Reshaping the landscape of the Chinese entertainment industry

On the night of the wrap party, He Yi'an returned to Beijing with all the film reels.

After just one night's rest, he plunged headfirst into the editing room of the Beijing Film Studio.

Mainly because the New Year has just ended, all industries have reopened, and there's not much to do at home.

Meanwhile, Dad went to work, and Mom Xu Wan had actually been busy with company matters since January.

He Yi'an's studio has now been upgraded to a company, and there's a lot going on.

Not only did Xu Wan need to personally handle the change procedures, but several other companies also needed to be established.

Having decided to fully commit to this industry, He Yi'an and Xu Wan were not just joking around.

Therefore, during this period, Xu Wan only paid attention to the matter of He Yi'an being scolded, and did not see him at other times.

The company is not the same as the previous studio. As the scope of operations expands, the number of people needed also increases exponentially.

Several companies are busy recruiting people, which will keep them occupied for a long time.

At the same time, Langyuan Media's recent major moves have put pressure on other private enterprises in the industry.

Although the entertainment industry is still in its early stages and the market is a blue ocean, the scarcity of talent is certain if one wants to become the top private enterprise.

A fierce battle to recruit talent has unexpectedly erupted during this period.

Langyuan has been in contact with companies such as Huayi, Enlight Media, Bona, Jiasheng, Tanglong International, Paige Taihe, Huanle Media, Zhouyi, and Tangren.

They even went so far as to dig up their people.

He Yi'an was filming on set at the time. After learning about this, she was only impressed by her mother's generosity, but she did not stop her from doing so.

In the business competition, Langyuan is just starting out, so it definitely needs a suitable team and personnel.

However, He Yi'an doesn't really think highly of some of the veterans in the industry, so he only suggests that his mother use some experienced people for some key positions, but for the core tasks, she should definitely train new people.

His mother, Xu Wan, also thought his suggestion made sense, which is why she has been quite busy lately.

After all, it's not easy to train and select suitable newcomers.

Despite being busy, neither He Yi'an nor his father He Changlin said much, seeing how enthusiastic his mother was about this career, they just told her to take care of her health.

However, this meant that while He Yi'an was making movies and his mother was managing the company and recruiting staff, the family member who was relatively less busy became their father, He Changlin.

Because I have a formal job, I basically live a very routine life, going back and forth between home and work every day.

In his words, he felt he was too idle. If he hadn't personally served as the producer for He Yi'an's film crew, he would have been sitting in the office every day.

So, to find something to do, as soon as he learned that He Yi'an's filming was over, his father immediately found him a place to be in charge of editing, as well as people to help him with the editing.

This is why He Yi'an only needs to rest for one night before he can start working.

It was all thanks to my father's excellent coordination.

The editing room of the Beijing Film Studio is located on the second floor of the studio building.

Because private film production no longer requires a license plate, the number of staff at film studios has decreased significantly, making already quiet places even more deserted.

In a small room on the second floor, soundproofing cotton was pasted on the walls.

To avoid exposure, the windows in the editing room are covered with dark curtains, and the lights have to be on even during the day.

In the center of the room was a long editing table with two film editing machines on it, and stacks of film canisters piled up next to it.

He Yi'an stacked the film canisters one by one on the shelf, carefully organizing the densely packed labels.

He filmed for nearly two months, and the amount of footage was more than he had expected.

There are nearly a hundred hours of video footage alone, and countless audio recordings.

This is actually a very normal ratio.

The ratio of finished film to available footage is typically between 5:1 and 10:1.

That is, a 1-hour finished film requires about 5 hours of footage, which means 5 feet of footage to complete a 1-foot finished film. Of course, this is the domain of the masters.

He Yi'an can't do that yet, but he has maintained a 20:1 ratio, which is still considered low, because he has relatively few unusable films.

If it were Jiang Wen, he could probably get it to 50:1, and a few hundred hours wouldn't be considered a small amount...

Editing, in essence, involves cutting out about 120 minutes of film from nearly 100 hours of footage.

This is why editing is often referred to as a secondary creation of a film.

The final cut of a movie depends entirely on how the editor edits it.

The person primarily responsible for editing was certainly not He Yi'an. Although he had learned a lot, editing still required professionals.

He Changlin hired Zhou Ying as the editor, while He Yi'an found Sanbao to compose the music.

Zhou Ying is not well-known to the general public as she works behind the scenes, but people in the industry know her very well. She is a first-class editor at China Film Group and He Yi'an's senior from Beijing Film Academy.

He is also He Changlin's colleague and serves as the vice president of the Film Editors Association.

She excels at realistic themes, and the films she edits are emotionally nuanced and have a steady pace, earning her a good reputation in the industry.

Of course, it's not easy to get someone of her stature to come along. If her father hadn't personally invited her, it would have been highly unlikely that someone of her status would accompany a newcomer to the editing process.

As her father's colleague, Zhou Ying naturally knew He Yi'an. However, her initial thought was the same as everyone else's: that He Changlin's son was just dabbling in making movies.

But once she arrived at the editing room and reviewed the footage shot by He Yi'an, she became serious.

"Xiao He, I didn't expect you to actually have some skills. Not bad, your footage is of very high quality, very few are unusable, and most of it is usable."

"That's good!" He Yi'an felt relieved. "Then, Aunt Zhou, shall we begin?"

Seeing that He Yi'an was indeed serious about this, Zhou Ying stopped being casual and started to take it seriously.

He Yi'an explained his understanding of film, his desired pacing, and his ideas on emotional control to Zhou Ying, little by little.

While listening, Zhou Ying operated the editing console, arranging the footage in order.

After all that was done, we began the first rough cut.

It's unlikely that someone could complete an edit in three to five days; at least, that was impossible in the film era.

This was physically demanding and very time-consuming; it took them five whole days to complete the first rough cut.

He Yi'an looked at it once and was not satisfied with it.

Because the pace was too slow, and the emotional moments were not accurate.

However, since it was a rough cut, He Yi'an could understand.

Then, during the subsequent editing phase, he began to make more detailed requests.

"Aunt Zhou, this timeline needs to be moved forward." He pointed to the timeline on the screen. "The scene where Old Zhou falls down can't be at the end; it needs to be cross-cut with Chen Xiaoyu singing."

……

"Aunt Zhou, speed up the plot and pace in the early stages... and slow down the pace in the middle and later stages, so that when it finally explodes, there will be a feeling of warmth being torn apart."

……

As He Yi'an's requests became more and more specific, Zhou Ying realized that He Yi'an wanted to leave a shot or clip at every point in time that could evoke emotions in the audience.

As someone who has edited and watched so many films, she understood instantly.

This technique and style are typical of commercial films, which doesn't quite fit her understanding of narrative films.

She directly expressed her opinion, but He Yi'an insisted on his own idea and told her to try it first.

Zhou Ying was somewhat resistant to this kind of thing, but after she finished editing as required, she found that the effect of the editing was surprisingly good.

"As expected, you young people are really quick-witted. The future belongs to you young people!"

Once Zhou Ying understood that such editing wouldn't disrupt the plot and could even evoke stronger emotions, she stopped resisting, and the editing process went smoothly.

After the final cut was completed, the background music for Sanbao was also almost finished.

Then, after spending some more time, the two added the background music audio to the film. After doing all this, the finished product of He Yi'an's first film was finally released.

However, the release of the film does not mean that everything is a success. Next, there is still an internal screening and a submission for review!

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P.S.: I was planning to take a break today and write a couple of transitional chapters, but judging from the number of monthly votes, I'll have to add an extra chapter!

An extra chapter for every 500 monthly votes~ Okay, I'll just keep asking for monthly votes and recommendation votes~