After Being Dumped by the Film Empress, My Acting Skills Soared - Chapter 23

Chapter 23

The storms raging on the internet could not reach this small county.

Although the local aunties and uncles loved pulling the crew members aside to film short videos, they had a sense of propriety. Knowing that this was someone’s professional work, they generally kept their distance, content to watch from afar. Since it didn’t interfere with the filming schedule, Mo Yu turned a blind eye.

Finally, the relentless rain stopped, and the sun poked its head through the clouds. According to the locals, barring any accidents, the next half-month would be nothing but clear skies.

Mo Yu crawled out of bed early in the morning and opened the window. It was cloudless and vast.

“We start today!”

The director made the call, and the entire crew kicked into high gear.

As for the official posters, Mo Yu always preferred to take those on the day the actors wrapped their final scenes. She believed that by then, the actors would have fully inhabited their roles, making their emotions more authentic and rich.

Mo Yu’s filming style differed from many directors; she followed neither chronological nor reverse order. It usually depended on her mood—if she woke up with a specific vision for a certain scene, that’s what they shot. She had been this way since her school days, and now that she had “protectors” in the industry, she was even more “arrogant and willful.”

Jiang Yan often joked: “If you didn’t have someone protecting you when you debuted, you probably would have been beaten up by now. With those harsh filming conditions and your constant scowling, how else would you survive in this circle?”

“I only scowl at bad acting,” Mo Yu defended herself. “When have I ever given a hard time to an actor with good skills?”

“Me,” Jiang Yan pointed to herself righteously. “Have you never yelled at me?”

Mo Yu rolled her eyes.

Fortunately, while Mo Yu jumped around the timeline, she usually shot related chunks of the story over several consecutive days. This allowed the actors to stay in the zone without the exhaustion of switching between “mid-movie” and “early-movie” mindsets every single day.

Before the cameras rolled, Mo Yu had a habit of “blocking”—the actors would walk through their positions for a scene and run through their lines before officially starting.

Today’s shoot focused on the characters’ youth. The “Good Student” (Wen Jing) was bullying the “Mute Girl” (Shao Niannian), using her as an errand girl. The scene involved a long, continuous shot between the two leads.

In the scene, the Good Student, frustrated by her schoolwork, drags Niannian from her seat to the girls’ restroom to demand money. When the Mute Girl cries that she has none, the Good Student reaches into Niannian’s clothes to pinch her skin painfully. Then, she orders her to be quiet, tosses five yuan at her, and demands she go to the school canteen to buy bread—completely ignoring that class is about to start.

The Good Student laughs maliciously, threatening that if the Mute Girl doesn’t obey, she’ll be left entirely alone.

“You’re a freak in this school anyway. Even if you died today, no one would notice you were gone tomorrow. Because you’re too quiet. A mute who can’t speak…”

The long shot was centered on the Mute Girl: hiding in the stall after the bully leaves to inspect her wounds, walking through the corridors from the canteen back to class, and finally facing the mockery and punishment of a teacher.

The camera language needed to be subtle yet expressive, showing how the Mute Girl’s hatred for the Good Student was accumulating day by day.

After a week of Mo Yu’s “role-playing” game, Niannian had adapted to the physical constraints of her character—staying silent. However, during that week, for the sake of daily convenience, her emotions had begun to show more clearly on her face. Compared to the Mute Girl’s suppressed nature, Niannian was still learning how to mask her expressions.

“This part has to be one continuous take, so while we’re blocking, if you have any ideas or details, speak up immediately. As long as it fits the character, we can use it,” Mo Yu said, nodding to the two leads now dressed in school uniforms. “Understand?”

“Understood,” Wen Jing said, but she quickly frowned. “Shouldn’t my hair be a bit messier? Even as a good student, this is a science class in the afternoon. If every strand is perfect, it doesn’t fit my image of a stressed student.”

Jiang Yan, standing by as the acting coach, narrowed her eyes—as if she had finally caught Wen Jing being sensible. Perhaps her gaze was too blunt, because Wen Jing glared back, refusing to back down.

“I feel my look is too clean as well,” Shao Niannian added. “The bullying wouldn’t just happen in the afternoon; it would be all day. Since they’re in the same class, the Good Student would lay hands on her constantly. This makeup is too tidy; I don’t look like someone who is being oppressed.”

Niannian had wanted to say this during the makeup session, but she had been worried it was Mo Yu’s specific instruction. Now she realized the makeup artist simply hadn’t understood the depth of the role.

“That’s a small fix. Anything else?” Mo Yu asked.

Niannian felt a bit nervous. “I don’t think the Mute Girl is just a submissive character. She often pretends to please people just to survive. At home, she pleases the parents who want to abandon her; at school, she pleases the only girl who ‘plays’ with her; later, she pleases her husband. But she never truly submits. In her years of plotting, she calculates against everyone she ever groveled to. So, after being bullied, she wouldn’t just endure it silently.”

Niannian used her script to gesture toward her waist. “What if she uses a knife or water to ‘clean’ the places where she was touched, almost self-harmingly? Wouldn’t that be better than just looking at the wound?”

Mo Yu thought for a moment. “That’s viable. Let’s try it. If it doesn’t work, we can go back to the original plan.”

“We could try a small knife,” Niannian said seriously. “Does the crew have a folding knife or a utility knife? A utility knife feels more like something a student would have.”

“That’s a great concept,” Mo Yu’s eyes brightened. “It makes the character much more concrete.”

Niannian’s thoughts sparked an idea for Wen Jing as well. “In that case, I shouldn’t always call you ‘Jiang Yi’ (the character’s name). I should be two-faced. In public, I call you Jiang Yi, but behind people’s backs, I call you ‘Dead Mute’ or other insulting terms. It fits my character’s hypocrisy.”

The results of the discussion were noted down, ready to be tested one by one to see which combination would be most striking.

Jiang Yan didn’t say a word through the whole process—mostly because she couldn’t find an opening. Niannian and Wen Jing were surprisingly in sync; in their shared progress of dissecting their roles, they had made significant strides.

However, this newfound rapport made Jiang Yan feel slightly… uncomfortable.

Only for a fleeting moment. The thought was scattered by the wind in the next second.

Standing beside Niannian, Jiang Yan looked down and saw her holding her script with one hand while writing meticulously with the other. Every stroke of the pen was incredibly straight and neat.

No matter how she looked at it, it looked like a child’s handwriting.