1982 Started from Hong Kong

Chapter 329 Business
"Mr. Anthony, 40 US dollars per play, 10 Entertainment will sign you for future plays, and guarantee you a stable project every year, would you consider it?"

At the script meeting for Lost in Translation.

Anthony Hopkins displayed his extraordinary talent during the script reading, and even helped Michelle Pfeiffer to perfect her character when she was unable to act. At the age of 49, he showed the demeanor of a veteran artist.

Zhai Yuan, who was watching from the sidelines, observed a performance that was like a stage play.

During the halftime break, he extended an olive branch to Hopkins.

"What the hell..."

Ann Hui quoted Mr. Zhai's price, and Michelle Pfeiffer, who was resting nearby, almost choked on her saliva.

"40 US dollars, why aren't you so generous to me?"

She is 40 years old this year and is at the peak of her career. She has filmed several hit films in succession and her current salary is around yuan.

On the other hand, Hopkins will be 50 years old next year. He was banned from the English film and television industry a few years ago because of alcoholism. He couldn't find a job and had to go to the United States to seek development. Now he is only active in stage plays and low-cost TV dramas.

So far, Hopkins has no commercial film achievements to show for himself.

An older actor like him would be considered to have no value in any film and television industry, and at most be a golden supporting role.

If you were in New York's business district, you might face the risk of being laid off at this age.

Michelle Pfeiffer was very dissatisfied, not because she was jealous of Hopkins' high salary, but because she was unhappy with Zhai Yuan's differential treatment.

"Honestly speaking, your acting skills are not worth that much money to me."

Zhai Yuan finished his words with a smile and stopped Zhang Wanting who was translating: "Forget it, don't translate this sentence to her. Just say that there is no script suitable for her at the moment."

Ann Hui rolled her eyes in her heart. She didn't care about the tug-of-war between Zhai Yuan and Michelle Pfeiffer. What she was thinking was that hiring Hopkins would cost her nearly 300 million Hong Kong dollars of the budget for Lost in Translation. She could use that money to make two more movies.

The slightly more tactful expression made Michelle Pfeiffer's expression look better.

The big foreign horse did not steal the show anymore. He turned around and said to Hopkins, "Mr. Anthony, it's rare for Zhai Yuan to be so generous. I think you should agree to it as soon as possible, otherwise he will regret it."

The real Anthony Hopkins is completely different from the image of the Führer he plays.

He is relatively low-key and introverted. Apart from work needs, he mostly keeps to himself in his free time.

Michelle Pfeiffer's half-joking teasing brought a smile to Hopkins' face.

"A salary of $40 is indeed very attractive. I usually only get half of this price from Hollywood producers."

Hopkins hesitated for a moment, then continued, "It sounds a bit presumptuous, but if I'm willing to sign the contract, I hope to have the right to choose the scripts for the next 10 films. If the company's scripts don't suit my style, maybe I can refuse to shoot?"

To put it bluntly, he is afraid that Jiuyi Entertainment will sign him and then give him a bunch of bad movie resources.

Hopkins finished speaking, and then added with a smile: "Of course, if the next 10 movies are of the same quality as Lost in Translation, I think I have no reason to refuse."

I have to say that the script of "Lost in Translation" hits his emotions just right. The protagonist Bob is a typical middle-aged crisis character, which to a large extent makes Hopkins, who is not doing well in his career at the time, have emotional projection, otherwise he would not have come all the way to Japan to shoot.

It is understandable that Hopkins has such a request.

After all, any actor with a little artistic pursuit, unless he is too poor to afford food, will have to consider the quality of the script, the co-cast, the image of the production company and so on before accepting a film.

Of course, it is easy to get big stars to take on bad movies. Just trick them into investing and squandering. When they lose everything they have, they will naturally be willing to make any movie.

In short, in Zhai Yuan's impression, in a broad sense, Anthony Hopkins does not seem to have any recognized bad movies...except for "Transformers 5: The Last Knight".

He smiled and said to Hopkins, "As a businessman, I am willing to pay you $40, so I will naturally come up with a suitable project. Otherwise, wouldn't it be a big loss? Lost in Translation is just a work of Entertainment to test the waters in the Hong Kong and other overseas markets. I promise that other works I can give you in the future will be better, so you can add this clause to the film contract."

…………

The news that Zhai Yuan had spent a high price in Japan to sign a middle-aged man spread back to Hong Kong.

The executives of Jiuyi Entertainment all frowned.

Especially when drafting the contract, I found that there was an additional clause in it: "The actor has the right to review the final script before filming begins, and if the requirements are not met, the actor can terminate the cooperation."

"American actors are showing off? The current environment is that Hong Kong actors are begging us to give them jobs, how can there be such an outrageous clause?"

The executives were outraged and condemned the foreigners for being arrogant.

Shi Nansheng, the housekeeper, said with a smile: "You think he is at the same level as Chen Shilong. Wouldn't that make you feel better?"

Of course, the boss of Jiahe also has the power to choose the script.

However, if you look at the resume of this man named Anthony Hopkins, you will find that he is not qualified to be compared with Chen Shilon.

"The most eye-catching movie of the decade was 1980's The Elephant Man, which grossed $500 million at the box office with a production budget of $2600 million. After that, the box office kept declining. In the five years, the company only made three low-budget movies, namely Changing Seasons, Rebel Cruise, and The Good Father, with a total box office of less than $1000 million."

After analyzing the results, the head of the marketing department smiled helplessly and said, "If Chen Shilong only had this kind of performance, I'm afraid He Guanchang would not even acknowledge him as his adopted son."

"You have to trust Mr. Zhai's vision. Maybe this is an actor who will blossom late in life."

Shi Nansheng actually didn't understand why they had to sign such a middle-aged actor at a high price, but he still did his job without questioning it.

She smiled and looked around at the supervisors around her, and suggested, "Or maybe if you're not satisfied, why don't you call Mr. Zhai and talk to him in person?"

One sentence instantly dispelled the controversy.

Everyone is just complaining in private, who dares to influence the boss's ideas?

"I don't believe in late bloomers. If a man doesn't make achievements before the age of 30, he is doomed to have no chance of success in his life~"

The female manager in charge of personnel made a comment that immediately drew dissatisfaction from the male colleagues in the meeting room.

The female supervisor made a face at them and said to Shi Nansheng with a smile, "Sister Nan, should I make a contract with the legal department and send it to Japan now?"

Shi Nansheng nodded, and added, fearing that something might go wrong, "When you're done, send it to my office for a look."

"clear."

The crowd dispersed.

Shi Nansheng sat alone in the conference room, rubbing his brows with a slightly tired look.

Zhai Yuan, the hands-off boss, went to Japan, and recently Jiuyi Entertainment has had more and more work.

Except for the agency that is about to be established.

A bomb attack in Japan caused quite a stir in the Hong Kong film industry. It was said that the Freedom Association was also involved, resulting in several key members being investigated by Taiwan.

Although Tong Yuejuan was not implicated in the case, the Hong Kong officials were afraid of becoming a scapegoat.

Jiahe's managing director Liang Feng even immigrated directly to Australia to avoid the limelight.

The association's influence in Hong Kong has dropped sharply, and in recent days, more fence-sitters have come closer to the Film Association. Reporters are swarming around Shi Nansheng like flies, and they are reluctant to buy tickets to Japan to interview Zhai Yuan, so they hope to get the details of Zhai Yuan's involvement in the bombing from her.

Shi Nansheng leaned back in his chair and sighed helplessly: "This boss really won't stop for a moment..."

…………

Boss Zhai, who refuses to stop, continues to rush towards causing trouble.

mid-September.

The "Lost in Translation" crew was established in Japan, and after successfully obtaining various filming approval procedures, the crew officially started work.

Since hiring Anthony Hopkins and spending a huge budget.

The second major expense came from the purchase of machines.

The equipment that the crew brought to Japan was not complete, so Zhai Yuan made a big move and upgraded them to an Arriflex 35BL camera, the latest fourth-generation camera from the ARRL Group this year, for Ann Hui and Luo Qirui.

At this time, most of the Hong Kong film industry was still using old Japanese JVC machines, which had many problems with picture quality, resolution, and color depth. Especially in low-light environments, noise and image distortion were very obvious.

This is also the case with early Hong Kong films. If they are not restored in high definition, they always feel covered with a layer of gray fog or flashing spots, and occasionally there are inexplicable squeaking sounds, which are unnecessary noises introduced by the mechanical structure of the camera and tape during the operation of the machine.

The newly purchased fourth generation Arriflex 35BL has made great improvements in these aspects.

At least that's what the guy who sold the machine told Zhai Yuan.

It claims to provide a resolution of more than 4K, a huge color range and a very small depth of field, and the silent level precision perfectly solves the noise problem.

The key is that this generation of machines is finally equipped with a digital "director monitor", which can monitor the scene on the set in real time. The monitor resolution also reaches 480P, which greatly improves team collaboration and communication decision-making on the set.

There were also director monitors in the early days of the film industry, but they all used analog signals, and there was no way to transmit the images in real time. Even the slightest interference would cause the signal to be interrupted. In addition, the color deviation of the monitors was extremely large, and the director had no way of judging the lens tone and lighting effects. And the worst point was that the early monitors were huge in size and had to be transported to the scene, which added to the inconvenience.

So it was only popular in America for a while and never spread to Hong Kong.

"From now on, you directors will be able to sit in your chair and see everything that's going on on the set through this screen."

Zhai Yuan knocked on the monitor, which was now about the size of a TV, and explained this new gadget to Zhang Wanting.

After that, he added, "Let's shoot a few scenes first to test it out. If this machine works well, we will upgrade all the company's equipment in the future."

Cameraman Luo Qirui carefully stroked this new camera worth hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong dollars, his eyes almost sunken in it, a real enthusiast.

Zhang Wanting hesitated to speak.

Seeing her boyfriend's happy look, she didn't say anything in the end. She sighed inwardly thinking that a large amount of money was missing from her budget again.

Actually.

Filming is only one aspect.

Another reason why Zhai Yuan chose this latest Arriflex model was because of its high-quality image capture as mentioned in its promotional materials.

This means that the original material can be better preserved, avoiding excessive distortion and degradation of image quality.

When converting film into a disc for VCD playback, loss of clarity is inevitable. Only if the camera is strong enough can the image quality be preserved to the greatest extent possible.

This will also be the competitive advantage of our own CDs in the future.

……

New venue, new machines, new actors.

"Lost in Translation" officially started filming on location in Tokyo.

The first scene.

Anthony Hopkins first came to Japan, stayed in a hotel room, sat on the bed and watched boring TV shows.

There was a knock on the door.

The Oriental prostitute played by Chikako Aoyama stood at the door.

As we all know, Boss Zhai has always integrated knowledge and action.

The day before, Zhi Kezi was selling her body in a magazine in order to be on camera. After an in-depth communication, she got the opportunity to make a cameo appearance in the movie.

In the surveillance footage, Chikako Aoyama wore a burgundy wig and gaudy makeup. The collar of her suit was open to reveal a low-cut top underneath, and she was wearing a short skirt with black stockings.

After all, she is a new actor. After more than a dozen NGs and when Ann Hui couldn't help but swear, Zhi Kezi finally got into the state.

Chikako Aoyama smiled wantonly, stepped on the bed with her plump thighs, pointed at her stockings and said to Hopkins, "Mr. Harris, come and eat my stockings!"

Hopkins showed his surprise just right: "What?"

Zhi Kezi rubbed her stockings with both hands: "Eat my stockings~"

Hopkins: Eat?

Chikako: “Yes, eat them.”

Hopkins: "You mean for me to tear them apart?"

Zhi Kezi: "Yes, you're welcome..."

The play finally ended.

Japanese people cannot pronounce the sound "r", so they played a clichéd joke about rip (torn) and Lip (lips). This is also one of the few memorable moments of Zhai Yuan in the original film.

Then Ann Hui shouted "Cut".

Chikako Aoyama breathed a sigh of relief and felt that filming was more tiring than discussing literature with Mr. Zhai.

"You performed well." Zhai Yuan walked forward with his arm around Michiko and said to Chikako, "But your acting skills need to be improved. Tonight..."

The words have not yet fallen.

The phone rings.

Tao Zongyi's voice came from the receiver: "Boss Zhai, we have an appointment with two shareholders of Toshiba to meet in Ginza tonight. I'm afraid you have to come in person to calm the situation..."

Zhai Yuan was just about to take Michiko to reward Zhikezi, but had to stop when he heard this.

It's time to get some serious work done.

(End of this chapter)