"Great, everyone, excellent teamwork!" David Fincher snatched the camera from a cameraman, squinting as he started filming himself.
A cameraman might not be able to do a director's job, but a good director must be an excellent cameraman.
David had a unique understanding of light and shadow; one could guess a movie was his work just by looking at the color tones.
"So that's it for today's shoot?" Leon asked.
"Pretty much. We'll reshoot two scenes later," David said. "This time I'll operate the camera myself. We need an impeccable close-up to highlight Miss Beyoncé's perfect glutes."
"Alright..." Leon spread his hands. It seemed every director had some special fetish more or less.
Old Mike also particularly liked butt close-ups.
Genius director Tarantino had a soft spot for women's feet.
Regarding the subsequent shooting, David arranged it like this:
To maximize the use of time and resources, after wrapping up Beyoncé's scenes, all staff would head straight to Manhattan.
The rooftop of Trump Tower.
To film the scene of Cardi B descending from a helicopter.
Trump Tower is a landmark building in New York, belonging to the Trump family.
Fortunately, Leon had some friendship with The Donald's daughter, Ivanka, so it didn't take much effort to get their agreement.
Generous Ivanka stated this was a friendship sponsorship and wouldn't charge any venue fees.
All of tomorrow would be reserved for Taylor; this was the highlight of the entire shoot.
David advocated using Taylor's scenes to highlight the psychological transformation from a girl to a woman in the MV.
The scale of this scene would be much larger than the original version, and Taylor herself didn't know about this yet.
In David's rewritten script, Taylor would appear on camera in a JK uniform (Japanese high school girl uniform).
The background would be a standard American girl's room.
Piled with gossip magazines, pink plushies, Barbie dolls, and a guitar.
Then the scene would transition, the JK uniform changing into a tight black latex suit.
Resembling Catwoman's outfit from the Batman series.
The room background would also change to pink neon signs, revealing posters, scattered lipsticks and cosmetics...
Forming a contrast with the previous room.
Hearing this, Leon's anticipation was maxed out.
Whether it was the JK uniform or the black latex suit, music fans across America had never seen Taylor in such outfits.
"You really are a genius," Leon quipped. "Maybe you shouldn't have switched to making movies. Movies are too commercial; at least shooting MVs won't lose money."
"Only a small portion of movies lose money... The Social Network released last year performed very well at the box office," David immediately retorted.
David was an anomaly in the film industry, occupying a rather awkward position.
Commercially, he was far inferior to big directors like Spielberg and Cameron.
Even at the Oscars, he hadn't harvested much.
Many times, when everyone thought he would be abandoned by film studios, he could always pull out a hit movie to extend his life.
"Alright, how is the progress on your current movie?" Leon asked.
"Shooting is halfway done, expected to be released during this year's Christmas slot," David responded.
This movie, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, was a mystery thriller adapted from a novel.
Hearing words like "mystery thriller," Leon knew this would be another flop.
Mystery thrillers are essentially a type of "satisfying" movie.
Audiences buy tickets to the cinema for sensory stimulation.
And David always liked to choke the audience in this kind of satisfying movie, forcefully outputting his values.
"Shoot well, remember to invite me to the premiere." Leon patted the other party's shoulder and quickly slipped away from the set.
Beyoncé's shoot had ended. Unsurprisingly, the next step would be calling Leon into the nanny van.
Although the nanny van was spacious, it wasn't a tank after all.
The strong vibrations caused by the cowboy duel between the two would be hard not to attract the attention of others on the set.
Leon sat in the business van, the radio playing T-ray's podcast program Above Ground Rap.
Literally meaning: The best hip-hop music program on earth.
He fulfilled his initial promise and invested a hundred thousand dollars in Chester Bad Boy Radio.
This small workshop now had a professional studio.
Facts proved that this investment decision was incredibly correct.
T-ray completed the first episode in less than a week.
Once launched, this program quickly became popular.
Different from the systematic exploration of hip-hop music in DJ Marcus's program, this program focused on doing whatever one pleased.
He claimed to have an enterprise-level understanding of rap music, bringing out a blackboard used for discussing football tactics in the program.
Writing down the names of many rap superstars on it.
JAY-Z, P. Diddy, Nicki Minaj, Lil Wayne...
None of these people escaped.
In short, wherever there was traffic, he mooched off it.
Smoking a cigar, T-ray pointed at these names.
Scoring their rap techniques such as speed, flow, tone, etc., drawing a four-dimensional chart.
His expression was very serious, like a university professor giving a lecture.
Unsurprisingly, these star-studded names all turned into trash in his mouth.
The more serious he tried to look, the more comical the effect presented.
This program shot to fame in this weird way.
While listening to the program, Leon laughed out loud several times.
After Above Ground Rap finished playing, Leon signaled the driver to switch the channel to Z100.
This music radio station with the largest number of listeners, under his money offensive, played Billy at least five times a day.
"Best Diss track in history."
"Man, I have to say I was really scared the first time I heard this song."
"Did you see Leon's performance in the MV? Besides the President, is there any white person in this country who can have such appeal on the streets of Compton?"
"God... girls all over America want to sleep with him."
Leon narrowed his eyes, listening to the radio DJs praising him brainlessly in different ways.
Just as he was enjoying listening, the DJs' output stopped abruptly.
"What's the situation?"
It was like the radio signal was suddenly interrupted; he could only vaguely hear the DJs whispering something.
A minute later, the DJ spoke up:
"Holy sht... listeners, we just received urgent news."
"Very sorry, this matter is very important, so we have to interrupt urgently."
"Just now... the most prestigious rapper, investor, and philanthropist on the East Coast, P. Diddy, was ambushed by gunmen at the entrance of his mansion in Long Island."
WTF?!
Leon straightened his body and pricked up his ears as if electrocuted.
"There were two gunmen in total. They fired a total of seven shots at Diddy, fleeing quickly after the bodyguards pulled out their guns to return fire..."
"Fortunately, most of the bullets fired by the gunmen were blocked by Diddy's Cadillac sedan, only one bodyguard suffered minor injuries."
"Currently, Diddy refuses all interviews, and the police have intervened in the investigation."
Subsequently, the radio program returned to normal.
The DJs began discussing the truth behind this shooting incident. Several times, the name "Leon" was on the tip of their tongues but swallowed back.
The truth of this matter wasn't hard to guess at all; one could guess who the mastermind was with their toes.
Even Leon himself was confused about the situation, hurriedly calling George: "What did you guy do?"
"Shxt..." George's tone was even more urgent than Leon's. "Stop pretending, you crazy and cunning bastard! You planned long ago to make me the scapegoat, right?!"
"Fxxk, Duane's gunmen are looking for me everywhere!"
"I warn you, before I die, I will definitely drag you cunning snake to hell first!"
Hearing this, Leon was completely stunned.
George mistakenly thought it was gunmen sent by Leon who shot Diddy, and he became the scapegoat for this incident.
If not George, who else could it be?
Leon suddenly felt a headache.
Social media was overwhelmed with discussions of this shooting incident, pushing the traffic of the Second East Coast vs. West Coast Gang War to the peak.
Since the passing of Tupac and Biggie, such bloodshed hadn't happened in the hip-hop circle.
Endless cycles of revenge, until one side fell completely.
Fans watching the drama didn't think it was big enough, flocking to leave comments under Leon and Diddy's social media accounts.
Hoping both sides would do something big.
One side goes to see God, the other goes to see the judge.
Within ten minutes, Leon received more than a dozen calls.
Phil, Sean, 50 Cent, Kendrick, Beyoncé, Taylor, and Robbie...
"Great job Bro~"
"Are you crazy, you bastard?"
"Tell me you didn't do this."
Leon answered "No" to all, then too lazy to explain, hung up directly.
When the whole world thinks you are guilty, then you are guilty.
Leon knocked on his head. "I must calm down."
First, who benefits from Diddy getting shot?
After some hard thinking, the answer still pointed to himself.
He decided to change his thinking, guessing if this could be a setup by other opponents.
The purpose was to make him and Diddy completely break up and go to full-scale war.
Ending up dead on the street, or trapped in prison...
"Chris?" Leon shook his head, negating this idea.
That ngga was a soft egg who only hit women, and was also Diddy's underling.
He had neither the ability nor the guts to do this.
"Leonard?"
As the Senior Vice President of Warner Music North America, he indeed had the ability to do this.
But the reason was really a bit too far-fetched.
To sign a popular singer, send someone to murder a superstar?
This sounded simply like a fantasy.
"Damn it..."
Leon leaned back on the rear seat, eyes blank.
As a master of shifting blame, he finally inevitably became a scapegoat for others.
He couldn't find a single clue in his head.
He could only scroll through social media again and again, seeing if he could get some clues from online discussion groups.
The avatar of a black man with dreadlocks attracted his attention.
This user left a message under a discussion group on Twitter: "Actually, I did it! Worship the great O-Block of Chicago!"
The replies below mocked him one after another.
"Too true Bro, I'm showing my hand, I was the one who instructed the gunman to assassinate Kennedy."
"Hahaha, the little mustache guy didn't commit suicide in the end; my grandpa put a bullet in him in the bunker."
"Stop arguing, I burned Rome, end of thread..."
Although there were countless similar comments trying to mooch off the heat, Leon unexpectedly felt this dreadlocked avatar was a bit familiar.
This seemed to be the underground rapper from the South Side of Chicago who sent him private messages every day—
Lil Durk.
"Shxt..."
Fans act up, idols pay the bill?
Although such a guess sounded ridiculous, the more Leon thought about it, the more he felt...
The whole thing might just be this ridiculous.
Beatles lead singer John Lennon died in 1980 from an assassination by a fanatical fan.
In 1981, then-US President Ronald Reagan encountered an assassination attempt; the culprit John Hinckley was a rich second generation obsessed with chasing stars.
The reason he assassinated Reagan was to imitate the plot in the movie Taxi Driver, thereby attracting the attention of actress Jodie Foster.
Fans' worship of idols to a certain extent is almost no different from religion.
Thinking of this, Leon quickly clicked open Lil Durk's social media homepage.
The other party had just posted a picture—The Twelve Apostles of Jesus.
These people established churches everywhere according to Jesus' instructions, mostly ending in martyrdom.
Lil Durk comparing himself to the twelve apostles, the meaning needed no explanation.
"This damn ngga..." Leon quickly sent a private message to Lil Durk.
The other party replied almost instantly, "Bro~ OMG you actually replied to me, I knew this would definitely attract your attention!"
"Kid, I don't understand what you mean." Leon played dumb, guiding the other party to say it out loud himself.
Facts proved that those capable of doing such things were 100% uneducated hotheads.
Lil Durk replied immediately: "We fired seven shots at Diddy! One bullet flew past rubbing his scalp!"
"We almost really took out that soft egg!"
Saying that, Lil Durk also sent a photo; it was Diddy's mansion in Long Island.
Now, Leon could be 100% sure that it was this gang of little bastards from the South Side of Chicago who did this.
"So, why did you do this..."
"Of course it was for you!" Lil Durk replied: "Your fans have no soft eggs, O-Block always keeps its word! In fact, this was all King Von's idea, he is a genius, you should give us this chance!"
"Look what we did for you!"
Listening to this speech, Leon could only shake his head and sigh.
On the streets of America, the ones you shouldn't mess with the most aren't those old gangbangers.
Nor the tattooed Mexicans.
But those hotheads who hustle on the streets while still in diapers, doing things without considering consequences.
Leon thought very clearly; the traffic brought by this shooting was huge, but he absolutely could not take the blame for this pot.
"Can you issue a statement taking responsibility for this matter?" Leon asked. "I will handle the police side, or give you a large sum of money to let you run to Mexico..."
Lil Durk replied immediately: "Shxt! I've said it countless times online, I did this! But no one believes it!"
"I don't want your money, money is useless to me, I never pay for things I want!"
"Me and my good homie King Von, we need a chance Bro~"
Leon showed a rare smile today.
As long as Lil Durk and King Von didn't resist admitting this matter in front of the public, it would be easy to handle.
"I will give you an excellent display platform..."
"Do you know Vibe magazine? Do you know Lion's Den Radio?"
"Listen, I will delete all the names of those rap superstars and replace them with yours!"
"Leave all this exposure to you! Let you truly become a household name across America!"
Hearing he could become famous, Lil Durk agreed without thinking.
Leon was full of worries ten minutes ago, now the corners of his mouth were almost grinning to his ears.
Without expending any effort, he mooched a huge wave of traffic for free.
Completely cost-free.
Even while clarifying rumors, he incidentally used these two hotheads, Lil Durk and King Von, again.
The sales of the next issue of Vibe magazine could be absolutely guaranteed.