The Wind of China Entertainment 2005

Chapter 723: Ink Realm Heavenly Harmony
The meal lasted until 10 o'clock at night.

The busyness of the capital seems to be endless around the clock. Despite the hustle and bustle of the day, there are still cars coming and going.

In front of the bus stop, men and women returning home late were wrapped in their coats, looking down at their cell phones, looking very quiet, but the atmosphere of fatigue around them was difficult to conceal.

The evening breeze blew gently, bringing a hint of coolness, and Lu Yuan closed the car window a little.

At the banquet, I reached a preliminary consensus with La Peikang and others on "The Wandering Earth".

It was decided that China Film, Light Media, Wanda and Far Eastern Media would work together to invest three to four years to create this science fiction IP.

Because he was drunk, Ning Hao found a designated driver and asked the driver to drive the car home, and he got into Lu Yuan's car.

He looked at the person beside him and asked the question that had been in his mind all night: "Why did you suddenly change your mind? Didn't you say before that you would let Guo Fan practice with The Three-Body Problem?"

Lu Yuan withdrew his gaze from the bus stop: "I never said I wouldn't shoot The Three-Body Problem. I gave both works to him to direct."

Ning Hao was curious: "Regarding The Wandering Earth, from the animation, TV series, to the final movie, was this a plan you had from the beginning, or was it something you came up with on the spur of the moment?"

"What a plan!"

Lu Yuan smiled and shook his head: "La Peikang's purpose of coming here today is very clear, that is to set up a plate. Even though he is polite to us, he is the future head of China Film Group after all."

"Boss Han can use imported blockbusters to block domestic films. He can do the same. A new official will start with three fires. Even if we don't agree, he will find other people to cooperate with. There is no need to offend him and cause trouble for ourselves."

"As far as the current market is concerned, the prospects for science fiction films are unclear and the risks are huge. It is a good thing that he wants to promote science fiction films. Whether it is out of sincerity or for political achievements, we will go with the flow. After several companies share the burden, it is actually not much."

"Five hundred million is not a lot. What if we lose it?" Ning Hao rolled his eyes when he heard this. What a rich man.

Just now at the dinner table, they roughly estimated the costs of scene construction, special effects team, etc. for "The Wandering Earth", and the total investment is about 3 to 5 million yuan.

Yuanfang Media, Wanda, China Film Group, and Guangguang Media will share the cost equally, and each company will have to pay at least 100 million yuan. Considering the actual situation of Guangguang Media and China Film Group, they will definitely not be willing to pay so much, so the bulk of the cost will naturally fall on Wanda and Yuanfang Media.

Lu Yuan glanced at him and smiled, "It's not as exaggerated as you think. Have you forgotten what Wanda does? Real estate!"

Ning Hao frowned, not quite understanding.

Lu Yuan explained: "Think about it, domestic film and television bases are either ancient style or modern style, but what about science fiction films? There is not even a decent shooting location to be found."

“The scenes like the transport vehicles, underground cities, and space stations needed in The Wandering Earth all basically needed to be built in real scenes.”

"We can definitely take this opportunity to build an industrial film base with the most advanced planning and the highest standards in the country, and even use it as a basis to further develop a science fiction theme park."

For a good movie, box office revenue is always only the most basic part of the revenue.

Take Chen Kaiquan for example. He loses money on every movie he makes, but he never lacks funds. What do the investors want? Because he is old, because he is
The fundamental reason is that the money lost from his movies was earned back from other places.

Take his "The Emperor and the Assassin" as an example.

The magnificent Qin Palace in Hengdian was built by director Chen based on the prototype of the Qin Xianyang Palace at a 1:1 ratio.

The total area is 800 acres, and the construction area reaches 11 square meters.

The box office performance of this movie was not very good, with a cumulative box office of only 127 million US dollars, which is more than 1000 million RMB, so it can be said to be a huge loss.

However, the cities built by Chen Kaiquan have always been used as filming locations by domestic costume drama crews.

Coupled with the income generated by tourists for these cities, the investors who invested in director Chen Kaiquan not only did not suffer any losses, but instead received generous returns.

For Director Chen, it doesn’t matter if the movie loses money, he can make it all back by building a scenic spot.

Ning Hao suddenly felt a little frustrated after hearing what he said. He had been in the industry for so long, but he had never filmed a big production.

Lu Yuan didn't know what Ning Hao was thinking, he had other plans in mind.

He hopes that in the next 3-4 years, PPS can go one step further outward and the audience base of "The Wandering Earth" will no longer be limited to the domestic market.

Use the drama and animation versions to warm up the movie, radiate to neighboring countries, expand the popularity and influence of this science fiction IP, and wait for the movie to be officially released to usher in a box office explosion.

Otherwise, a big science fiction production with an investment of 5 million yuan would only have a return of at least 15 billion yuan, which is likely to be a huge loss.

Ning Hao asked: "Special effects are a big project. Xu Jian of Mojing Tianhe has repeatedly stated that domestic special effects technology is still ten to fifteen years behind that of the United States. The drama version also needs to use special effects. Have you considered cooperating with others? Do you prefer foreign or domestic partners?"

"I haven't thought about it yet, but I have a general direction." Lu Yuan stared at the neon lights outside the window intently.

A good science fiction movie is not something that can be made just by thinking hard or clapping your hands.

Special effects are undoubtedly one of the core elements.

With the rising cost of domestic film production and the development of the overall environment, the use of special effects in films is becoming more and more common.

Such as the movies "Tangshan Earthquake", "Lost in Thailand", "The Golden Robbery", "Painted Skin", "Time Travel"...

There are a lot of fairy-tale TV series on the small screen
Even Lu Yuan's recently completed reality-themed film "Burning Sun" involved the participation of a special effects company.

But most of these companies' special effects production technology is hard to describe in a few words.

Not only do people in the industry think so, but the general public also looks down on the 50-cent special effects made in China and sneers at them.

If a young Chinese audience was asked what kind of special effects blockbusters they liked?
His answer would most likely be Hollywood movies such as "Avatar", "Transformers" and "Inception", and he has a blind admiration for foreign special effects.

Lu Yuan was very clear that "The Wandering Earth" would have very high requirements for special effects technology and the task would be very arduous.

Hard science fiction means that during the filming process, the special effects department will not be defined as just a post-production job. It will be the department that stays in the crew the longest besides the director and will almost be involved in the entire production process of the project.

Such a large project cannot be completed by just one or two companies.

While inviting top foreign special effects companies to participate, it is also inseparable from the support of a large number of domestic special effects companies.

It can be expected that as China Film Group vigorously promotes the rise of science fiction films, more and more opportunities will be given to domestic special effects companies.

The explosion of domestic special effects blockbusters is inseparable from the updating and iteration of Chinese film technology and the support of national policies.

The progress in special effects in domestic films is also inseparable from the persistence and breakthroughs of domestic special effects companies.

Projects feed technology, and technology also assists projects. This is a two-way process that complements each other.

From an investment perspective, special effects companies will usher in a period of rapid golden growth in the next few years, both in terms of market demand and overall development.

There is no doubt that this is a vent for wealth to soar. To use the words of Zhang Ruimin of Haier Group in 2006: Standing on the vent, even pigs can fly!
Of course, this year Xiaomi CEO Lei also quoted this sentence on Weibo and further expanded its influence.

In view of this, Lu Yuan believes that investing in or directly acquiring a special effects company may be a forward-looking strategic choice. After all, he has no shortage of projects, whether it is Yuanfang Media or PPS.

The simplest one is that "Mojin: The Lost Legend", which will be produced in collaboration with Wanda next year, will use a lot of special effects technology.

China World Trade Center, Yuanfang Media.

"Boom boom boom!"

"Enter!"

Wu Lang pushed the door open and saw Lu Yuan standing in front of the French window. He handed over the documents in his hand and said, "Boss, these are the special effects production companies in China with outstanding business capabilities."

"Yes!" Lu Yuan nodded, took it, sat down on the sofa and opened the document.

The first one is Beishi Media.

Founded in 2006, the founder is an American citizen. It started out by outsourcing special effects to Hollywood. Since 2010, it has been deeply involved in the special effects production of Hollywood blockbusters. Its current project is "Transformers 4".

The second one is MOREVFX.

Founded in 2007, it started out by doing special effects for TV dramas, such as "Crossing the Guandong". Ning Hao also collaborated with this company when filming "The Golden Robbery".

It was also because of the other party's introduction that the special effects of Lu Yuan's subsequent films, including "Time Raiders", "Lost in Thailand", "Chinese Partners" and "The Sun Also Rises", were handed over to this company.

The third one is the extraordinary craftsmanship.

Tiangong Yicai is headquartered in Shanghai. In June this year, it was formed by the merger and reorganization of four special effects companies, namely Tiangong Film, Yicai Film and Television, Lesheng Culture and Yicai Film.

This company has been responsible for the post-production of films such as "Aftershock", "Painted Skin 2", "Flying Swords of Dragon Gate", "So Young", "Detective Dee: The Mystery of the Phantom Flame", etc., and has considerable strength.

The fourth one is Digital Kingdom.

In September 12, Pony.com and India's Reliance Group jointly acquired the special effects company founded by Cameron for US$9 million. However, in the middle of this year, they sold off their shares in order to prepare for the company's listing, arguing that the special effects company had too many problems and was difficult to recover from.

There are also several companies in Hong Kong.

Including Gu Tianya's Tian Xia Yi and Nicholas Tse's Chao Ting special effects, the development of these years has been connected with many works, such as "Bruce Lee", "A Simple Life", "Love in the City" and "1942".
Wu Lang added: "As for the animation production of The Wandering Earth, Director Tian Xiaopeng said that there is no problem. The time may be until next year, but he said that if the project is urgent, he has another way."

"what?"

"Tian Xiaopeng said that there are too many outsourced teams doing special effects for 'The Return of the Great Sage', with a total of 400 to 500 people. As the project enters the later stages, many people will leave to look for the next project. He feels that this line of work is not easy and is like doing odd jobs."

"So when he was working with these people, he listed a list of people who were all industry experts. If they could be brought together to form a studio, the level in the animation field would be top-notch, and there would be no pressure to produce animated versions of The Wandering Earth and The Three-Body Problem, or to incubate and develop other novel and game IPs."

"Oh?" Lu Yuan raised his eyebrows.

Tian Xiaopeng wanted him to set up or invest in an animation special effects production company.

It is estimated that the project of "The Wandering Earth" was also a resource he deliberately gave up.

"Where's the list?"

"At the bottom!" Wu Lang pointed.

Lu Yuan flipped through the list and saw that there were quite a few people on it, close to 200, including Yu Zhixin, Si Wei, Wu Zhimin, Wang Shang, and Yang Yu (Jiaozi).
It can be seen that Tian Xiaopeng really wants to find a stable job for these people, and he very considerately marks out their professional strengths and weaknesses, as well as their areas of expertise.

They are just professional terms, such as 3D modeling, mapping, rendering, particle effects, character effects, rigid body effects, fluid effects, etc.

Lu Yuan didn't quite understand.

Although he had been to October Studio many times, he was not familiar with most of the special effects artists on the list, except Yang Yu, whom Tian Xiaopeng had told him about.

It is said that this person has good business capabilities and originally took over part of the outsourcing of "The Return of the Great Sage". Unfortunately, the workload was too heavy and his personal studio was unable to complete it on time.

Big productions like "The Return of the Great Sage" are rare in the industry, but he is reluctant to miss it.

How to do it?

In order to learn from experience, or to support the release of such a large-scale animation production, this guy took a different approach and directly joined Tian Xiaopeng's October Studio.

So now that the work is almost done, you want to quit and leave?
He tried to understand the technical terms, but gave up after a few minutes because he still couldn't understand them.

But it doesn’t matter. Tian Xiaopeng dares to recommend them, which shows that they are all capable. He wants all of them!
Lu Yuan pondered for a moment, and then instructed Wu Lang: "Find time to talk to the people on the list as soon as possible. Yuanfang Media will fund the establishment of an animation studio. The name will be decided by them, and they will be allowed to invest in the technology."

"Tell them about the TV and movie versions of the Ghost Blowing Light series. If they are still hesitant, let colleagues from the PPS animation department contact them and make sure they know that we are not short of projects. The content department is stockpiling IPs, whether it is animation or film, there is enough for them to be busy."

"it is good!"

After giving the instructions, Lu Yuan continued to focus on special effects companies such as Tiangong Yicai.

Although they are all special effects, different special effects companies often have their own areas of focus and technical strengths.

This division of labor stems from differences in technological barriers, resource accumulation and market demand.

Some companies prefer fantasy scenes, scene construction that integrates traditional cultural elements of oriental aesthetics, and ink/particle special effects.

Some companies focus on digital character modeling, biological hair/skin rendering, high-precision facial capture, expression and motion capture, or natural special effects such as water, smoke, fire, and weather.

What is lacking is hard-core sci-fi physical effects such as large-scale machinery, explosions, fluids, and rigid body fragmentation.

Lu Yuan rubbed his temple. This result was expected.

Because there was no market demand and there had been no hard science fiction films in China before, the technical core of the special effects company would naturally not be focused on this area.

If there is no money to be made, only a fool would do this.

This means that it will be the same no matter which special effects company you choose.

Lu Yuan set his sights on MOREVFX. In that case, why not choose a familiar one?

"Call Xu Jian and ask him out for dinner!"

(End of this chapter)