Chapter 459: A New Idea on That Day
Coming to this unfamiliar country, Yu Linna wanted to fully experience its customs. When Maria said she could help her arrange a meeting with a great director and a great screenwriter, she was very excited. The world was so big. She wanted to walk around, to meet more people.
The film culture in England was also quite developed. Many English directors had gone to Hollywood to develop, and all had had impressive results. For example, the famous English directors Nolan and Powell were both famous figures in Hollywood. Yu Linna had dreamed of meeting these great figures, but she had never had the chance. If she had a chance, she would really like to meet them.
But England also had other great directors and great screenwriters. Under Maria’s introduction, Yu Linna had entered a company to meet the great figures of this country. In the crew, she had met a very young screenwriter, a white young man. This young man had even tried to chat her up when he had first met her.
“Hello, girl. It’s nice to meet you. You’re so beautiful. Your eyes are like jewels. Are your parents jewel collectors?”
“Thank you. My name is Yu Linna, a writer from China. I’m here today to visit the set.”
“Really? You’re Chinese? You don’t look like it. By the way, your Chinese name sounds a little awkward… Yu? Alright, I’ll just call you that. My name is Arthur George Miller. You can call me Arthur.”
“Alright.”
Although he was an enthusiastic young man, he was not bad-looking. Anyway, her first impression was not that bad. Perhaps because she also had European blood in her, she was not that repulsed by the English.
Arthur was a new screenwriter in the crew, very young, and had just entered this industry. Everything was new to him. His goal was to become the most amazing screenwriter in all of England. He was a very thoughtful young man.
But he had just joined this crew, so naturally he couldn’t completely control the script. There were also several screenwriters, and he was just one of them. The screenwriters of an ordinary movie script were usually a few people. It was no exception in England. A screenwriter like Yu Linna, who controlled the script alone, was actually very rare.
And Yu Linna was also a novelist. With two identities here, it was indeed quite rare.
“Hey, Miller! What are you doing! The scene is about to be filmed!”
“Sorry, sorry, Mr. Heston. I’ll be right there.”
Yu Linna watched this young man leave in a fluster. She couldn’t help but shake her head. Although this young man was a few years older than her, he didn’t seem to be steady enough. Maria took her for a tour of the crew, getting to know the actors. Yu Linna did not deliberately hide her identity as coming from China. It was just that everyone was very surprised, because she looked no different from an English or American person.
Yu Linna met the director and had a conversation with her. They had their own opinions on the view of the story.
“If it were me, I would have the protagonist hold the female lead during the fire and have a passionate kiss.”
“Don’t you think that’s a bit too romantic? No, that’s not good. The male protagonist should have failed to grab the female lead’s hand on the roof, and then the female lead would have fallen down, and the male protagonist would have lost her forever.”
“You girl are simply outrageous! Why do you have such thoughts in your head!”
“But this ending will leave a very deep impression.”
“NoNoNo, that’s not good. A literary ending, although it’s great, but you have to handle this ending reasonably, and the foreshadowing has to be appropriate. You can’t let people be too out of character. Forcing the female lead to die will only ruin the movie’s reputation. This is not called literature. This is called forcing a death. You’ll know when you see the outcome of The Amazing Spider-Man 2.”
Yu Linna was very happy to be able to talk so enthusiastically on this topic. The director was also a good person. It had been a long time since Yu Linna had discussed something with someone for so long. And the thinking of the English was indeed quite different from the Chinese. In their thinking, they seemed to prefer romance a little more, while the Chinese were very reserved, and their feelings also had a sense of artistic conception.
Yu Linna still wanted to continue to have a conversation, but the screenwriters in the crew didn’t seem to be very good. There were too few who could understand her thoughts. Just take the script that this young man, Arthur, had created. In Yu Linna’s opinion, it was really not very good, purely a newcomer’s level, and there were also loopholes in the plot.
“Arthur, your third act script, isn’t it a bit strange? Why let the female lead cry? I admit you want to make the female lead’s scene look a little miserable, but isn’t this turn a bit too forced?”
“Yu, you’re hurting my feelings by saying that. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with what I wrote.”
The director noticed the conversation between Yu Linna and Arthur and also went to look at this so-called problematic script. Although it was a very small part, a careful look showed that it was indeed a bit forced. He thought for a moment.
“Yu, you think, how would it be better for it to develop here?” he pointed to a certain place in the script and asked Yu Linna.
“Although it might not be of much use for me to say it. But I personally feel that since you want to make the female lead’s performance in front of the camera a little more miserable, it’s also possible not to cry. Just let her smile.”
“Smile?”
“Yes. Think about it. When the female lead is very sad, facing the greetings of her friends and family, for her to cry at this time, or to force herself to face her relatives with a smile, and then to stare at an empty wine glass afterwards, which one would have more of a sense of imagery?”
“That does make a bit of sense.”
Perhaps this was the so-called Eastern way of thinking. Director Heston thought.
With the English way of thinking, they were still used to being direct, or to using angry emotions to express a character’s image. As for what Yu Linna had said, to force herself to smile, to stare at an empty wine glass, this way of thinking belonged to the Eastern way of thinking. Westerners would rarely be able to relate to this kind of feeling.
Director Heston had Arthur revise this part according to Yu Linna’s suggestion, but at this time he also had other ideas.
“Miss Yu, I have a suggestion for you. You can try to write a script.”
“What kind of script?”
“Of course, a script in your own style. You are very good at writing sentimental stories, and also good at grasping the emotions of characters. Just now you asked me which was better, a tragic ending or a happy ending. I think what suits you is what’s best. If you’re interested after you go back, I suggest you write a script yourself, not to follow the mainstream market, but just to purely express your own personal artistic work.”
A personal artistic work? This, Yu Linna had really never thought of.
For a script to be able to rise to an artistic level, this was something she had really never thought of. When she had first started to write a script, she had also just written a commercial script according to the mainstream market. The subsequent scripts and novels she had written were mostly written according to the market. For a period of time, she had insisted on her own dark style and had written a work like Demon Child. Of course, the reputation had collapsed, and the readers were not willing to accept it, directly pulling her career down to its lowest point.
When Director Heston had talked to her about this, she was also thinking about the possibility of this matter.
“Shion-sensei, how was your talk? It’s about time we went back.”
“Alright, Maria.”
Yu Linna saw that it was about time and thought it was time to go back. There were still many places to go in England. She still wanted to continue to walk around.
“By the way, Miss Yu, besides being a scriptwriter, you seem to also be a novelist?”
Director Heston, holding a large pipe, called out to her as she was about to leave. For some reason, he just felt that this little girl was very congenial and had a lot to talk about in many places.
“Yes, I am also a novelist in China. My pen name is Shion.”
After saying this, Yu Linna said goodbye to this director and left the crew with Maria. On the contrary, Director Heston was very attentive to what Yu Linna had said. He finished his cigarette, and during a break, he used his phone to Google search for the pen name that Yu Linna had mentioned, but there was no information about this person online.
It was no wonder. The name Shion-sensei was not famous in Europe, and its fame was also extremely low. How could he possibly know?
The troubled Heston was conflicted for a few days after that. Then, by a chance, he had met a friend who worked at the Royal Periodical Society, and his friend had mentioned this person, Shion-sensei, to him. Heston had listened to her story with great interest. His friend had also shown him the novels that Shion-sensei had serialized in China.
Ballad of the Enchantress, Zixuan and the Paper Airplane, and Dawn Assassin, these novels were all in Chinese, with no English. Heston couldn’t understand Chinese and found it hard to understand. Although his friend had told him the general plot, he hadn’t been very interested.
Until his friend had introduced Yu Linna’s former work of bad reputation, Demon Child.
“Wait, Flaming, how does this story sound so much like Superman?”
“I don’t know about that. I hear it’s a story about an anti-hero. The protagonist is a copy of the Superman template, just that the story is relatively dark. And the length is not much, and it was also cut short in China.”
“Is there an English version? I’m a little interested in seeing it.”
“I don’t recommend you read it, really. This novel didn’t sell very well in China. It’s really, particularly bad.”
“Stop with the nonsense. Quick, translate it for me. I want to see it. Anyway, it’s only four volumes. I’ll come to your house every morning from now on. I’ll listen to you talk before I go to the set.”
“Oh, my god. You must be crazy.”
At that time, no one knew that a brand new story would begin. Everyone had thought it was a coincidence. In fact, the result was already destined in the midst of it all. It was just that no one had noticed.
…
Yu Linna’s trip in England was still continuing. After that, she had returned to the hotel, had watched English videotapes, had watched many movies. Although she was not used to watching movies without subtitles, fortunately, she could understand English, so it was not difficult. After that, she had also read a large number of English novels, which had enriched her brain.
In Edinburgh, Yu Linna had been to many places, had bought a lot of things, and had also bought a gift for Ye Zhiyun, a necklace with a red diamond on it. She wanted to give it to Ye Zhiyun when she got back.
Thinking of how she would look when she got back, she smiled again. Until now, she still felt that Ye Zhiyun would show her a smile, and would be as good to her as before. She had always thought so, and would continue to think so in the future.
She walked on the streets of Edinburgh. Her footprints were left here, and had slowly disappeared.
