Chinese Entertainment: Academic Director

Chapter 24 A Little Difficult
Several big bosses left, and only Hou Keming, who also served as the director of Qingying Studio, stayed.

"Cao Yang, what do you think? Do you want Qingying Studio to release it alone, or do you want to release it together with China Film?"

As the vice president of the college, Hou Keming spoke in a negotiating tone in front of Cao Yang, without any airs.

"We are all family, so I'll be frank. After all, Qingying Studio has limited funds and channels. If it is released separately, it is impossible to invest too much in copies at one time, unlike China Film, which has huge financial resources. With the rampant piracy now, even if the attendance rate is good, pirated copies will be all over the market before the second copy is released."

Cao Yang thought about it and made the decision, "Then we will distribute it together with China Film Group."

In the current domestic market, no matter how good the reputation of a movie is, it is useless because there are too many pirated copies and it is not suitable for long-term screening. The majority of the box office revenue is concentrated in the first ten days or so.

Big directors and big stars have their own reputation and popularity, which can attract audiences into the theaters in the first few days, and the box office is generally not too bad.

So nowadays, directors tend to invite big stars - as long as the box office is okay in the past few days, who cares about the reputation.

This phenomenon will continue for a long time.

When Cao Yang came out of the office and was on his way back to the directing department, he saw a banner.

“Congratulations to our school’s director Cao Yang for winning the Berlin International Film Festival with great success.”

The school made a big fuss. He saw a big red banner at the school gate, but he didn't expect there would be one inside the school. It wasn't the Golden Bear, so there was no need to make such a big deal about it.

Next time when I have the opportunity to stand on the podium of one of the three major European universities, I will still advertise the school more. I have no other intentions, this is my conscious decision as a student of Beijing Film Academy.

When he arrived at Lao Situ's office, he saw that he was still reading the script given to him this morning. Cao Yang did not disturb him. He first filled Lao Situ's thermos cup with water, and then sat on the sofa waiting.

I accidentally saw more than ten bound files on the desk. I flipped through them and found that they were all scripts.

Old Situ put down the script in his hand, lit a cigarette, took a puff and then said with a smile: "I don't know where those guys heard the news from. They knew that you handed me the script first, and they thought that Qingying Studio invested in you because I recommended you to the school."

He took another puff of his cigarette and continued, "Just now, about ten students wrote scripts and handed them to me. At first I was quite interested, so I picked one... which was the best among them. I called them over and asked them about it. Hey! They haven't even learned to walk yet, but they are already coming up with wild ideas."

What could Cao Yang say? He could only smile and remain silent.

Old Situ put out his cigarette, patted the script on the table, and said, "The idea is very clever, and it's a script that speaks for women. It's very popular at European film festivals. After reading this, I remembered a movie called "Long Live Love" in Taiwan. It's a bit similar to this one, but the core is completely different."

After taking a sip of water, Old Situ continued, "The male and female protagonists hardly have any lines, which requires a bit of acting skills from the actors. I'm not very good at the artistic aspect of the film, and I'm definitely not as good as Old Xie, so I can't give you any useful advice."

"However, I'm afraid this book will be a bit troublesome in terms of review."

Cao Yang had thought of this a long time ago, and he also knew the problem. "You mean, the scenes in the script about bribing police officers?"

"That's right. This is not just a bribery issue, but also torture and beatings in prison. The key is that these people have not been punished by law. Legal punishment is the key point. Just being beaten by the protagonist is definitely not okay."

"I thought of all these, so I hinted that these are all the heroine's imagination, including the hero, who was on the verge of mental breakdown because of years of domestic violence by her husband.

The bribery, torture, and beatings in the film all happened to the male protagonist, so they don't exist and are all fake. Is that not okay?" Old Situ lit another cigarette, took a puff, and then said, "In my experience, it's difficult. You can't think too highly of the audience's understanding. The audience may not be able to understand things that can only be understood through the details and scrutiny of the movie, and they may not necessarily scrutinize a movie carefully.

So their first impression is, wow, the police officers were bribed, torture was used to extract confessions, prison guards beat people... that's the problem."

Cao Yang thought about it and felt that what Old Situ said was right. You can’t expect everyone to dig into the details of a movie, nor can you expect everyone to understand your ideas. Sometimes there is still a big gap between people.

He just wanted to try and see if it would be possible to pass the review after blurring the male protagonist. It seems that he thought too simply.

This movie is translated as "Empty Room", which is actually not accurate.

I don’t know what happened, the earliest translation was even more outrageous, it was called "Seduction in the Empty Room", if you didn’t know it, you would think it was a porn movie.

Its original name was "3-iron". 3 iron is a model of golf club, a kind of iron club. It is a golf club that is less used by people. It is longer than ordinary clubs and has a lower inclination when hitting the ball, making it difficult to aim and put the ball into the hole.

But even so, there are still many people who buy this club and put it in their golf bags to collect dust.

This name fits the plot perfectly, both in appearance and metaphor.

On the surface, the male protagonist sneaked into temporarily vacant rooms countless times, and hit people with a golf ball several times using this club.

The metaphor is that golf balls symbolize violence in the movie.

Cao Yang wanted to add a few vague details to make the audience who dig deeper into the movie think that the heroine was powerless to resist domestic violence, so she imagined someone who could redeem herself.

The heroine is often abused by her husband and is on the verge of mental breakdown. The predicament and oppression make her yearn for freedom and dignity, so the seemingly "free and unrestrained" hero appears.

Because it might be difficult to pass the review, Cao Yang tried to make some changes by virtualizing the male protagonist. Unexpectedly, Teacher Situ thought it would still be difficult to pass the review.

In fact, it is very simple to pass the review. Just change the location where the incident took place, either abroad or in Hong Kong, and it will be easy to pass the review.

However, it is still very troublesome to shoot in Hong Kong at this stage. All staff and actors must apply for work visas, and even filming equipment must apply for "import certificates". They also need to apply to law enforcement agencies for permission or approval to shoot in public places.

All of these take time, and Cao Yang wants to go to the Venice Film Festival in September, so he can't afford to waste time.

Seeing that Cao Yang didn't say anything, the old Situ was afraid that he might be upset and develop resentment towards the censorship system like the fifth generation, so he started to comfort him.

"Although the censorship system is sometimes biased and criticized, it is undeniable that, apart from the general principles, it is a good barrier to prevent cultural infiltration and establish young people's values. You are still young now, so you may not feel it deeply or take it seriously, but you will understand it slowly in the future."

Cao Yang nodded and said with a smile: "It's okay, teacher, don't worry, I understand. In fact, I already have a solution. I will think about it and see which one is better."

After leaving Old Situ's office, Cao Yang looked up at the big sun in the sky and whispered to himself: "Go ask Old Tian. He has experience in banning channels. Let's see if he has any good suggestions."

(End of this chapter)