Entertaining Children

The friends all have their own affairs to be busy, so Xiao Yao naturally put all his energy on the TV series project.

After almost another week, the auditions were over, and the actors for the main roles in the show were all confirmed.

Normally, the time for actors to be determined for a film and television project is relatively early. Because after an actor receives a role, it usually takes a while to prepare. Some actors even experience life for the role. Many crews start to select actors in the early stage of preparation.

However, this situation is not absolute. Different producers, different directors, and different crews will have different operations and acting styles. Sometimes in the same play, the time when actors of different roles are finalized may also vary greatly.

For example, if a certain actor has a temporary problem and finds another actor to save the scene, it is impossible to give the actor a lot of time to prepare and the whole crew to wait.

There is also a possibility that a suitable actor has not been found for a certain role, but all the preparations for the crew are almost ready. After finding a suitable actor, in order not to delay the start time, there may be no time for preparation.

When Xiao Yao starred in a TV series for the first time, after the audition, he was approved by the director and producer on the spot, and then joined the filming team within a week, because the filming team couldn't find a suitable actor, and it was delayed until then, and the start time was not enough. Good change. Although that was not considered a temporary rescue, it was similar in nature to a rescue, and it was a rare special case.

As far as Xiao Yao's personal behavior and habits are concerned, he has never liked to audition for actors too early. As long as it is a project where he personally participates in the audition to select actors, except for a few actors who have been confirmed in advance, he prefers to conduct actor auditions when the preparations for the project have reached a certain level.

On the one hand, when the crew's preparations have progressed to a certain level, the shooting environment and conditions will become clearer, making it easier for Xiao Yao to negotiate contracts with the actors after the audition. For example, the last project "Donkey Gets Water", because the filming location is expected to be in the Northwest, Xiao Yao chose the shooting location and decided on the shooting location before returning to audition for actors.

On the other hand, Xiao Yao doesn't want to temporarily change the actor of the role, nor does he want to change the start time. The more complete the crew's preparations, the more certain the start time will be. The more certain the start time is, the less likely it is that there will be conflicts with actors' schedules. So try to audition later and be more precise about the start-up time, and you can try to avoid this situation as much as possible.

In the end, the actors for the core roles in Xiao Yao's three current film and television projects were all decided very early. For example, the three members of the YRF team in the parkour movie, Sun Tingting, myself and He Ying in "Donkey Gets Water", and myself and Yin Xi in this drama. Apart from these core roles, Xiao Yao doesn't feel that other roles require actors to spend a lot of time preparing after the audition is finalized. Compared with an actor who decides the role very early, let an actor spend a lot of time preparing for a non-core role, Xiao Yao hopes that he has more choices when auditioning, allowing those actors to spend time preparing for the audition.

However, Xiao Yao just felt that the actors of his project did not need to spend a lot of time preparing after the audition. This preparation time is still given to others, but the time is shorter.

After all the auditions are completed, there are still some finishing touches for the crew's preparations. Although Xiao Yao served as the producer this time, except for actor auditions, Xiao Yao only knew about other jobs and did not personally participate in them. According to the work progress reported by the crew, Xiao Yao set the start time for early April.

When talking about this project, Xiao Yao once told Yin Xi that he would not start the film before the movie was released. It started in early April, and it was almost the time when "Donkey Gets Water" was released. It was already more than half a month later than the one week after the movie I told Yin Xi at the beginning. However, what Xiao Yao told Yin Xi at the beginning was that the machine would start up in March at the earliest.

It's not that there is no confirmation, and it's not a broken promise. There is no problem with Yin Xi.

Xiao Yao does not participate in other work of the crew, so between the end of the audition and the start of the TV series, Xiao Yao has some free time.

This time, the role played by Xiao Yao is an IT man in the entrepreneurial period, but this drama is an urban drama that mainly focuses on feelings and life, not a workplace drama. At least the male protagonist does not have many workplace dramas, so Xiao Yao didn't spend much time preparing for the role. Since the character's occupation is a game designer, Xiao Yao only spent two days in Tong Luo's special effects company and stayed with the technicians in charge of game special effects for two days to experience their work, and use the rest of the time Pay off the debt.

The so-called debt repayment, of course, is the debt owed to fans and fans. Specifically, four songs.

Two of them are "Hu Lu Hu Lu Piao Er" and "Grandma Said" sung at this year's Yanjing Satellite TV Spring Festival Gala. These two songs only have the audio of the live version of the Yanjing Satellite TV Spring Festival Gala, and the official version has not been recorded yet.

The other two are the two tea-picking songs sung in "Wild Kitchen". Now that the show has been aired, some fans who have watched the show on the Internet are calling for Xiao Yao to release the full version of these two songs. As for the song composed of traditional Jino tunes and Xiao Yao's spelling in Jino language, most people don't understand Jino language, but there are no fans calling for the song in Jino language.

Since he wanted to record songs to pay off his debts, Xiao Yao planned to record all four songs.

Among the four songs, "Tea Mountain Love Song" is obviously a popular style in the 1980s and 1990s, and it is more suitable for female singing, so Xiao Yao does not plan to sing it himself, which means that this song needs to find another singer .

When he went to the special effects company to experience life, Xiao Yao came at the time when other people went to work. When they were off work, he also went off work, so he was free at night. Including the time at night, it is not difficult for Xiao Yao to record four songs in ten days, the main thing is that it takes some energy to find a singer.

However, Xiao Yao knew Hong Wei and had a relationship with Su Xiao once. One of these two is a singer who came out of the system, and the other is still in the system. Through these two people, it is not a problem to find a singer who is willing and suitable to sing the sweet song style of the last century.

Now Xiao Yao does not do any promotion when releasing a new single, or the promotion has already been done. In the case of not leaving the physical body, after the song is recorded, negotiate the copyright with the music website, deliver the official version of the sound source, and let the music website upload it.

After the four songs were launched on the music website one after another, the official versions of "Hu Lu Hu Lu Piao Er" and "Grandma Said" quickly replaced the live version and jumped to the forefront of the hot song list. There is no music accompaniment, so after the official version is launched, it is a new song, and the ranking is even higher than the two popular songs during the Spring Festival. Only the "Nostalgic" song "Tea Mountain Love Song" sung by other singers performed slightly worse.

Time passed day by day, and the day when the TV drama crew started up was approaching day by day.

The preparations for the theater are progressing smoothly, and it is not expected to delay the start-up. The recording of the four songs has been completed, and the overall performance of the music website has been good since the launch of the music website. In addition, the movie "Donkey Gets Water" is about to be released, and the total box office and word-of-mouth scores are still gratifying. The mood is really good.

However, it was precisely during this time when he was in a good mood that Xiao Yao received a piece of news that was supposed to be good news, but at this time it was not considered good news.

Two days before the TV series started, Xiao Yao received a video call request from the United States on his mobile phone.

"Big star, long time no see!" After the video was connected, a person Xiao Yao hadn't seen for a long time appeared on the screen, but this person was no stranger to Xiao Yao.

"Yan Ke! Or should I call you Corell?" Xiao Yao smiled, "If you feel uncomfortable, I can speak English with you."

The person over there in the video is Yan Ke, whom Xiao Yaogao met when he participated in the training camp of the China Olympiad national team. When he was in the training team, Xiao Yao shared a dormitory with him and two other top mathematics high school students from China, Yu Gang and Chen Jiwei. Nothing to do in spare time, the four of them often play poker together as a pastime. After playing 80 points and being miserably abused, Xiao Yao played blackjack with a few people, and then proposed a plan to "capture the casino" on a whim.

Xiao Yao mentioned it casually at the time, and then forgot it, but the other three took it seriously. When Xiao Yao got the first prize in the art examination of Shenxi, Yan Ke called Xiao Yao specifically to ask Xiao Yao if he still remembered the original agreement.

The three of them are all a year older than Xiao Yao. For the plan that Xiao Yao said, in order to enter the best science and technology university in the United States and even the world, the three of them even stayed in China for an extra year. Of course, Yan Ke didn't say this, but Xiao Yao thought of it afterwards. Because Xiao Yao was already a senior in high school at that time, it is reasonable to say that the three of them should have gone to college, but what Yan Ke told him on the phone was that they were applying for an offer from MIT.

After learning about the attitudes of the three, Xiao Yao also took this matter to heart. However, Xiao Yao just kept it in his heart.

The card counting model is handed over to the three of them, and Xiao Yao is only responsible for the specific operations at that time, so these years Xiao Yao only occasionally contacted them on the Internet through email or communication software, to ensure that the contact will not be broken , In fact, the number of contacts is not much.

"No need!" Yan Ke on the other end of the phone said with a smile, "We speak English all day long here, and it is hard to be able to speak English with others. This opportunity should not be missed. I know your English is good, but you still speak Chinese with us. Well, there is nothing we are not used to!"

"You guys?" Xiao Yao smiled and asked, "Are Yu Gang and Chen Jiwei beside you now?"

"Yes!" Yan Ke nodded, and two heads next to him came into the picture, waved to Xiao Yao, and smiled at the same time, "Hello big star, long time no see!"

"Long time no see!" Xiao Yao also greeted with a smile, and asked with a smile, "What do you need from me? Now that March is almost over, your spring break should have just ended, and it shouldn't be because you want to come back to China Want to play with me?"

"No!" Yan Ke shook his head and said, "You are a big star now. I know you are busy. When did we go back to China to find you? Today I asked you for a video, because I have something to discuss with you!"

"Need to discuss?" Xiao Yao said, "Have you made your card counting model?"

Xiao Yao is in the entertainment circle, and he and Yan Ke and others can be regarded as people from two worlds. The only thing they can discuss and discuss between them is the card counting thing they mentioned at the beginning. However, in the past few years, Xiao Yao occasionally asked about their progress, and they always answered that they were still far behind, so Xiao Yao didn't immediately think about it when he answered the phone.

"You can say that!" Yan Ke said.

"If it's made out, it's made out, if it's not made out, it's not made out, what do you mean?" Xiao Yao said.

"Let me ask you a question first!" Yan Ke didn't answer, but asked instead, "Have you ever been to MIT? Or do you have other friends at MIT?"

"None!" Xiao Yao said strangely, "Why do you ask that?"

"After we came here, we found out that the three of us are not the only ones studying card counting in MIT." Yan Ke said, "Actually, there are quite a few people studying card counting in MIT, and there are several groups."

"Really?" Xiao Yao was also a little surprised, and then asked strangely, "But you have all been to MIT for so many years, and you have never heard of it before. Did you only know about it recently?"

"It's not too recent, but it's not too long. We only found out about it a few months ago." Yan Ke said, "These card counting groups are all secret activities. It may be because some of us are undergraduates, and others We didn’t like it, so no one approached us. In the second half of last year, we were both admitted to MIT’s master’s degree. A member of the card counting group heard that we were also studying card counting, so they invited us to join. From them, I Only then did I find that many people at MIT are studying card counting.”

"That's right!" Xiao Yao nodded and continued to ask, "And then?"

"Then we joined a card counting group." Yan Ke said, "That group has already done a lot of research work, and the three of us have done a lot. Although we just joined, since we started in high school Research on this thing, so we have also researched some things, and then the two sides synthesized each other, confirmed the discussion, and worked together for a while, and now we feel that our model is almost the same.”

"And then, we took advantage of the spring break in March and went to Las Vegas to try it out!" Yan Ke said, "We operated according to the card counting model and won some money in the casino, which proved that it is indeed feasible."

"What? You left me and went to play by yourself?" Xiao Yao pretended to be dissatisfied.

"No, we didn't plan to leave you alone." Yan Ke said, "We just plan to do a small test first. If practice proves that our algorithm is not good, we will go back and continue to study and modify it. If practice proves it is feasible, we will inform you to do a big job. We know that you are a big star, very busy, and time is precious. The United States is so far away, we don’t want you to make a trip for nothing.”

"And we also mentioned you to the people in the card counting team." Yu Gang added, "We told them that we have a friend who is very good at mathematics in Huaxia. Although he is not proficient in mathematical models, he has very good brain power. Very strong memory and mental arithmetic skills, very good candidates to perform card counting. We have been doing card counting mathematical models since high school, it was your idea. Of course, we did not say who you are, did not tell them that you are a Entertainment Stars."

"I heard that when you were in high school, you wanted to go to the casino to play blackjack by counting cards. They are also very interested in you." Chen Jiwei continued, "They have promised us that when you come, they will train and train you. Assessment. If you pass the assessment, you will be allowed to join us to go to the casino to perform missions."

"Training and assessment are still needed?" Xiao Yao frowned slightly.

"The so-called training is to memorize some mathematical models and formulas, and then practice them on the spot." Chen Jiwei said, "All of us train first and then take the exam. Only after passing the exam can we go to the casino to take the mission. As long as your brain is not degenerated, you must No problem. With your ability, I estimate that the training time should not exceed two days!"

"Two days? This is acceptable." Xiao Yao nodded and said excitedly, "Now that you have proven that your card counting method is feasible, then you are notifying me to go to the United States for training and assessment, and then follow me Did you go to the casino together?"

Having said this, Xiao Yao's face suddenly changed, because he suddenly discovered a problem.

Although Xiao Yao holds a long-term visa to the United States and can go to the United States at any time, the TV drama crew will start the film in two days. By the time the filming of this TV series is finished, at least two or three months have passed. Now that Yan Ke and the others have found an effective card counting method, they are just gearing up for a big fight, will they be willing to wait for themselves for two or three months?