Huayu: When the director changed his major

Chapter 44 You Be the Director

"Zuibai?"

After Dapeng and Qiao Shan said goodbye, they were still immersed in their emotions and hadn't recovered.

"Didn't you look for me this morning? How come you forgot?"

"Ah, Mr. Zuibai! You are Mr. Zuibai!"

"Yes. Dapeng, I read your script. It's pretty good."

Cheng Xi encouraged him first, then asked:

“Have you thought about how to develop in the future?”

"Teacher Zuibai, thank you for reading my script. I'm so excited!"

Dapeng said in disbelief:
"I want to do my current show well, and then see if I can write scripts and become an actor."

“Have you ever thought about becoming a director?”

"Director? How can I, a web host, even dream of that? With no fame, no money, and no background, there's no way anyone would ask me to be their director."

Cheng Xi smiled after hearing this. As someone who had read Dapeng's autobiography, he knew that while hosting the show, Dapeng had been learning how to be a director.

He even often asked the program's camera crew to shoot according to his ideas, and he personally took charge of the editing and editing of aspects including guest interviews, video presentations, and copywriting.

In fact, he has already done the work of a director.

"Your analysis is quite correct. How about this, you wait for my call at the company tomorrow morning."

Cheng Xi didn't say much, some things didn't need further explanation.

Dapeng, it depends on whether you have this fate tomorrow.

The next morning.

Cheng Xi and Wang Ge came to Sohu headquarters again.

Also accompanying them this time was a Youku lawyer who was in charge of film and television dramas. Cheng Xi borrowed him from his senior brother Lu Fanxi to review the contract.

Secretary Hu was waiting for Cheng Xi and the others downstairs in the building just like yesterday, and then led them directly into Zeng Xiongjie's office.

When Zeng Xiongjie saw Cheng Xi coming, he stood up from his boss chair with a smile.

Instruct Secretary Hu to make the best tea.

After a few minutes of greetings, Cheng Xi got straight to the point and said:

"Mr. Zeng, if I accept this script, what is your company's filming budget and ratings expectations?"

"In addition to the 100 million yuan we'll give you, Mr. Zuibai, we'll invest another 200 million yuan in filming. Our ratings forecast is for a minimum of million hits, and ideally, million."

Zeng Xiongjie did not hesitate and spoke directly. It seemed that he had thought about this issue a long time ago.

Excluding their own remuneration, the shooting budget is already four or five times that of "Wan Wan". Sohu is not stingy.

The ratings target is 10 million for "Old Boy", and exceeding that will be considered a success.

After all, not every drama can be as popular as "Wan Wan", it requires the right time and place.

"How is the crew?" Cheng Xi continued to ask.

"Our idea is to complete the production within a week after the script is finalized, mainly using Sohu's internal resources. This will further reduce costs and make it easier to promote our own people."

"Mr. Zeng, this is what's going on. Lawyer Fang and I reviewed the contract yesterday and there's no problem. But I'd like to offer another proposal. Would you like to hear it?"

"Oh? If you have any ideas, Mr. Zuibai, please feel free to bring them up. I'm all ears."

Zeng Xiongjie didn't expect Cheng Xi to say that, but he still showed great respect to him.

"The first option is to stick to the original plan. I will be the script supervisor and receive a salary of 100 million. The subsequent number of hits will have nothing to do with me."

"The second option is that I will be the producer of this drama and have the final say over the crew, but I can promise you that I will try to hire people from Sohu."

"Then we set the target at 100 million hits. If it doesn't exceed that, I won't charge anything. If it does, the production fee will still be million, but I'll take half of the advertising sponsorship."

This time, Cheng Xi decided not to make such a troublesome betting agreement. After all, as the number of clicks increased, the advertising fees would also go up.

Ever since the unprecedented success of Wan Wan's advertising placement, various self-produced dramas are now imitating Wan Wan's advertising style. After hearing this, Zeng Xiongjie quickly weighed the pros and cons.

If the number of clicks does not exceed 100 million, you can save million in screenwriting fees.

If you exceed the limit, you still only pay the original fee. However, the advertising sponsorship fee will increase with the number of clicks, so no matter how you look at it, you will make a profit.

Moreover, in the second type of collaboration, Cheng Xi will definitely pay more attention to every aspect of the play, rather than just providing simple screenwriting guidance.

It seems that Cheng Xi is very confident in this drama, otherwise why would he propose a second type of cooperation, or is he confident in his own production ability?
After all, he is a capable person who led "Wan Wan". Young people are full of energy!
After weighing the pros and cons, Zeng Xiongjie did not hesitate too much and directly agreed to the second form of cooperation.

So while the lawyers on both sides were drafting a new agreement, Zeng Xiongjie and Cheng Xi came to the script discussion room from yesterday.

Everyone is there.

Zeng Xiongjie clapped his hands and said to the people who had been waiting for a long time:
"Everyone welcomes Mr. Zuibai to be the producer of our drama, who will be fully responsible for all matters. This drama is also the most important project for our company before the New Year. Everyone must fully cooperate with Mr. Zuibai."

When everyone heard this, they all looked surprised, especially Jin Chen.

This young man who was rude to me was the screenwriter and director yesterday, but today he suddenly became the producer and is fully responsible for the show.

This power suddenly became great.

After Cheng Xi sat down amidst everyone's applause, he made a phone call in front of everyone:
"You can come up now, conference room 708."

Just as everyone was guessing who it was, Dapeng rushed in.

Seeing that there were many people around, Dapeng greeted everyone nervously.

Especially he bowed to Mr. Zeng and Cheng Xi.

Although Dapeng is an internet host, he is still very famous in the Sohu building.

Especially his behavior of piggybacking on celebrities, everyone was quite disdainful of it, thinking that it was too ugly and had little effect.

Little did they know that Dapeng had already become a familiar face to many celebrities.

Zeng Xiongjie was also surprised when he saw that the person Cheng Xi called was Dapeng, and asked:

"Teacher Zuibai, what is this?"

"Don't you say it's best to hire someone from Sohu? Dapeng should be one of them."

Cheng Xi replied calmly.

"Of course, Dapeng works very hard and is very persistent in what he does."

He also agreed with this point.

Although everyone didn't know why Cheng Xi called Dapeng over, it definitely wasn't a bad thing.

Secretary Hu, in particular, had a vague feeling that Dapeng might be about to take off!
"Okay, now that everyone is here, I won't say any more."

Cheng Xi cuts into the topic:

"I just signed a military order with Mr. Zeng to get this drama to get at least 20 million hits."

As soon as these words were spoken, everyone in the conference room looked at Cheng Xi in surprise.

Twenty million is not a small number. Before "Wan Wan", the most popular movie was "Old Boy", and it has just exceeded ten million hits so far.

With the success of "Wan Wan", Cheng Xi really thinks he is a god who can turn stones into gold at any time.

You have even issued a military order. If you fail to complete it by the time the deadline, will you still be so arrogant?

But seeing that Mr. Zeng's expression did not change at all, everyone knew that this was true and not a joke.

Dapeng was also very surprised when he heard this. He was still confused and didn't know what Cheng Xi asked him to do.

Cheng Xi took in everyone's expressions, a smile on his lips, and before anyone could digest it, he dropped another bombshell.

Cheng Xi stretched out his index finger, pointed in the direction of Dapeng, and said calmly:
"I'll supervise the production."

"Dapeng, you be the director."

(End of this chapter)