The trio also met on the train, but the characters are a bit different. The white boy is a typical American slum kid, knowing nothing about magic, and he's attending school only because his gambling father didn't want to pay his community school tuition, while the magic school tuition is free, so he came.
The boy from Hong Kong comes from a family of high intellectual elites, involved in a subordinate project of the Solar System development plan, and also knows a mage. When this mage visited their home, he discovered that his child had a magic talent. Thinking the magic industry is a blue ocean, he wanted to train his child to become a mage, hence came to the Magic Academy.
And the girl from Africa has a deep-rooted family tradition; even before starting school, she could use simple weather witchcraft, such as summoning a small rain cloud and freezing water in a cup. She inherited the tradition of her Kenyan ancestors trading with the African God System and is arguably the most knowledgeable and skilled among the three concerning magic.
The scene where the trio meets revolves around their debate on whether magic exists. The white boy thinks all magic is nonsense, just deceptive tricks; the Asian boy says he has seen mages in action; and the African girl directly gave them a weather magic performance, stunning the other two.
These three actors are little wizards, and their background settings don't differ much from those in the movie. The white boy's actor is from Queens, New York, with average family conditions; the Asian boy is from Hong Kong, but his family runs a restaurant; the African girl indeed comes from Kenya, but she actually has closer ties with China's Weather Witch than with Storm—which involves some complex connections between primitive witchcrafts.
The little wizards performed quite well, not only with lively and vivid dialogues at the front but also with the little girl's weather magic later on, astonishing everyone present.
She directly conjured a piece of dark cloud that not only wet the white boy's hair but also struck a small lightning on the Asian boy's eyeglass frame, nearly hitting his nose.
The director and scriptwriter were actually observing a real magician performing magic closely for the first time. Although they had somewhat of a concept before, they didn't know to what extent it could be achieved. Seeing the little wizards in action, they exclaimed repeatedly.
"Wonderful, I mean absolutely wonderful!" Chris rushed out from behind the table, excitedly speaking to the scriptwriter, "I have inspiration now! I think later we have to create an incident related to weather, for example, when a field somewhere is too dry, and the magicians lead the little wizards to solve the problem..."
The creative team intensely discussed for a while, and then let several little wizards separately perform some magic. Apart from the African girl who already had a contracted god, the other two used magic wands infused with energy, performing some fixed spells like Repair Technique and Cleaning Technique.
Chris also instinctively wanted to write spells, asking them to chant while casting magic, claiming it could best stir the emotions of the audience.
Then came the supporting characters' school scenes, starting with the sorting ceremony. Strange went up to give a speech, this part mainly focusing on the appearance of each professor. However, after initially witnessing the wonder of magic, Chris felt his previous ideas about their entrances were somewhat uncreative, so he allowed professors to showcase freely.
Strange also felt that following the script to walk in step by step would be somewhat dull. Magicians never take the usual path, either opening a teleportation portal or simply flying down. Before learning magic, one needs to be down-to-earth, but still staying grounded after learning magic means magic was learned in vain.
Strange directly opened a teleportation portal in mid-air, with the Red Cloak flying out first, and then he suddenly appeared mid-air, his hand grabbed the Red Cloak, spun around gracefully, landed, and draped the cloak over himself.
"How's that?" Strange asked.
Chris watched in amazement but quickly reacted, saying, "No, I mean that's a bit too like a superhero, you know?"
"Can't it be like a superhero?"
"No, no, no." Chris shook his head like a rattle drum, "The superhero routine is too straightforward, and people already have preconceived impressions of Iron Man and Captain America. If you still do it like this, they'll think mages and superheroes are pretty similar..."
"Well, they are quite similar, to be honest."
"No, since we want to promote mages, we should make mages a brand new symbol. The reason mages are distinguished from superheroes is that they are mysterious. We need to fully depict the mystery of mages and leave enough imagination space for the audience. So your moves and words can't be too straightforward, they need to have an aura of mystery..."
Chris went on and on, leaving the legitimate mages listening nearby scratching their heads. Fortunately, Shiller seemed to have understood, he gestured to Strange to step back first.
Then he waved to a photographer beside him and said, "Stand behind me and follow me with the camera."
He walked to the room door, closed it first, and said, "Let's assume this is the hall door of the sorting ceremony."
After speaking, his figure suddenly vanished, and a gray fog spread out. The door "bang" burst open, dense gray fog rapidly flew forward, and as it flew, gradually solidified. When Shiller's figure appeared, he walked a few steps along the trajectory of the flying fog, and it completely dispersed. He turned around.
The camera captured footage where the lens followed a thick gray fog, pushing open the auditorium doors. The fog gradually condensed into a human form, finally freezing on Shiller's gray eyes.
Chris let out a cheer, then clapped and said, "That's the idea! It should be cool, yet mysterious; different from all common sense, but still have a traceable logic."
Strange thought for a moment and said, "How about letting the Cloak sit on a chair, then fly to the front of the stage, and I'll emerge from the Cloak..."
Several professors stepped up to discuss and designed their entrances, finally settling on unique styles for everyone.
For instance, Strange used the Cloak, the white-bearded old man The Ancient One appeared from a hat, Wanda emerged from the power of Scarlet, and Xu Shang-Chi flew in on a sword. As for the Hippo Goddess, her appearance was already fantastical enough, so ironically she had the most straightforward entrance—stepping out directly.
Additionally, there were several professors, but they were all mages from Kamar-Taj. Because they had been hermits training for years, they were somewhat uncomfortable with this kind of exposure in front of the camera. The director guided them several times before they barely passed.
After filming the entrances, they shot individual scenes. Strange's scene involved teaching a few little wizards in his office, demonstrating the wonders of magic; other professors mainly filmed classroom scenes, starting with a segment of theory, then demonstrating something.
Among them, Wanda's demonstration was the most effective. She conjured a butterfly with the power of Scarlet. Initially, it seemed to be made of energy, fluttering around the classroom, but by the time it returned, it had turned into a real butterfly, only to quickly vanish into the power of Scarlet.
For a magician, this wasn't difficult; even many magicians could do it. But Chris wasn't intending to promote how powerful magic was, but rather how fun it was.
Take Wanda, for example. It would be a minor task for her to blow up a planet in the cosmos. But movies couldn't show that—real universes were vast and real planets mostly desolate. A person in such a grand environment would seem very small, and aside from that moment of energy explosion, there wouldn't be much to see. For adults, it would be rather tedious, let alone teenagers and children.
Hence, conjuring a butterfly, such an apparently not-so-powerful trick, was quite interesting. At least it could let people who had never dealt with magic directly see what magic could do, making them wonder: Since you can transform into a butterfly, can't you turn into something else? It would make them curious: What is the principle behind this? Why is it completely different from the scientific knowledge we learned daily?
Only with such questions would people have the desire to continue watching and have the urge to discuss. Blowing up a planet wouldn't make many people delve into astrophysics. In short, laymen just want to enjoy the spectacle, and they only want to see the excitement.
Soon enough, it was Shiller's turn to perform. He initially thought no one would interact with him, but the director also fully considered that this group of non-professional actors might find it difficult to perform without props, so he let the little wizards cooperate in the performance.
A little girl from Africa lay on the bed with a dejected look, while the remaining two boys chattered around her. At this time, Shiller came in and said, "Alright, children, your friend is fine. Now, can you tell me how she got hurt?"
The children all looked at him, and as a result, they froze, standing there without speaking. Shiller stood there waiting for a long time, not seeing them say their lines, so he turned his head to the director.
"Oh, Tolia she just fell on her own." The white boy spoke up, "We just wanted to...get some...ointment..."
Shiller stared at the director for a long time, and the director didn't call "cut." So he had to step forward and say his lines: "I'm afraid there isn't a single step in the school that could make you fall like this. If you don't tell me the truth, I can't prescribe any medicine for you..."
But as soon as he took a step forward, the two people in front of the bed stepped back in unison, and even the little girl lying on the bed shrank back a little.
Shiller immediately realized that maybe the pressure from his eyes was too strong, so he instinctively reached up to touch his own eyes.
"Cut!" the director called.
Shiller breathed a sigh of relief and said, "Maybe I should really keep my glasses on so I don't actually scare the children..."
To his surprise, Director Chris excitedly told the three young actors, "You performed really well just now, definitely bring out that subconscious fear; that way, the misunderstanding of his role later will seem more reasonable..."
Wait a minute. Shiller thought, confused, misunderstanding me? That wasn't in the script! The additional scenes you mentioned wouldn't be adding this, would they?
Goodness, Snape is actually me!