1978 Synthetic Writers

Chapter 139 A swarm of bees came to the door

The next day.

Jiang Xian got up early in the morning, washed up, and was about to go to the editorial office of "Beijing Literature and Art" to submit a manuscript when he was suddenly stopped by Zhang Zifang.

"Writer Jiang! Wait a minute!"

"Secretary Zhang? What can I do for you?" Jiang Xian felt puzzled. It couldn't be that her son was repairing the yard for her, and as a mother, she couldn't stand it and had to come to help her son.

"Are you Jiang Xian?"

Before Zhang Zifang could answer, a middle-aged man in his fifties next to her spoke, with a Shanghai accent.

"you are?"

"Comrade Jiang Xian, hello." He extended a big hand, "My name is Xie Jin, and I'm a director at the Shanghai Film Studio."

"Thank you, Director?"

Jiang Xian was stunned for a moment, then he reacted immediately, raised his hand and shook his hand tightly.

"Director Xie Jin, I've heard of your name for a long time and have seen many of your films."

The representative figures of the third generation of directors, apart from the four masters of Beijing Film Studio, there are two Xies left, namely Xie Jin and Xie Tieli, known as "Xie in the South and Xie in the North". These two can be regarded as the leading figures among the third generation of directors.

"Director Xie Jin found me today and said that he heard you were at the Beijing Film Studio and really wanted to visit you," Zhang Zifang explained.

"Oh."

"Director Xie, what's the matter with you looking for me?"

"Then I'll get straight to the point."

Xie Jin smiled cheerfully and took out a booklet from his shoulder bag. It had a light yellow cover and on it was a line of red font that read "National Excellent Short Stories of 1978".

"We at the Shanghai Film Studio have paid close attention to the national selection of outstanding novels that has just concluded. I have read several of your award-winning works and am quite interested in the story of the novel "The Chess King". This time I came here to ask for your consent to bring this novel to the big screen." Xie Jin said bluntly.

Zhang Zifang was secretly surprised. She never expected that Xie Jin would directly ask Jiang Xian for the adaptation rights. You have to know that at that time, when filming a movie, the literature department would arrange the script and the director was only responsible for filming.

The fact that Xie Jin came to me in person so eagerly showed that he was really interested in adapting this novel.

Jiang Xian pondered for a while.

He vaguely guessed that Xie Jin came to him to ask for the adaptation rights, but he didn't expect it was "The Chess King" instead of "Furong Town".

But this is actually normal. "The Chess King" won the first place in the national outstanding short stories, and "Furong Town" has not won any honors. In comparison, "The Chess King" is definitely more likely to be favored by major film studios.

"You came so suddenly, and I didn't call you in advance. Can we just find a restaurant nearby and have a meal while we chat?"

"No need to bother. I'm a pragmatic person. Director Xie, please come to my room for a cup of tea." Jiang Xian invited Xie Jin into the room of the guesthouse and poured him a cup of hot tea.

"I'm really sorry to bother you, Comrade Jiang Xian."

"No trouble, no trouble."

Jiang Xian brought a chair and sat down opposite Xie Jin. "I have no objection to adapting The Chess King into a movie. It's a good thing that it can be made into a movie. But before this is finalized, I still need to learn more about the specific filming ideas of the Shanghai Film Studio." Xie Jin nodded. "That's as it should be. The Shanghai Film Studio paid attention to the novel The Chess King last year, but you know the situation last year. Although I saw that many of your works won awards this year, none of them are more suitable for filming than The Chess King."

The works selected as the National Excellent Novels have attracted much attention from major film production studios, such as Jiang Zilong's "Director Qiao's Taking Office" was filmed into the movie "The Bell", Wang Yaping's "Sacred Mission", Chen Rong's "Middle-Aged Man".
"How is the script adaptation arranged?" Jiang Xian asked.

Xie Jin pondered for a moment, "The studio hasn't decided yet. They should arrange a few screenwriters, or you can do the adaptation yourself, Jiang? I heard that you also wrote a movie script. If the original author writes the script himself, it will surely be easier."

"That's not impossible." Jiang Xian said calmly.

The regulations on remuneration for feature films at this time were not perfect. Until 1984, there were no strict written regulations. The industry standards were generally:

For film scripts, the price for a feature film is RMB 1000-2000 per film and the price for a short feature film is RMB 500-1000 per film.

For film scripts adapted from other literary and artistic forms, the remuneration shall be paid to the original author at 20%-30% of this standard, and to the adapter at 50%-80%.

The remuneration for writing storyboard scripts will be halved on this basis, to 500-800 yuan per feature film and 200-500 yuan per short feature film.

From this perspective, just taking the fee for using the adaptation rights would be too little, and only by participating in the adaptation can you get more royalties.

"Boom boom boom!"

"Boom boom boom!"

As the two were chatting, there was a loud knock on the door.

As soon as Jiang Xian opened the door, Jiang Huaiyan rushed in from outside and stared at Xie Jin with a vigilant look on his face.

"Director Xie, why didn't you say hello when you came?"

"Director Jiang, long time no see."

The two shook hands and exchanged greetings.

Jiang Xian suddenly felt that the atmosphere was weird, and he brought a chair for Jiang Huaiyan to sit down.

"Jiang Xian, we at Beijing Film Studio also have the idea of ​​adapting "The Chess King". We have an old relationship, so it will be easier for us to cooperate. You should trust us." As soon as Jiang Huaiyan came up, he grabbed the adaptation rights without hesitation.

Jiang Xian had heard that several major film studios had a tradition of competing for scripts. Scripts like "The Garland under the Mountain" and "Furong Town" were all fiercely contested. Local film studios flocked to the writers to ask for adaptation rights, making it difficult for the writers to make a decision.

Xie Jin frowned, "Director Jiang, this is not very kind of you."

"Director Xie, let's compete fairly. I don't mean to go against you. Our Beijing Film Studio is also very concerned about this national novel selection." Jiang Huaiyan slammed the People's X Newspaper in his hand on the table.

It prominently reported the National Excellent Novel Awards and also posted a photo of Zhang Jiangxian, Jiang Zilon and Ru Zhijuan taken together.

"Warm congratulations on the successful conclusion of the Second National Excellent Short Story Award Ceremony. Mao Dun spoke at the award ceremony, congratulating the birth of good works. He also talked about some creative issues based on novels such as "The Record of Director Qiao's Taking Office", "The Traitor", "Fuxi Fuxi", "Ferocious Animals" and "Brown Lychees".

"Young writer Jiang Xian won the first prize and two second prizes in the short story and novel competitions. He said: This is a great era, and a great era calls for noble writers and artists."

Jiang Xian put the newspaper down, and Jiang Huaiyan said to him: "We have four great directors and Director Xie Tieli at Beijing Film Studio. We are not afraid of competing with others for scripts. These are the golden signs of our Beijing Film Studio!"

After being pestered by the two for a few days, Teng Wenji from Xi'an Film Studio and Teng Jinxian from Emei Film Studio came one after another.

Thousands of troops, just for "The Chess King"!
(End of this chapter)