69novels Chapter 55 "The Plot" Comes Knocking
Chapter 55 "The Plot" Comes Knocking
Late April 2005, Beijing.
The willow catkins flying everywhere created a unique April snow in the air.
The morning sunlight streamed through the slightly old wooden window of the Literature Department office at Beijing Film Academy, illuminating the desk piled high with manuscripts.
Liu Yibing held a proof that had not yet been officially printed, his brows furrowed in a frown.
On the sofa opposite him sat a middle-aged man with a worried look on his face; that was Director Wu of the Sichuan Provincial Film Studio.
"Old Liu, this really can't be delayed any longer. You know Mai Jia's temper; he's the kind of person who treats words like his lifeblood. His writing in 'Listening to the Wind' is indeed very skillful, like poetry. But that's precisely its problem—it's too much like poetry!"
Factory Director Wu sighed, not even bothering to brush the cigarette ash that had fallen onto his knees.
"Filming started at the Chedun Film and Television Base in Shanghai at the end of last year. The scenes for 'Catching the Wind' and 'Watching the Wind' were filmed there first. Now the crew has moved to Dayi County, Sichuan Province, and is filming the 'Listening to the Wind' segment about the blind man Abing. As a result, the script revisions for this segment have completely stalled."
He stubbed out his cigarette, his voice even more bitter: "Director Liu Yunlong spent half a year negotiating with Mai Jia, and the two of them were holding back their energy."
Mai Jia felt that Liu Yunlong couldn't capture the soul-stirring resonance in his writing, while Liu Yunlong felt that the long monologues and descriptions of scenery in the script couldn't be conveyed through the camera.
As the executive producer and co-writer, Yang Jian was caught in the middle, suffering from both sides, and his hair almost turned white from worry.
Originally, the director and Mai Jia disagreed on their ideas, so no one took over. They finally found a brave man, but now they're stuck here—the crew's daily expenses are a huge burden, they can't afford to delay any longer!
Liu Yibing remained silent; he understood the contradictions all too well.
In this era where the director-centric system still retains its lingering influence, the power struggle between screenwriters and directors often ends in a mess. He opened the proof, and the pages exuded a chilling and solitary quality unique to spy fiction.
"I do have a suitable candidate here. He's returning to his country today and should arrive soon."
"Master, go to the film academy, take the loop road."
The car radio was playing "Mice Love Rice," a simple yet catchy melody. The driver skillfully shifted gears and started the car, muttering under his breath:
"These willow catkins are more annoying than snow."
Lin Ruiyang looked out the window at the shadows of the alleyways not yet completely obscured by tall buildings, and at the Super Girl posters everywhere. The driver, speaking in a Beijing accent, commented:
"Wow, these girls are really crazy. I saw a group of them in Xidan yesterday, holding up signs and yelling..."
Lin Ruiyang leaned back in the not-so-soft back seat, and the tension he felt in Hollywood finally relaxed completely in the familiar atmosphere of everyday life.
His first thought upon returning was to go straight to the school and see his teacher.
In this era, he knew that his first stop after returning to China would be interpreted in countless ways by media outlets with noses more sensitive than dogs.
But he doesn't want to worry about that now. When a student returns from a long journey, the first thing he should do is go back to school to see his teachers. That's the right thing to do.
The car stopped at the entrance of Beijing Film Academy, and Lin Ruiyang, dragging his suitcase and dressed in simple casual clothes, walked into the campus.
At that time, the Beijing Film Academy did not have the glitz and glamour of later generations, where stars emerged every three steps. Instead, it was filled with students carrying drawing boards and musical instruments, hurrying by.
Occasionally, someone would recognize him, but they would only gasp in surprise or whisper excitedly; no one would crowd around him.
He walked straight to the familiar teaching building of the Literature Department and came to office 301, whose door always seemed to be half-open.
"Knock knock—"
"Enter."
As I pushed open the door, a familiar scholarly atmosphere mingled with a faint aroma of tea wafted towards me.
"Teacher, I'm back."
As soon as Lin Ruiyang entered, he spotted the middle-aged man on the sofa with a worried expression.
When Liu Yibing saw him, a smile finally appeared on his face, and he waved for him to sit down.
"Ruiyang, let me introduce you. This is Director Wu of the Sichuan Provincial Film Studio. This is my prized student, Lin Ruiyang."
Factory Director Wu's eyes lit up, and he stood up somewhat hastily.
He had heard of Lin Ruiyang's reputation; he was not only a literary talent but had also recently caused quite a stir in Hollywood.
Liu Yibing took a dark red notebook out of the drawer and handed it to Lin Ruiyang: "Don't be so polite, take this first. It's your membership card from the Drama Association. We just finished the process and got it for you a while ago. Now you're considered a creator within the system."
Lin Ruiyang flipped open the ID card and looked at his slightly immature ID photo and the bright red seal. A warm feeling welled up in his heart.
After carefully putting away my membership card, all the words I wanted to say ultimately boiled down to one sentence: "Thank you, teacher."
"Alright, stop getting sentimental with me." Liu Yibing then pushed the thick stack of manuscripts of "The Plot" in front of him.
"This is Mai Jia's work. Director Wu and his team encountered a bottleneck; it's too literary and too difficult to adapt into a film or television series." Liu Yibing pointed to the script.
"Look, if it were you, how would you handle this scalpel?"
Lin Ruiyang opened the script, his gaze quickly sweeping over the elegant yet somewhat verbose parallel sentences. In this era, the domestic television drama industry is undergoing a delicate period of transformation.
On television screens in 2005, the most popular shows were those featuring tough, heroic characters like "Bright Sword" and those with meticulous reasoning like "The Great Song Dynasty Forensic Examiner".
Spy dramas, on the other hand, are still stuck in the relatively traditional narrative framework of shows like "Silent Oath".
Mai Jia's "The Plot" is undoubtedly ahead of its time. It carries a morbid beauty of genius, portraying the intellectual contest between the two sides as a fateful battle hidden behind radio waves.
"This section of 'Listening to the Wind' is too scattered," Lin Ruiyang said after watching for a while, directly pointing out the core issue.
"Mr. Mai Jia put his heart into writing the character of Ah Bing, but what the director needed was rhythm."
Television dramas aren't essays; viewers can't wait for long stretches of descriptive writing and inner monologues. This is especially true in the first part, which is crucial for grabbing the audience's attention. If the first episode fails to engage the viewer, even the best-made subsequent seasons will be wasted.
Factory Director Wu nodded repeatedly, "Yes, yes, yes! That's what Liu Yunlong said too, but Mai Jia wouldn't allow any changes. He said if we changed it, it wouldn't have the same feel."
Lin Ruiyang didn't rush to continue.
He flipped back a few pages of the script, rereading the description of Ah Bing entering the listening room. Mai Jia used over a thousand words to describe the light and shadow, the dust, and the expression on Ah Bing's face, even the crawling trail of the gecko on the windowsill.
The writing is beautiful, but when it comes to the storyboard, this scene can only be shot from three cameras at most, and the shots will only last for ten seconds or so.
"Director Wu, the problem isn't with the writing, is it?" Lin Ruiyang closed the script.
"The problem is that Mai Jia considers himself the only audience member for this play."
Upon hearing this, Factory Director Wu was stunned. Liu Yibing's hand, which was holding a teacup, paused for a moment, then he revealed a satisfied smile.
"Mr. Mai Jia wrote about the Abing in his heart, not the Abing that Liu Yunlong could film, nor the Abing that the audience could understand." Lin Ruiyang put the script back on the table and tapped the cover lightly with his fingertips.
"The rhythm that Director Liu wanted and the flavor that Teacher Mai Jia wanted had actually been tacitly combined in 'Catching the Wind' and 'Watching the Wind.' It's just that in the 'Listening to the Wind' segment, the two of them returned to their own positions, and no one acted as a translator."
"Then how do we solve this?" Factory Director Wu unconsciously leaned forward.
"Structure." Lin Ruiyang picked up a pen, drew a horizontal line in the blank space of the script's title page, and then placed three dots on the line.
"The structure of the story 'Listening to the Wind' itself is fine—how can a blind man find the enemy's radio station by ear? This is a natural suspense. The problem lies in the pacing."
He wrote the word "suspense" next to the first point, "The build-up before A Bing's appearance was too long. Teacher Mai Jia wanted to use the environment and atmosphere to create momentum, which is fine, but the method needs to be adjusted."
We can't make the audience wait three episodes before seeing Ah Bing enter Bureau 701; that's the pacing of the novel, not the TV series. Ah Bing's ears must be put to use for the first time before the end of the first episode.
He then wrote the word "props" next to the second dot, "The special thing about the character Ah Bing is that he is blind."
A novel can describe his inner thoughts at length, but a TV series needs to use props and actions to externalize them, such as his ears moving, the radio he touched, or him tapping the table with one finger to distinguish sounds.
These details were in the original script, but they were buried in long passages of text; we need to extract them and place them in the foreground.
He wrote a word next to the third dot: line.
"Finally, and most importantly, 'Listening to the Wind' is not just about Abing's story; it also has a hidden thread: the trust between An Zaitian and Abing."
This storyline was half-buried in the script by Mai Jia's writing, so we had to retrieve it. It wasn't through dialogue saying "I trust you," but through action: when everyone was questioning A Bing, An Zaitian stood in front of A Bing.
Factory Director Wu's expression changed from confusion to excitement. He stared at the rough sketch on the title page of the script, as if he could see those scattered beads being strung together one by one by an invisible thread.
"Director Lin, you mean...?"
"What I mean is, this chapter doesn't need to be scrapped and rewritten. Mai Jia's writing skills are its greatest asset, but someone needs to help him transform that asset into productivity."
Lin Ruiyang put down his pen.
"Bing's storyline places the character relationships upfront, allowing the audience to know who he is and what he's going to do in the first episode;
Two-thirds of the stream-of-consciousness inner monologues were cut, and emotions were conveyed through props and details;
The thread of trust between An Zaitian and A Bing must run throughout, becoming the rope that connects all the fragments.
Factory Director Wu stared at the densely drawn sketch on the table. The three hastily circled keywords and several intersecting structural lines suddenly gave shape to the predicament that had left him at a loss just minutes before.
He'd seen good screenwriters revise scripts before, but this was the first time he'd ever seen someone untangle a tangled mess into three separate threads in just a few words, each clearly labeled with its destination.