The Heartbeats of the Hidden Actors Chapter 71

Ethan Smith feels that, as a director, Nathan Drake is much more tired than Oliver Brooks and the others...

He wants to control everything!

After the location scouting, Director Zuo first chose the Zhenbeibao Western Film Studio for the exterior setting. It is located in Yinchuan City, based on the two abandoned forts in Zhenbeibao where soldiers were stationed in ancient times. It contains the Ming City, Qing City, Cultural Revolution Compound and other areas, and is often used to shoot films and TV series with the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the Republic of China and the Cultural Revolution as the background. The crew of "Seeing Yu Meili Again" will mainly use the "Cultural Revolution Compound", which has everything from the "big canteen", "criticism platform" and "model stage".

The scenes before the Cultural Revolution were mainly interior scenes, which were relatively simple. As for the fireworks field where Yu Meili was reformed through labor in 1983, Nathan Drake chose a real fireworks manufacturing company. The CEO was afraid of delaying production at first and disagreed. Nathan Drake treated him to ten drinks before he finally got the deal. However, the CEO’s favorite drink was not wine, but milk tea. The crew did not meet him in a big hotel, but in a dessert shop. It was Nathan Drake’s words "a fireworks manufacturing company is not a scene provider, but a story participant" that moved the milk tea CEO.

Then, Nathan Drake drew detailed pictures of eight main scenes, including the square, school, public toilet, street, barber shop, bathhouse, and fireworks factory, which set the tone for the whole film. And because he was an architect, Nathan Drake drew the floor plan, elevation, section, and renderings of the eight main scenes, which were very spectacular. Art director Juan drew hundreds of design drawings of various exterior and interior scenes based on Nathan Drake's drawings, all of which were faithful to the director's original concept.