Entertainment: 1990

Chapter 410 Binding of Interests
Because they had a verbal agreement to support each other's films.

So before the official release of "Sunshine", Zhang Yan attended the premieres of "Ashes of Time" and "Vive L'Amour".

He preferred "Ashes of Time" in comparison, but "Vive L'Amour" attracted more attention after its release—mainly because the latter's theme and filming style were more easily accepted by foreigners.

Even the premiere of "Sunshine" didn't initially receive as much attention as "Vive L'Amour".

Fortunately, "Sunshine" attracted the attention of many film critics, who praised the film and Jiang Wen, even calling the eighteen-year-old Xia Yu a "young version of Marlon Brando".

Thanks to these reviews, the film gained increasing popularity after its release and quickly surpassed "Vive L'Amour". The only film that could be compared to it was "Before the Rain", which depicts the Balkan Wars.

However, by this time, Zhang Yan and Jiang Wen had given up all hope of winning the Golden Lion Award.

The organizing committee's bias has led to the point where no one is even going to act anymore. It is clearly stipulated that no production team can contact the judges before the awards ceremony, and those who violate the rules will be disqualified from the competition.

However, the director of "Before the Rain" had an unexpected encounter with the judges on the third day after the release of "The Sun" and even had a public discussion about "Balkan culture".

Normally this would be absolutely impossible, because the judges are accompanied by the organizing committee staff 24 hours a day, and any attempt to communicate would be stopped.

But just when "Before the Rain" was skirting the line, the staff turned a blind eye.

After receiving this news, Zhang Yan prepared to contact other film crews to protest, but the only one that actually responded was "The Secret of Ron Island" from the United States.

The production teams of films including "Love Forever" and "Ashes of Time" believe that since the organizing committee tacitly approved of this behavior, they will certainly not admit their mistake easily.

As the two production teams had predicted, their protests, which were initially met with the response of "Don't do it again," ultimately resulted in the statement that "this will not happen again."

However, what neither production team expected was that the protest from the "Sunshine" production team made the organizing committee and the judging panel worry that the "Sunshine" production team would continue to question the results after they were announced.

So the Silver Lion award, which was originally going to be given to "Vive L'Amour," was given to "In the Heat of the Sun," and the lead actor, Xia Yu, also won the Best Actor award.

When the news reached the mainland, it immediately sparked a wave of excitement.

While the focus was mainly on Jiang Wen, who won an award for her Virgo film, and Xia Yu, who won the Venice Film Festival Best Actor award at a young age, Zhang Yanhe's name also appeared in most of the reports.

Behind this was undoubtedly Chen Hong's financial offensive, and the extensive connections they displayed at their wedding also led many entertainment publications to do Yuanmeng a favor.

And at the same time.

The new round of the Dream Come True tour also marks the official start of the third season of "I Am a Singer".

Besides the dance troupe being more professional, the biggest change this time is that before the performance, a screen will be erected at the venue to play highlights of "Sunshine" as a form of promotion.

Moreover, it wasn't just Yuanmeng; many theater troupes that had established cooperative relationships with Yuanmeng through the information distribution center also began to imitate Yuanmeng's practices for a fee at Chen Hong's request.

As a result, within just a few days, the promotional video for "Sunshine" spread all over the north and the Yangtze River Delta region.

Although it is not yet known how much impact this will have on the box office, this unprecedented promotional method has at least not provoked any resentment from the audience.

Most audiences viewed it as part of the performance rather than an advertisement, and therefore were more willing to discuss related topics.

…………

On the afternoon of June 8th.

The crew of "Sunshine" returned to Beijing by plane and were greeted by a large crowd of media and fans. Jiang Wen took the opportunity to hold a press conference at the airport to announce that the film would be officially released in theaters on August 21.

In the days that followed, a constant stream of interviews and reports emerged. Not only were Jiang Wen and Xia Yu adored, but Ning Jing was also somehow dubbed the 'Venus of the East,' with claims that she had garnered countless accolades in Venice.

As the largest investor and producer, Zhang Yan naturally receives many interview requests.

However, Zhang Yan turned them all down.

He doesn't have time to worry about these things right now; he's racing against time to try and get more revenue for "Sunshine".

…………

"You want to add a pre-roll ad before the movie's opening credits?"

After hearing Zhang Yan's request, the deputy head of the Sino-US negotiation team was quite puzzled.

He didn't think Zhang Yan was being delusional. The idea of ​​using ad placements in domestic TV dramas was pioneered by Yuan Meng, so it wasn't surprising that Zhang Yan wanted to transplant this model to the big screen.

What puzzled him was that this matter should have been addressed to the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television or the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, rather than to the China-US trade negotiation team.

In fact, if Zhang Yan hadn't proposed the plan to mix sand in, the deputy team leader wouldn't have met with him at all.

"Xiao Zhang, let's not even talk about whether it's too late to do the patch work now." The deputy team leader asked doubtfully, "You've come to our negotiation team with this matter. You've probably come to the wrong temple and burned the wrong incense."

Zhang Yan insisted, "No, no, no, this is something our negotiation team should handle! Hollywood movies have pre-roll ads, and if we don't set the rules soon, we'll definitely suffer because of it later."

Hearing Zhang Yan say this, the deputy team leader finally became serious: "So how do you want to set these rules?"

"We need to control the pre-roll ads in our cinemas!"

Zhang Yan decisively said, "We can stipulate that the pre-roll ads cannot be cut together with the main feature, but must be played separately before the movie screening. This will not only protect the revenue of the theaters, but also allow the theaters to decide the length and number of pre-roll ads, so as not to cause dissatisfaction among the audience."

"Can pre-roll ads really play for an extended period of time?"

The deputy team leader was somewhat surprised. In his memory, the pre-roll ads were only about a minute long, but Zhang Yan had made it so much of a cause for dissatisfaction.

“We definitely won’t now, but the Americans might,” Zhang Yan said with great certainty. And his guess was right. Just a few years later, the Americans increased the timer on the Tokyo University version from 1 minute to 20 minutes.

Although the deputy team leader was not entirely convinced, he currently placed great importance on the revenue generated by the cinema chain.

Because the cinemas are not satisfied with the sand-mixing plan and have been clamoring for special subsidies, if this ad placement can bring some revenue to the cinemas, it might be a way to appease them.

"Then what are you going to do?"

"Because the movie is about to be released, we can only race against time now. So I hope the negotiation team can step in and take on some advertising, which we will work overtime to produce into trailers, and then send to theaters along with the movie prints."

In order to compensate the country for its losses in this regard, we at Yuanmeng are willing to relinquish more of our advertising revenue…

To put it bluntly, Zhang Yan wanted to further solidify the relationship between the negotiating team and the cinema chain.

These days, film promotion and distribution is a rather complicated matter. Even veteran filmmakers like Han Sanping have to put in a lot of effort to resolve the conflicts of interest involved.

For a fledgling company like Yuanmeng, which is also a private enterprise outside the system, it is even more difficult to appease all the forces at play.

That's why he wanted to use the opportunity of winning the Silver Lion and Best Actor awards for "The Sun" to forge a deeper bond with the negotiation team. With this backing, he could avoid a lot of trouble in realizing his dream.

(End of this chapter)