Bright Star Road [Entertainment]

For directors, if trophies are the first pursuit, then getting a huge production budget is the second pursuit.It's a pity that for the vast majority of directors in China, they think they are "artists" and disdain to seek sponsors.Even for them, it's insulting to talk to a producer about a movie's budget.However, this group of "artists" who are "ashamed to talk about money" each have a "great dream", that is, producers and advertisers kneel in front of them with countless money and beg them to turn the money into into his artwork.For this kind of dream, Li Wei can only hehe and smile.

In Li Wei's view, movies are the product of the three-in-one of artwork, commodity and technological products.If you're entertaining yourself, you can indeed turn movies into works of art in their purest form.But the problem is, you not only want to get a high production fee, but also hope that the movie can earn a box office in the market, so pretending to be aloof is not enough.Since you want to enter the market, you must clearly recognize the commodity attributes of movies and act in accordance with market rules.

Many people only saw the high sponsorship of Li Wei's new film "Wild Speed" by German Motor Company, but no one saw Li Wei's efforts to obtain these sponsorships.The reason for these sponsorships is that Li Wei guaranteed to show how many minutes of each car in the film, which cars are close-ups, which cars are panoramas, and which cars are driven by the protagonist and become advertising materials. These are very detailed. listed on the advertising contract.At the same time, Li Wei has to design various scenes to show the performance of these cars to ensure that the audience's attention can be attracted to the cars.Li Wei uses his own creativity to attract customers, and these ideas are a blasphemy to film art in the eyes of these artists.

For various reasons, Li Wei's big-budget movie has successfully attracted the attention of the movie circle.The directors accused Li Wei of ruining the film, and ridiculed that this film would be Li Wei's last work.On the contrary, major brokerage companies sorted out the schedules of their own stars, and then communicated with Li Wei's studio, hoping to get Li Wei's audition invitation.The brokerage company is not stupid. Even if this kind of big-budget movie really smashed the box office in the end, they still pay enough attention to it.As long as one's own star gets a little more attention, the announcement fee will be raised next year.

"It seems that the media only pays attention to my production cost, and the film critics object to my blatant advertisement placement." Li Wei is in his office at this time, looking at the related newspaper clippings sorted out by the secretaries.

Li Wei has always been indifferent to the media's criticism, and with Li Wei's wealth and status, there is really nothing to care about.Li Wei is considered to be the strangest one in the film circle, and his background as a director of acting and You Ze made him have no status in the film circle, but he won the recognition of directors and film critics with three literary films.Originally, film critics planned to praise Li Wei as a typical example of a non-graduate but unswerving commitment to film art, but unexpectedly he suddenly turned around and made commercial films.Moreover, when Li Wei was being interviewed, he did not shy away from making art films in order to gain a foothold in making commercial films, which made film critics somewhat unacceptable.

Originally, film critics thought that their verbal criticism would make Li Wei, a "scumbag", get out of the film industry, but they found that their verbal and verbal attacks were of no use to Li Wei.Li Wei has his own production company and distribution company, as well as his own theater chain, so Li Wei is not worried at all that his films will not be filmed, distributed, or released.At the same time, Li Wei himself controls print media, radio and television media, and Internet media. Film critics can criticize elsewhere, but Li Wei's imperial literati naturally have places to fight back.After several confrontations, the film critics found that no matter how hard they tried, they were just creating attention and traffic for Li Wei.

"There is no way, your movie has already been blown up by the media as the 'highest production cost in history'." While Li Wei was reading the newspaper clippings in his office, studio CEO He Zhao also walked in.He Zhao was very familiar with Li Wei's office, and didn't bother with the secretarial service, so he took a cup and made tea for himself.

"Tsk tsk, I found that since you have money, your style has improved a lot. This set of white porcelain is imitating the craftsmanship of the Song Dynasty, right? It's also thanks to you spending a few years of money to let them copy it. It is said that this tea is also Dongding Oolong from the tea mountain that you bought yourself? By the way, I have always been curious. Some people say that the water you drink here is imported from abroad, can it be true?"

"Come on, don't you need your signature for the expenses of my office?" Li Wei gave He Zhao a white look. "The water for ordinary people is indeed mineral water imported from Gaul. There is no way, those ordinary people think that the mineral water in Gaul is of good quality, so I have to give them according to their expectations. If there are people who understand life Come, then the water I arranged here is the natural mineral water of the island in the center of the lake. If a good friend comes, or a brazen guest like you, I will use my glacier lake water. The mineral ratio of this water is boiling It is a perfect match with oolong tea, and the faint orchid fragrance after the tea is brewed is just right."

"How is the casting of your other movie going? If I read your schedule correctly, then you will start filming at the end of this month, and then try to finish it in 21 days?" He Zhao took a sip of tea, quite puzzled Looking at Li Wei. "If the actors are asked to work overtime and shoot more, I think there will be no problem after the filming. But what about the scenery? Your film is about the college entrance examination, so there must be four scenes in spring, summer, autumn and winter. Don't tell me that you plan to start shooting in autumn, and then How about a 'year later'?"

"Haha, I wouldn't be that stupid." Li Wei said with a smile.

Li Wei stood up and turned on the LED TV on the right wall.

"Let me show you a new technology. Originally, green screen technology combined with augmented reality technology can be realized, but the cost is slightly higher. This idol film is only a medium-cost movie. If a large number of CG technology is used, it will be too expensive. Yes. This is the latest camera from Kirin Imaging Technology Co., Ltd., which is fully digital. After shooting, the picture will be synchronized and real in the monitoring area, and in the monitoring area, the loaded special effects can be used to process the picture in real time." In the demonstration video played on the LED screen, through the loading of visual effects, the originally sunny and sunny picture suddenly had a sudden storm, lightning and thunder.The four seasons scenery technology that He Zhao is worried about is more simple. In the video, a tree is displayed on the screen through the computer to show the difference between spring, summer, autumn and winter. "How? With this technology, we can complete part of the post-production special effects when shooting. This device can output the current mainstream 2K and 4K image quality, and can also output the 8K UHD image quality that is still in the experimental stage. Give me the budget!"

He Zhao is currently amazed by the camera technology shown in the video. In fact, digital photography has been widely used in today's film production.Because digital film can not only achieve sufficient clarity visible to the naked eye, but also facilitate post-production and storage, and it is also convenient for theater companies to use secret key technology to control the release cycle and the number of screens. Therefore, except for a few old-fashioned directors who still insist on film cameras, Most directors are using digital cameras.The synchronous presentation function of the digital camera is actually not too rare, and many cameras can realize it.But now not only can it be presented synchronously, but it can also be modified in real time and the post-production effects can be presented synchronously. This technology makes He Zhao a little bit from ear to ear.

"Your technology is going against the sky! This equipment is indeed worth purchasing, but I want to talk to the development company. It is a very big advertisement for our great director to try it out for himself! I will not charge for advertising Just let them sponsor two or three pieces of equipment." He Zhao got up and left the office after saying this.

When Li Wei was planning to film "Wild Speed" and "Red Maple Splendid", "My Diary of a Broken Love" was still in theaters.It's just that whether it's the weekend box office champion or the weekly box office champion has changed, "My Diary of a Broken Love" can barely maintain its top five box office results.But even so, "My Diary of a Broken Love", which has already earned back its cost, is still delivering a stable cash flow to Li Wei's studio.

The reason why production companies are so risky is not only worrying about losing money, but also an important reason is the problem of cash flow.The box office settlement between the theater chain and the distribution company is once a month, and the settlement between the distribution company and the production company is also once a month.If you are lucky, you can get the box office in two months; if the settlement period does not overlap, then it may take three to four months.

Therefore, most of the production companies are producing movies with the cash flow of the company under pressure, so many production companies set up a leather bag company in advance and transfer their film copyrights to this company.Then use this company as collateral to obtain financing from the bank to obtain the first funds for filming.Immediately after that, I went to various investment companies or film funds to seek capital assistance, and finally I was able to make up the production cost in front of me.Most movies can only make up half of the film cost when shooting starts, and the actors' remuneration is generally not paid until the box office is settled.

In order to prevent the actor from having nothing, the actor will sign a guarantee with the insurance company, and the brokerage company will also ask the production company to provide a part of the mortgage.In short, film production is a tough industry, and it is no wonder that global film companies are losing money.

Li Wei's studio, which is still profitable, naturally became the object of research in the film industry, but soon everyone found that there was nothing worth studying about this monster, because the success of Li Wei's studio could not be replicated.Although Li Wei's studio is positioned as an independent film production company, his boss holds the two key departments of distribution and theaters. He is a handsome young man in the film industry, and he is not something that a bunch of hard-working people can imitate.

"Director Li, I found two good seedlings this time, take a look." The casting director handed the two documents to Li Wei.

Li Wei took a look, hey, it's actually an artist from his own company.Ji Caixuan is responsible for the beauty of the girl group Liuli Amber under Kylin Records; Xia Lan is the captain of SunnyGirls, another female idol group under Kirin Records.Li Wei took a look at the photos and found that the two of them did meet the needs of the two heroines, but they just didn't know how good their acting skills were.Although Kirin will also require acting training for its idol groups, the general result is that it is no problem to mix up idol dramas, and it seems that there is still a little distance to go to the big screen.But since he still looks good enough to meet the needs, it's good to call him over for an interview.

"You arrange it, send them an audition request, let them come and have a try." Li Wei nodded, and told the casting director to arrange the audition schedule for the two.