Chapter 69: Striking While the Iron Is Hot

Gu Cheng spent half a month managing his business at home, and in his spare moments even finished recording an album. With the Lantern Festival now past, it was about time for him to return to Taiwan and resume filming.

During this period, the restless Chen Tianqiao was, unsurprisingly, settled by Gu Cheng, and the two sides finally signed a cooperation contract on electronic payments. Chen Tianqiao promised that Shengda would pay Legendary Entertainment three million in development fees in installments before April 1st, in exchange for a modified recharge software that would allow “Dragon Tribe” players to make online payments.

Legendary Entertainment, on their part, promised not to provide this recharge system to any third-party online games before the end of 2001. Otherwise, they would compensate Shengda three million in return.

After signing the contract, Gu Cheng felt secretly delighted, thinking that Chen Tianqiao was practically handing him money. Given the narrow regional audience of “Dragon Tribe,” even with this system, annual sales might only increase by ten or twenty million, and most of the gross profit would still be made for Gu Cheng’s benefit.

Moreover, this deal had bought his recharge system a window of roughly half a year. At least for the first half of 2001, no domestic competitors would dream of “creating another fixed MAC address version of Alipay.” By the time six months had passed, the online game payment market and even the broader virtual goods market would have been thoroughly staked out by Legendary Entertainment, leaving little room for others to enter. In Gu Cheng’s mind, that gain was far more significant than making a bit more money from games.

On February 8th, Gu Cheng flew to Taiwan, joined the crew on schedule, and brought along the final installment of investment for “Meteor Garden.”

Producer Chai Zhiping, pleased by the investment, greeted Gu Cheng with a broad smile and, together with Director Cai, hosted a banquet for the entire crew. The atmosphere on set was harmonious.

The next day marked the official resumption of filming.

After everyone burned incense for good luck, Chai Zhiping encouraged them, “Let’s work a bit harder! Push through for another twenty days, try to finish the last eight episodes by the end of the month, and next month we’ll be on air!”

From Gu Cheng to Vic Zhou, from Xu Xiyuan to Jerry Lin, everyone was full of energy, riding the momentum of the new year and throwing themselves completely into the shoot.

The crew had long grown accustomed to Gu Cheng’s broad knowledge and rapid progress, but even after just half a month apart, he seemed to have matured further. Many improvements that had previously felt like the superficial absorption of a sponge were now, after some self-reflection and sorting during his leisure at home, far more refined.

If last year Gu Cheng’s acting was on par with a top student freshly graduated from the Beijing Film Academy, now it was as if he had magically gained another two or three years of on-set experience.

Only Gu Cheng himself knew that it was the inertia of his deeply ingrained auxiliary learning system at work.

Every time he acted, he could “see” in his mind overlays like, “Situational memory – crying, proficiency 85%, basically able to cry on cue,” or “Prevent breaking axis/crossing axis spatial awareness, proficiency 75%.”

Every time, he could spot his shortcomings, compare with selected excellent films, identify the details, and systematically correct them. Particularly with objectively measurable skills that traditional art students often struggled with due to weak science backgrounds or poor spatial imagination, Gu Cheng found himself progressing with remarkable ease.

As a result, not only was his own performance highly praised within the crew, but working with him made things much smoother for his co-actors as well.

For instance, they had reached episode twenty, which included a scene where Hua Ze Lei and Dao Ming Si play basketball, competing for Shancai’s attention.

This sequence was originally just a chance for the two male leads to show off and showcase some camaraderie.

Because it involved intense movement, the issue of crossing the axis in filming was inevitable. To address this, the cinematographer set up several cameras: one for wide shots, two for medium pans, and two for close-ups following Dao Ming Si and Hua Ze Lei’s faces.

Yet, even with five cameras rolling, when the footage was developed and reviewed for editing that night, Director Cai still found the axis-crossing severe and was at a loss for how to cut the scene.

Crossing the axis, put simply, means that when several shots are stitched together, the relative motion onscreen doesn't line up for the audience, as if the action isn’t happening along the same line.

For example, in a running scene, if the camera is on the right side of the track, the actors will be seen running from left to right. If you suddenly cut to a camera on the opposite side, and the actors are running from right to left, the audience will feel spatially disoriented. The proper technique is to insert a bridging shot, from the front or back, to prevent the axis from flipping suddenly.

That was exactly the problem Director Cai was facing. Editing late into the night, he couldn’t help but scold the cinematographer, “Old Yang, this footage is unusable—way too chaotic. Why not cut down on all the fancy angles? Just shoot it like a Japanese drama running scene, two or three cameras straight through.”

The cinematographer covered his face, “This is a basketball game! It’s not handled like a running scene. In those, people only care about the pace. If I use a wide shot, there’s no crossing the axis. But in basketball, we need to highlight the details of the players’ moves and facial expressions, so close-ups are a must. Five cameras are already the minimum.”

Director Cai sighed, knowing the cinematographer was right. “But with this method, the more I edit, the more lost the audience will be. I doubt we can even clearly show which side is attacking or defending. Maybe you should write a camera movement script like you did for the car scene, tell everyone which close-up is for which camera, and we’ll reshoot tomorrow.”

He wasn’t wrong. Without Gu Cheng, “Meteor Garden” in history did film that basketball scene with abysmal motion, turning it into a childish chat rather than real competition.

All the audience remembered was that Hua Ze Lei and Dao Ming Si looked cool showing off their skills—otherwise, just one impression remained: chaos.

The cinematographer complained, “You know it’s not that I don’t want to. The problem is, how can those rookies handle such advanced acting? Once they start playing, it’s already tough to keep their movements and expressions in shape, let alone expect them to face Camera A for a few seconds, then switch to a 45-degree angle toward Camera B. That’s impossible. You’ll just have to make do.”

Director Cai, unwilling to give up, spoke to Chai Zhiping, who agreed to bring it up with the team and give it a try the next day.

The following day, everyone was called back to the basketball court to reshoot the scene.

Director Cai brought out a camera movement script and instructed Gu Cheng, Jerry Yan, Vic Zhou, and Xu Xiyuan, “Yesterday’s footage turned out terrible—if I edit it, it either crosses the axis badly, or if it doesn’t, you can’t see anyone’s face. Today, let’s study this script. Everyone, get familiar with which way your body and face should be oriented for each action.”

After he finished, producer Chai Zhiping added, “Don’t push yourselves. If it’s really too hard, let it go. This scene is expensive—five cameras at once means five times the film stock, and most will end up on the cutting room floor. If you can’t manage it, let’s not waste the film.”

Jerry Yan and Vic Zhou felt immense pressure. One botched shot here could waste as much film as five takes of a regular single-camera scene.

Everyone looked to Gu Cheng: he was the one funding the project; if he didn’t mind wasting more film, then they’d just have to spend more time.

Gu Cheng took the camera script and studied it for fifteen minutes, envisioning the relative movement from a bird’s-eye view in his mind.

Then, under everyone’s gaze, he spoke, “How about this? I think we should try a digital dry run first.”

“Alright, let’s try it—it won’t waste any film,” the cinematographer said, shrugging.

“Wait, I’m not done,” Gu Cheng drew everyone’s attention back. He continued, “When we shoot, follow the movement script and have a stagehand stand behind the main camera holding a small red flag, so the actors on court can see which camera they should be playing to. I’ll use my experience to judge when the performance is about to cross the axis. If I feel my spatial sense is approaching the axis, I’ll add a gesture while dribbling—for example, if I normally dribble with my wrist, when I sense we’re near the axis, I’ll swing my whole arm. The stagehand, following the script, will then move behind the next main camera with the flag, so everyone can face the new camera. How does that sound?”

“How… how does that sound?” The cinematographer stared for a long moment, “You’re asking me? I’ve got no problem—if we can shoot like that, I’d be thrilled. The question is, can you nail the timing?”

Ordinarily, issues like crossing the axis aren’t the actor’s concern—they’re for the director and cinematographer to handle. The actor just needs to stay in frame.

Yet, there are some veteran masters who, when a camera cut is coming, can cue the crew with a small gesture. The cinematographer sees this cue and knows to focus on the next camera; the editor recognizes it as a cutting point. Working with such veterans makes the process smooth and enjoyable.

The trouble is, in the domestic TV industry at the time, only actors of the caliber of Chen Daoming or Tang Guoqiang could pull this off. Even Takeshi Kaneshiro would need another seven or eight years of grinding to approach this skill.

Now Gu Cheng claimed to possess such strong spatial imagination and a “god’s-eye view”—it was no wonder Director Cai and the cinematographer were surprised.

Director Cai, skeptical, nudged Gu Cheng with his elbow, “Hey, are you sure you can do this?”

“It’s not like we’re wasting film—let’s give it a try,” Gu Cheng replied casually.

“Alright, let’s go once,” said the cinematographer, and instructed the crew to prepare five small red flags.

“ACTION!”

At the clapboard, Gu Cheng, in the role of Hua Ze Lei, began dribbling, dodging, and shooting, always angling toward the camera with the red flag behind it. After feinting past Dao Ming Si and sensing he was about to cross the axis, he dramatically widened his dribble.

The stagehand at Camera 2 watched his cue, hesitated for half a second, and when Gu Cheng repeated the gesture, finally raised the flag behind Camera 2.

The other actors turned slightly toward the new camera, ensuring the main angle could capture their faces. Their movements were a bit awkward and unpracticed, not nearly as smooth as Gu Cheng’s, but still much better than the previous chaos.

Then came the second, third, and fourth camera switches.

Director Cai exhaled in relief, his eyes growing wider by the second.

In all his years directing idol dramas, he had never seen a veteran actor command the cameras to prevent axis jumps using “first-person perspective.”

This was “Meteor Garden,” not “Kangxi Dynasty” or “The Long March”—how could such a master, with such powerful spatial expression, have appeared here?

“Excellent! Let’s do it just like this! Load the film stock—let’s shoot while we’re still hot!”