A grand feast for the Chinese entertainment industry

Chapter 157 is great.
They were stranded in the capital for several days.

In fact, while Lin Jianlu was busy visiting relatives, socializing, sleeping with women, and arranging things in the capital, the bonus of his first appearance on the Spring Festival Gala still arrived as scheduled.

Several months later, the song "Fairy Tale" was suddenly playing again in record stores of all sizes on the street.

The albums weren't selling well; even if they did, it would only generate a small volume. Moyan decided to produce another 30 copies and distribute them, but that was about it. The albums that were really selling well were the Spring Festival Gala song compilations.

They're all pirated.

However, when I went to Rolling Stone on the eighth day of the Lunar New Year, I heard from Lao Xue and others that Su Huilun's "Duck" had indeed seen an unusually significant increase in shipments and orders—the one who truly benefited the most was Su Huilun.

Her youthful and energetic image, sweet smile, and carefree youthful tone of "Aha, go ahead, it's nothing" instantly touched many mainland fans who knew nothing about her before. These young men and women have always been major consumers of music products!
Although pirated copies will definitely still dominate, it wouldn't be surprising if genuine copies sold 100,000 or 200,000 boxes as well.

Also, well, like I said before, selling a lot of pirated goods can make money.

These days, there are actually plenty of commercial performance opportunities in mainland China. It's just that there are some safety concerns. Otherwise, even though the income per performance is not as high as in Hong Kong and Taiwan, the total market volume is still far greater. Su Huilun is now a star who has appeared on the Spring Festival Gala and become very popular. She's a Taiwanese beauty. If she weren't pregnant, she could easily make several million yuan by organizing a bodyguard team after the New Year and traveling around the country for two or three months.

It depends on her and Chen Hong.

Lin Jianlu had a rather hoarding habit when it came to the women he had slept with, but he didn't believe that once a woman belonged to him, she should quit all her jobs and careers to become his kept woman.

Birds are most beautiful when they are free.

Let them be!

On the ninth day of the Lunar New Year, according to an old folk saying, people go out on the third, sixth, and ninth days. Lin Jianlu, along with Yu Feihong, boarded a plane to New York once again.

After landing, Ge Fuhong and Lin Xilei met up, and Zhao Mingxin once again came to pick them up in a car.

It was the same townhouse on the Upper East Side. After a short rest, I went to Columbia Recording Studios the next day to get back into the swing of things and quickly got back into work mode.

Meanwhile, Zhao Mingxin and Ge Fuhong had already begun preparations for the music videos to be filmed later. As the copyright holder, Sony Columbia planned to film music videos for three songs as the main promotional material, and decided to spend 60 US dollars on these three music videos.

The songs were chosen by Lin Jianlu, which are the so-called first, second, and third main tracks. Let's start with these three songs.

If sales can be boosted and word-of-mouth can be generated, the rest will be much easier.

The first single was "Baby", the second single was "HandClap", and the third single was "Believer".

Perhaps because the promotion of "Cold to the End" was a complete success, so successful that it was hailed as a classic case of record promotion by the entire Chinese music scene, Zhao Mingxin adopted almost all of Lin Jianlu's song selection and even the shooting ideas for the MV without any objection.

Lin Jianlu's thinking is actually quite simple.

The primary goal is to integrate into mainstream culture, the more mainstream the better. There's no need to consider professional reputation within the music industry, only popularity. Therefore, a song like "Baby," a popular style among teenagers, is suitable for all ages and especially for young men and women—it needs a choreography and a dance performance in the music video.

In fact, a large part of Ge Fuhong and Zhao Mingxin's current so-called MV preparation work is to select a group of young black and white dancers.

The second main focus is on publicity and promotion, with two starting points.

First, if the first single doesn't become popular, the second single must take a different approach and break out of the genre of the first single. Second, if the first single becomes popular, the second single must start anew, change its format and style, while also maintaining the audience that the first single opened up.

Then choose a gentle, upbeat rap.

In America during this era, rap music is becoming increasingly popular, and its fan base is growing larger.

Moreover, of course, there is a high degree of overlap with the fan base of popular teenage songs like "Baby".

To make a music video for this style of rap, Lin Jianlu plans to follow the customs of the American music scene: throw a big party, invite a bunch of people to eat and drink, and shoot the music video while they're at it.

Americans love this.

Lin Jianlu had no selfish motives whatsoever; everything he did was aimed at integrating the album into American society as quickly and effectively as possible and attracting the teenage population, the main consumers of record sales.

But when it came to the third main track, he started to have his own agenda.

He had to be prepared for the first two singles to flop without becoming a hit. So, if it did flop, this music video would be the last one for the entire album. Although Lin Jianlu couldn't imagine that his album might not be a hit, he still prepared for the worst.

Okay, before we completely fail, let's play what we want to play.

Get on Believer!
Modern rock, but paired with a hard-edged Chinese style music video! He plans to use the transition style most common in short videos of later generations—but with a poignant love story interspersed in.

It needs to be a grand scene, like a massive army.

Before the Lunar New Year, he made a special appointment with Zhang Yimou again to discuss having him direct the music video. Zhang Yimou was very accommodating, saying he wouldn't discuss money, just meals would suffice.

Lin Jianlu even went so far as to contact a manufacturer and spend a fortune to have a suit of armor made for him—the Great Han Fish Scale Armor! It was custom-made, costing 80,000 yuan per set, and the production time was one month!

He also commissioned people to make embroidered cheongsams, Han Dynasty women's robes, and deep robes with curved hems for the female lead, striving for the ultimate in luxury and to showcase the beauty of Chinese clothing.

The female lead is Yu Feihong.

From a business perspective, curiosity is an important factor that cannot be ignored in marketing and promotion!

Lin Jianlu admits that he is an absolute novice in filmmaking, but he has one advantage that even a director as powerful as Zhang Yimou in this era does not possess—he has seen it all!

Atop the towering Han Dynasty palace, against a backdrop of a dark blue sky and palace buildings, a figure in red instantly creates a striking visual effect—a scene later overused and overused by internet celebrities, yet still absolutely stunning at this point in time! After all, the reason later internet celebrities have done this is precisely because directors like Zhang Yimou have spent over twenty years exploring, experimenting, and refining the techniques, proving that the visual effects are indeed explosive!
Well, Lin Jianlu hoped to finish the music videos for the first and second singles with a budget of 100,000 to 150,000 US dollars, but he planned to spend 450,000 US dollars on the third single!

It's roughly in the range of 370 million to 400 million RMB, not including the cost of custom-made armor, cheongsams, and the like, since he paid for the clothes himself and kept them for his own collection after the shoot—saving up a lot of money to create some big productions! To shock these bumpkins in America who have no knowledge of ancient history!
…………

The recording went smoothly.

And this time, there were no other issues to get involved.

There's no need to be interrupted by all sorts of running around.

Having recorded the previous eight songs, Lin Jianlu has finally found his rhythm in producing English songs. His collaborations with the band, the recording engineer, and the backing vocalists and harmonies have all become highly proficient.

As a result, progress was rapid.

He left the capital on February 15th, the ninth day of the first lunar month, and arrived in New York on February 16th. By the end of February, in just over ten days, he had already produced four songs. By mid-March, the entire album was finally completed.

During this period, Liang Yongqi flew over and stayed for three days, where she had a minor disagreement with Yu Feihong.

Yu Feihong backed down, which meant she didn't respond.

Later, Leung Wing-ki flew back to Hong Kong, and Yu Fei-hong followed suit by flying back to the capital. Chen Hong had just landed when Su Hui-lun suddenly flew over to check up on her—luckily, she couldn't get too worked up, so a hug and some words of comfort were enough.

However, it's clear that compared to Lin Qingxia and Liang Yongqi, who were involved in Lin Jianlu's previous scandals, she is more jealous of Chen Hong. Perhaps if it were Yu Feihong here, her jealousy wouldn't be any less.

In short, the opponent was too beautiful and too sophisticated.

He is also in his prime.

This made her realize her shortcomings in all aspects—but she was easy to persuade. She didn't have a complicated, thoughtful mind. Once she grasped one point, her mindset stabilized.

You're carrying my child! What are you afraid of?

So the next day, she even agreed to sign with Chen Hong's agency, handing over her agency contract in mainland China to her absolute rival!

In short, the jealousy and rivalry among a group of women are all minor issues.

None of them dared to interfere with Lin Jianlu's work because of their rivalry—that was enough for Lin Jianlu. As for how they would fight, it didn't really matter.

Ultimately, as long as both sides have their own bottom lines, it's fine.

The purpose of tearing each other apart is to win over a man, drive the other away, or at least thwart the other, but never to completely enrage the man. In that case, no matter how much you tear each other apart, you won't achieve anything significant.

The day after the album was completely recorded, Sony Columbia paid for Lin Jianlu's first party to celebrate—it was a lively affair, and these guys who had been in the New York music scene were probably already used to this kind of thing: attendees would sign an appearance contract, and then the music video would actually be filmed.

The total cost, including renting the villa, the wine and meat, the sound system, the DJ, etc., was less than $30,000. However, the song "HandClap" that was played on a loop at the event made the venue famous overnight. Many people on the spot exclaimed that the song was amazing!
Meanwhile, Chris Martins, the go-to backing singer for Lin Jianlu's entire album, suddenly became the most popular person at the party, surrounded by a large group of new and old friends in the music industry asking who this new song was!

Yes, that's a great start.

(End of this chapter)