Huayu: Director started with art films

Chapter 346 Chapter 357 [Chicago starts North American promotion, Miss Asia and The Voice of Asia]

Li Yishu glanced at Monica and saw that she looked normal. She couldn't help but smile softly. She was discussing this matter with her last night. She didn't expect that a Chinese group would come to her today.

But this is also normal.

Gu Long wrote a very good saying: Wherever there are people, there is the world of martial arts.

There are small groups in every industry, and in immigrant countries like North America, there are even more ethnically based groups.

"Tell me more about it."

"Boss, I don't know much."

"Then pick the key points."

"Ok."

After sorting out her thoughts, Amy said, "It is said that the Committee of 1989 was first established in . Its founders include Chinese architect Bei Jinming, Chinese musician Ma Yo-Yo, and physicist Yang Zhengning..."

"The purpose of the organization is to encourage Chinese Americans to participate in North American social life and promote the development of Chinese Americans in Greater China..."

Amy said a lot of things.

To sum it up in one sentence, the core members of the Committee of 100 are all Chinese elites living in the United States.

They are the real Chinese elites, not those in the middle class, but the Chinese elites who are very outstanding in a certain field.

For example, the architect Bei Jinming, the musician Ma Yo-Yo...

They are all big names who have made their mark in their respective fields.

After several years of development, the Committee of 60 has expanded to members. Most of the selected people are Chinese Americans who have considerable influence in the political and business circles of North America and have the energy to care about the relations between the two countries.

The current president, Ms. Yang Xuerong, is the vice president of General Motors. She has a great influence in the Chinese community in North America and has very good relations in China. In recent years, she has been actively and vigorously promoting General Motors to settle in the Chinese market.

There have been recent rumors that General Motors is interested in building a joint venture factory in Shanghai.

Hearing this, Li Yishu nodded slightly. The company being promoted by the other party should be the famous SAIC in the future.

Before the rise of domestic automobiles, SAIC occupied a place in the country. Buick and Chevrolet were both produced by SAIC.

I just didn't expect that SAIC was actually promoted by the chairman of the Committee of 100.

"Amy, please send a message to Bei Jinming's assistant and tell him that I am available during this period."

Although he had no idea why the other party wanted to invite a non-American like him to attend the Committee of 100, Li Yishu still decided to meet this legendary master architect.

If necessary, he would also like to ask the other party to help design the headquarters building of the Art Entertainment Group.

With the rapid development of the group, business has been developing very well both in China and in the United States in the past two years. Li Yishu has already intended to auction a piece of land in Yanjing and build a building of his own!
It is definitely better to build it now than in a few years. Land prices are relatively cheap nowadays. Building a building is not only for a headquarters, but also for investment.

"Okay, boss." Amy nodded and took note of it.

"Forget it, just ask the other party when he is free, and I will visit him in person."

Li Yishu thought about it and decided to visit him in person. After all, Bei Jinming was a person written in textbooks, and he had always had a good reputation in China. Such a master architect was worthy of his personal visit.

Amy said, "I understand."

"Okay, you go out first. Harvey will be here soon. Ask him to come directly."

"Then I'll be out first, boss."

"Ah."

After sending Amy away, Li Yishu said to Monica, "I was talking about you yesterday, but I didn't expect it would be my turn today."

“That’s how it is in America.”

Monica smiled and said, "Whether it's Hollywood or other industries, it's normal to form a group."

"Yeah, grouping is the norm."

Li Yishu nodded slightly.

Suddenly he remembered the Shanghai International Film Festival in October this year. Since he had agreed to be the nominal chairman of the jury of the film festival, he naturally hoped that the film festival would be a success, which would greatly enhance his personal reputation.

Thinking of this, he said, "Monica, you said yesterday that Director Martin was going to hold a housewarming party. Should we prepare any gifts?"

"I've already bought it, a bottle of red wine."

"Well, you arrange it."

While the two were chatting.

The phone on the table rang.

After Li Yishu answered the phone, it turned out to be the front desk assistant who called and said that Harvey had arrived. He then asked Monica to go out first and let Harvey come in directly.

"Haha, you really should go and see the scene, Li!"

Harvey said happily: "Hanks is the biggest winner. His "Forrest Gump" is such a success. I'm already looking forward to the premiere of our "Chicago" in a few days!"

This morning, the headlines of major Hollywood newspapers were all about "Forrest Gump".

Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, all three major awards were won by "Forrest Gump".

It can be said that after this year's Academy Awards, Tom Hanks became the biggest winner of this year.

"Yeah, Hanks is a big success, and our movie can get a piece of the pie."

Li Yishu was also in a good mood. Hanks became the big winner, but "Forrest Gump" was last year's movie. This year, Tom Hanks starred in "Chicago", which would bring the first generous return.

The celebrity effect is still very strong today. The greater Tom Hanks' influence, the higher the audience's recognition.

Originally, the two female protagonists of "Chicago" were both newcomers. Although Cindy Crawford was one of the top five supermodels, she was still a rookie in the film industry.

Nami Ovoz is a newcomer among newcomers and has no fame at all in North America.

Now with Hanks, movie popularity won't be a problem.

"That's right, Li. You made the right choice back then!!"

Harvey said excitedly: "I have contacted many media and newspapers. They will bombard us with news in the next few days to make our Chicago a hit."

There are only five days left until the movie hits theaters.

Li Yishu asked, "Do you still need me to participate in the promotion of today's talk show?"

"Of course!"

Harvey nodded. "According to the previous plan, The Oprah Talk Show has agreed to let us participate in the recording today, and it will be broadcast on the TV network in the evening."

"Have you agreed with Hanks?"

"I told him about it a long time ago. I confirmed with him yesterday that we will go to participate in the recording at 11 a.m. Cindy Crawford and Nomi O Watts have been notified." Li Yishu glanced at his watch. It was already past nine o'clock, so he said, "Let's go. It's getting late."

Naturally, he cares about making money for himself.

Here in North America.

Lee Ye-seo is still busy participating in the final promotional work before the movie is released.

Hong Kong.

Broadcast Channel.

Asia Television.

A meeting is taking place at this moment.

The newly appointed Chief Administrative Officer Huo Wenxi looked at the middle and senior management of the company and introduced himself: "Everyone, I believe I don't need to introduce myself too much, right?"

She glanced at everyone and said with a smile, "Before today, I had never held any position in a TV station, so I am definitely not as good as you in this regard. If there are any mistakes in my future work, you are welcome to point them out."

Everyone looked at each other and clapped their hands.

"Okay, no need to applaud."

Huo Wenxi waved his hand and said, "I have discussed with Chairman Li Yishu that ATV's current difficulties can be divided into three aspects. The first is the high production costs of TV dramas and programs. The second is the lack of pioneering spirit of the TV station. The third is the problem with positioning."

"I discussed with Chairman Lee for a long time and worked out a reform plan for ATV. You can take a look at it."

After saying that, she asked her assistant to help distribute the document.

As the document was issued, the sound of pages turning could be heard in the conference room. No one was whispering to each other at this time. Everyone was looking at the content of the reform carefully, fearing that their department and position would be implicated.

Huo Wenxi sat on the chair and waited silently for more than ten minutes. When everyone closed their files one after another, he said, "If you have any questions, you can raise them now, but I don't want anyone to come and complain to me afterwards."

Zhao Yajun, the head of the TV drama production department, raised his hand and said, "Director Huo!"

"Manager Zhao, you go ahead."

"I saw in the document that in the future, ATV's TV series production will be done in mainland China. Does that mean all of the TV series will be produced in mainland China, or just some?"

"We should try to give priority to mainland productions, as the labor costs there are very low. I have asked someone to calculate that for the same TV series, it is enough to reduce the production costs by at least 30%."

In Hong Kong, the bulk of the revenue from TV drama production does not come from the actors’ pay.

Because artists signed to TV stations are paid a salary, they will receive an additional bonus when filming, but the amount is not high. Compared to the millions of dollars in movie pay, it may only be tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands.

At present, the person with the highest salary in Hong Kong TV dramas is probably Wang Mingquan from TVB. She is a famous TVB actress. She officially joined TVB in 1971 to host "Happy Tonight". She has been successful in hosting, acting and singing.

Despite this, she still only received salary and bonuses for filming TVB dramas. Wang Mingquan has repeatedly called on TVB on the show to give actors like them a way to make a living and a little more salary to support their families.

Of course, the salary at ATV is still a little higher than that at TVB, because when Lam Pak-yan took over ATV, he handed over the management of the TV station to his son Lam Kin-yueh. In order to make great strides, Lam Kin-yueh poached a lot of management, actors, screenwriters, directors, etc. from TVB at high salaries.

It is easy to raise wages, but difficult to lower them.

This is also why, although ATV has produced many popular TV series in recent years, it has suffered huge losses every year.

The 430% reduction in production costs that Huo Wenxi calculated was the result of a combination of props, costumes, venue rental, extras, and so on.

The person from the Human Resources Department said, "If all the films are shot in mainland China, will our employees get travel expenses when they go to mainland China to shoot?"

"You can give a little bit, but not a lot."

"If our ATV studio doesn't open, what will happen next?"

"It's not that we won't start production, but we will try to move the production location to the mainland. Some scenes that are not suitable for filming in the mainland will still be filmed at our ATV studio."

"..."

The meeting lasted for three hours.

This was because Huo Wenxi took into consideration that she had just arrived and could not directly make large-scale changes to ATV's personnel, so she only took out a part of the reform plan discussed by Li Yishu, Lin Baixin, Yang Shoucheng and others.

ATV is like an old man, with problems all over.

Once a big move is made, there will inevitably be a total paralysis.

Therefore, we can only do it step by step, starting with the most basic reforms to avoid touching the interests of these middle and senior management, and then promote new people to gradually disintegrate the power of these old foxes.

There is nothing we can do about this.

Li Yishu wanted to start over, but if she failed, ATV would be ruined.

If there are no TV series, we can import them from the mainland. If there are no programs, we can find someone to shoot them. But if there is no one to manage them, that is a big problem.

It is unrealistic to transfer people from the mainland. After all, even if they come, they will not be familiar with the internal situation of ATV. Without anyone to lead them, they will be completely in the dark.

"Reforms should be carried out step by step. It's good for everyone to understand the situation."

Huo Wenxi took a sip of coffee and asked his assistant to take out another document and distribute it.

While the managers were flipping through the pages, she continued, "It takes time to produce TV series, and it takes time to reform, so our top priority right now is to produce these two shows - The Voice of Asia and Miss Asia."

Miss Asia was originally a competition for Miss Hong Kong, but the scope of the auditions was expanded to include Asia.

However, in recent years, the quality of the Miss Asia beauty pageant has been getting worse and worse. The main reason is that the "Miss Asia" selected every year is almost all from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, with the most being Chinese from Singapore.

Moreover, since the Miss Asia pageant in 1985, in the past nearly 10 years, only a few of the contestants selected have been truly impressive.

There was Li Zhi in 86, and there were Weng Hong, Joey Meng and Yuan Yongyi in 89. After that, the Miss Asia pageants are really hard to describe. Although one or two emerge occasionally, they will soon be lost in the crowd.

Compared with the Miss Hong Kong next door, the difference is not a little bit. In the past two years, there have been endless Miss Hong Kong beauties, and most of them have achieved success in movies and television.

On the other hand, the Miss Asia pageant is getting worse every year.

The reason why people are willing to sign up for Miss Hong Kong but not Miss Asia lies in the strength of the two TV stations.

TVB can make them famous, but ATV can't.

Those who sign up for Miss Hong Kong and Miss Asia pageants all come for fame. Since Asia Television is not good, naturally no one will sign up.

But this year is different. Li Yishu has truly expanded the scope of Miss Asia selection to the whole of Asia, of course, it is mainly concentrated in China, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand.

There is nothing much to say about The Voice of Asia. It was just that Li Yishu wrote the rules for what would later become The Voice of China, but she limited the scope to Asia.

Not to mention China, Japan and South Korea, the Southeast Asian countries are also within this category.

This project will be very large. From preparation for the auditions to the finals, it is expected to last at least half a year.

The main reason is that this is the first time to hold such a large-scale event.

Fortunately, with Miss Asia as the first sample, the subsequent preparations may be much faster.

(End of this chapter)