Huayu special effects started in 97

According to original history, "Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy" started filming on December 12 and was wrapped up in April of the following year. It can be said that it took an entire winter to complete the filming.

The fifteenth day of the first lunar month in 2014 was February 2th. Even if we started filming on that day, there would not be many days left to capture the snow scene.

Therefore, Xu Ke's shooting plan is to shoot the snow scenes first after the start of filming, and the rest of the indoor scenes or small scenes that can be solved by snow-making machines can be shot later.

If the temperature is still not good enough, you can only use special effects.

In short, it is impossible to wait another year, and Jiang Heng has no objection to this.

The selection of actors is slightly different from the previous life.

The actor who plays Yang Zirong is still Zhang Hanyu, and the candidates for bandits such as Zuoshandiao and Qinglian are similar to the lineup in the previous life, except that there are some major changes in the members of the 203 squad.

Among them, the role of captain Shao Jianbo is no longer played by Lin Gengxin, but by Han Tong from iQiyi, Youku and Tencent Video. The role of Gao Bo is replaced by Zheng Kai, and the role of Bai Ru is replaced by Zhao Liying.

As for the investment in the film, the initial budget is 200 million RMB.

Old Monster Xu has a habit of overspending when filming, but Jiang Heng and Yu Dong will not let him do whatever he wants. A lower cost is fine, but a higher cost is definitely not acceptable.

The three of them discussed it again and confirmed that there was nothing to change, and then Yu Dong and Xu Laoguai left.

In the afternoon, Gao Fei, CEO of Weibo, a subsidiary of the group company, came over. He looked a little nervous, thinking that Jiang Heng was unhappy about Guli Nazha being on the hot search, so he called him over to make a self-criticism.

Unexpectedly, Jiang Heng’s first sentence made him stunned.

“What do you think of Miaopai?”

Gao Fei was stunned. He never expected Jiang Heng to ask this.

"Well, it's a very good product. After the company cooperated with Yixia Technology's Miaopai, it can be said that it has achieved a win-win result. Our Weibo mobile client has a built-in Miaopai application, which has derived a form in which text, pictures, and videos coexist. It has opened up a road of traffic symbiosis with Yixia Company, and we are enjoying the dividends brought by short videos together."

Gao Fei's thoughts raced as he came up with something that he thought was pretty good.

Jiang Heng was silent for a moment, "Then do you think Yixia Company is willing to be acquired by us?"

Gao Fei was stunned again. He never expected that Director Jiang Heng, who was obsessed with making special effects blockbusters, would turn his attention to the field of mobile short videos. What a coincidence!

"Well, I'm afraid it's not that easy. Yixia's boss Han Kun is very optimistic about this product and is very ambitious!"

Jiang Heng smiled, "Then, let's start from scratch and make one ourselves!"

“Ah, build your own short video app?”

"Of course!"

"What about the cooperation with Miaopai?"

Jiang Heng snorted, "Why do you worry about them!"

Many people don’t know that Miaopai, which originally cooperated with Weibo, should be regarded as the earliest short video APP in China. Its parent company was founded in August 11 and launched the Paike APP.

The initial photographers had no time limit and the response was average.

In order to compete for the limited attention of users, Han Kun improved Paike in 2013, which led to the birth of Miaopai, which can produce videos under 10 seconds long, making it truly "short". Han Kun, the boss of Yixia Technology, also became the first person in China to propose the concept of 10-second short videos.

Shortly after Miaopai was launched, Han Kun approached Gao Fei, CEO of Weibo, and wanted to start a strategic partnership.

Gao Fei also felt that short videos would be an opportunity for the development of Weibo, so the two companies hit it off and started a strategic cooperation, and Miaopai became a built-in application of Weibo.

With the opening of the floodgates on Weibo, Miaopai has seen a surge in traffic and the number of users has continued to increase.

While other short video APP platforms were still spending money to buy traffic, Miaopai, with the help of Weibo, rose rapidly and instantly left other similar products far behind, becoming the king of short videos.

Weibo also achieved a significant increase in revenue and a surge in market value thanks to Miaopai, and it enjoyed a few years of comfort.

However, from the perspective of future development, this long-term cooperation has caused considerable damage to the strategic development of both parties.

One is that Weibo developed its own short video APP too late. It was not until 2017 that it launched a new short video product "KuRan". By then, TikTok was already born. It was almost impossible for Weibo to stand out in the fiercely competitive short video track.

Even without Miaopai, Weibo is still Weibo.

But without the traffic support of Weibo, Miaopai fell from heaven to bottom in an instant.

Because the opening rate of its own independent APP is very low, user stickiness remains on Weibo.

Because its rapid rise relies on the traffic and topics of Weibo.

Simply put, it has become a Weibo player, instead of creating its own content to attract users.

In the final analysis, its success was too easy and too accidental!

The reason for Miaopai's rise was the "Ice Bucket Challenge" that suddenly became popular in 2014.

Weibo and Yixia Technology quickly launched the "Ice Bucket Challenge" campaign in China. Many celebrities and big names participated in the challenge. The topic on Weibo continued to ferment and quickly became a social hot spot.

Miaopai has rapidly risen thanks to the "Ice Bucket Challenge", with its daily active users exceeding 200 million and total daily playback volume reaching 10 billion times.

Perhaps because it tasted the sweetness of celebrity-driven traffic, Miaopai has since focused its operations on celebrities, with more than 3000 celebrities joining the platform. It also invited many celebrities to serve as company executives, including Zhao Liying as vice president, Zhang Liangying as chief sound officer, and Jia Nailiang as chief creative officer. Looking back on it, it’s simply crazy.

However, thanks to these, Miaopai once had a brief period of glory. In 2017, Miaopai had 2.86 million monthly active users and a user penetration rate of 61.7%, ranking first in the short video industry.

But after parting ways with Weibo, traffic began to decline rapidly.

It was also punished for content issues and was suspended for 79 days before being put back on the shelves.

But when Miaopai returned after rectification, the daily active users of Douyin and Kuaishou both exceeded 100 million. Weishi caught up with the support of Penguin. Giants such as Ali and Baidu were also increasing their investment in short videos. The entire industry became a red ocean. Where was there room for Miaopai?
Therefore, Jiang Heng reviewed the situation from the perspective of "hindsight". The cooperation between Weibo and Miaopai was honey in the short term, but turned into arsenic over time.

Since it cannot be acquired, it is better to separate early and create your own independent short video APP.

Besides, it’s already 2014, and it’s only been more than two years since the birth of the short video king Tik Tok. Time doesn’t wait for us!

Unfortunately, Gao Fei did not have such awareness. Instead, he explained: "Director Jiang, I am not worried about Miaopai. It is because users are now accustomed to Weibo with short videos. If the cooperation is terminated, it will affect our products!"

Jiang Heng smiled and said, "I didn't say that you should terminate the cooperation immediately. I just wanted to set up a research and development team... Never mind, I'll take care of this matter myself! When you go back, recommend a project manager to me, and pick some programmers with good skills. Report the names to me!" (End of this chapter)