1990: Starting from Baojia Street

Zhou Yan still remembered that he had said that he would help promote Mingcai's new song. He happened to see that one of the topics given by the program team was related to wanderers returning home, so he mentioned "Returning Home".

Fans know the names of the two new songs, and from the name "Homecoming", it is easy to tell that the theme of the song is the feelings for hometown.

When Zhou Yan mentioned Akina Nakamori's new song, the audience started to clamor for Zhou Yan to play it for them. Of course, they also wanted to try it in advance.

Several hosts looked at Zhou Yan without saying anything.

From the perspective of the program team, they certainly hope that Zhou Yan can play "Return Home" on the spot. After all, the new song has a large amount of traffic, and the song has not been released yet, but it is on the show, which is enough of a gimmick.

However, the song has not been officially released yet, so they can't just ask Zhou Yan to perform it live, as there might be copyright issues involved.

If it is just a simple issue of usage rights, they can go to the copyright company to pay the copyright fees after recording.

But the song has not been released yet. On the one hand, the copyright company may not have a copyright agent, and on the other hand, they may have signed some special terms before.

Although Zhou Yan is the composer, it does not mean that he can do whatever he wants with regard to copyright. Singers also have many rights and interests.

Usually, songwriters will not announce the melody before the song is released.

Zhou Yan knew what the audience was shouting without listening to the translation. He smiled and said, "Because the song has not been officially released, I can't play the full version for you. I will just play a simple part."

Just play a passage as a preview.

Then Zhou Yan raised his hand and played the b section of "Returning Home". The emotion of this section is a little stronger than the previous a section.

If he had a violin, Zhou Yan would be willing to play section A for everyone, but the solo effect of the keyboard is not as good as that of the violin, so Zhou Yan directly played section B to make up for this shortcoming.

Section B is more intense, more direct, and has a better ear-catching effect. It is a better choice in the time period.

So when the music just started, Zhou Yan heard a burst of exclamations from the audience.

"Si Guoyi!"

Zhou Yan knew this Japanese phrase, which had a similar meaning to the Chinese word “牛逼” (niubi). It appeared quite frequently and Zhou Yan often heard Japanese people say it.

In fact, you can tell what the audience are talking about by looking at their expressions. When the Japanese say "Siguoyi", their expressions are the same, with their eyes wide open and their mouths in the shape of an O.

Zhou Yan's performance was very brief, only about thirty seconds, but he basically played two-thirds of the melody of the entire song, leaving out only section A.

When he finished playing, the audience applauded with reluctance.

Although there are no lyrics, the mood of this song does fit the content described in the third paragraph.

After listening to this part, the audience had more expectations for this song.

In fact, most of the audience here today will go to support the new song. Zhou Yan’s move is more like a benefit to the audience.

However, after the program was broadcast, there must have been many viewers in front of the TV who had not originally intended to support Akina Nakamori's new song, or had not even heard of the new song. In that case, Zhou Yan's move had a publicity effect.

Nomura Shuya came out at the right time and said with a smile, "It's a very nice song. I believe that with the lyrics and Akina Nakamori's singing, it will definitely be a very nice song. Let's all look forward to the release of Akina Nakamori's new song. At the same time, I also want to thank Zhou Yanjun for writing such a beautiful song for Akina. Previously, "Snow Flower" has given us many surprises."

After Zhou Yan played "Return Home", the first part of this session was over, and Matsumoto Ken began to que the process and move on to the next part.

There is a set of LCD screens in the studio, which is made up of four screens in total. These four screens should be about 30 inches each.

I'm afraid only a TV station of the level of TV Asahi has a studio equipped with such a large screen. Ordinary small radio and television organizations don't use these at all.

Not to mention small radio and television organizations, in many countries, even large TV stations do not use these.

Zhou Yan has been to the studio of CCTV-2. There was no big screen there, and they used a cutout background with very poor quality.

But I heard that CCTV-2 is also preparing to install a set of screens. With such a set of screens, the program formats will be more diverse.

Soon, the picture appeared on the big screen.

The first thing that appears on the screen is a woman in a white dress, but this woman is not a real person, but an animated character.

This animated character is not very detailed, and many parts are blurry, especially the face, which looks like it is covered with a veil, and you can't see clearly what she looks like.

Then a man in black appeared, and the two began to dance together. Halfway through the dance, brilliant fireworks appeared in the sky.

The camera turned from the two people to the fireworks in the sky, and then turned again, and the woman changed her clothes and appeared in a flower field, with countless petals fluttering in the air.

When Zhou Yan saw the second set of clothes the woman was wearing, his eyes narrowed into slits.

When the woman appeared wearing the first set of clothes just now, Zhou Yan didn't feel anything special, because there was nothing special about this woman. Her hairstyle and clothes were very common.

But the second set of clothes was different. It was a black low-cut, hip-hugging miniskirt with a blue woolen coat similar to a cape on the outside. The woman also had two woolen sheaths on her forearms, which were the same set as the coat.

This outfit is very special, and no one usually wears it like this. Zhou Yan suddenly thought of a game character - Rinoa, the heroine of Final Fantasy 8.

The subsequent scenes seemed more and more familiar to Zhou Yan. Isn't this the game CG of "Final Fantasy 8"?
However, compared to the final game graphics, the graphics in this animation are rougher, many places are not drawn well, and some of the male characters in it even have no faces at all.

Among all the characters, only the heroine is drawn more carefully, but not too finely, otherwise Zhou Yan would not have failed to recognize her at the first time, and had to wait until he saw the second set of clothes to recognize her.

However, Zhou Yan remembered that Final Fantasy 8 had not been released yet, right? Because he had seen a news report in China some time ago that Final Fantasy 7 had just been released.

Because "Final Fantasy 7" tried 3D technology for the first time, it attracted attention from all walks of life.

When Zhou Yan saw this news, it was in February, which means the game had just been released for a short time.

Zhou Yan doesn't remember when "Final Fantasy 8" was released, but since "Final Fantasy 7" was released not long ago, it is impossible for "Final Fantasy 8" to have been released now.

The reaction of the audience, who didn't seem to recognize the game, further proved this point.

If the game has been released, it is impossible that no one would recognize it at the scene. In Neon, the proportion of game fans is still relatively high.

Because Final Fantasy 8 and Final Fantasy 7 are very different in terms of plot, characters and graphics, even game fans probably won't be able to recognize this as a new Final Fantasy game based on this animation. The plot of this animation is nothing special, it's just a simple love story with a relatively thin plot, and it's mainly just some beautiful pictures.

Zhou Yan looked at Nomura Hide and the others in confusion. Since Final Fantasy 8 had not been released, where did this animation come from? Why did they release this video in this session? Was there any purpose?

The hosts were focusing on the cartoons at the moment and had no idea that Zhou Yan was watching them.

This animation is very short, only about a minute and a half in total, and the picture is completely blurry in the last ten seconds. It is obvious that this was something that was rushed out at the last minute.

After the video ended, there was a not-so-loud applause from the audience. From the applause, it was clear that people didn't think the video was that good.

If everyone knew that this was a scene from a new Final Fantasy game, I'm afraid the applause would be louder. Although the last part of the video is blurry, the construction of the characters and environment in this version is obviously much more realistic than that of Final Fantasy 7.

"Final Fantasy 7" is said to be 3D, but the technology is not very mature, and the effect looks completely incomparable to "Final Fantasy 8". Although the time from 7 to 8 is not very long, there has been a great improvement in 3D technology.

But now everyone thinks that this is just a cartoon that came from somewhere.

If judged by the standards of cartoons, this is a work of mediocre quality. Many cartoons can produce this kind of effect nowadays, and it is nothing special. Moreover, there is nothing special about the plot, it is just an ordinary love story.

The key is that the time is too short, just one and a half minutes, and everyone is confused about the plot. They just know that a man and a woman are in love, but they don’t know anything about the setting of these two people.

It would be even more boring to watch them fall in love without knowing any of the settings.

If I must praise it, the heroine has a good figure and two of the clothes she wears are also pretty nice.

Why don’t you praise the face? Because I really can’t see the face clearly.

Only then did Nomura Hide and the others turn around and look at Zhou Yan.

"Do you want to watch it again?" Nomura Hide asked kindly.

Although the duration is relatively short, it is still more than a minute. It would be too difficult to ask someone to compose music for the movie after just watching it once.

They hadn't gotten through it before, and now they've set the difficulty so high, there's a high chance that the soundtrack will fail.

"No need." Zhou Yan shook his head and asked Nomura Hide, "Where did you get this video? Did your TV station make it yourself?"

Nomura Hide smiled and replied, "This is a clip provided by a partner of our TV station."

"It doesn't look like an animation. Is there a full movie?" Zhou Yan asked again.

"It's really not a cartoon. This is all we have for now."

"Why can't I see the face of the heroine clearly?"

Nomura Hide shook his head. "I don't know either."

Nomura Hide was very surprised that Zhou Yan suddenly asked more questions. After all, in his opinion, these problems had nothing to do with the soundtrack itself.

Could it be that Zhou Yan discovered something?
Nomura Hide shook his head secretly. It should be impossible. It would be too difficult to find out that this was a game scene just by relying on this video.

Zhou Yan stared at Nomura Hide's face, then laughed, "Nomura, I want to remind you that the copyright of all the music I created on the show today belongs to me personally. You can't use it anywhere else except for this show."

Nomura Hide raised the corner of his mouth. It seemed that Zhou Yan did discover something, but he didn't necessarily find that it was a game screen.

"Of course, you don't have to worry about that."

When the audience heard Zhou Yan suddenly say this, they were a little confused and didn't know what was going on.

Zhou Yan nodded, "That's no problem."

Nomura Hide smiled and asked, "How much time do you need?"

Zhou Yan thought for a moment and said, "Five minutes."

"Five minutes is all it takes?" Nomura Hide asked in surprise.

Zhou Yan smiled and said, "Well, I left five minutes for myself to drink water. I'm a little thirsty after recording for such a long time."

Hearing this, there was a burst of laughter at the scene, and everyone heard a strong confidence in Zhou Yan's words.

The staff brought Zhou Yan's cup of water, and Zhou Yan opened it and took a sip.

He was indeed thirsty. The food he had for lunch was very salty, and he hadn't had any water since the start of the show. His mouth was almost chapped.

As for the soundtrack, he had already thought of it when he was watching the video just now.

When Zhou Yan discovered that this video was from "Final Fantasy 8", the first thing that came to his mind was the theme song of this game "eyes on me".

Before Final Fantasy 8, this game had no theme song. As the series grew in size, SQUARE wanted to create a theme song for the game, but the theme song was not released until Final Fantasy 8.

The reason why Zhou Yan knew about this was because this theme song had been widely reported in China, and the reason why the Chinese media paid attention to this song was because the person singing this song was Faye Wong.

A Chinese person sang an English theme song in a Japanese game. This news sounds quite interesting.

However, Zhou Yan did not intend to bring out "Eyes on Me" because he did not think the song was that good. It was too similar to many English songs of the same period and was difficult to remember.

If this wasn't the CG for Final Fantasy 8, Zhou Yan could just write a piece of music, but now that he knew the situation, he had to pay a little more attention.

If the song he wrote is really going to be used in Final Fantasy 8, then he has to write it better.

Game music is very profitable. If we can get "Final Fantasy 8" done, the music engineering department will have revenue for the next two years.

The theme song that Zhou Yan prepared for Final Fantasy 8 is Kelly Clarkson's "Because of You". (End of this chapter)