booktalesy Chapter 120
Chapter 120
Chapter 119
In mid-October, Mo's editing room was filled with footage of "Tales of Wonder".
Meanwhile, Jiabei called from Beijing, saying that Wang He had already asked three times—
They asked how many episodes the series would be edited into, when the final cut would be available, and when the price could be negotiated.
Luo Jinnian was not in a hurry to return to Beijing.
He missed a few days of schoolwork to catch up on his homework, and then found several test papers that Chu Qingning had collected for him over the past month in his desk drawer.
Chu Qingning drew various small patterns on the edges of the test papers with a pencil, including a simple sketch of a smiling cat and a little dragon squatting next to the scores.
When he flipped to the math test, he saw a simple line drawing of a figure wiping away tears next to the score of 88, with the caption: "No perfect score."
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Luo Jinnian smiled.
After school in the evening, the three of them walked home along the old street.
Chu Qingning walked on the left, Gu Yanxi on the right, and Luo Jinnian in the middle.
Gu Yanxi's bald head had grown a thin layer of stubble that felt a little prickly to the touch. She was wearing a baseball cap with the brim pulled low.
Chu Qingning asked Gu Yanxi when she could take off her hat, and she replied, "When she grows up and looks presentable."
Chu Qingning said, "It looks pretty good right now."
Gu Yanxi hummed in agreement, her voice a little softer than usual.
Luo Jinnian flew to Beijing over the weekend.
In the conference room of Early Spring Culture, Wang He and Dai Ying, the head of iQiyi's self-produced drama department, had been waiting for half the morning.
On the table lay a rough cut of the first two episodes of "Tales of the Strange". The frozen image on the screen was a group of children standing on a rooftop looking up at the sky, with a slowly moving light in the distance.
After watching these two episodes, Wang He asked a very practical question: "How much did this show cost? How much did you invest in the early stages?"
How much more will be needed later?
""
Director Qin announced a number.
Wang He didn't respond immediately, but Dai Ying spoke first: "This number is much higher than that of 'The Silent Truth'."
""
Luo Jinnian said, "But its market is also larger than 'The Silent Truth'—not just in China." Wang He's gaze lingered on his face for half a second longer.
The subsequent negotiations went more smoothly than Luo Jinnian had anticipated.
Wang He quoted a price: exclusive online broadcasting rights plus overseas distribution agency.
The current price is much higher than that of "The Silent Truth." He said something that seemed to set the tone: "Mist Theater needs this show. Your show also needs Mist Theater. We need each other."
After several more days of deliberation over the contract details, when it was finally finalized, Luo Jinnian read through the entire contract from beginning to end in his hotel room in Beijing. He didn't rush to sign it; instead, he first called Director Qin.
After confirming the terms, he signed his name on the last page of the contract.
The day after signing the contract, Luo Jinnian returned to his rented room in Zhanjiang.
The rough cut of "Tales of Wonder" has been sent over, and Wang He said, "We'll set a release date after the final cut is released; there's no rush." Luo Jinnian wasn't in a hurry; he knew the series needed some time for post-production to finalize the special effects and color grading.
The online discussion about "Final Destination" continues to grow.
On the forum, some people analyzed "Final Destination" and "Seven" together, saying that both works have a "judgmenter whose face cannot be seen"; some people started to share their own "survivor" experiences in the comments section.
Someone even wrote a short biography of Lin Shaoyuan, describing everything from his part-time job at the supermarket to his premonition of helplessness and isolation in the airport waiting area that day, and the deaths of those he had rescued one after another.
Luo Jinnian pulled out the sample copy of "Charlie IX" from his schoolbag.
The third volume has already been printed, and the cover features Mo Duoduo standing in front of an ancient city that has sunk to the bottom of the sea. Chu Qingning drew three versions of the cover sketches, and Luo Jinnian chose the current version.
He flipped through a few pages, recalling the invisible thread between "Tales of the Strange" and "Charlie IX"—two works representing opposites of the same world:
One uses fantastical adventures to convince children that courage and friendship can overcome anything, while the other uses the unspeakable unknown to tell grown-up children that the things they believed in as children may actually exist.
My phone lit up; it was a message from Zhao Bo: "The rough cut of 'Saw' is finished. Do you want to take a look?"
Luo Jinnian replied, "Send it to me." Half an hour later, a large attachment appeared in his email. He opened it to download, but the progress bar moved very slowly.
The trees outside the window swayed gently in the night breeze. He leaned back in his chair, waiting for the email to finish downloading.
So Luo Jinnian casually flipped through the third volume of "Charlie IX" again until the "download complete" message appeared.
He put the book on the table, turned on the media player, leaned back in his chair, and began to read.
The rough cut of "Saw" was cleaner than he had imagined.
Zhao Bo clearly spent a long time in the editing room, and the pace of the entire film was kept extremely tight, with almost no unnecessary frames.
In the opening scene where the two people wake up in the bathroom, Zhao Bo used a nearly two-minute long shot to follow Adam as he sits up from the floor. There were no cuts, no background music, only the sound of chains clanging and water droplets falling on the tiles.
The immersive feeling of the room draws you into the scene from the very first second.
In the scene where Luo Jinnian sees Gordon searching for a saw behind the wall, the lighting is extremely dark, and the audience can only see the outline of Gordon's fingers groping in the dark.
The moment the saw was taken out, the light shone precisely on its rusty teeth, creating a cold, gleaming effect. This shot was even better than Luo Jinnian had envisioned when writing the script.
After watching the whole film, Luo Jinnian picked up his phone and sent Zhao Bo a few words: "It's better than I thought. There are only two or three minor adjustments." Then he listed several specific modification suggestions, all at the frame level. For example, the duration of a certain shot could be shortened by more than ten frames, a certain sound effect could be suppressed a little, and the exposure of a certain close-up could be reduced by half a stop.
Luo Jinnian knew that Zhao Bo didn't need encouragement; he just needed to see the direction.
The later stages of "Tales of the Strange" were much slower than those of "Saw".
The amount of special effects was too large; the "upside-down world" texture couldn't be achieved through color grading alone, it required frame-by-frame processing.
Director Mo sends Luo Jinnian a progress report every week, sometimes a test clip of ten seconds or so, sometimes a full visual effects preview of a scene.
After watching it, Luo Jinnian would offer some suggestions, such as, "The light here is too cold; the inverted world should be warm," or "The boundary of that crack is too clear; it should be a bit blurry."
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Life goes on. Midterm exam results came out, and Luo Jinnian was still among the top students in her grade.
Chu Qingning scored two places higher than him, and Gu Yanxi's ranking improved significantly compared to the previous time.
During break, Li Haoran ran over to him and asked if Saw was going to be made into a movie. Luo Jinnian said, "I don't know."
.
Li Haoran said, "Could you ask someone at Early Spring Culture for me?"
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"I don't really know anyone from Early Spring Culture, but I can ask around for you—"
Chu Qingning's third collection of artwork is now complete.
During a break between classes, she showed Luo Jinnian the sketchbook drafts. The content was still about the daily life of the Laughing Cat: the Laughing Cat squatting on the eaves looking at the moon, and the Laughing Cat waiting for Tiger-Striped Cat under the ginkgo tree.
Luo Jinnian flipped through it and said, "It's all fine." Chu Qingning leaned over to look and saw a picture of a smiling cat sitting on a rooftop, looking into the distance with its tail hanging down behind it.
That day after class, the three of them walked home. The streetlights were already on, and the evening breeze was a bit cooler than before. Chu Qingning walked in front, while Luo Jinnian and Gu Yanxi walked side by side behind her.
Gu Yanxi's hair has grown quite a bit, and from a distance it looks like a boy's short haircut.
She didn't mention the National Day holiday again, but sometimes she would fall into a deep silence, and Luo Jinnian guessed that she was thinking about the drama.
On a weekend evening, Luo Jinnian received an email in her rented apartment.
The message was sent by Director Mo, with only two words in the title: "Release Date Set".
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The message was simple: the kiwi fruit order was for late December, around the New Year's period. The exact dates weren't finalized, but the general framework was there. Luo Jinnian replied with "Received," then marked the email as read and left it in her inbox.