“Director Xu? Director Xu?”
Seeing Xu Ke freeze and not respond to him for a long time, Jiang Nian furrowed his brow, waved his hand in front of Xu Ke’s face, and called out to him while doing so.
Hearing this, Xu Ke finally snapped back to reality.
Then he looked at Jiang Nian, startled and uncertain, and asked, “What’s wrong?”
Jiang Nian felt a bit speechless and repeated himself: “I said, you’ve seen how these moves are. Unless I dislocate my own arm, there’s just no way to perform them. So, what do you think…”
“Change them. They absolutely have to be changed!”
Xu Ke decided immediately.
After witnessing Jiang Nian treat himself like a robot and casually pop his arm out of its socket just for a performance,
Xu Ke no longer had any objections or complaints whatsoever.
Whatever you say goes.
But still…
“How should we change them?” Xu Ke looked a bit troubled.
Fight choreography.
That’s the biggest selling point and core of any martial arts film.
Whether a martial arts film is good or not, whether it will sell well,
depends entirely on how exciting and eye-catching the fight scenes are.
If you film them well and the audience enjoys watching them, a slightly weak plot or stereotypical characters don’t really matter.
On the other hand, if the fight scenes aren’t good enough and don’t give the audience a thrilling feeling, no matter how profound the content is, it will get heavily criticized.
Therefore, designing the fight choreography has become a major challenge for martial arts films.
Not only does it have to fit the characters and the plot, but it also has to look good while being realistic enough to fool the audience into thinking it’s the real deal.
“What a headache!” Xu Ke rubbed his temples.
To be honest, he didn’t have a single clue right now. It was so sudden that his mind was completely muddled.
But a director is a director after all. He might not be the smartest person, but his ability to adapt on the fly is definitely top-notch.
Xu Ke thought of something, looked at Jiang Nian, and broke into a smile. “Um… Teacher Jiang, I’m a bit slow. I know we need to change things, but at this moment, I really don’t know where to start. Do you have any brilliant ideas?”
Hearing this, Jiang Nian didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he looked at Xu Ke and asked, “How do you want to change them?”
“Any way is fine, but if possible, it would be best if the moves could be a little more realistic, a little more aesthetically pleasing, and also…”
Xu Ke described his ideas to Jiang Nian.
Listening to him, Jiang Nian’s mouth twitched.
This old guy really didn’t treat him like an outsider. Asking him for ideas, and then he just rattles off so many demands without any hesitation.
What, does he think Jiang Nian is Doraemon or something?
Can make anything happen?
“Well, you guessed right!” Jiang Nian thought to himself.
With the memories of ‘Yu Huatian’, it’s no exaggeration to say that on this set, when it comes to anything related to acting, he really was a versatile Doraemon!
So, facing all kinds of demands from Xu Ke,
Jiang Nian only needed to close his eyes and think for a moment, and he had a clear idea in mind.
“How about I just demonstrate it for you directly?” Jiang Nian asked, looking at Xu Ke.
To this, Xu Ke naturally nodded repeatedly, saying it was fine.
After that, Jiang Nian called over the prop crew, got rigged up in a wire harness, and after being lifted into the air, he took a deep breath, focused his energy, and began his demonstration.
Watching Jiang Nian darting and weaving through the air with movements that were smooth, fluid, and extremely elegant,
for a moment, everyone was a bit dazed.
Not just because Jiang Nian had managed to figure out a whole routine in such a short time,
but also because they were astonished by his performance!
You see, this was supposed to be a chaotic battle scene set in the air.
When ordinary people film this, they often lose their sense of direction while filming, lose track of where the camera is, and the moment the shot switches, they practically vanish from the screen.
But what about Jiang Nian?
He never once left the camera’s frame. No matter which angle they switched to, not only could they still see him, but
the key point was, he alone managed to create the feeling of a chaotic brawl involving a whole group!
“Holy crap!”
Seeing this, Xu Ke couldn’t help but blurt out a curse, completely stunned.
Then, thinking of something, he frantically looked at the cameraman beside him and asked excitedly, “Did you get that? Did you get that?!”
“Huh?” The cameraman was startled. He stared blankly at Xu Ke. “Get what?”
Xu Ke, irritated, said, “Jiang Nian, of course! You didn’t not film him, did you?!”
The cameraman nodded with an innocent look on his face.
Seeing this, Xu Ke slapped his thigh hard, his face full of regret.
It’s no exaggeration to say that Jiang Nian’s camera sense and performance in that moment could be used as a textbook example, a benchmark for single-person chaotic fight scenes!
But they didn’t capture it!
This made Xu Ke feel like he’d lost a fortune!
And just as he was feeling regretful,
up in the air, as time passed, Jiang Nian finished his martial arts routine and was slowly lowered to the ground by the prop crew.
He thought that after such a cool performance, he’d get at least some applause, if not high praise.
But in reality, the set was completely silent.
Even Zhang Xinyu, who was usually the most energetic, just looked at him silently without saying a word.
This unusual reaction felt very strange to Jiang Nian.
He wondered, what’s going on?
He worked his butt off hanging from the wire for so long,
and you guys don’t react at all?
That’s really not showing much support!
Just as he was about to say something,
“Clap, clap, clap!”
“Clap, clap, clap!”
Suddenly, thunderous applause erupted.
Jiang Nian looked at everyone and saw them looking back at him with admiration on their faces.
Right, so they just had a delayed reaction.
Jiang Nian felt a little speechless.
Then he saw Xu Ke jogging up to him, his face full of excitement: “Teacher Jiang, those moves you just did…”
“Well? How did they feel?” Jiang Nian asked.
Xu Ke gave him a thumbs up and sighed sincerely: “Great! Really, really great! Easy to learn, gorgeous yet realistic, calm yet intense – absolutely perfect! It’s just…”
“Just what?” Jiang Nian asked with a light sound of surprise.
He honestly felt that this performance was already good enough; it met all the requirements Xu Ke had mentioned earlier.
“You’re not going to add even more demands for this scene, are you?” Jiang Nian asked.
Hearing this, Xu Ke shook his head: “No, no more demands. It’s just that what you just did was so amazing. We didn’t record it. Would it be possible for you, Teacher Jiang, to perform it one more time?”
What Xu Ke was thinking was that he wanted to record Jiang Nian’s textbook-worthy solo chaotic battle, where he essentially played multiple roles at once.
It would be great to use later as behind-the-scenes footage for promotion or just to keep as a memento.
But Jiang Nian was thinking it wasn’t really necessary.
After all, this wasn’t his movie. He was just helping out because he had some free time.
Now that he’d helped,
Jiang Nian waved his hand and said:
“Another day. The priority right now is still filming the movie, right?”
“I’ll draw a rough sketch of the moves later. Just practice with that, and it should be fine.”
“There’s nothing too difficult about it.”
Jiang Nian casually made up an excuse to brush it off.
Hearing this, Xu Ke was a bit disappointed, but he knew he couldn’t force it, so he just nodded and said, “Alright, then we’ll have to trouble you, Teacher Jiang.”
Jiang Nian didn’t mind at all: “No trouble. It’s just something I did while I was at it.”
With that, he got some paper and a pen, leaned over the table, and started drawing.
