1RomanceEB Chapter 5: Art Exams
Chapter 5: Art Exams
In the days that followed, Liu Yu began a period of intense study.
I get up at 5:30 in the morning to memorize English words.
I left home at 6:30 to go to school, reciting classical Chinese poems on the way.
During the day, we attend classes, and after school, we stay at school to study until 9:30 PM. After returning home, we review until 11:00 PM.
I sleep less than six hours a day, and my phone is basically never turned on except to answer my mother's calls.
Mathematics was the most troublesome subject for him. In his previous life, he dropped out of high school in the first semester of his senior year, so he basically didn't learn any high school mathematics.
Functions, sequences, trigonometric functions, solid geometry... each term was like a blow to the head, making his head buzz.
He bought a book called "Five Years of College Entrance Examination and Three Years of Simulation" and started studying it from the beginning.
I can't solve this function problem.
I looked at the answer key and explanations, but I still couldn't understand them. I flipped through the textbook to find the concepts, but I still couldn't understand them. I tried doing more practice problems, but I still couldn't solve them.
"Damn it." Liu Yu threw down his pen, leaned back in his chair, and took a deep breath.
The bespectacled classmate next to Liu Yu told him his name was Lin Hao, and peeked at his draft paper: "Brother, your solution to this problem is wrong. You should differentiate it first."
"Differentiation?"
"Derivatives, didn't you learn them?"
"...Could you help me figure out where I went wrong?"
Lin Hao took the draft paper and quickly filled half a page with notes, each step clearly written.
Liu Yu stared at it three times before finally realizing what it meant.
"So that's how it is..." he murmured. "The derivative is the rate of change, and finding the derivative is calculating that rate of change..."
"Brother, your comprehension is amazing!" Lin Hao exclaimed sincerely. "When I explain a problem to someone, I have to explain it three times and they still can't understand."
Liu Yu thought to himself: Brother, I've been stuck on this problem for forty minutes. If you explain it to me once, I'll understand. It's not that I have a strong comprehension ability, it's that I've already endured more than forty minutes of suffering.
Learning is sometimes not a matter of intelligence, but a matter of whether you are willing to spend the time and whether you are willing to endure the hardship.
In his past life, he could close a big client in the time it takes to eat a meal, and he had never suffered the torment of "spending a whole morning on a single question".
He now discovers that this kind of torment is actually addictive.
The thrill of finally solving a problem is even greater than signing a big deal.
.......
Time flies, and it's early February 2002.
In the past two months, Liu Yu has lost weight, developed eye bags, and his eyes have become brighter.
In Lin Hao's words, "Brother, you're acting like someone who's about to take the college entrance exam."
"I've always been someone who's about to take the college entrance exam," Liu Yu patted his shoulder, "It's just that I'm two or three years behind others."
He had laid a solid foundation in academic subjects, and when the mock exam results came out, he ranked in the upper-middle range of his class; in the twenties, still some distance from the first-tier university admission line, but the gap was not large.
Chen Meizhen had a special talk with him: "Liu Yu, the speed of your progress is the first I've seen in my twenty years of teaching. If you had worked this hard two years earlier, I can't guarantee you'd get into Tsinghua or Peking University, but you'd definitely be in a 985 university."
Liu Yu smiled and said, "Teacher Chen, it's never too late for me to start working hard."
.....
In early February, the weather in Changsha was damp and cold, and the air was so humid you could wring water out of it.
Liu Yu, wrapped in his military green coat, stood at the entrance of the residential compound waiting for his mother's car.
Today, Zhang Yan is taking him to Hunan TV to find some producers who graduated from Beijing Film Academy to give him professional lessons.
"Do you know what the exam for film production majors is like?" Zhang Yan asked while driving.
"I know a little bit, but not systematically," Liu Yu honestly confessed. "The first test was on general knowledge of literature and art, film criticism, and film production. The second test was an interview to assess my overall qualities."
"Your Uncle Zhang helped me get in touch with a few graduates from the Taipei Film Academy, including producers and directors, all of whom have been working on the front lines for many years." Zhang Yan glanced at him. "They don't charge you money, but you have to be polite."
"Mom, when have I ever had a bad attitude?"
Zhang Yan didn't reply, but her expression clearly said: Are you sure you want me to say it?
Liu Yu had visited the Hunan TV building countless times in his previous life.
At that time, he was a high-end car dealer, and many hosts and directors at the station were his clients; he mainly relied on his mother's influence.
He Jiong, Wang Han, Long Danni, Hong Tao... he didn't miss any of these names, and he even ate, drank, and chatted with them.
It is now 2002. Some of these people have just become famous, some are still struggling at the grassroots level, and some haven't even entered the stage yet.
Zhang Yan led him into the building, greeted the receptionist, and went straight to the third floor.
A man in his thirties was waiting for them in the hallway. He was wearing a plaid shirt, black-rimmed glasses, and his hair was a bit messy. He looked like he had been dragged out of the editing room at the last minute.
"Sister Yan, you're here." The man greeted her with a smile, his eyes lighting up when he saw Liu Yu. "This is your son? He's quite handsome."
"Liu Yu, call him Uncle Zhang."
"Hello, Uncle Zhang." Liu Yu smiled and extended his hand to shake hands.
This man is Zhang Weiguang. He graduated from the Beijing Film Academy with a major in film production and now works at Hunan TV, where he is responsible for purchasing TV dramas and planning projects. He is one of the few professionally trained students at the station who truly understand film and television production.
"I heard from Sister Yan that you're going to apply to the Beijing Film Academy for film production?" Zhang Weiguang led him into the office, poured two cups of tea, and asked, "Do you know what film production entails?"
"I know, I'm working on projects."
Zhang Weiguang was stunned for a moment: "That's it?"
"From raising funds and assembling the team to overseeing filming and distribution, we manage the entire process. Simply put, a producer is like the CEO of a project."
Zhang Weiguang turned to look at Zhang Yan, as if to say: Your son really hasn't learned this?
Zhang Yan shrugged, her expression saying: I don't know where he learned that either.
Liu Yu chuckled inwardly: This is the advantage of a dimensional reduction attack.
For the next two hours, Zhang Weiguang explained the examination process and content for the film production major to him, including what the preliminary exam would test, how the final exam would be conducted, which knowledge points were required to be tested, and which pitfalls candidates were most likely to fall into.
Liu Yu listened attentively, his notebook filled with notes.
"...Finally, here's a piece of advice," Zhang Weiguang said. "During the interview, the interviewer will definitely ask you one question: Why did you choose film production as your major?"
"Besides 'because it's easy to get a job' and 'because my mom made me take the exam,' are there any other pitfalls?" Liu Yu asked.
Zhang Weiguang smiled and said, "Just don't say 'I want to date a celebrity.' The biggest fear for a film production major is admitting students with unrealistic expectations."
Liu Yu nodded: He wanted to be the person behind the stars.
.......
In 2002, there were no test centers in Changsha. If you wanted to take the Beijing Film Academy entrance exam, you had to fly to Beijing.
Liu Yu checked and found that there were only four test centers nationwide: Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, and Guangzhou.
Students from Hunan either go to Guangzhou or Beijing.
Liu Yu chose BJ without hesitation, after all, it's the main campus of Beijing Film Academy, and he might be able to scout it out and find out the way before the exam.
He knew in his heart that his family had already made arrangements for this exam. His Uncle Zhang had asked someone to speak to the department, and as long as he didn't score too badly, there shouldn't be any problems.
But Liu Yu didn't dare to relax.
It wasn't because he was nervous, but because he felt he couldn't afford to lose face. The relationship had already been built up to this extent; if he failed the written test or gave irrelevant answers in the interview, it wouldn't just be him who lost face, but his mother's face, Uncle Zhang's face, and the reputation of the entire Hunan TV station.
Moreover, he was a businessman in his previous life and understood one principle best: relationships are the key to getting things done, but once you throw out the key, you have to be able to walk through the door yourself.
If the door is open but you can't cross the threshold, then don't blame the threshold for being too high.
He recalled a director saying something during a drinking session in 2010, a year in his previous life: "Anyone with even a little bit of connections who wants to apply to art school dares to give it a shot. Those without money or connections basically can't even get into the preliminary round."
This is a blunt statement, but it's true.
The path of art has never been prepared for children from poor families.
Tuition fees are expensive, training is expensive, equipment is expensive, and connections are even more expensive.
So many kids are scrambling to study art, but only a handful actually succeed. It's not because they don't work hard enough; it's because the ceiling of this industry can't be broken through by hard work alone.
This isn't a question of fairness or unfairness; it's reality.
Fortunately, in this life, he has both inherited his family's resources and his memories from his previous life.
……
On February 16, the plane landed at Beijing Capital International Airport at 2 p.m.
February in Beijing is crisp and cold, unlike the damp and bone-chilling cold of Changsha. It's a dry, biting cold, and the wind feels like razor blades on your face.
Liu Yu hailed a taxi and headed straight for a hotel near the Beijing Film Academy.
He had looked it up online beforehand. There was a hotel called "Jimen Hotel" next to the Beijing Film Academy, less than a ten-minute walk from the school, where many art students stayed.
Liu Yu booked a single room for 120 yuan a night, which was not cheap in 2002, but it didn't matter to him; his demobilization pay was basically useless, and with the 20,000 yuan his mother gave him before he left, he was quite well-off.
After checking in, he went to scout out the location.
Then he returned to the hotel and went over the material for the upcoming exam in his mind again.
He was fairly well-prepared for the three subjects: general knowledge of literature and art, film criticism, and general knowledge of film production.
Zhang Weiguang compiled nearly three years' worth of exam questions for him, and he also borrowed several copies of the magazine "Contemporary Cinema" from the library and repeatedly studied the film reviews in it.
Film reviews, frankly speaking, are all about following a set formula.
College entrance exam essays are written as "I think", while film reviews are written as "the director thinks".
You have to put yourself in the creator's shoes and analyze the camera language, narrative structure, and character development, instead of just saying "good" or "bad" like an ordinary viewer.
Liu Yu wrote down the twelve-character mnemonic that Zhang Weiguang had taught him on the title page of his notebook: Observe the structure, analyze the techniques, evaluate the value, and find the shortcomings.
We'll find out tomorrow whether this trick works or not.