Extracting skills from movies

Du Sheng thought for a moment and said:
“I just came here from the mainland recently and I can’t spare the time to go back for the time being.

Besides, Yinghuang Entertainment has such a huge star lineup, it’s just a routine invitation, I don’t need to be there in person, you can just be a representative.”

Ye Jingzhi served him a bowl of soup and said:

“If it was just an invitation from Yinghuang Entertainment, I would have declined directly.

But this time the top management of Oriental Records will be present, and the leaders of the Music Association will also be present, so I am asking for your opinion."

Oriental Records was once a state-owned enterprise with great power, but it no longer has the glory it once had.

"There's no need to worry about these. Just come forward. What's the other invitation?"

“This is an invitation from Baidu.”

Ye Jingzhi took out a gilded invitation:
“They have teamed up with several mainland record companies to launch an online song ranking list, and they hope you can attend.

This event is supported by China Unicom, which has also expressed its intention to invite you. It will be held next Monday."

Du Sheng thought about it.

While both events were influential, his personal schedule also required careful consideration.

Today, the mainland music industry presents a unique and distorted prosperity.

Even as physical record sales continue to decline, the number of music companies and new song releases continues to rise.

The driving force behind this strange phenomenon is naturally the huge profits brought by the ringback tone business.

Take Du Sheng as an example. His annual income from the ringback tone business alone can exceed 100 million.

Its profitability can almost be described as "astonishing".

According to data forecasts from the three major operators, the size of the ringback tone market is expected to expand to 32 billion yuan this year and next year.

In comparison, sales of traditional audio-visual products last year were less than 19 billion yuan.

Faced with such attractive market prospects, both the newly opened record department of Yinghuang Entertainment and the online music rankings launched by Baidu are actively deploying in the field of digital music.

Trying to gain a foothold in this emerging blue ocean.

Du Sheng was dubbed the "Internet King" by netizens on social forums, so his popularity is naturally very high.

He also created a large number of works that were popular in the sinking market and was one of the earliest pioneers in the ringtone business.

At a time when the traditional record industry is facing decline, he, a contrarian, must have a very high reputation in the industry.

If Du Sheng can attend Baidu's event, it will undoubtedly greatly enhance the professionalism and influence of the event.

However, Du Sheng is not interested in participating in such activities.

Especially since the invitation was from Baidu, isn't this just trying to take advantage of their own popularity?

"Tell Mr. Zhao that I have been busy with filming for the past two months, and the company still has many pending matters to deal with, so I really can't spare the time to attend."

When a person becomes successful in the entertainment industry and has accumulated enough influence, invitations to various events will surely follow.

If you don't manage your time and energy properly, it's easy to get burned out.

In addition to his acting career, Du Sheng also has to plan and negotiate several collaborations before flying to the Lighthouse Country to participate in the promotion of "SPL".

Sony had previously promised to distribute two Interstellar films, so this would be a good opportunity to make the most of it.

Of course, if Zhong Zhen was still in the company, these things would generally not fall on Du Sheng.

But she has been busy with new energy issues recently and recently flew to Bay City to negotiate an electric motor acquisition.

Ye Jingzhi knew this would happen, so she ignored the invitations and turned to another topic:
“Are you really going to invest hundreds of millions to make an animated film?
According to my preliminary calculations, Miracle Cinemas can currently allocate 1.3 million for this project, and the rest of the funds must be allocated to other projects and cinema construction. As for StarCraft…"

In the past two years, Star Media has achieved quite good results in film and television production.

The two overseas works "Legend of Sword and Fairy" and "Water Moon Cave" alone earned 7000 million yuan.

Combined with the revenue from Phoenix TV, artist management, YY voice and ringback tone business, the finances of the entire pan-entertainment sector are very stable.

This also means that even though the company has already invested in multiple projects, it is still able to come up with 1.3 million yuan to support the production of "How to Train Your Dragon".

The "How to Train Your Dragon" series of animated films grossed nearly $18 billion in its previous life, making it a great money-making tool.

Its plot is quite simple, the creativity and novelty are just barely acceptable, the main line is comedy + adventure, and the main cost is in modeling and special effects.

However, it will take a few years for it to be released, but Du Sheng is still confident that he can develop it.

What's more, it's not just Star Media that pays for it.

"In the early stages, this amount of money is basically enough."

Du Sheng thought for a moment and said:
"The venture capitalists from Dehua Fund asked me to talk about the investment in Lianzhong Video tonight.
This animated film is also a good match, so if we let them get involved, it shouldn’t be difficult to raise $5 million.”

The production cost of this animated film in the past life was over 100 million US dollars. Now that it is released a few years earlier, it is not a problem to give it a 30% discount.

At worst, I can take back the most expensive special effects and do it myself.

Anyway, special effects production will be a rigid demand in the future, and sooner or later everyone will return to China to open a special effects company. There is no need to train talents for foreigners.

Ye Jingzhi nodded and said:

“Regarding the preparations for the animation production company, the personnel structure has been basically established and can be registered at any time.

Based on your previous proposal, I contacted the CEO of Blue Cat Media, but he directly rejected our acquisition proposal.

After some investigation, I found out that the parent company of Blue Cat Media is Sanchen Cartoon Group.

Sanchen Cartoon Group was jointly invested and established by Gongqingtuan, Jingcheng Xingshang Investment Consulting and Zhongyang Audiovisual Education Center.

Such companies with state-owned capital backgrounds generally do not accept acquisition requests from outsiders.”

Du Sheng originally only remembered the success of the animation "Blue Cat's Three Thousand Questions", so he entrusted Ye Jingzhi to negotiate the acquisition.

However, few people know that behind Blue Cat Media is the financially strong and long-established state-owned enterprise, Sanchen Cartoon Group.

In addition to "Blue Cat's Three Thousand Questions", Sanchen Cartoon Group has also launched animated films including "Blue Cat Dragon Riders", "Blue Cat's Journey to the West", and "Blue Cat's Swordsman".

There is no doubt that the original intention of creating these works was to better promote toy products.

This is a common business model used by many animation companies around the world.

Merchandise and themed items are often the most profitable segments.

After hearing Ye Jingzhi's explanation, Du Sheng adjusted his strategy:

“In this case, we will no longer consider the acquisition route.

Let’s first set up our own company and get it started as soon as possible. Let’s call it Miracle Animation.

However, the model of Sanchen Cartoon Group is worth learning from. Once our cartoons become popular, we should also actively develop related peripheral products.”

Ye Jingzhi understood Du Sheng's idea and nodded in response:

"I have already started negotiating with Hengdian officials to try to secure a piece of land near the group's headquarters for the construction of an animation industry base.

If that doesn’t work, we will consider the Shenzhen Animation and Comics Industry Base or the Guangzhou Animation and Comics Creative Park.

These two places not only have many favorable policies, but also rich talent resources.”

Since last year, the country has begun to vigorously support the development of the animation industry and has approved the establishment of a series of animation industry parks across the country.

Yangcheng Animation Creative Park is one of the earliest established ones, and Shenzhen has also invested a lot of money to build a national animation industry base.

Enterprises that settle in these parks can enjoy a number of preferential policies and subsidies, and it is also easier to attract professional talents.

Du Sheng thought for a moment and said:
“You continue to communicate with the authorities. In the next five years, our investment in the animation industry will not be less than 20 billion.

With this commitment, I believe obtaining the development permit for the industrial park should not be a problem.”

At this point, he paused and joked, "But once it's approved, we'll have to start large-scale construction.
It seems that you really take after your father and like to build buildings everywhere."

Although Ye's father held a high position in the government, he later returned to the real estate sector and is currently building facilities for the Guangzhou Asian Games.

Ye Jingzhi smiled and said frankly:

“Our company’s fixed assets are indeed relatively small, and it would be more stable if we increase them appropriately.

In addition, we do not use financial leverage frequently enough.

Sister Zhen and I have discussed that given the company's numerous projects and investments, we should acquire more land and build buildings in places such as Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Moscow, and Beijing.

The same strategy should be adopted when opening branches in various provinces in the future.

I also plan to buy some land and build several high-end villas for internal employees to live in.”

Du Sheng waved his hand and said lightly:

“You guys can decide on this matter, I’ll just be the nominal behind-the-scenes person.

After tonight’s dinner, the initial investment for How to Train Your Dragon should be finalized.

Therefore, the production company of Miracle Animation must be established as soon as possible, and the initial office location can be used by Star Media. "

Just after they finished their meal, Liu Yifei was asked by Gao Yuanyuan, who had just finished filming her role, to go shopping.

They plan to go back tomorrow, so they naturally need to relax.

Liu Yifei thought of the things that several good sisters asked her to buy, and she readily agreed.

She originally wanted to recruit Du Sheng to do the hard labor, but he had to attend a social event tonight and a phone call happened to come in, so she had to give up for the time being.

The person who called was Zhong Zhen.

She had returned from Bay City, and the first topic she spoke was automobile manufacturing.

The name of the car is called Miracle Motors.

This was something that Zhong Zhen and Du Sheng came up with after discussing it, so it can be considered as following the trend.

After this period of preparation, the automobile factory is now on track.

To Du Sheng's surprise and delight, Zhong Zhen successfully purchased the design technology of Lotus supercar.

In addition, it also acquired several motor companies, and the R&D department also hired a group of top talents at high salaries.

At present, the factory is under construction and all work is progressing in an orderly manner.

Zhong Zhen was therefore in a particularly good mood.

As she got in the car and returned to the company, she excitedly described her grand blueprint for the future of Miracle Car.

In her vision, the miracle car will combine high-end performance with cutting-edge technology.

She even shared that she test drove several supercars during the trip, and pointed out their features and shortcomings.

Du Sheng understood her excitement and said with a smile:
“When you play sports cars, you must ensure safety, choose a professional track, and take protective measures.

Also, don’t bring those girls from Girls’ Generation to play together casually. They are very stage-shy and a mistake can be fatal.

After I finish my busy filming, I will find some time to teach you some driving skills."

Zhong Zhen asked in surprise:
"You also know supercar technology?"

Du Sheng smiled mysteriously and replied:

"You will know then that my driving skills are not to be underestimated."

Ye Jingzhi had already seen Du Sheng's driving skills, so she was not surprised by this. She just quietly made tea beside him.

Zhong Zhen nodded in agreement:

"You are indeed very capable, but I plan to introduce a round-robin tournament. You have to be careful and don't forget our bet!"

Du Sheng coughed lightly and quickly changed the subject:
“When it comes to making cars, I have some special ideas.

I think technology should benefit the general public.

If a technology can only be enjoyed by a certain group of people and cannot be popularized to the general public, then its significance will be incomplete..."

Based on this concept, he suggested that Zhong Zhen could set up a sub-brand under Miracle Car and name it "Magic Car".

Focus on the production of small motorcycles, electric vehicles, mountain bikes, etc.

“The electric bikes on the market now not only have poor appearance design, but also unsatisfactory performance and frequent failures.

If we can design an electric car that is cool, high-performance and reasonably priced, there will definitely be great market potential.

For electric mountain bikes, we can emphasize their durability and robustness..."

Du Sheng further analyzed:
“Directly developing high-end models requires years of technological accumulation, during which there is no output but only investment, and the risk is too high.

Moreover, if we blindly develop research and development without market feedback, the possibility of failure is also very high.

Instead, we can develop a low-end, affordable product using existing technology while researching high-end motor batteries.

Through the research and development, production and sales of these low-cost products, we can not only accumulate experience, but also cultivate talents in the industrial chain and marketing, and explore more advanced models. "

Du Sheng is well aware that the core of future competition in the manufacturing industry lies in promotion.

Even if you have the ability to build good cars, nothing can be achieved if you can't make them popular in the market.

Tesla also faced difficulties in its early days, but the situation improved significantly after Musk took over.

Musk and Xiaomi are both experts in this field. They know how to package products and bring them to market.

Zhong Zhen understood Du Sheng's point of view and said:

"You mean, we should first cultivate and expand channels through low-cost products and try to find a mature team?"

Du Sheng took a sip of tea and said slowly:
“Yes, my suggestion is to design an electric vehicle that is more functional than most products on the market, more attractive in appearance, but with a similar or even lower price.

At that time, we can first release concept drawings for promotion, decide the production scale based on the number of pre-orders, and then put it on the market for trial.

Even if we mess up, the cost is relatively low. The key is to take this opportunity to learn and promote the product..."

Zhong Zhen's expression was no longer as excited as before, but he held the phone in deep thought.

And raised doubts appropriately

Du Sheng answered them one by one and let Zhong Zhen make the choice as to the outcome.

On the one hand, he does not intend to interfere too much in the matter of new energy.

After all, Zhong Zhen is the main person in charge, and he can only make suggestions at most.

On the other hand, Du Sheng has long admired Zhong Zhen's decision-making ability and ideas.

After spending so much time together, he is clear about the other person's judgment and error-correcting abilities.

Therefore, Du Sheng chose to respect her decision and not exert too much influence.

However, Zhong Zhen did not rush to make a decision, and the topic gradually turned to other aspects.

At eight o'clock in the evening, Du Sheng hung up the phone, said goodbye to Ye Jingzhi, and went to the agreed place.

He arrived earlier than others, only Zheng Zetao arrived early.

It can be seen that this old acquaintance has both expectations and hesitations about the next investment.

I would like to discuss and prepare in advance.

………(End of chapter)