The Best Actor Insists On Living With Me!
Chapter 895: 886: Missing the Mark (6)

Chapter 895: Chapter 886: Missing the Mark (6)

As soon as they started discussing work, Xia Siyu was quite pleased: “Look.”

She sat up slightly and flexed her biceps. Surprisingly, there was indeed a small bulge forming.

Originally, Xia Siyu practiced boxing, but it was for her health and weight loss, as well as to vent her emotions. However, while filming this time, she didn’t specifically train her muscles, yet felt her physique getting stronger by the day.

Although action films demand high standards, after all, Xia Siyu didn’t come from a professional martial arts background, and learning these skills was tough. But now she found joy in it; although it was hard work, she didn’t feel it as a burden, but rather as enjoyment.

If she performed well in a take, she felt happy even without the director’s praise. It’s like solving a math problem; after wracking your brains to solve a difficult question, you feel elated, and you look forward to tackling even more challenging ones in the future.

The difficulty of future shoots will only increase, and the content on the last day should be the scene where Zhang Fan gets injured from fighting on a suspended stairway, culminating in a leap.

This scene is also the climax of the entire movie. The male and female leads work together to locate the lair of the mastermind behind the scenes, and during the arrest, they face a desperate resistance; a traitor in their midst turns against them, with the enemy’s firepower being too fierce, leading to a narrow escape.

This plot requires a blend of fiction and reality, and part of it is filmed with a green screen in the studio. But the most crucial part needs to be shot on location.

Director Ji always believes in filming on location wherever possible, to use actors themselves rather than stunt doubles, and to use Weiya (wirework) as little as possible, aiming for authenticity. Xia Siyu was aware of the risks, especially since Zhang Fan had already been injured. But she still wanted to give it a try.

Of course, everything still depends on the specific circumstances that day. If Siyu can’t perform the actions well, it would be perfectly reasonable to use a stunt double.

But with Bo Yan by her side, she wanted to act a bit spoiled: “When will you finish shooting?”

After thinking for a moment, Bo Yan replied: “About half a month left for me.”

He was shooting a detective film set in an urban environment, which also involved some action but focused more on the process of solving the mystery. He joined the crew later than Xia Siyu, but such films, if the acting goes smoothly, are likely to wrap up earlier than Xia Siyu’s.

Xia Siyu further inquired: “Half a month, is that really fifteen days? If you finish early, come keep me company. By the time I wrap up here, it will be just in time for the New Year.”

Director Ji is quite strict when it comes to action films, insisting some long takes be done in one shot without cuts. Especially for certain fighting scenes, while post-production editing and special effects can make them look cool, Director Ji prefers the authenticity of real martial arts scenes, which requires the actors to rehearse repeatedly, along with coordination of lighting, cinematography, props, and sets. Some fight scenes that seem a few minutes long may actually take an entire week to film.

Although such long takes have an element of showing off, it has to be admitted that this type of scene provided Xia Siyu with immense training. Her acting and martial arts skills improved dramatically in half a month, a process in the trade known as “feeding the performance”—the more you film and act, the faster you seem to improve, and the results were quite evident.

She initially committed to the film crew for two and a half months, roughly eighty days. But now it seems likely that the schedule will be extended. In any case, with the New Year approaching, she didn’t have any other long-term commitments apart from this one, and other projects would have to wait until after the New Year to start.