Entertainment: 1990

Chapter 234 The Unofficial Award

Two days later.

Zhang Yan and Jiang Shan returned to Tianjin together, and then Zhang Yadong was left to receive Jiang Shan.

He has already reached an agreement with Jiang Shan. Jiang Shan's album will be produced and released by Yuanmeng, and the revenue sharing will be based on the industry median.

We drove back to the small villa.

As soon as he got out of the car, he heard barking from the yard, followed by Wang Luyao's voice: "Who is it?"

"Why are you here?"

Zhang Yan asked in surprise, although Wang Luyao would occasionally sneak over and wear Chen Hong's clothes when Chen Hong was not at home, the problem was that Chen Hong was currently filming in Tianjin...

"Sister Hong asked me to come and feed the dogs."

Wang Luyao opened the courtyard gate and welcomed Zhang Yan in with an air of self-righteousness.

In the southeast corner of the yard, there was a fence, and inside, two small black and white dogs were lying on the fence, barking at us.

Zhang Yan leaned closer to examine them and asked, "Where did these two Border Collies come from?"

"Sister Hong brought them back from Beijing. Apparently, there was a cameo actor who wanted to keep two guard dogs, so she brought them to the film crew the next day. Sister Hong paid for them."

Zhang Yan did say he wanted to get a dog, but he got busy and forgot about it.

After playing with the puppy through the fence for a while, Zhang Yan went inside and saw a lot of clothes piled up messily on the sofa. He couldn't help but frown: "Why are you rummaging through the closet again?"

"not me!"

Wang Luyao quickly protested, "Fangfang made a mess of it this morning. Sister Hong didn't let me clean it up, so I just left it there."

"Isn't she staying at the TV station's guesthouse?"

Zhang Fang felt the villa was too far away and insisted on staying at the guesthouse.

"The guesthouse held a celebration party for two days in a row, which was quite noisy, so Fangfang moved here. Sister Hong dropped her off in the morning, and Han Hong and I were responsible for picking her up and dropping her off in the evening."

Upon closer inspection, Zhang Yan indeed found several items that Zhang Fang often wore, most of which were bought by Chen Hong, and some by Zhou Tao.

Since it belonged to his sister, he didn't bother with it. He went upstairs to get a change of clothes, planning to take a shower and then visit the August 1st Film and Television Base.

Wang Luyao followed him in and asked with 'malicious intent', "Brother Yan, do you want me to scrub your back?"

As he spoke, he used his elbows to conjure mountains and rivers.

Zhang Yan pushed her forehead and shoved her away, saying, "Don't try anything funny. I still have to pay my dues tonight."

During his stay in Beijing these past few days, he had been exploited quite a bit by Zhou Tao and Jiang Shan. If he were to satisfy Wang Luyao as well, he might be too shy to continue their relationship after a short separation.

Less than five minutes after he started washing, Wang Luyao began knocking on the door again.

"what happened again?"

"Your cell phone rang."

Zhang Yan wiped his right hand clean with a towel, asked her to bring in the mobile phone, pressed the answer button, and said "hello," but there was silence on the other end.

"Who is it? Speak up!"

"It's me, Feng Xiaogang. I heard you went to the hospital to see Siyu. How is her recovery after the surgery?"

"No, shouldn't you ask your sister-in-law these questions?"

"........."

Feng Xiaogang remained silent again. Zhang Yan sighed and said, "The recovery is going quite well, but it's a bit difficult for your sister-in-law to take care of you all by herself, given the hospital environment and the fact that it's not a private room."

"Ah~"

Feng Xiaogang sighed and said, "Let's not talk about that. Let's talk about something happy. 'A Beijing Native in New York' is finally going to be released on October 4th."

"congratulations."

"Congratulations! Don't forget you were the lead screenwriter for this play."

"Hehe, just for the sake of this screenwriter title, I even helped Cao Guilin get a piece of land to build a textile factory."

After discussing "A Beijing Native in New York," Zhang Yan inquired about the crew of "Forever Lost My Love."

“Wang Shuo is used to spending money lavishly. I suspect that the funding ratio requirement of the leading party is aimed at him. Now I dare not spend a penny more. Fortunately, we men are used to hard times, so we can grit our teeth and hold on.”

Putting aside everything else, Feng Xiaogang is indeed a master at making low-budget commercial films. A prime example of the opposite is that guy Jiang Wen, who spent half a month and millions on a grand production, all for a three-minute farewell scene.

The problem is that, to the average person, there haven't been many changes in the past two weeks, so they keep nitpicking the minor details.

After taking a shower.

Zhang Yan drove alone to the August 1st Film and Television Base—Wang Luyao wanted to come along, but he chased her away.

The film and television base is currently a huge construction site, with many themed structures still under construction, and the set design for the themed streets is not even in its infancy yet.

In other words, the set design for "The New Dragon and Phoenix" was rushed out as a top priority.

However, it's only a semi-finished product.

When Zhang Yan arrived nearby, he found that in addition to the film crew, there were also leaders from the management committee and several people with big noses, who were speaking German.

Blocked by them, Zhang Yan couldn't get around them and could only follow quietly from behind.

"Oh, Mr. Zhang!"

Someone at the back of the line recognized him and stopped to greet him.

Zhang Yanchong gestured forward and asked, "What do you mean? Is the August 1st Film and Television Base going to bring in foreign investment?"

"Isn't this the design you came up with? It's called a humanistic support facility—the leaders even planned an international kindergarten nearby, where English, Japanese, and German are used for teaching."

You know what, the foreigners seem to really like this. This is already the fourth group of foreign businesspeople to visit the film and television base this month, and they always make sure to visit the kindergarten that's under construction.

"Then it's best to choose male kindergarten teachers, and preferably ugly ones, otherwise if we start producing and selling them ourselves, we'll easily be criticized by the public."

"Uh... this..."

The staff member immediately fell silent.

Seeing that the leaders ahead were still leading the team inside, Zhang Yan strode forward, blocked the leader's path, and said with a smile, "Director Shen, they're filming up ahead, so it's probably inconvenient to disturb them."

This Director Shen was the one who wanted to take credit for Zhang Yan's work back then, but times have changed. With Zhang Yan's current influence in Tianjin, Director Shen would certainly not take the initiative to cause conflict with him again.

Upon seeing that it was Zhang Yan, he looked troubled and said, "Mr. Zhang, I just told the foreign businessmen that there's a film crew shooting here..."

Zhang Yan interrupted him, saying, "That settles it then. I don't believe foreign film crews would allow people to visit freely."

He doesn't oppose attracting foreign investment, but nowadays many people are pandering to foreign businesses without any bottom line. Rather than letting these people in and causing trouble later, he would rather offend Deputy Director Shen and establish the rules first.

Upon hearing this, Director Shen sighed and said, "That's only because you're General Manager Zhang—alright, I'll take the foreign businessmen elsewhere."

He turned to the translator and gave her a few instructions. The female translator glanced at Zhang Yan reluctantly before explaining to the Germans with a forced smile.

I don't know what she said, but those foreigners looked at Zhang Yan carefully for a while before leaving with the rest of the group.

Zhang Yan watched them walk away before entering the filming location.

When they went inside, they found they had wasted their time—there were more foreigners inside than outside.

After inquiring with Zhang Guoli, who was wearing a dragon robe, I learned that today's filming was for the Portuguese delegation. Most of these "Portuguese" people were ethnic Russians invited from Heilongjiang, with only a few being foreigners working in Tianjin.

The production team also spent a lot of money to hire two real Portuguese people to do the voice-over.

"No wonder it has such a big nose."

Zhang Yan said, "Just now, the people from the Economic Development Zone Management Committee wanted to bring foreign businessmen in for a visit, but I stopped them halfway. In the future, if there are similar situations, don't let them in. Just say that our film crew is shooting a war scene and there are explosives buried in it."

As he spoke, he looked left and right, puzzled, and asked, "Where's Chen Hong? Wasn't she supposed to be filming?"

“She only filmed for a short while in the morning, and then her old classmate came over—that is, Gai Lili. Since the Golden Eagle Awards were going to be held in Tianjin, Gai Lili came over early to take a look around, and then Chen Hong took half a day off.”

[PS: This session was indeed historically held in Tianjin.]

"Golden Eagle Award?"

Zhang Yan was somewhat puzzled: "When was this decision made?"

"It seems like it was only decided in the last few days. The organizing committee just arrived. After all, it's just something for our own amusement, and not many people take this award seriously—in the past, this award didn't count when evaluating professional titles at my workplace."

The Golden Eagle Award is considered by later generations to be the most worthless award, but in fact it was even more worthless before 97, belonging to a privately run, unfounded award.

Zhang Yan nodded thoughtfully, then asked, "When will the lottery be drawn?"

"It seems to be October 16th."

(End of this chapter)