Huayu 1992, my entertainment era

At eight o'clock in the evening, at the Raffles Hotel Singapore, Zhou Ziheng and Florence Hui arrived as scheduled.

Liu Yuwen was already waiting at the hotel entrance.

"Mr. Zhou, welcome!"

As soon as Zhou Ziheng got out of the car, Liu Yuwen came to greet him.

There were several other people with him. Zhou Ziheng had never seen them before, but he thought they were all from the TV station.

"Mr. Zhou, congratulations, the record is a big hit."

Liu Yuhua had a smiling face.

"Thank you, and I also want to thank the TV station for its support."

Zhou Ziheng's thanks were sincere.

A large part of his promotion in Singapore was done on Singapore Television.

And the other party has never been harsh on him in this regard.

In fact, among the many stars who have developed their careers in Singapore, the support he receives from Singaporean television stations is top-notch.

Whenever his records are released, his MVs are played continuously on TV stations, and it is never difficult for him to get his songs on the charts.

A few people chatted and walked into the hotel restaurant together.

During this period, Zhou Ziheng also learned about the people who were traveling with him through Liu Yuwen's explanation.

One is Lee Tat Ming, a producer from Singapore Television.

The other is Singapore Television’s current ace director Xie Yiwen.

Speaking of Xie Yiwen, his resume is very impressive.

From 1980 to 1987, he worked at TVB and filmed the 1985 TV series "Snow Mountain Flying Fox" (played by Patrick Tse, Ray Lui, Ken Tsang, Kenny Kwan, Li Guolin, Law Lan, and Benz Hui).

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In 1986, he filmed "Barefoot Gentleman" (played by Alex Fong, Kathy Chow, Lau Ching-Wan, Lai Hon-Chi, Lee Heung-kam, Lau Siu-Ming and Albert Yeung).

From 1988 to 1991, he worked at ATV for a few more years.

Subsequently, he has been working for Singapore Television until today.

In 94, "Legend of White Snake: Love in the World" was filmed. This movie achieved very good ratings in Singapore.

TV station director, TV drama producer, TV drama director.

This lineup made Zhou Ziheng more certain that Liu Yuwen wanted him to come because he wanted to cooperate with him on a project.

This is true.

At the dinner table, the group first chatted about family matters. After eating and drinking, Liu Yuwen stated his purpose.

I just want to invite Zhou Ziheng to act in a TV series.

"Mr. Zhou, we sincerely invite you to star in this TV series."

Liu Yuwen said this and asked his entourage to take out the script.

"Journey to the East".

After taking the script, Zhou Ziheng saw a few big words on it.

"In addition to our Singapore TV station, we have also reached cooperation with TV stations in the Mainland. We have already contacted the Sichuan TV Production Center and Jiangsu Tiandi Film and Television Production Center and decided that the three parties will jointly produce this TV series.

The play is adapted from the ancient Chinese legend "The Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea" and the mythological novel "Journey to the East".

The screenwriters include Lu Zhiming, Li Yanping, Huang Jinhua, Xie Junyuan and other top talents in the industry.

I can say with full responsibility that this drama will be a groundbreaking one.

Our goal is to break the ratings record in Chinese regions.”

Liu Yuwen's words were firm, showing his confidence in this project.

Zhou Ziheng didn't say anything, but read the script carefully.

The first paragraph of the script is an introduction to the entire story:

The demon Tongtian, who had been restrained for ten thousand years, broke the curse and was reborn, and a catastrophe of heaven and earth was inevitable.

According to the wordless heavenly book, the Eight Immortals of the Upper Cave will be born in response to the calamity.

As long as the Eight Immortals return to their positions, they can eliminate demons, defend the way and save the people. Donghua Zhenren volunteered to endure the disasters of three threes and the calamities of nine nines to guide the Eight Immortals back to their positions.

Thus, spanning the three realms of heaven, earth and man, and including the three categories of humans, ghosts and gods, scenes of mythological stories about good and evil, love and hate, emotion and reason come to life on the screen.

On one side is the tangled emotional ties that cannot be cut off, and on the other side is the heavy responsibility of saving people from suffering.

Faced with this thousand-year-old love calamity, how will Lu Dongbin, who is caught in a dilemma, make a choice?
It can be seen that the Singapore TV station really attaches great importance to this project. The script is written in great detail, and the story of each episode is described in detail.

Perhaps because the script had too many words, Liu Yuwen only gave Zhou Ziheng the first three episodes.

Zhou Ziheng watched the first episode.

This episode tells the story of Sun Wukong disrupting the Peach Festival and accidentally dropping three peaches into the mortal world. The Peony Fairy from Heaven is ordered to go down to earth to find the lost peaches.

The evil dragon from the East China Sea gave the two peaches he picked up to his wife Chunying and the fetus in her belly, hoping that the child would have immortal bones in the future.

The Peony Fairy found a peach but was bullied by an evil dragon. It happened that the immortal Donghua, who was on duty, risked being punished and left his post to save the Peony Fairy.

The evil dragon took advantage of the situation and captured many more children. At this time, Sun Wukong was making a scene in the Heavenly Palace, so the gong sounded loudly and the Jade Emperor urgently summoned all the gods to return to the Heavenly Palace. Donghua asked the Peony Fairy to return first while he went to save those innocent children.

Donghua used "Hunyuan Feitian" and "Baoyu Hanxiang" to eliminate the evil dragon, and later went to Lingxiao Palace to apologize.

The Peony Fairy knelt down and said frankly that it was her fault that had implicated the Immortal Donghua, and asked the Jade Emperor to forgive Donghua.

Donghua won the understanding of the Jade Emperor and all the immortals with his words "I am willing to serve the people without any regrets".

As a result, the Peony Fairy fell in love with the Immortal Donghua.

Without watching the subsequent episodes, Zhou Ziheng asked:

"Are you planning to let me play the role of Donghua the Immortal?"

"Yes, but this character is actually the previous life of Lü Dongbin, one of the Eight Immortals. Your role will mainly focus on the role of Lü Dongbin."

Liu Yuwen couldn't help laughing as he said, "Among the Eight Immortals, Lü Dongbin is the most handsome and dashing. Only you, Mr. Zhou, can handle this role."

Although he knew that the other party was flattering him, Zhou Ziheng still couldn't help but smile.

Wear it a thousand times, but flattery never wears it.

There is no one who doesn't like to listen to good things, and Zhou Ziheng is no exception.

However, he did not agree to act in the film, but instead asked about the remuneration.

Although this is vulgar.

But in fact this is the reality.

Without enough money, he could only bear the pain even if he liked the script.

"Regarding the pay, after discussion, we have decided to offer you 100,000 Singapore dollars per episode."

Liu Yuwen spoke.

He thought the price was attractive enough.

However, before Zhou Ziheng could speak, Florence Hui next to him spoke.

"Director Liu, this price is too low!"

"Still lower?"

Hearing this, Liu Yuwen couldn't help but be stunned.

One hundred thousand Singapore dollars, if converted into RMB, would be more than five hundred thousand.

In 96, the salary for filming one TV episode was RMB, which was definitely a sky-high price in the TV industry in the Chinese-speaking regions.

Among the current Hong Kong and Taiwan TV drama actors, the most popular is undoubtedly Ma Jingtao.

He has starred in many classic TV series and is currently the undisputed king of TV series, with his pay also at the top of the industry.

However, Ma Jingtao's pay is actually only 20,000 Singapore dollars per episode.

Indeed, Zhou Ziheng and Ma Jingtao are different.

He is a singer and also a film actor.

His records are sold all over the world and he is a well-deserved music superstar.

In terms of movies, although he acted in few movies, his box office performance was very good, which led to a significant increase in his salary.

The combination of these two factors makes it impossible to predict his pay based on common sense.

However, 100,000 New Zealand dollars was already a very high number. Zhou Ziheng was not satisfied with this number.

Liu Yuwen looked at Zhou Ziheng. He knew how difficult it was to deal with an agent and wanted to find a breakthrough from Zhou Ziheng.

"Mr. Zhou, you should know that this salary is absolutely astronomical, and our drama has quite a few episodes.

The minimum number of episodes is thirty.

You are the protagonist of this drama, and you have at least twenty episodes of screen time.

All in all, you can get at least 10 million RMB for this TV series."

Zhou Ziheng didn't want to speak, but after thinking about it, he said:

“I know that your offer is already very generous.

But it’s not really worth it for me.

To shoot a TV series with 10 million yuan, the shooting period would take at least two to three months, or even longer.

That’s enough time for me to do a lot of things.”

This is indeed the case. If Zhou Ziheng were to shoot a movie quickly, he could take on one in a month, three or four months. His pay might be a little less, but the total would still far exceed the price offered by the Singapore TV station.

As for the possibility that there might be no chance, look for Zhou Ziheng.

This is really impossible.

There are countless companies that want to hire him to film movies.

He just needs to spread the word that he wants to make a movie, without telling the film companies with which he has a good relationship.

I'm afraid that hostile companies like Jiahe and Yongsheng will not be able to sit still.

Not to mention that Zhou Ziheng actually has his own film company, so he can definitely star in his own company's movies.

"Director Liu, I suggest you go back and discuss this again.

Besides, it’s not that we are unwilling to be merciful, but your price is really not cost-effective for our Ziheng.

We hope you can understand us.”

There was a hint of refusal in Florence Hui's words.

In fact, they were not raising the price, but it was really not cost-effective for Zhou Ziheng to take on a TV series that cost 100,000 Singapore dollars per episode.

This is not a small amount of money, therefore, even if Zhou Ziheng wanted to give face to the Singapore TV station.

But the reality will not allow him to take on such an unprofitable project.

You know, he is not representing just himself now.

He has a lot of people behind him.

Even Florence Hui relies on the commission from Zhou Ziheng's agency to make a living.

So, sometimes, it’s not a question of whether he wants to take the job or not, but a lot of factors need to be considered.

Since the price was not agreed upon, the matter naturally did not continue.

Zhou Ziheng and his companion returned to the hotel after the dinner.

Originally, Zhou Ziheng and Huo Wenxi both thought that this matter was over.

Unexpectedly, the next day, Liu Yuwen called again.

This time, he directly reported a number that was much higher than yesterday.

Two hundred thousand Singapore dollars.

Yes, the Singapore TV station directly quoted a price twice as high as yesterday.

"What do you mean? Answer it?"

In the hotel, Florence Hui asked Zhou Ziheng.

Relatively speaking, this number is actually very high.

It's still a record-breaking offer.

But Zhou Ziheng and Huo Wenxi never expected that the Singapore TV station would offer such a high price.

This caught them off guard.

You know, if you take on this project, it will start filming at the latest in the second half of this year, or even next year.

Even if the crew postpones the production for a while because of Zhou Ziheng, it won't be postponed for too long.

But Zhou Ziheng's progress was very slow.

If he accepts the job, his work plans for next year may be completely disrupted, and he may even have to cancel many of his originally planned tasks.

"You rearrange my schedule, eliminate some unimportant work, and squeeze out two months of time.

Then I sent them the schedule. If they can accept that I often leave the crew to do other work and hurry up to finish filming my scenes, I will agree. "

It was only after Zhou Ziheng became a popular artist that he understood why the stars in his previous life were often rumored to be arrogant.

There's no way, I'm too famous. I'm so famous that I can't stay in a film crew for more than a few days.

For the sake of an actor, the crew will only shoot when the actor is free, and the shooting will have to be stopped if the actor is not available. This situation happens frequently and will naturally cause dissatisfaction among the staff in the same crew.

Then naturally someone will inform the media about this.

The media are people who love to watch the fun, no matter how big the event. They hope that things will get out of hand.

If you exaggerate a little, this kind of thing can easily develop into being a big shot.

That afternoon, Zhou Ziheng held a book signing event in the city.

After the book signing session was over, the Singapore TV station responded.

They accepted Zhou Ziheng's conditions.

At the same time, they also took the script of the entire play and the performance contract to Zhou Ziheng.

Along with this comes the initial selection of actors for the roles.

The reason why Singapore TV gave the preliminary list of actors to Zhou Ziheng.

The meaning was very clear. He wanted to ask him whether he agreed to cooperate with these people.

This is a very common phenomenon in the entertainment industry.

If a very big-name actor appears in a film crew.

So, the crew has to respect the opinion of this big star in casting.

After all, no one knows whether this big star may dislike a certain actor, have a grudge against him, or simply does not want to work with him.

Zhou Ziheng took a quick look at the list recommended by the Singapore TV station.

The choice of actors is roughly similar to the cast of the previous TV series.

Only a few actors were not among them.

For example, the actress who plays the Peony Fairy.

The actor recommended by the Singapore TV station was an actor Zhou Ziheng didn’t know, and he did look good.

But he is very different from the actor who played this role in the previous life.

Speaking of this, Zhou Ziheng was helpless.

He couldn't remember the name of the actress who played the Peony Fairy.

He watched this drama on Tencent Video back then.

He knew the actors in the film except the roaring emperor Ma Jingtao and the professional fool Guo Jinan who had played in "The World's Number One".

He didn't know any of the other actors.

There's no way, the TV actors he's familiar with are basically those who became famous 10 years later.

As for the previous ones, unless they were particularly famous, he was not very familiar with them.

The same is true for the actress who plays the Peony Fairy.

When he watched this TV series on Tencent Video, he did think that the woman who played the Peony Fairy was very beautiful.

But he didn't get to know this person too well.

So it's normal that he doesn't know him.

(End of this chapter)