Making of FOMH: Translation of some related posts

Thank you to this fan for sharing some of the stories of the making of FOMH.

I don't want to talk about whatever is happening with YY's management company and manager. But I just want to share the translation of the first 3 images in this weibo post. They are related to the makings of FOMH.

https://m.weibo.cn/status/4942687600378917

We shot the demo video first, and then the formal content. Although in the final edition, only a few minutes were shown, when we shot the scenes (Song Yan's military era), we shot the process of the entire mission: from the start of the assault on the village from the bamboo forest on the high ground, taking down visible and hidden watch posts one by one, to both sides exchanging fire, all the way to the retreat of the Special Force Team after the battle ended. That was no less than a short military movie. It was also because we want to have more material for editing. After all, the cost to make up/re-do/add another scene/cut later on about this Special Force mission is too high.

Story behind “Fireworks of My Heart” — Glory of Special Force

The male lead’s (Song Yan’s) special force scenes were a dream collaboration with Glory of Special Force. 

At first, the production group’s plan was to go to the southwest or northwest area for shooting, because the script’s setting was at a small town near the boarder. Everybody felt it was impossible to complete shooting of these scenes (military era scenes) in NingBo. After all, the difference between a new first tier city and a small town near the boarder is too huge. Things didn’t change until I took the director with me to search for the shooting site for the mountain hiker rescue scene. We accidentally came to a mountain village, and when we got off the cars in the village parking lot and overlooked the entire village, the director said to the producer: “We don’t have to go to the (southwest or northwest) boarders!” At that time, the producer’s feet were blistered, and he had been having an upset stomach due to the intense schedule of location seeking and difficulty to adjust to local environment. When he heard the director’s words, he felt energetic almost immediately… (sorry, Brother Huan, I have to tell this story to show how much trouble you’ve been through. I have never participated in a drama making in which the director and producer came to do location hunting with me. This was really rare.)

This was an old mountain village at the Jing Zhou area of NingBo. Most of the people in the village had already moved to the government’s public housing at the foot of the mountains. There were only several tens of senior families remaining at present; many houses were deteriorating, in disrepair, and most of them were wooden structures, which actually matched pretty closely to what the scene required. I was actually pretty worried at that time, because we were going to shoot gun fighting scenes, but most people living in the village were elderly people.. what if we scared or disturbed them, that would be a problem. After we re-evaluate the location multiple times and felt it was doable, we discussed with the head of the village, and explained all the possible problems clearly in advance. After the head of the village communicated with the villagers, we were surprised to receive the answer of “no problem!” Of course, the actual shooting didn’t go as smoothly as planned. When the action group went in to shoot the demo video, we ran into some problems. In order to produce the best visual effect, the action scene crew simulated different routes of the special force assault and broke/trampled the roof tiles of a number of houses… Of course, what followed was myself going over to apologize and compensate for their loss, and having the young guys in our group fix up their roofs inside out…

Actual shooting took approximately 20 days or so. Yes, the short footage of special force assaulting criminals you saw in the drama came from 20 whole days of filming in the mountains. In those 20 days, the drama group put down our root in this little town deep into the mountains. We had specialized supply vehicles delivering water and food to us everyday. The production chief even asked the kitchen to make several tens portions of dishes, and told the elderlies in the village they can come have meal together everyday if they don’t mind. One meal for lunch, and one meal for dinner. That way they didn’t have to cook, either. Every meal, the group usually prepared 2 non-vegetarian and 2 vegetarian dishes plus one soup dish. There were always enough rice and buns. After 20 days of filming, the elderlies treated us like their own kids.

After all, in this world, there are still more people who are nice and kind (than evil ones).

(* This last sentence.... alas... I am willing to believe so, too! But why are the evil people's voice so loud... alas.)

#FOMH

Incomplete summary of cut scenes of YY’s Song Yan from FOMH

1. Young Song Yan layered black t-shirt + coke in hand, entire segment was cut.
2. Young Song Yan taught Xu Qin ride a skateboard, both in school uniforms, entire segment was cut.
3. Young Song Yan in school uniform turned around and run away in the alley, entire segment was cut.
4. Young Song Yan got beaten up by the security guys (called by Xu Qin’s family), entire segment was cut, only kept the cut of Song Yang crying under the tree in the drama.
5. Young Song Yan eating corn at the top of the building, threw his backpack on the ground, and interact with other male classmates. Entire segment was cut.
6. Young Song Yan went to find his biological mother. According to the Reuters, from how Song Yan came and left, and when he left, Xu Qin caught up to him to accompany him… the entire sequence was filmed. But in the drama, only a small segment of Song Yan standing outside his biological mother’s new family’s house, and there was no explanation about the wound on his face at that time.
7. Continue from 6, after they left his biological mom’s place, the two of them took a bus home together; sitting on the ground talking to each other… According to the Reuters, they shot at night for a long time, but in the drama, only one cut of Song Yang opening the bus window + Xu Qin showed a stack of bills trying to comfort Song Yan, and Song Yan talked back to her…
8. Young Song Yan in grey jacket, Xu Qin in short tops with stripes riding skateboard, entire segment was cut.
9. Young Song Yan and Xu Qin having a meal with other classmates. Xu Qin served herself lots of different dishes by chopsticks (this is supposed to echo with the later on scene when adult Xu Qin had a meal in the fire station cafeteria, Song Yan said something about Xu Qin’s eating speed). Entire scene got cut.
10. Adult Song Yan came out from the coffee shop and chased after the car in the streets, and shouted “Come back!”. Song Yan was wearing the same outfit seen in the scene in the drama where Song Yan and Ms. Meng (Xu Qin’s mom) met in the coffee shop. The part chasing after the car got cut entirely.
11. Adult Song Yan mixed black/white/gray T-shirt + black jacket talking with his cousin, Zhai Miao, on the roof top of his uncle’s place. Entire segment got cut.
12. After the earthquake, adult Song Yan and Xu Qin went on a date, taking the subway. According to the Reuters, Song Yan bought the subway tickets, and they went into the station together. Part of it was cut. In the drama, only the part Song Yan taught Xu Qin how to go through the subway gate was kept.
13. After the earthquake, adult Song Yan and Xu Qin went on a date, they went to a “pig petting shop”(?) together. The entire segment got cut.
14. Adult Song Yan and cousin Zhai Miao interacting at the school exercising field. The entire segment got cut.

YY himself did not really play skateboard before this drama. He learned to skateboard for this drama. The last picture was a work picture when he was learning to skateboard, but in the drama, none of this was shown….

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Here's another fan sharing a screen shot of an article probably from an interview of screenwriter, Wan HaiLin. I don't think he has worked with YY before.

https://weibo.com/1890144475/4943107687974334

Screenwriter Wan HaiLin analyzed, from a short term perspective, the two of them must be affected (by whatever happened?), but if we look beyond the surface, “YY didn’t do anything wrong. <FOMH> has no problem in his original system, or we can say, it’s a normal piece of work that fits with the path he’s been going on through the years. But it suddenly became a situation like this, the entire internet was ‘blacking’ (targeting) him, of course, somebody was leading the rhythm (planning and carrying out all the internet attack on YY) was also a reason (why this happened).

* A friend later found the link to the original article. However, this screenwriter wrote later in the article that YY needs to get out of his comfort zone. And he (the screenwriter) actually was more looking forward to YY's movie "Reinforcements Arrive Tomorrow," in which YY will be playing a solider...... APPARENTLY, this screenwriter was not aware of Glory of Special Force! And I also doubt that he really watched FOMH at all... Alas, I think people judge others based on the information they know. It's just unfortunate that many people don't spend enough time to do the research before making conclusions (often just based on biased impressions...) I don't know if the screenwriter actually watched FOMH before saying YY stayed in his comfort zone, but the fact that he seemed to be unaware of GOSF really made me feel his view was biased...

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I think everybody in this drama (cast and crew and staff and background actors....etc.) worked really hard! They all poured in lots and lots of effort. They were a group to dedicated and devoted people who deserve our respect! I understand that everybody's taste is different, so not everyone could enjoy FOMH as much as I did. But if you don't enjoy it, just switch to a different channel or go to another platform to watch something else that you can enjoy. There is no need to nitpick on every tiny detail and make a big deal out of it by writing negative criticisms and posting everywhere. That is not called a simple discussion. That's called attacking and bullying. That's called diminishing people's hard work without really spending the time to try to understand it and appreciate it. If you watch the drama, you'd see all those nitpicking was unreasonable. I would really love to see people treating each other with kindness and respect. This is the basic manner in this civilized world. Please be kind. Thank you.