On the day of the competition, all the participants started to do makeup at 6 o’clock in the evening. At 7:30 a.m., they stepped into the giant studio one after another.
The auditorium was surrounded on both sides and was densely packed with people. It was just like a concert site.
The feeling of being in the spotlight made people feel twice as nervous.
The four mentors sat down in the mentor seats. The special commentators were in place, and the whole venue was lively and noisy.
Xue Xiao sat in the participant seats. He stretched out his neck and looked hard.
He received the seat number from Zhang Chengyu last night. Unfortunately, the light over the audience was dim at this time. He couldn’t find anyone and had to give up.
His gaze swept over Shen Tingyan, who was sitting lazily in the mentor seats.
Xue Xiao watched silently for a while. Then once the other person returned his gaze, he was instantly fully charged. He curled up his lips and withdrew his gaze.
At 8 o’clock, Jiang Quan took to the stage on time.
“Welcome to the stage of Studio Superstar!”
After finishing the opening speech as usual and introducing the special guests, Jiang Quan started to read out the rules of this round.
“In this round of the competition, we will still use the on-site audience voting and invitation cards issued by the mentors to select the qualified participants!”
“The difference from the previous round—” He paused before throwing out an explosive sentence, “This time, 15 participants will be eliminated directly after the audience votes.”
The audience was in an uproar.
Exclamations erupted from the participant seats. Xue Xiao was also a bit surprised.
Directly eliminating 15 people?
“Out of the remaining 16 participants, the mentors will be able to issue invitation cards if they wish. This time, each mentor will only have four invitation cards. Each mentor will have priority over the participants they currently have.”
This rule was even more surprising. The mentors didn’t seem to know about it beforehand.
Su Shijin, Guan Ruoying, and Feng Wei instantly showed thoughtful looks.
Shen Tingyan stared while Xue Xiao was stunned.
“In other words, when the mentor sends an invitation card to the participants in their current group, the participant can’t refuse and must join the group. The rest of the mentors can no longer issue cards to this participant.”
In this way, it would be more difficult for the mentors to grab people.
Su Shijin joked, “Then if I take a fancy to a participant from another group, do I have to ask that mentor to leave me a chance?”
Feng Wei smiled. “Teacher Su, are you interested in participants from other groups now? Will the four invitation cards be enough at that time?”
The participants in Su Shijin’s group immediately became uneasy.
Su Shijin rolled her eyes. “If Director Feng has enough then I will definitely have enough.”
At this point, even the atmosphere of the mentor seats became tense.
Xue Xiao’s hands curled up.
The mentors of each group had priority for the participants in their group. Their rule might’ve been created to increase the effectiveness of the invitation cards in disguise, to avoid all the mentors giving their cards to the same participant like the previous round and wasting three of the cards.
For this round, they couldn’t afford to waste the cards.
Old Gao’s intentions might be good, in order to keep as many participants as possible under the constraints of the rules, but in this way…
Xue Xiao glanced at the mentor seats again.
The man’s face couldn’t be distinguished.
Xue Xiao let out a long breath.
Forget it, don’t think about it. No matter what, his current goal was to try and advance to the next round.
Once the female assistant handed the invitation cards to the four mentors, Jiang Quan showed a mysterious smile. “There is another special rule. I will reveal it to you in advance.”
“In this round of the competition, we will add up the scores of each mentor after all the group performances to calculate the average score. The top-ranked mentor will be issued a special privilege card.”
Feng Wei immediately understood. “It is a resurrection card, right?”
This type of special rule wasn’t uncommon in competitive programs.
Jiang Quan left them hanging in suspense and smiled. “I will reveal it when the time comes. Now, let’s invite the first group to perform today.”
……
The order of acting was still decided by drawing lots last night. Xue Xiao and their group were drawn fifth.
In the third round, the length of the repertoire increased. The clearance time and preparation time between groups increased, so that the fifth group was almost the first to perform in the afternoon.
The first group on the stage today was the first repertoire directed by Shen Tingyan. It was also the repertoire in which Dou Mingjian and Chang Yun both participated, ‘Stars.’
The big screen fell and a gorgeous promotional poster appeared in front of everyone.
Two men and two women stood under the stars, looking up at the vast night sky. The figures were small and the night sky was vast. A sense of oppression and suffocation arose spontaneously from the depths of the soul.
The screen lit up again and the show officially began.
Xue Xiao stared.
‘Stars’ was a soft science fiction story about rebirth and family affection.
Dou Mingjian played a fool. A fool who was born stupid and grew to the age of 45.
The first female lead was the daughter of the manager of the breakfast store downstairs where the fool lived. She was a kind girl and the only one who was willing to be friends with the fool.
Chang Yun played the boyfriend of the first female lead, who was very wary of the fool and often warned his girlfriend not to have any contact with the fool.
The second female lead was the best friend of the first female lead.
The original work used a science fiction setting to tell the story of the relationship between people. The kind girl’s time would stop on a certain night. She was destined to die on this night, but the fool could predict the future.
He didn’t understand anything. The only thing he knew was that he didn’t want this girl to die. So he tried his best to save the other person and die in the place of the girl. He didn’t expect that this was the beginning of an infinite rebirth…
If the girl didn’t die, it seemed that time couldn’t go on.
All of them would be trapped under the stars.
……
Xue Xiao had a wonderful feeling.
He suddenly found that Shen Tingyan’s personal directing style was particularly distinct.
He had already noticed it in the last round, but it was very obvious this time!
The style of the original film ‘Stars’ was very youthful and lively. It shifted to a sad tone in the end, but it was still full of a dreamy, warm, and positive feeling.
The original work was often interspersed with some comic storyboards and was very popular with children. So adults in the theater brought children to watch it at that time.
For the play being presented on the big screen at this time, it was obviously still the same story and the same lines, but the lens was different, the atmosphere was different, and the narrative rhythm was different!
The style of the story had become cold, depressing, and sad.
The ‘affection’ between the fool and the girl became a rope. It pulled as hard as it could, as if it would be broken at any time by the torture of infinite rebirth. But it was always tightly connected by a thread.
Hysterical, crazy and heavy, ridiculous and desolate.
Xue Xiao’s eyes widened, and he looked incredulous.
It wasn’t until this moment that he really understood why Shen Tingyan wanted to go behind the scenes.
This man’s desire to ‘create stories’ was too strong.
He had an ambition to shape the story. He also possessed a strong shaping ability that allowed him to achieve his ambition.
This repertoire was easily changed into a shocking appearance by Shen Tingyan.
It wasn’t just that. Shen Tingyan’s ability to teach actors was very impressive.
In the last round of the competition, the four groups of students he guided had the highest promotion rate among all the mentor groups.
In this round of the competition, Xue Xiao could clearly feel that the acting skills of Chang Yun and Dou Mingjian had reached a new level.
In particular, Chang Yun had improved a lot!
In just ten minutes of the play, all of the audience members watched with dazzled eyes, and their hearts moved up and didn’t. Their minds didn’t return even after their senses ended.
It wasn’t until the four actors returned to the stage that applause rang out.
“D*mn, the acting of this group is completely like the original movie…”
“So awesome. Teacher Shen should just go and be a director!”
“I got goosebumps.”
Xue Xiao’s heart was pounding, and he stared at the mentor seats in a trance. The man sat there calmly. Obviously, Dou Mingjian and Chang Yun’s performances today didn’t disappoint him. Of course, they also shouldn’t have performed in an extraordinary manner.
It meant a normal and stable output.
This man’s style of doing things had always been rational and calm. It naturally affected his students as well.
Feig Wei slowed down and glanced at Shen Tingyan meaningfully. “Teacher Shen has something special. The style of this play looks cold. Both the shots and narrative rhythm feels impersonal. But the emotions shown by the characters are very strong.”
This extreme contrast was very crazy. It felt like a ‘madman’ filming.
Su Shijin also watched it with relish just now. She said, “It seems that the repertoire selected in the last round by the show’s team tied up Teacher Shen’s hands and feet? This time, you chose the repertoire yourself, and your personal style has suddenly improved.”
Guan Ruoying asked in surprise, “Teacher Shen, are you really not considering becoming a director?”
The audience laughed.
Shen Tingyan said lazily, “Don’t comment on me. You should comment on the actors.”
Of course, the actors also had to be judged.
The four actors performed very well this time. Everyone received a lot of praise.
After the comments, the audience voted. In that minute, it wasn’t just the people on the stage who were nervous, but also the people off the stage.
How many votes would they get?
Who would be the highest, and who would be the lowest?
A minute later, the answer came out—
The highest was Dou Mingjian, who received a total of 1,893 votes!
Xue Xiao and the others applauded excitedly.
Great! It was so high!
Dou Mingjian himself was very surprised and hurriedly bowed. “Thank you!”
The second place was the first female lead with 1,755 votes.
Third place was Chang Yun with 1,543 votes.
Fourth place was the second female lead with 988 votes.
Jin Xiaochen patted his chest in the back row. “I feel that Brother Chang should be stable.”
Jiang Lianlian said in a low voice, “I also think that their group is too good!”
Someone in the participant seats even secretly said, “I really want to go to Teacher Shen’s group in the next round… I always feel that their acting skills have really improved a lot…”
As the competition progressed to the later stages, the mentors’ minds became clearer and clearer. The same was true for the participants.
However, as the competition progressed, the opportunities became fewer and were more precious.
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