. Tao, you must believe in my level of professionalism. I will definitely film the most handsome you and make you be the most popular new idol all over Asia, a superstar heavenly king. You know that beautiful boy group which caused a sensation in Asia in the past two years? The four of them were discovered by me. It’s because they participated in my idol drama that so many girls are able to see their most handsome and charming side.”

Tao Mu chuckled, shook his head and said, “Sorry, I’ve been too busy recently. And Beijing Film will start school soon. I have to go back to school to study, so I don’t have time to shoot TV dramas.”

Most importantly, Tao Mu was not interested in filming idol dramas. And Beijing Film would not allow students to take leave to shoot idol dramas.

“That doesn’t matter. Can Mr. Tao make a cameo appearance in “Fashion Storm”?” Director Xiong still didn’t give up, and asked eagerly: “Just play a cameo role as a domineering CEO. Mr. Tao, you will just be acting yourself. This is a drama you invested in, don’t you care about your own drama? I can guarantee that with your current popularity and influence, as long as you are willing to make a cameo appearance in the drama, the ratings of our drama will increase by at least two percentage points.”

“And don’t you want to promote your Second Sino-Japanese War drama? You make a cameo in our drama, and I will add a scene for you, saying that you, the domineering CEO of a film and television company, also invested in a Mainland war drama. The TV series is called, what was it called? Aiya, no matter what it is called. In short, the viewership rating of our drama is 3.5%. I’ll put an advertisement for you, and I promise the ratings of your war drama when it starts broadcasting will be more than 3 percent.”

When Director Xiong filmed idol dramas in Taiwan, he was often asked by sponsors to put in appearances of various brands. Director Xiong searched and racked his brains, and was always able to turn those commodities into indispensable props in the script. There were even a few direct advertisements that he managed to twist into classic scenes from the idol dramas. Therefore, this kind of thing for Director Xiong was simply as easy as pie. No need to think about it at all.

Hearing this, Tao Mu thoughtfully tapped the table with his fingers.

Long, fair fingers with pink, transparent, and delicately trimmed nails tapped casually on the tabletop while the incandescent lights of the studio poured down from overhead. Director Xiong’s eyes lit up, and he felt that he was now not only an appearance obsessed, but also hand obsessed.

“Just now I accidentally heard Mr. Long talking to you on the phone. You seem to have plans to hold a charity gala? In fact, we can also add this scene to the plot. Help to promote your charity gala.” Anyway, in the script there was also a charity gala plot point, which could be adjusted before being used.

Hearing this, Tao Mu’s tapping on the table stopped abruptly. His dark and clear eyes stared at Director Xiong. Those focused eyes actually gave Director Xiong an illusion of deep affection. And he couldn’t help but exclaim in his heart that Tao Mu’s physical appearance was indeed blessed by the heavens——he was simply a natural-born idol actor.

However, the words of such an affectionate idol seed were not so idolish at all: “Director Xiong seems to be very good at changing the script in regards to these minutiae details?”

Tao Mu raised his eyebrows slightly, and asked politely, “You don’t happen to want to turn my script into a commercial with more than 30 episodes, do you?”

Tao Mu vaguely remembered that this director seemed to have a background in filming commercials. Therefore, when filming idol dramas, he especially liked to attract sponsors. Then all kinds of hard and soft advertisements took turns being included in the drama. Therefore, although Xiong Bao’s idol dramas were very popular, it was often criticized by the industry as a carnival for sponsors.

Tao Mu didn’t want his meticulously planned business war idol script to end up becoming a classic example in the advertising industry.

Uh…..Director Xiong blinked his eyes, and explained with a strong desire to survive: “Haha, how is that possible. When Mr. Tao invited me to be the director of this drama, you clearly stated that it was not allowed to change the main plot line and the scenes of the main roles. I definitely won’t touch those vital points.”

But as Tao Mu said, the minor details were of course allowed to follow the sponsor’s ideas. This was also the best of both worlds.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Tao. Some of the changes I made were at the request of the sponsors to slightly change some lines. The main purpose is to strengthen the connection between the plot and reality and enhance the audience’s sense of immersion.”

After all, it was a weekly drama, and the advantage of filming and broadcasting at the same time was that you could keep up with current events. Especially in the fashion-related part, it was usually Director Xiong who communicates with the sponsor, and slightly modifies the details in the script to cater to the sponsor’s brand conference in reality.

For example, in the first two episodes of “Fashion Storm” before, there was a plot line where the heroine was a new model who was about to participate in a catwalk event for a new product launch under her agency’s introduction. As a result, she was framed by her colleague from the same agency and failed to arrive at the press conference in time.

And this press conference, after Director Xiong communicated with the brand owner, had become a new product launch conference that the brand owner would hold soon. Even the shooting venue was directly moved to the catwalk venue arranged by the brand owner. On the third day of the broadcast of the idol drama, the brand owner would hold their new product launch conference. The sense of immersion and blurring of reality and fiction was particularly strong.

And this kind of idol drama that cooperated closely with the fashion industry for publicity had also become the driving force for the industry to follow the drama. Many people in the industry, including those in the advertising world, began to study the drama to see if they could get some inspiration.

At present, this approach naturally had more pros than cons.

However, Tao Mu had always been thorough in his work, and liked to be careful and thoughtful. Hearing Director Xiong’s idea, although he felt that this approach could indeed expand the influence of “Fashion Storm” in the fashion industry and advertising industry, and increase publicity. But he still reminded: “In the later stage of the plot, when the heroine’s design is plagiarized. You want to use the mode of weekly dramas to keep up with the real hot spots in current events, this kind of idea is very good. But you must still pay attention to not cause dissatisfaction with sponsors. Don’t let the other party think that we are filming a drama that insinuates whichever real brand is suspected of plagiarizing.”

Xiong Bao’s nervousness eased, and he nodded again and again: “Don’t worry. I remember all these things, and I would never cause trouble to the crew.”

As Director Xiong spoke, he rubbed his sweat secretly. Don’t know why, but despite Mr. Tao being only nineteen years old this year, about the same age as his eldest son, when his expression became serious, he had a very severe aura. Causing Director Xiong to be so scared that he didn’t dare to breathe.

Director Xiong couldn’t explain it and could only attribute this aura to Tao Mu being a natural-born domineering CEO. Sighing inwardly that this business genius with a net worth of tens of billions was really different from a young actor with a salary of tens of thousands of yuan.

After deeply realizing the difference between the genuine domineering CEO and the imitation domineering CEO, Director Xiong’s idea of ​​making Tao Mu cameo as the domineering CEO in the drama became more and more uncontrollable. Even if he was frightened by Tao Mu’s serious expression just now, he still did not give up, “Mr. Tao, you really don’t want to make a cameo? Mr. Long will also make a cameo appearance.”

“If you really don’t have time, we can film your part during the weekend! It’s also a TV drama that you invested in yourself. You already did a cameo of two to three episodes for that Second Sino-Japanese War drama, so why is it that you have no time when it’s my request? Are you looking down on me? You can’t favor one over another…..”

Tao Mu looked at Xiong Bao, this big six foot plus man with a tearful expression in front of him, and felt goosebumps. He could only rub his arms and say helplessly, “Okay, okay, which role do you want me to play as a cameo? Show me the script.”

Although the main plot outline of “Fashion Storm” was provided by Tao Mu. But he really didn’t have the talent for scriptwriting. Therefore, the specific script refinement was completed by the most professional screenwriter team invited by BulletScreen.com. Tao Mu had casually looked it over once before, and thought it was quite good. But the impression was not deep. He just remembered that there were indeed several domineering CEOs——

Anyway, it was an idol drama after all, there was never a shortage of domineering CEOs and cinderellas.

Director Xiong heard Tao Mu finally agree, and immediately asked the script supervisor to bring the script over. He flipped to the middle of the script and pointed out a character for Tao Mu to see: “Here, it’s this character.”

Director Xiong shoved the script into Tao Mu’s hand, took out a thick notebook from his bag, and flipped it to a third part in. On the left was a pencil drawing of the cartoon character of the domineering CEO, and on the right was the character’s various settings, from name to blood type to height and hobby to the character’s background. The important experiences and mentality changes could also be said to be particularly detailed as well.

It could be seen that although Director Xiong had a hobby of casually pulling handsome guys and pretty ladies to play cameo roles, he was still very strict with the character’s setting and plot logic.

As expected of a man who could successively make famous new idol superstars who gain popularity all over Asia one after another!

Director Xiong pushed up the non-existent glasses on his nose and said solemnly: “Although I like Mr. Tao’s appearance very much. But for the sake of the quality of the whole drama, I hope Mr. Tao can study more about the role before the official shooting. Of course, I am very at ease with Mr. Tao’s sincerity and professionalism towards acting. I heard that in order to play the role of a drug addict, you even went to a drug rehab center to experience life and closely observe the daily behavior of addicts.”

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“The requirements of our idol drama are not so rigorous. You don’t need that kind of shocking tension in this cameo role. You just need to act as yourself and show off your handsomeness and aura.”

When Director Xiong talked about his area of expertise, his aura was suddenly different from that of the tearful big guy from just now: “A week. I’ll give you a week to prepare. Next Saturday we will shoot “Fashion Storm” episodes seven and eight. At that point, I need your best.”