China Entertainment's My Artistic Career

Chapter 206 "Exquisite Ancient City"

The preparatory work for a film is very important, including dismantling the script, formulating a budget, and making a production schedule. The schedule must be formulated based on the location and actors' schedules. In addition, there are also shot scripts, storyboards, etc.

What the crew is doing now is scene viewing, and confirming the overall tone of the movie with photography and art.

The whole movie "Defiant" is the embodiment of poetry. The blind man "vomits three cups of wine and the five mountains are light" to avenge Ni Yan. In the process, he "kills one person in ten steps and leaves no trace for a thousand miles". After killing the person, "the whole thing" He took off his clothes and hid his body and name deeply."

Therefore, its style must be freehand, without too much embellishment and redundancy, just like Chinese ink painting, which has a unique charm with just a few strokes.

Scenery survey is divided into initial survey and re-connaissance. During the initial survey, the director may not be on-site. He only needs to ask the assistant director or other assistants to take some video materials as needed, and the director can choose suitable scenic spots from them.

But during the re-examination, the director must be present.

Because only when the director sees the location with his own eyes can he determine the composition of the shot and draw the storyboard.

When drawing a storyboard, you can’t draw it entirely by imagination. For example, if you use a frame composition, you must find the elements that make up the frame. If you finish the picture first, what should you do if you go to the scene to see the things that don’t form the frame?
In addition, the director may need to build scenes based on the original ones.

There are not many scenes that need to be used in "Defiant", but He Hua is very picky about every scene, including deserts, rivers and lakes, and the setting sun.
He would often discuss shooting with the new photographers and assistant directors Cao Dun and Su Lun, telling them the images and lenses he wanted. Cao Dun was responsible for turning these into practical operations. Of course, if others had better suggestions, He can accept it too.

On the other hand, at the end of September, good news finally came from the crew of "The Ancient City". After seven months of production, this first film in the "Ghost Blowing Lamp" series will be available to the audience soon.

Judging from the entire series of "Ghost Blowing the Lamp", "Jingjue Ancient City" is not the earliest timeline in the entire story.

Not to mention "Nu Qing Xiangxi", it is directly the story of the previous generation. The timeline of "Huangpizi Tomb" is also before it, but it is more of a memory nature.

The reason why "Jingjue Ancient City" is the beginning of the entire series of "Ghost Blowing the Lamp" is because the main plot begins from this film.

Therefore, Youhua Entertainment simply started filming from now on.

If the results are good, it will be followed by the second part "Longling Grottoes", the third season "Yunnan Worm Valley", the fourth season "Kunlun Temple"... until the sixth season is also the final part "Wuxia Coffin Mountain", One film a year.

As for "Huangpizi Tomb" and "Angry Sunny Xiangxi", these two will also be filmed later, but they are mainly supplements to the entire story and serve as story extras.

"Jingjue Ancient City" is the top priority of Youhua Company's work this year, and it has attracted the attention of the industry from the beginning of its preparation.

From the beginning of the project, TV stations have contacted the crew. Once the preliminary script review is completed and the actors are ready to start shooting, many platforms will start to quote.

After that, there was a series of negotiations. Those who did not have enough capital and could not meet the conditions were basically eliminated. Those who can stay here are all potential buyers, and they are bound to win.

In mid-October, the completed TV series passed the review of the General Administration. As soon as this news came out, the battle for buying TV dramas immediately entered a fever pitch!

Huang Lan now holds meetings every day to collect information from all aspects in order to obtain the greatest benefits.

"Currently, BJ TV, Magic City TV and Zhejiang J TV have the highest bids, with single episode prices exceeding 200 million." The person in charge of the marketing department reported at the meeting with a notebook.

Don't think that the price of 200 million for a single episode is very high. "Jingjue Ancient City" only has 21 episodes in total, so the price of a drama is only 4200 million. This amount of money is really a waste for these TV stations.

In addition, the production cost of a single episode of the TV series is close to 300 million, so this price cannot even cover the cost. "By the way, Zhejiang J Satellite TV said that its own columns will be able to cooperate with the promotion of the TV series."

As soon as I finished saying this, I heard a mocking "ha", and then I heard

"Lantai is doing this again. Every time he forces people to work, our people don't get a good look after they go there. They are not human beings inside and outside, and it's not interesting."

This statement was recognized by many people at the meeting. It is estimated that everyone has encountered this kind of thing.

Seeing everyone's attitude, Huang Lan simply crossed out this entry from the notebook:
"Anyone else want to add?"

"Mr. Huang, let me make a suggestion." Yang Ming raised his hand and continued after Huang Lan nodded: "Many of our considerations are based on our optimism about the future environment and our confidence in our own production capabilities."

"I believe the TV station thinks so too, so we can consider a package sale project."

"For example, if you add up the first, second, and third parts, you can trade future expectations for better returns."

The person in charge of the marketing department immediately understood what he meant: "You mean betting?"

Yang Ming nodded: "That's understandable."

After hearing this, the discussion in the conference room immediately began, and from time to time someone tilted his head to discuss with the people around him.

"We have thought about this. There are pros and cons, and it is difficult to judge what the market will be like next year. Prices may skyrocket by then."

Yang Ming was unmoved: "It makes sense to trade the future for the present."

Huang Lan reached out to stop everyone's discussion. She did not rush to a conclusion, but asked someone to reveal this idea to the TV station to see their reaction.

She also wants to listen to her boss's opinion.

He Hua has never been in favor of forming a binding relationship with a certain satellite TV. He feels that this kind of relationship is not conducive to good creation. Just like signing three dramas at one time, the conditions are too high and difficult to complete, and it is easy to hinder the team's creation. Motivation; if the conditions are too low, then you can just shoot casually, there is no pressure at all.

Moreover, he feels that the company is developing quite steadily now and is not very short of money, so there is no need to use this method to encourage growth.

In the end, after two days of fierce competition, the first-round broadcast rights of "Jingjue Ancient City" were won by Shanghai TV and Jiangsu TV for a price of 259 million, with a total transaction price of 5439 million.

In addition, the online broadcast rights were also won by LeTV for 2500 million yuan.

Coupled with some other copyrights such as DVDs, patch ads, and peripheral sales, the total revenue can be about 3000-4000 million, of which only half can be distributed to Youhua, but compared to Youhua Company The actual investment has been a lot, and He Hua and Huang Lan are very satisfied.

Now it’s time for the director and screenwriting team to study the script for the second part.

(End of this chapter)