China Entertainment’s rescue plan is hard to come by

Chapter 897 Filming a web series?

Another snowfall in Beijing, though light, brought a rare moment of peace to this bustling city.

Under the starry sky, Sun Yi and Yang Fan chatted casually about the wedding preparations.

Yang Fan, speaking like someone who's been there, gave him tips on various small details to pay attention to during the wedding, while also telling him to be prepared to be exhausted on the day.

I'm not afraid of being tired; it's only a day at most.

Sun Yi is currently worried about the online discussion about his wedding date with Liu Yifei, which remains a hot topic. Meanwhile, there's been a mishap regarding the bridesmaid selection for the young lady.

It's neither proper nor proper; there are exactly seven people.

This number is rather awkward; it's an oversubscription.

Actually, this situation is easy to handle; just reduce the number of bridesmaids by one. Six bridesmaids are not out of the question.

But Sun Yi always felt that Liu Tianxian was being treated unfairly.

A proper wedding is always a good thing; there's no reason to reduce it.

Therefore, Sun Yi has not given up and is still making preparations according to the selection of 8 bridesmaids and groomsmen.

If all else fails, we'll have to pick either Sister Xun or Senior Sister Yu to take the blame.

Anyway, it won't be me eating dog food in the end.

No care!

Yang Fan had no idea that Sun Yi's mind was already on the wedding preparations, but even if he did, he would understand.

Back when he and his wife, the leading lady of the TV station, were preparing for their wedding, he dumped all the company's affairs on Sun Yi, almost exhausting this hands-off boss to the point of exhaustion.

It's the same now, only reversed.

However, for some important meetings, Sun Yi himself still has to appear, just like today.

Starry Sky has formulated a specific project plan for 2013. Generally speaking, this is the most important task for the company at the beginning of the year. If the plan is well-planned, the company's operations will be well-organized throughout the year, and the performance will improve steadily, just like last year.

Yang Fan checked the time and thought it was about time. "Let's go, everyone over there should be here by now."

Sun Yi snapped out of his thoughts, nodded, and stood up.

The number of people in Conference Room One was not large, and the room was not full, but everyone there was a very important figure in the cosmos.

Sun Yi sat in the main seat, with Yang Fan to his left and Gao Xilan, who was in charge of the group's finance and administration, to his right.

She originally also served as the CEO of Starry Sky International Cinemas, but last year, as Starry Sky's business grew larger and larger, she was unable to manage both operations and therefore resigned from her position at Starry Sky International.

Through Chairman Han, Sun Yi poached Jiang Yue, an experienced deputy general manager from China Film Group's Stellar Cinemas. She is also a strong woman and is currently sitting next to Gao Xilan.

Chen Xiaozhe, who had been in charge of the digital field in North America for the past few years, turning the company around and laying a solid foundation for the take-off of Starry Sky's special effects technology, finally returned to China and took over as the head of Starry Sky Digital, sitting next to Yang Fan for the first time.

The remaining people are Liu Xiaowei, Guo Ming, and Liu Xudong, the person in charge of Xingkong Video, whom Sun Yi had forcibly taken from Wang Xing. Liu Xudong is a business management talent.

What was rather unusual was that, in addition to these management personnel, several other people were sitting behind the conference table.

Guo Fan, Xin Yukun, Li Ruijun, and Lao Qi are the main directors of Starry Sky.

Logically speaking, they are not qualified to attend this kind of meeting; their level is not high enough.

In other film and television companies, the boss or production director decides what to shoot and what to make.

The director only has a say in the specific details of the project.

Don't be fooled by the fact that the director may seem to have a lot of influence and power on set; at best, he's just an executor. The real decision-makers are still the producers or production companies.

Of course, there are also directors who are so awesome that they don't care about production companies at all, and they think, "I can make whatever I want, and you guys have to rush to give me money."

There's only one director with that kind of ability: Director Chen. Even Zhang Yimou and Li Yifei can't match him.

At most, they have a lot of say and can negotiate with the production company, but when it comes to crucial moments, they have to listen to the production company.

Otherwise, how did "A Simple Noodle Story" come about, and how did "If You Are the One 2" come about?

It's all just the result of compromise.

As for Starry Sky, there's no need for that. Sun Yi is a director by training, so he respects the director's opinions on specific projects and would never force someone to do something they don't want to do.

He knew all too well the importance of a director's initiative to a film.

Of course, to avoid situations like Director Chen's, where subjective initiative becomes excessive, Starry Sky also puts a lot of thought into the producer's arrangements.

For each project, a senior producer will be on set throughout the entire process, offering advice to the director from various perspectives such as the market and the audience. At the same time, the producer also acts as an invisible rein to prevent the directors from going astray.

Yang Fan chaired the meeting. He first reported on the company's overall data for last year, including revenue from various aspects, and then summarized the company's performance in various tasks over the past year.

It was very concise, basically just a starting point to get the ball rolling.

Then each person in charge gave a speech.

Jiang Yue, representing Starry Sky International, proposed this year's cinema expansion plan, which aims to add 6-8 cinemas nationwide, averaging one cinema every two months.

Sun Yi nodded in agreement and suggested that, if the cost of capital was controllable, they should try to purchase the land for the cinema rather than lease it.

It's 13 now, and the real estate sector still has at least 5 to 6 years of profit to be made. Xingkong can take advantage of this time difference, recover its investment costs during this period, and then find a strong investor to take over and make another profit.

In his opinion, Wanda, which ranks first among domestic cinema chains, is quite good.

Having suffered a setback at Sun Yi's hands during the previous revenue-sharing battle, they were not willing to swallow their anger and announced the establishment of Wanda Pictures at the beginning of the year, thus entering the film and television production industry.

You cut my share of revenue from the cinema chain, so I'll set up a film production company and make money from both sides!
Sun Yi welcomed this, saying that everyone will be better off only when the pie is big enough.

Besides, competition is what reveals the true strength of the starry sky.

Next, Chen Xiaozhe introduced the development of Starry Sky Digital. This year, they plan to invest heavily in digital special effects engines to develop a new generation of special effects engines unique to Starry Sky Digital. They will prioritize animation and increase efforts to enhance the industry competitiveness of their animation studios. They aim to achieve the ability to compete with top Hollywood animation studios such as DreamWorks and Pixar within two to three years.

Look, that's what it means to get things done. He's just returned to China and he's already identified the company's key needs.

"Sissi's Dream Garden"—that's a name it's given for a reason.

Finally, it was Liu Xudong's turn from Starry Sky Video.

In less than two years since its establishment, Starry Sky Video has launched phenomenal variety shows like "The Voice of China" and wildly popular online short dramas like "Men's Diary".

Meanwhile, with the backend support of Renren.com and the content output of Xingkong, it has already broken into the top three in the video website field, ranking only behind Youku Tudou and Sohu Video. Its market share is comparable to Sohu's, and it even surpassed Sohu to become the second largest video website during the two months when The Voice of China was broadcast.

This year, Liu Xudong plans to continue to enrich the diversity of variety shows, strive to land another hit variety show, and also dedicate extra energy to working with Starry Sky's production department to explore long-form online dramas.

Starry Sky is preparing to venture into web series.

Upon hearing about the web series, Sun Yi suddenly had an idea.

It seems that our fairy-like beauty hasn't acted in a TV series since "My Love from the Star".

Her fans would frequently visit her Weibo account to urge her to update her content. If it weren't for the fact that she has starred in quite a few movies in recent years, her fans might have already gone crazy.

However, the audience for TV series is significantly larger than that for movies.

The two are getting married soon, and if something goes wrong after the wedding, they might have to take a year off.

Although Liu Yifei's current popularity and status mean that even if she takes a year off, she won't be forgotten by her fans, having a work that can boost her popularity is better than nothing.

Should we arrange for her to film another web series?

(End of this chapter)