The world begins with Hong Kong movies

Chapter 236 Communication
Just like a regular football league!
There are top-tier leagues and second-tier leagues. The current "Unrestricted Fighting Tournament" and "Boxing Championship" can also be understood in this way.

The "King of Fighters Tournament" is a secondary competition, while the "Unrestricted Fighting Tournament" is a top-level fighting competition. They don't conflict at all; on the contrary, they complement each other.

There's nothing we can do; the wireless network is unwilling to spend a lot of money.

The "King of Boxing Tournament" can only attract experts from gangs, and many martial arts masters will not easily participate due to various concerns.

This results in the "King of Boxing Tournament" having a rather low level of prestige!
In contrast, the "Unrestricted Fighting Tournament" features not only top fighters from Hong Kong, but also from mainland China and Southeast Asia, and even from Japan and South Korea, resulting in a diverse range of fighter quality.

If a champion from the "King of Fighters Tournament" could only qualify for the main event of the "Unrestricted Fighting Tournament" and find it extremely difficult to achieve a higher ranking, how would the audience feel?
Even if TVB is unhappy, the audience will assume that "The King of Fighters" is a level below.

Once this mindset is formed, it is not something that wireless technology can easily reverse.

In fact, this is also a good thing for wireless.

After all, it provides a less intense platform for fighting experts in Hong Kong.

It won't be too intense. The prize money and related income are average, so top players won't participate. This naturally gives ordinary players the opportunity to exchange skills and learn from each other.

Action stars with the skills of Chan Ho-nam and Tai Tin Yee would be very suitable to participate in the competition.

Once this becomes a standard practice, wireless revenue will be substantial!
They can even partner with external trading platforms run by various organizations to get a share of the profits.

ATV, on the other hand, naturally reaps even greater profits!
Recently, ATV has had a lot of new faces, all of whom speak with mainland accents.

They were all employees dispatched by mainland film studios, and were considered young and middle-aged talents.

Previously, Wu Feng, on behalf of ATV and Fengrui Films, proposed the idea of ​​personnel exchange to mainland film studios through Sil-Metropole Organisation.

Of course, that's a nice way of putting it!

In reality, they were drawn to the various professional talents in mainland film studios.

We hope to use this opportunity to invite ATV and Fengrui Film & Television to help us increase the strength of both companies and their professional talent pool.

Film studios in mainland China are similar to major Hollywood studios.

With all its departments fully equipped, it is able to continuously cultivate professional talents for the film and television industry.

Despite the seemingly thriving Hong Kong film industry, this is largely due to the influx of film talent from Shanghai to the south and the emergence of a new generation of film professionals with overseas training qualifications.

Apart from the top few in the industry, the quality of other professionals is actually not much better than that of talents trained by mainland film studios, and in some cases, it is even far inferior.

In fact, the talent pool in the mainland film and television industry in the 1980s was by no means lacking.

The fourth generation of directors is in its prime, while the fifth generation of directors is gradually emerging.

Movies like the "Great Battle" trilogy and "The Founding Ceremony of the People's Republic of China" are all classics.
Films like "Garland at the Foot of the Mountain" are highly praised even in Hong Kong.

Among martial arts films, "The Yellow River Swordsman" is undoubtedly a leader in realistic martial arts films.

In terms of large-scale war film production, mainland China is far ahead of Hong Kong.

The difference lies in the concepts and methods of shooting commercial films.

In fact, as long as mainland film and television talents are given a certain commercial environment and try it out a few times, it is easy for them to change their mindset and catch up.

Films like "Swordsman of Double Flag Town" and "A Terracotta Warrior's Tale" are quite good commercial films.

In addition, mainland film studios have a significant advantage in the specific training of professional personnel for film crews.

Later, in the 1990s and the first decade of the 21st century, the reason why the mainland film and television industry was suppressed by the Hong Kong and Taiwan industry was mainly due to funding issues.

In fact, film studios were struggling at that time, and a large number of professionals left, giving private film and television companies a lot of talent to choose from for their production crews.

Otherwise, how did those famous private TV drama production companies come to be?
At this time, domestic film studios were having a very difficult time.

The current system of centralized purchasing and sales is still inadequate to keep up with the rapidly increasing costs of equipment and labor.

In addition, local film companies were hoarding their own territory and were unwilling to share the profits from screenings, making life extremely difficult for mainland film studios.

Relying entirely on government funding and with a workforce accumulated over decades, it's no exaggeration to say that they are struggling to make ends meet.

But unfortunately, a lot of new employees are hired every year!
At that time, film and television school graduates were still guaranteed job placement, but whether they could be assigned to a good company was another matter entirely.

It is hard for people of later generations to imagine that the reforms implemented in the 1980s to revitalize the film market were far more extensive than imagined.

They've come up with all sorts of things, like box office revenue sharing, market-based film sales, and even a rating system.

Unfortunately, all of them ended in failure, and they had to continue with the previous unified purchase and sales model.

Similarly, within mainland film studios, a large number of young and middle-aged professionals do not receive sufficient training.

The number of films produced each year is limited, and the directing power is basically held by veteran directors. Even the professional positions within the film crew are mostly in the hands of the older generation.

Young and middle-aged talents are mostly assigned to assistant or miscellaneous roles, requiring a decade-long period of training.

Only when you have enough seniority will you have a chance to rise to the top! This time, ATV and Fengrui Films mainly cooperated with Pearl River Film Studio, Xiaoxiang Film Studio, and Guangxi Film Studio.

They mainly need young professionals in assistant positions.

Therefore, the impact on these film studios themselves is not significant!
At the same time, ATV and Fengrui Films will provide certain financial compensation for these professionals on loan, paid directly in Hong Kong dollars.

This is similar to Wu Feng recruiting factory workers from his hometown, only it sounds better.

These film studios naturally wouldn't refuse such a good opportunity, and then sent their first batch of professionals to Hong Kong Island.

Some of them were allocated to ATV.

At that time, ATV's headquarters were located in Wutaishan, Kowloon Tong.

This area is home to the most film and television industry talents on Hong Kong Island, and also has many upscale residential communities specifically for the elite talents of Wutaishan to purchase or rent.

Wu Feng is rich; he made a fortune during the stock market crash of 1987.

This huge sum of money has long been known in Hong Kong.

If he hadn't already been a Sai Kung legislator and had ample media resources at his disposal, he might very well have been pushed out by certain individuals and forces as an accomplice to the stock market crash, and targeted by the affected Hong Kong stock market investors.

He didn't hold back at all and directly bought the entire mid-to-high-end residential complex in Kowloon Tong.

It cost less than 100 million at the time, but now it has risen to about 150 million.

Ahem, the residential communities in Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong Island, are not the same as those in mainland China.

A community can be defined by having three or four buildings grouped together.

If this were in mainland China, it wouldn't qualify as a residential community unless it had a dozen or so buildings and thousands or tens of thousands of apartments.

The mainland film studio professionals assigned to ATV lived in this residential area.

It's an apartment building, not very big, about 30 square meters per unit, with one bedroom, one living room, a kitchen, and a toilet. Two employees from mainland China live in one apartment.

This environment is definitely much better than the tenement buildings in mainland China at this time.

Wang Qiang came from Zhujiang Film Studio, and Li Dong came from Guangxi Film Studio.

They were assigned to the same apartment.

They were all employees of mainland film studios, and they quickly went from being unfamiliar with each other to becoming acquainted in just a few days.

One of them was a photographer, and the other was a lighting technician; both were core roles in the film crew.

Moreover, they are all college graduates, true academics.

Unfortunately, even with an academic background, once assigned to a film studio, one could only start as an assistant.

Moreover, she wasn't even the main assistant, but rather the assistant's assistant. It wasn't easy for her to even touch the camera or lighting equipment normally.

One of them worked odd jobs at the film studio for three years, and the other for four years.

There's absolutely no problem with the theoretical foundation, but there aren't many opportunities for hands-on practice.

According to the rules, once they've worked their way up from assistant's assistant to assistant, they can gradually start working with the machines. As for when they can become real photographers or lighting technicians, that depends on when the senior staff are willing to let go.

This wouldn't have been a big deal, but if the film studios were struggling, their situation would only get worse.

Sure enough, when the invitation for cooperation from Hong Kong Island was sent out, they signed up without hesitation.

Firstly, the labor fees offered by Hong Kong Island are not low, and secondly, they want to try their luck and find an opportunity.

Hong Kong Island has a well-developed commercial film and television industry with considerable influence, so as a mainland professional, I naturally have earlier access to some of Hong Kong's high-quality films and television dramas.

If they could participate in the production and filming of commercial films and television dramas on Hong Kong Island, it would be a tremendous opportunity for them. Whether they stayed on Hong Kong Island or returned to the film studio, they would have a different future.

Of course, the allure of Hong Kong Island's prosperity is also an undeniable factor.

Those veterans who controlled a lot of resources in the film studios would naturally not rashly give up their resources and go to Hong Kong Island to start over; they also did not have the determination or courage to do so.

In addition, the mindset of veteran film studio employees is already fixed, and it would be quite difficult for them to adapt to the production of commercial films and television dramas.

Only young and middle-aged people who want to change the status quo have the courage to take a gamble.

Moreover, they have active minds and can quickly adapt to the production concepts of commercial film and television dramas.

that's the truth!
When Wang Qiang and Li Dong arrived in Hong Kong, they spent three days getting familiar with the area before immediately throwing themselves into their busy work.

Since ATV's "Unrestricted Fighting Contest" and "Beauty Pageant" became wildly popular and earned a lot of advertising and sponsorship fees, it has invested heavily in the production of TV dramas.

Especially when it comes to filming period dramas, a large number of professionals are needed in various fields, and the existing staff is not enough to support the simultaneous filming of several TV series.

(End of this chapter)