Huayu: Hard fight against Zhang Weiping at the beginning

Chapter 280 How Art Films Make Money
At night, Zhang Chen and his group gathered at Guijie Street.

Guijie Street is actually Dongzhimen Inner Street. In the 90s, people started to call it "Ghost Street" because it was open all night. Later, because "ghost" was not very elegant, it was changed to "Gui".

In 2005, when boiled fish, frogs and lamb ribs were still popular in other parts of Beijing, Guijie had already set off a "spicy crayfish" craze.

There are three types of crayfish, divided into two yuan, three yuan, and five yuan according to size...

A meal here is not cheap.

At that time in the capital, the average restaurant in Beijing cost about 60 yuan per person, while the price per person in Guijie was over 100 yuan.

But the food here is indeed delicious.

Guijie Street is the most famous food street in Beijing, bar none.

It is only one kilometer long, and 150% of the 90 stores are restaurants.

Here, if your food isn’t tasty, you’ll go out of business in a few days.

Zhang Chen and his friends came here today to eat Ma Xiao, and to wait for the first day's box office results.

Chen Xi was a frequent visitor here, and he brought them to the small mountain town of Jingui with great familiarity.

Jingui Xiaoshancheng is the most popular store on this street. There are three of them on the same street, which shows how good the business is.

The status of Jingui Mountain Town at this time is somewhat similar to that of Hu Da, who appeared after 2010 and dominated the entire street.

To put it in today's terms, it was the most powerful fighter on the entire street.

"We need to wait for a seat, let's order first..."

Chen Xi came back with the number plate and menu and handed the menu to everyone.

It is now 9 o'clock in the evening. It should have been past dinner time, but we still need to queue up at Guijie Street.

This is the bad thing about the capital.

No matter what restaurant it is here, as long as the food tastes good, there will be a queue at mealtime.

People who have just arrived in Beijing will feel very uncomfortable at first. I spend money to eat here, why do I have to queue?

After waiting for a while, I gradually got used to it.

Not to mention restaurants, even the stalls selling Daokou roast chicken at the intersection have people queuing up.

"Listen to me, crayfish is two yuan, it's the best deal. Let's start with 100..."

Chen Xi is obviously a foodie and has a lot of experience. He has studied all this thoroughly.

There are very few edible parts of crayfish, only the tail.

The three yuan and five yuan ones seem to be bigger than the two yuan ones, but when the cost is spread out, they are actually not that much bigger, so foodies all know that the two yuan one is the best deal.

This is all experience!
Those foodies who often come to Guijie Street can tell who are the new customers and who are the old customers just by taking a glance when they enter the door.

If you come here often, no matter you order one hundred or two hundred pieces, they are all two yuan.

Only tourists would order the five-yuan ones, which look bigger but are actually a rip-off.

Three shops turned over tables together and soon we had a seat.

The group sat in the hall, there were no private rooms at all.

The reason for eating here is the atmosphere.

It was noisy, with people at every table shouting. If you spoke softly, no one could hear you.

The dishes came out quickly, fried seafood, grilled skewers, and the only thing left was crayfish.

100 crayfish may sound like a lot, but it's actually very quick to eat, probably only about ten minutes. Beer, clams, crayfish...

The three treasures of summer are also a set of ventilation items.

The group of people were toasting each other, making a lot of noise and eating to their heart's content.

Ning Hao talked about his feelings during this period:

"I found that making art films and commercial films are two completely different routines..."

"Why is it different?" Everyone listened attentively.

“For example, this time’s Stone, after it was filmed, it was sent for review, the release date was set, and then we started promoting it.

During this period, Zhang Chen took me to variety shows, interviews, and online promotion, which was completely different from when I was shooting art films before.

I still remember when I was shooting Incense, after I finished shooting and editing, I didn’t promote it at all, and I didn’t have any resources to promote it. I just took the film to various exhibitions, both domestic and foreign…

Do you know how many film festivals there are in the world? "

Without waiting for anyone to answer, he gave his own answer: "More than 700, haha, you can't imagine, there are more than 700.

Of course, the most famous ones are definitely the three major ones in Europe.

How do art films make money? They take the films to film festivals all over the world and sell the copyrights while participating in film festivals.

There are more than 700 film festivals, so even if you are unlucky you can still win a few. If you win an award, you will get prize money, although it is not much, but it adds up.

And no matter whether it is a big or small prize, as long as you win, your film rights will be much easier to sell.

I remember I took my film Incense to many film festivals, including the three major European film festivals and Locarno, but of course, I won nothing.

Later, I won first place at the Tokyo FILMeX International Film Festival. I’m sure you haven’t heard of this film festival. I haven’t heard of it either. I later learned that this film festival was only established in 2000 and is of a very low level. If they didn’t give the award to me, there probably wouldn’t be any other candidates. We achieved each other’s success…”

Ning Hao's words immediately caused a burst of laughter. Zhang Chen noticed a young couple at the table next to them. They had obviously finished eating, but they refused to leave and stretched their necks to listen to their conversation.

Judging from the girl's expression, she obviously recognized them. Maybe she had just watched "Stone" in the afternoon.

Seeing that Zhang Chen noticed her, the girl felt a little embarrassed and immediately asked the boss to order thirty crayfish, which could be considered as paying for the gossip.

Ning Hao continued to share: "Don't underestimate this little-known film festival, but if you win an award, you win an award, and people will immediately notice you, and then they will bring funds to find you to make a movie.

Later, I began to understand why Wang Xiaoshuai and his group of directors who made art films wanted to make movies that way.

They don’t even consider the domestic box office.

The funding is from abroad, and the film is made for overseas audiences.”

“So sometimes the General Administration’s ban on them is not without purpose. You are using foreign funds and working for foreigners. How can you ensure that your butt is not crooked when making a movie…”

Zhang Chen added, "So I never encourage my juniors to start out by making art films. Compared to commercial films, the art film industry may not be an easy path to take."

Ning Hao nodded in agreement.

"In fact, I invested a lot of money in the filming of Incense, all the money I earned from shooting commercials in those years. But whether the film can win an award depends entirely on the preferences of the judges, which is completely uncontrollable..."

"In the end, if you can win a prize from the three major schools, that's good enough. Otherwise, relying on those fake prizes from outside will often not be enough to cover your expenses.

Even if I win, the prize money will barely be enough to cover the cost of flying back and forth every day to attend film festivals. You know, when film festivals are held in various places, local food and accommodation are very expensive. For example, when Cannes holds the Palme d’Or, the accommodation fee is 30 times the usual price…”

The group ate and drank, and from time to time people who recognized them came over to say hello.

Guijie is a very down-to-earth place where people eat happily. If they meet celebrities, they won’t bother to bother with them. At most, they will take a photo together and then leave without disturbing each other.

(End of this chapter)