China Entertainment: Been working as a director since 03

Chapter 561: Space Exploration Editorial Department

"Is it that exaggerated?" Da Tiantian was shocked.

Listening to what Li Yu said, it seemed that as long as he invested the money, it would be the same as giving it away for free.

"It's so exaggerated. Let me put it this way, what he wants to shoot is not science fiction at all, but romance. He wants to use the shell of science fiction to shoot a love story." Li Yu said.

Hearing this, Guo Fan frowned.

He is a science fiction fan. Although he didn't get much information about the movie through the conversation between Li Yu and Da Tiantian, with just this little bit of information, he was able to discover that it was a very explosive movie.

There is nothing wrong with a science fiction romance movie.

Science fiction and romance can be combined together. "My Robot Girlfriend" and "No Name" are successful examples.

The problem is, as Da Tiantian just said, aliens have invaded the Earth, and China has become the hope of all mankind.

The protagonist shoulders the destiny of saving the earth.

The earth is at the brink of life and death. The situation is already so critical. Are you still serious about your relationship?

If there are few love scenes, they are just embellishments, in order to highlight the protagonist's spirit of sacrificing his own family for the sake of everyone, risking separation from his lover forever and fighting a battle to the death with the aliens.

There's nothing wrong with that, and it adds points to the movie.

But Li Yu also said that Teng Huatao planned to focus on the love part. A movie with such a grand theme, so grand that it is about saving the world, actually has love at its core.

He couldn't even imagine how outrageous this movie would turn out to be.

Anyway, based on his understanding of science fiction films, he had never seen a film that was so separated from the theme and the core and still be successful.

“Okay, let’s not talk about Director Teng for now. Let me give you one last comment on ‘The Fortress’. This movie will be the ‘Chasing Dreams in Show Business’ of science fiction films.” Li Yu laid his cards on the table. This is a masterpiece that can compete with Director Bi.

However, such a comparison is not fair to Bi Dao.

Director Bi lost tens of millions at most for his movie "Chasing Dreams in Show Business", so how could "Magic City Fortress" be such a pitfall?

From an investor's perspective, "Dreaming of Performing Arts" is not worthy of being compared with "The Fortress of Devil City".

Da Tiantian’s eyes widened. Is "Magic City Fortress" equal to "Dreaming of Show Business"?
For a moment, she couldn't tell whether Li Yu was praising Director Bi or criticizing him.

Li Yu turned his gaze to Kong Dashan, who was brought by Guo Fan. "Director Guo, this is the junior you told me about on the phone, our Beijing Film Academy alumnus?"

"Yes, his name is Kong Dashan." Guo Fan quickly introduced.

"Hello, senior." Kong Dashan said modestly.

"Director Guo told me about your resume. It's quite impressive. Although you have only directed a few short films independently, they are all very good. Especially the one called 'Legal Future'," Li Yu praised.

"Compared with you, senior, I am far behind. Those are just student assignments, I took them for fun." Kong Dashan felt a little embarrassed by the praise.

"You used to shoot homework, but this time you want to really make a movie independently?" Li Yu asked.

When Li Yu said this, Guo Fan blushed a little.

The last time he went to see Li Yu, Li Yu not only invested money in him, but also asked Da Tiantian to invest money with him.

He didn't even give anything in return to Li Yu, but he actually brought his junior brother, who was both his teacher and friend, to see Li Yu, intending to ask Li Yu to invest more money in his junior brother.

He dared to do this because he knew that Li Yu had a good temper and was easy to talk to.

If it were someone else, he would never dare to do this.

"He just has some ideas. Director Li, you can take a look at his script first. If you think it's good, we can talk about it later. If you don't, then forget it." Guo Fan said.

"Well, now that we're here, let's just take a look first." Li Yu gave Guo Fan some face.

He is not such an inhuman person.

Kong Dashan must have talent to be able to follow Guo Fan and eventually get the important task of being the director of Group B of The Wandering Earth 2. In recent years, he has been supporting the careers of young directors, especially those from Beijing Film Academy.

As long as the project is good, he is willing to invest money.

Guo Fan gave Kong Dashan a look.

Kong Dashan took out a script from his bag, with the words "Space Exploration Editorial Department" written on the cover.

This is Kong Dashan's first low-budget film to be directed independently.

How small was the cost? Only two million, but the box office was over sixty million.

On a certain scoring platform, more than 8.0 people gave it a high score of .

This movie follows the path of "The Night the Comet Came".

Since there is no money for special effects, we focus on creativity and imagination.

The script of this movie was polished for many years before filming began, so it was not surprising that Kong Dashan and Guo Fan brought the script to Li Yu.

Relying on the huge success of "The Wandering Earth", Guo Fan personally solicited investments.

But it can only reach two million.

This is very realistic. People believe him but not Kong Dashan.

It’s like Li Yu now has an apprentice, who has only made a few decent short films and worked as an assistant director for Li Yu.

Li Yu asked investors to invest money in his apprentice, but the investors still refused to invest.

Unless Li Yu agrees to give him a larger share of his movie next time, but this is called interest exchange, which is completely different from real investment.

Li Yu knows something about the behind-the-scenes stories of "Space Exploration Screenwriting Department".

He remembered that in the movie there was a piece of wreckage called the Space Return Capsule, which normally cost hundreds of thousands to repair.

Hundreds of thousands exceeded the entire budget for the art props of this film.

The crew couldn’t even afford inferior materials, so they had to carve out the pieces from wood.

Also, if you want to shoot a rooftop scene after starting the filming, you have to find an aerial photographer, which costs several hundred dollars.

The crew was reluctant to spend even a few hundred dollars, so in the end the assistant director contributed his own private drone, which was flown by the art director himself.

This sounds unreliable, and finally the drone crashed under the operation of the art director.

Even though the crew was so poor, they were able to produce an 8-point masterpiece, which really puts those who spent hundreds of millions to produce a 2.9-point masterpiece to shame.

"It's a good idea, very thoughtful. I can see that you want to follow the path of 'The Night the Comet Came'. Tell me how much money you want and I'll give it to you." Li Yu was very generous.

Li Yu's generosity left Kong Dashan a little unresponsive.

Guo Fan quickly reminded him, "Director Li asked you to tell him how much money you want. Why are you standing there in a daze? Just tell him directly. There are no outsiders here. We all go to the same school."

"At least three...two million." Kong Dashan originally wanted to say three million, but was worried that it was too much, so he changed his words and said two million.

Two million is the lowest bottom line. If it’s any lower, he doesn’t know how to shoot it.

"Two million? Two million is too little, right? How about this, I'll give you five and a half million. Five million will be used for filming, and the remaining five hundred thousand will be used to make the wreckage of the space return capsule. That should be enough, right?" Li Yu smelled.

"Enough, enough, it's too much." Kong Dashan was very grateful.

His senior was really meticulous. Knowing that the space return capsule was very expensive, he still gave him an extra 500,000 yuan to make this prop.

(End of this chapter)