Chinese Entertainment: Academic Director

Chapter 76 Lao Chen's Trip to Hollywood
Why does Cao Yang tend to look for actresses who are sad recently?
According to experience, when you are sad, your mental fluctuations will be greater and you will be able to immerse yourself in the role better.

Since we have decided to make a movie and to produce another best actress, we must do our utmost to prepare and ensure that everything goes perfectly.

Cao Yang regards Gao Yuanyuan as an important alternative. He has now announced that he wants to make a movie. As long as there is a schedule, domestic actresses will definitely be enthusiastic.

There is no need to rush now. The script has not been written yet. It is not too late to slowly look for candidates while writing the script.

On September 9, the 18th Popular Film Hundred Flowers Awards announced the list of winners, and the 24st China Film Golden Rooster Awards announced the list of nominees.

Now the Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Awards are not held every other year, but are held every year. Since 2005, the Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Awards have been held every other year, with the Hundred Flowers Awards held in even-numbered years.

The Hundred Flowers Awards gave the Best Actress award to Gong Li, and "Alone at Night on the Beach" became one of the three best feature films.

This will probably be controversial. Li Xiaoran won the Berlin Film Festival this year and her movie box office was over 20 million. How could she lose to Gong Li in the vote?

Gong Li has no movies released this year, and the award-winning movie was released in February last year.

But as for the Hundred Flowers Awards, they say it’s a vote, so let’s just treat it as a vote.

However, if the Berlin Film Queen cannot win the Hundred Flowers Award, she is probably sure to win the Golden Rooster Award, otherwise she would be unworthy of the title of Berlin Film Queen.

The Golden Rooster Awards will not suppress Li Xiaoran, who won the Berlin Film Festival Best Actress award, just to demonstrate its authority, otherwise it would become an international laughing stock.

"A Night Alone on the Beach" received five nominations for the Golden Rooster Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actress, and Best Cinematography.

This movie was criticized by many people for having too simple shots, but why was it nominated for Best Cinematography?
Because when the Beijing Film Academy applied for the award, it said that this was a new wave film, and it was praised by a number of judges at the Berlin Film Festival and is a model of new wave films in recent years.

You see, this movie won the Grand Jury Prize at the Berlin Film Festival and is also a model of New Wave films. So it’s not excessive to nominate it for Best Cinematography, right?

As a New Wave film, you can say that the shots in New Wave films are unique, but as a professional, you cannot say that the shots are simple - are you denying New Wave films?

Not everyone can afford to be blamed for this.

Hou Keming privately told Cao Yang that actually at the beginning, the Golden Rooster Awards only gave two nominations, the Best Director Award and the Best Actress Award, and did not even give the Best Picture award.

But before the nominations were announced, Cao Yang unexpectedly won the Venice Golden Lion Award on September 9, becoming the youngest Golden Lion Award-winning director in the world. Even the news broadcast mentioned it.

What else can the Golden Rooster do?
Of course, the nomination list was revised overnight. Not only was the directorial debut award replaced with Best Director, but Cao Yang's film was also given five nominations at once.

If the Best Directorial Debut Award was really given to a Golden Lion Award-winning director, it would become a global laughing stock.

After announcing the nomination list, the Golden Rooster Awards officials also informed Beijing Film Academy, asking Director Cao to attend the film festival.

Generally, the Golden Rooster will give you a heads-up and allow you to attend the award ceremony, and you will definitely be given a prize.

The school is very happy that we won another award.

However, Hou Keming did not respond to the Golden Rooster Awards without authorization. Instead, he sought Cao Yang's opinion and asked him if he was willing to participate. He said that the Golden Rooster Awards had an unwritten rule that no award would be given without participation, unless there were special circumstances.

He also said that if Cao Yang really didn't want to participate, the school would try to make it a special case...

Cao Yang was still thinking about how much reputation the Golden Rooster could add, so he said that he would go there when the time came.

Hou Keming left happily.

In the blink of an eye, it was almost time for "Empty Room" to be released. Mr. Han from China Film Group called and asked to arrange a time to discuss the release of the movie.

This time the movie has generated even greater popularity, and the media are still reporting related news, so there is no need to worry about publicity.

However, after discussing with Cao Yang, Mr. Han decided to organize another premiere tour, visiting several major cities one by one, and chose Beijing, Shanghai, Jinling, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Jiangcheng and the filming location, Shandong Island. In addition, several media outlets were selected to conduct exclusive interviews.

President Han expressed confidence that with the title of Golden Lion and the existing popularity, plus the popularity brought by the premiere tour, the box office will definitely break the 3000 million mark.

This time, Qingdao Film Studio and China Film Group jointly released 320 copies, 50 yuan more than Cao Yang's first film, which should show that they have enough confidence in the Golden Lion.

On October 10st, "Empty Room" premiered in Beijing.

The premiere venue was still chosen to be the Beijing Theater.

There were more guests this time, including all the relatively active fourth-generation directors, and most of the fifth-generation directors were also present.

The national director Yimou even put down the filming of "Hero" and brought along Zhang Ziyi and the staff from the Beijing Film Academy in the crew.

In addition to the international star Zhang Ziyi, there were quite a few actresses with some connections who came this time. They were all dressed up and their eyes lit up when they saw Cao Yang. They were both humble and enthusiastic.

Cao Yang smiled and shook hands with Yi Mou, asked about the filming progress of "Hero", and exchanged a few polite words.

After greeting the national teacher Yimou, Cao Yang thought that since International Zhang was here, he couldn't just ignore her, right?

Just when he was about to shake hands and say a few polite words, he didn't expect that before he could extend his hand, Zhang Ziyi directly hugged Cao Yang, acting very intimate, and kept congratulating Cao Yang on winning the Golden Lion in his ear, which was very ambiguous.

Are you familiar with her? This woman is amazing.

The Imperial Master's face had obviously darkened a lot. He smiled awkwardly and was quickly led to his seats with everyone.

The great poet Brother Kai didn’t come today, Sister Hong came in his place.

Sister Hong explained with some pride that Brother Kai was doing post-production work for a movie at MGM in the United States and he really couldn't make it back this time.

Cao Yang didn't mind. A while ago, Beijing Film Academy held a incense hall... no, when the symposium was held, Brother Kai came back, stayed in Beijing for two days, and then went to the United States again.

Everyone knows about this.

Last October, Hollywood MGM invested 30 million US dollars and invited the great poet Kai Ge to be the director to start filming the movie "Killing Me Softly", which was Lao Chen's first blockbuster in Hollywood.

According to him, he is ready to make it big in Hollywood...

Lao Chen’s name is still very famous. Before the movie was finished, Xiao Ri Zi had already spent 450 million US dollars to buy the copyright of Xiao Ri Zi.

Yes, at least we recovered 450 million US dollars in one fell swoop.

I wish Lao Chen good luck, and hope he can punch Hollywood and kick the Oscars.

Well, I hope Lao Chen doesn’t lose too much money, otherwise his Hollywood career will be ruined.

It seems that I haven't heard about Lao Chen's entry into Hollywood again later, so perhaps this movie cut off his future.

But it doesn’t matter. MGM doesn’t care about Lao Chen at all.

Last year, MGM not only invested $3000 million to let Lao Chen make a movie, but also invested $1.15 million to invite Wu Yusen to make the war blockbuster "Windtalkers".

At this time, MGM was still nine years away from actual bankruptcy, and it could still hold on until November 2010, so they could afford to pay this small amount of money.

The worst that can happen is that we just have to go through the auction process again. It’s no big deal.

(End of this chapter)