Huayu: This producer has no bottom line.

Chapter 113 Night Pig

After leaving the teahouse, Ren Pingsheng did not call a car.

In April, the night wind in Yanjing was not as biting as before.

He walked slowly along the sidewalk, replaying the conversation from earlier that evening in his mind.

The reason I met with Zhang Chaoyang today is ostensibly to give him a face-to-face explanation.

Secretly, he wanted to test this person again.

Last time at Liu Laogen Grand Stage, Zhang Chaoyang showed up uninvited and bid 40 million for the illustration.

Whether this is true or false, we need to verify it.

How to test it?

Try a riskier project.

If, after being rejected by himself once again, he is still willing to consider projects like "Ghost Blows Out the Light," which require a large amount of capital and have no return in two or three years, it means that his confidence in himself is not just a passing fancy.

Then I don't mind saying a few more words.

So he mentioned the browser.

As an employee of Sohu in his previous life, he knew how crucial this moment was for Sohu.

In his previous life, Zhang Chaoyang abandoned his strategic focus on Sogou Browser in order to win the Weibo war with Xinlang, and instead poured all his resources into Weibo.

As a result, Weibo lost the battle, and it also missed out on the development of browsers.

Two years later, when they finally realized what was happening, UC, Tencent, and 360 had already completely dominated the browser market, and other sectors had also been seized by others. Sohu never recovered from that setback.

This life is even more outrageous.

Because of his own instigation, Zhang Chaoyang launched the Weibo war several months ahead of schedule.

This directly resulted in the Sogou Browser 2.0 version, which was originally scheduled to be released on April 8, still not appearing.

It's important to know that this was the first true dual-core browser in the history of the Chinese Internet, and it was also Sohu's best chance to turn its fate around.

On March 23, Google officially withdrew from the mainland China market, leaving a market gap of nearly 30%.

Although Baidu has become the biggest beneficiary, user dissatisfaction with its pay-per-click ranking model has begun to accumulate.

At that time, no other search engine in China was capable of filling this gap except Sogou.

If Zhang Chaoyang can figure things out along the lines of content and entry points, he can build a new type of tool that combines content and browser, based on Sohu's massive media content library.

On a smaller scale, this is the prototype of UC + Toutiao.

On a grander scale, this is the potential of TikTok!

Don't forget, Sohu also owns Sogou Input Method, the software with the highest installation volume on both PC and mobile platforms in China.

This thing may sound unremarkable, but its most terrifying aspect is that...

Every keystroke, every choice of candidate word, every draft entered and then deleted by the user.

The input method knows everything you hesitated about, regretted, and ultimately didn't say.

Moreover, its frequency of use is unparalleled. Users may use various different software, but as long as you type, the input method will be there.

Therefore, for a long time, no other product could capture user data more comprehensively, in real time, and accurately.

Of course, he only touched on the topic briefly today.

This was another test he was giving Zhang Chaoyang.

If Zhang Chaoyang could listen to advice, abandon the thankless task of Weibo, and instead support Wang Xiaochuan's Sogou.

In the future, Sohu will become an indispensable force in China's internet landscape.

And in terms of life experience, he will also have a powerful ally.

If he won't listen...

Ren Pingsheng kicked a pebble off the roadside and chuckled softly.

That's okay.

At least it shows that I was being cautious, so from now on, when cooperating with him, I'll only talk about business, not strategy.

I took out my phone and glanced at the time.

9:40.

He opened QQ and sent a message to Wang Li.

"Has Nazha replied yet?"

Wang Li replied less than two minutes after the message was sent.

"I've got it! Her mother has agreed to come to Yanjing with her. The train is the day after tomorrow."

Ren Pingsheng put his phone back in his pocket and hailed a taxi.

He leaned back in his seat, closed his eyes for a moment, and began to plan what to do next.

With financing secured and copyright acquired, Zhang Chaoyang's business line is now stable.

Next, it's time to prepare new works.

Gong Yu said that Han Sanping wanted to see his skills again, and the Youth Image Project was the stage for that.

This means that his works not only need to appeal to ordinary viewers, but also need to gain the approval of Han Sanping.

It's not good if either side is off.

Too artistic, and the audience won't buy it.

If you're too commercial, won't Han Sanping think you lack depth?

"Old Boys" took the nostalgia route, so the next installment can't play the same card again.

The audience's threshold has been raised. If you tell them another story about a middle-aged person pursuing their dreams, they will only feel that you are repeating yourself.

We need to change direction.

But which direction should we change to?

The taxi stopped at the red light.

Ren Pingsheng looked at the flashing neon lights outside the window and thought of the saying, "If you don't take pictures now, you won't be able to take pictures later."

"Ghost Blows Out the Light" is one of them, because the censorship window will be closed.

However, there is another type of subject matter where the window for exploration is also narrowing.

School violence.

This topic was still in a delicate gray area in 2010.

There was discussion in society, but it was far from the kind of intense public pressure that followed.

The official attitude towards campus-themed works is to encourage positive and uplifting creations, but works that expose the darker side are neither explicitly prohibited nor publicly supported.

However, after 2019, with the controversy surrounding the withdrawal of "Better Days" from theaters and the widespread public attention drawn by several serious incidents of school violence, this subject matter became increasingly difficult to tackle.

It's not that you can't take pictures, it's that there are too many restrictions.

The perpetrators cannot be too evil, the victims cannot suffer too much, the outcome must be bright, and the intervention of adult forces of justice is necessary to resolve the problem.

And there are no such restrictions now.

He can film more realistically, more sharply, and more painfully.

The Youth Image Project itself is themed around youth.

School violence is the most unpleasant, yet most real, aspect of youth.

This kind of subject matter naturally possesses topicality and the ability to spread.

It was impactful enough for the audience and sparked enough discussion.

For Han Sanping, a young director who dares to address social issues is far more valuable than one who only knows how to evoke emotions.

Of course, there's a premise.

It needs to be filmed well.

It's not the kind of film that screams and denounces social injustice, nor is it a cold, documentary-style portrayal.

The goal is to grip the audience's attention in just a few minutes.

In a previous life, a work achieved this, although it wasn't from China.

"Night Pig," directed by Yeon Sang-ho, is an animated feature film about school bullying.

Of course, he couldn't copy it exactly, but his approach of presenting without preaching is something we can learn from.

Ren Pingsheng took out his phone, opened the notes app, and quickly typed a few lines.

Short film, 5-10 minutes.

When discussing school violence, we must consider not only the victim's perspective but also the perpetrator's.

He stared at the screen for a few seconds, then added another sentence.

How to distinguish between victims and perpetrators?

Can the victim be the perpetrator?

The finger hovers over the screen.

Okay, this is it.