Our Rise Era

Chapter 16 Just give me tens of thousands!

"Chinese animation seems to be a thing of the past. It was once glorious and we looked up to the world. But now, apart from the ink-and-wash animations with our own style in our memories, such as "Journey to the West", "Nezha Conquers the Dragon King" and "The Lotus Lantern", what else do we have?"

"Open various animation playback software, and you will find that the top five on the list are all Japanese comics. They are all about the invasion of various Japanese hot-blooded elements. Various ideologies control young people. After watching too much, many people can't help but yearn for it even more than Japan..."

"You turn on the TV and turn on various channels for young children. In the cartoons and various children's programs for children on TV, the characters are all Western names..."

"Of course there are some in China, but the animations they produce are always tepid, and the composition is extremely crude. Most of them are obviously subsidies!"

"Where has our Chinese animation gone in these years?"

"A senior student told me that since some time ago, countless so-called animation companies have either been doing cheap outsourcing, working day and night like assembly line workers, or relying on meager government subsidies to survive..."

"They say we are being invaded by all kinds of overseas animations. We try very hard, but in the end we can't resist the impact of imported animations..."

"..."

"I can not be reconciled!"

On the afternoon of June 11th.

In a coffee shop in the county.

When Zhang Yang saw Lu Wei, it was drizzling.

Lu Wei is tall but very thin. At first glance, he looks like a stick, standing there as if a gust of wind could blow him away.

At this moment, he looked very excited, his face flushed with excitement, and he kept talking about his ideals and ambitions!

Old Man Lu sat next to Lu Wei, with an unconcealable sense of pride on his haggard face.

Although he didn't know what his grandson was doing, he knew that his grandson had been a good student since he was young. From junior high school to high school, he received scholarships almost every year, so they basically didn't have to worry about tuition fees...

However, after going to college, the grandson, who had always been frugal, seemed to start spending more all of a sudden.

On the phone, his grandson told him that he had met a lot of friends in college, and they all had a dream, which was to make an excellent domestic animation.

Old Man Lu didn't know what the so-called "excellent" animated feature was. He only knew that making animations was very expensive, and his grandson was short of money almost every semester. When he came back every semester, he was as thin as a crutch. Although he didn't ask him for money and said he had enough, Old Man Lu would force some money on him every time.

A few days ago, when he got the money from Zhang Yang, he sent it to his grandson immediately.

……

"There are thirteen of us in total. About five of us are students in my class, three are students from other classes... and five are seniors who resigned from other companies last year. Although we are not many in number, our systems in all aspects are very complete, and we can complete a small animation production independently..."

"Mr. Zhang, we are short of money and we are having a hard time right now, but I believe that as long as we persist, there will always be a ray of light in this dark world!"

"..."

Although Lu Wei was wearing thick glasses and looked frail, the light in his eyes was very bright.

He chattered incessantly to Zhang Yang about the current status of Chinese animation, how Japanese comics were invading Chinese animation, and how Chinese animation should have once been at the top of the world, but was now gradually declining!
He said that he was unwilling...

He was even so excited that he took his laptop and opened a video website called Aiku, pointed at the animation rankings on the video website, and clicked on each animation.

"I don't want to work as a cheap outsourcer after graduation, doing meaningless things day and night..."

"I don't want to change my career to do other jobs. I just want to make animations. Moreover, I am very confident in our team. I think that although what we make is not as good as those mature Japanese comics, at least we are not much worse than some imported children's animations on TV..."

"..."

His voice became more and more excited.

The bright flame in his eyes seemed to be getting hotter.

It was a high morale that came from within.

Zhang Yang listened silently as the young man introduced everyone in the team.

From him, Zhang Yang knew that he had been doing various animation outsourcing work and animation design while studying since his freshman year. Then, in his sophomore year, he and several friends in the same class made some money from some overseas outsourcing projects, and then they came up with the idea of ​​making an animation. The young people decided to do it!
In their junior year, these young people who had come together from nowhere made an animation called "Pope Man". They kept going to the market and trying to attract clients, but unfortunately no company was willing to buy the packaging, there was no publicity fee, and no TV station was willing to take over the animation made by these young people. In the end, the project was stuck until their senior year...

Until a few days ago, Lu Wei, who was soliciting investments everywhere, received a remittance from his hometown. When he carefully asked his grandfather where the money came from, he tried to call Zhang Yang, hoping that Zhang Yang could help write their story, even if it was just to mention their "Spinach Superman" in the article.

When he heard that there was a play, he immediately bought a ticket and rushed back to his hometown. He didn't even have lunch and hurried to Zhang Yang's grocery store.

“How many episodes of Popeye have you produced in total?”

"About five episodes, costing a total of 100,000 RMB..."

Zhang Yang looked at the animation of Popeye, nodded, and looked at Lu Wei: "Is it okay to modify the content a little bit?"

"Ah, the content, but the core content..."

"The core content doesn't need to be changed. I hope the structure of the story can be simpler. After removing the fancy things, it can be controlled into a short film of about ten minutes. It's a story about a protagonist who, in a desperate situation, can gain superhuman powers by eating a mouthful of instant noodles... Since it's for children, the characters need to be recomposed and drawn in a more cartoon-like way. Those scary-looking elements should be removed..." Zhang Yang stared at the bloody scenes in "Pope Immortal" and shook his head.

After listening to this, Lu Wei hesitated for a moment, walked outside and made a long phone call before finally answering, "These can all be changed, but..."

Zhang Yang seemed to see the doubts in Lu Wei's heart, and replied with a smile: "It's fine as long as it can be changed, you go back and rest first..."

"???"

..............................

Late at night.

One after another, transport trucks were parked in the parking lot in front of Zheng’s Food Co., Ltd.

Zheng Guodong sat in the office, looking at the cars, feeling unhappy.

Today, several people resigned from [Zheng's Food Co., Ltd.] with various excuses, including a workshop director.

Needless to say, Zheng Guodong also knew that those capitalists were using various means to force their [Zheng's Food Co., Ltd.] into the final desperate situation.

The strangulation of capital!

It's always cruel!
Just as Zheng Guodong was thinking about what to do next, there was a knock on the office door.

Then he saw Zhang Yang coming over.

"Mr. Zheng, this is the new instant noodles packaging I designed. Um, it's a cartoon logo designed specifically for children... This is a sample I asked someone to make, take a look..."

"..."

Zheng Guodong took the brand new instant noodles package and felt a little confused when he saw the unfamiliar cartoon character inside.

What is this stuff!
What is this for?

Then, he saw Zhang Yang sitting opposite him: "Mr. Zheng, I've thought about it carefully. Building a brand is not something that can be done overnight. Real publicity depends not only on the power of words, but also on the power of audio-visuals... Many users need to be cultivated from a young age. We can combine entertainment to create products..."

"Stop, just tell me what you want to do. I have a terrible headache right now..."

"Give me some more money..."

"What? You want money again? How much?"

"You don't have to give much, just a few hundred thousand will do."

"Do I look like a fool? You want more than 100,000 yuan to design a cartoon character for me?"

"Not really, but he looks like a loser whose factory is about to close down and go bankrupt..." Zhang Yang pushed his glasses and said seriously.

"???"

Zheng Guodong's face turned green!
(End of this chapter)