Feature Shows Extravaganza - Chapter 15

Chapter 15: Hair Color Is The Key

Translator: Henyee Translations

Editor: Henyee Translations

Unlike the way he hired a lot of “mercenaries” for Blazing Teens, after Balala the Fairies was approved for shooting, Meng Lang didn’t choose to form an amateur crew again.

He was going to set up a feature show crew of his own!

With that, future projects such as Explosive Boys or the sequel of Blazing Teens could be handled by his own employees, enabling him to work on new projects at the same time.

If he were to do everything himself, he wouldn’t be able to make much good works, even if he worked himself to death.

A crudely made Blazing Teens alone had taken him almost half a year to complete. If all shows would take him that much time, he would only be able to shoot one series of Ultrman before he died.

That wouldn’t do!

He needed more hands! A lot of them!

He would need lighting operators, makeup artists, directors, producers — the whole shebang!

With one crew, he could work on one project. When he had 10 sets of crew members, he would be able to work on 10 projects at the same time! Only then could he empty the pockets of kids all over the world!

Balala the Fairies didn’t have a complicated storyline. Meng Lang hadn’t made a lot of feature shows before, but he had watched enough of them!

He had a clear idea of what show would be popular and what would fail miserably.

The storyline had to be simple and clear without any complicated settings or intriguing plots.

Mystifying things was a big no-no!

It was a feature show assisting the sales of its peripheral products, a.k.a. the toys, not to win the Academy Award!

Once that was figured out, the improvement on the script of Balala the Fairies was basically completed

…

“It’s a live-action TV feature show aiming at teenage girls and using magical transformation as a selling point!”

In the conference room of Pengda Pictures in Senhai Building, Meng Lang was explaining to the newly recruited members the details of Balala the Fairies with a PPT presentation.

The PPT slide showed a dreamlike European-styled castle.

“This is Fairy Castle! It’s a magical world led by the fairy queen and fairies are the only ones that can learn magic! A treasure is kept here and it’s called Colorful Fairy Stone!”

Meng Lang pressed a button on the remote control, switching to another slide, which showed the image of Blue Fairy, the main character.

“This is Blue Fairy, one of the main characters of the how! She’s a young fairy guarding the Colorful Fairy Stone in Fairy Castle!”

The slides played on, showing the illustration of a character with a ridiculous hairstyle.

“This is Moon Fairy, the dark fairy who has secretly learned the dark magic! She stole the Colorful Fairy Stone and hid herself in the human world! She’s the villain with an evil heart!”

With Meng Lang’s explanation, these experienced TV professionals, who had just been poached by Du Fang, began to have a general idea of the project.

There was some treasure in Fairy Castle. A dark fairy took it. The young fairy went out to search for the treasure. The two fairies started running around…

It really was a story for kids…

The storyline was simple and very fairytale-like.

Wang Kui, who had just joined Pengda Pictures as the artistic director, wrote down some bullet points on a piece of paper. After Meng Lang finished introducing the characters of Balala the Fairies, Wang Kui suddenly asked, “Director Meng, I have a question!”

“Please!” Meng Lang waved at him. “And you can call me Director or Boss, but not Director Meng.”

If he was to be Director Meng, what would his father be called when he came to visit?

Another Director Meng?

Once the way of addressing had been corrected, Wang Kui said, “I noticed the styles of the young fairies and the dark fairy…”

“You think it’s too extreme?” Meng Lang smiled.

Wang Kui nodded hesitantly.

The young fairies had shiny golden or blue hair, while the dark fairy had purple hair with an exaggerated hairstyle. Since they were all fairies, it didn’t make sense that their magic should have affected the color of their hair.

“This isn’t the first time the characters are differentiated by their hair colors. What’s so odd about that?”

Meng Lang explained. “The storyline is so simple that bringing in a complicated setting of good and evil characters would only have a negative effect. In order to tell the good from the bad, using different hair colors is the most effective way.”

And the difference wouldn’t be limited to the hair color. The makeup and costume would use the same strategy, too.

For instance, the makeup of the young fairies would be finer, while that of the dark fairy would be more glamorous. Costume wise, the young fairies would have bright colors, which could be anything from red and blue to green. As for the dark fairy, well her clothes would be the same color as her hair!

Movies and TV works needed to leave some room for the audience to think and they could afford more complicated plots. Correspondingly, the actors and actresses would have more space to show their acting, giving the works more depth.

Feature shows, mostly targeted children. They didn’t need to think over the story as much as adults did and the director could tell them who the good or bad guys were in a straightforward manner.

It was like with the Ultraman series. They created their villains with an overall costume, telling the audience that this was the monster that the just Ultraman needed to defeat!

If one were to create grey areas in a feature show so that the audience could have something to contemplate, the adults might have cried out “Classic!”, but the kids might have been bored, for they couldn’t even tell the good guy from the bad guy…

To make a feature show, the key lay in distinguishing the good from the bad.

Balala the Fairies did a great job in that. The ridiculous gothic/punk-ish hairstyle of the dark fairy set off nicely against the pretty, lovely outfits of the young fairies. One look and one could tell that the one with purple hair was up to no good!

Wang Kui had been on numerous TV productions before, but this was his first feature show.

He was a smart man. After Meng Lang’s explanation, he soon figured out where the interests lay and nodded in agreement.

“Blue Fairy is going to be played by a young adult?”

“If Meiqi and Meixue can be played by kids, why can’t Blue Fairy?”

That was a difficult question!

After some thought, Meng Lang replied. “Blue Fairy isn’t going to be the only character using an adult actress, many other supporting roles will be played by adults too, such as Prince Fun, the dark fairy Moon Fairy, and the fairy queen, etc. As a matter of fact, it’s essential that we introduce some adult roles into the show. Without them, this show would look like a bunch of kids hitting each other…”

That was a must-have for the design of the characters.

Blue Fairy came to the human world to become the mentor and guild in magic for Meiqi and Meixue, the young fairies. A role like this couldn’t be played by someone of the same age as the girls.

That wouldn’t be convincing!

The characters of the fairy queen, Prince Fun, and Moon Fairy were the same. They could use child actors and actresses for them, but that would mean that they would have to change the settings completely, which was unnecessary.

Meng Lang guessed that the original version had used adults for all supporting roles except for those playing Meiqi, Meixue, and Yan Lili, simply because child actors and actresses were hidden.

Hiring kids for a show was a tough job!

Especially when they had to play leading and support roles. They needed to be able to act!

And there were only a handful of kids who could actually do that.

Adult actors and actresses, on the other hand, could be found everywhere in Hengdian. That was why!