Entertainment: I just want to be the boss behind the scenes

Chapter 106: New Frontiers of Arclight Films
Unlike Meng Bai, who was a "newcomer who seized the opportunity and took off in a wave", Zhu Zhenhua has been in the film and television industry for twenty years.

From the Rays to the rookies and then to the Foxes, she is the type of woman who has become a successful woman after many years of hard work.

He bought a total of three "Zhenhua Series" novels, including "The Best of Us" a long time ago. In his own words, buying "Zhenhua" is a fate.

Of course, this is a joke. In fact, what he likes is this kind of fresh and clean style of youth campus stories.

"Ninety percent of the audience's youth will not involve abortion, fighting, cheating, or quarreling," Zhu Zhenhua said, "but they will definitely have exams, practice questions, be punished for being late, pass notes with classmates, and cheer when the power goes out at school."

Meng Bai recalled his high school life. In fact, he still had some of the things mentioned above, but they basically appeared in campus rumors and folk legends.

Some people say that "only good-looking people have youth", but even for a "talented contestant" like Meng Bai who never has to buy his own breakfast, his deepest impression of youth is still "how much current a magical small metal rod can generate when passing through a rotating magnetic field."

How could ordinary people have so many bloody encounters? Is it because working from 6 am to 10 pm is not tiring enough, or is it because the homework is not heavy enough, or is it because the math and physics are not difficult enough?
But then again, people always yearn for unfamiliar things. It is precisely because the youth of most people is dull that they will pursue the "youth" that they have never experienced in the youth films full of "clichés".

In other words, if the plot of a "youth film" is exactly the same as your own experience, then you can just recall it directly, why bother watching the drama specifically.

Hearing Meng Bai's question, Zhu Zhenhua smiled and said, "I don't mean to be rude. Mr. Meng should have just graduated not long ago."

Meng Bai did not deny it and nodded, "Two to three years."

"Two or three years, the memory of youth should be quite clear." Zhu Zhenhua said with emotion, "But for those of us who have left campus life for seven or eight years or even more than ten years and have been worn out by society and work, it is difficult to recall those times."

Some youth films are made for people who are in their youth; while some youth films are made for people who are no longer young.

"For example, the target audience of our previous film, 'Fleeting Time', was mainly college students and people who have just graduated. This film, 'The Best of Us', is aimed at people over the age of 25 or 26," Zhu Zhenhua introduced.

At this point, Meng Bai curiously asked why they didn't ask Sohu for investment. With the success of "Fleeting Time", the new project should be easily approved.

Zhu Zhenhua didn't rush to explain, but asked first: "Mr. Meng, you should have been to Mr. Liu just now, I wonder if he told you the reason for his refusal."

"The plot is bland, the network sense is too poor, the investment is too high, and the cost performance is poor."

"Haha, it turns out that the people in charge of these video websites have similar ideas. The reason given to me by Sohu is the same." Zhu Zhenhua laughed and shook his head, saying, "Online dramas are also stories, which are similar to traditional film and television and literature. How come when we change the platform, there is a thing called 'online sense'?"

Meng Bai doesn't quite agree with this view. Although the essential core is the same, there will definitely be differences in the forms of expression.

Just like traditional literature and online literature, the latter is destined to have a faster pace, more explosive points, and more exciting plots than the former.

Otherwise, you'll be like some third-rate Chinese entertainment writers, who spend a lot of time and effort writing a story and talking nonsense. If you don't fail, who will?

However, everyone has different understandings of the plot style. Meng Bai did not dwell on this point, but asked another question: "I heard that Mr. Zhu's investment budget for this drama is 20 million?"

When it comes to budget funds, Zhu Zhenhua's face suddenly showed some embarrassment.

"That's true, but to ensure the quality and let the audience really feel the youthful memories, we need to arrange the scene layout, equipment and post-production." Zhu Zhenhua sighed, "This is still based on the premise that we don't use those popular traffic stars and try to use more newcomers to save pay."

After saying that, he suddenly remembered that the person sitting opposite him seemed to be a potential investor, and hurriedly said, "If there is a complete production process and production team that can ensure smooth filming, it should be possible to save another two or three million."

I do have a production team, but I’m afraid you wouldn’t dare to use it to shoot a youth film.

After thinking for a while, Meng Bai asked, "Do you have the script now?"

Zhu Zhenhua handed over a document and said, "This is our latest version. Compared with the original novel, we added a second male lead role and deleted some transitional plots to ensure a faster pace."

"Who is the screenwriter?" Meng Bai asked casually out of his fellow colleague's instinct.

"Teacher Li Jia." Zhu Zhenhua said, "He was the screenwriter and literary planner for the animated film "Kuiba" two years ago."

Meng Bai had heard of "Kuiba", a high-quality domestic animated film, but it was a pity that the box office was not good.

After flipping through the script in his hand, Meng Bai said, "Mr. Zhu, we at Arc Light Films mainly deal in suspense themes, so we do want to expand our project types into youth dramas. So, I'll go back and take a look at the script and the original novel, and then we'll get in touch." "Okay, thank you very much," Zhu Zhenhua thanked him solemnly.

Regardless of whether Meng Bai was being polite or not, at least this was the only good news he had heard in recent times.

The two shook hands and said goodbye. Before leaving, Meng Bai asked, "By the way, your 'Little Tangren Company' has nothing to do with the 'Tangren Company' in Shanghai, right?"

Zhu Zhenhua was stunned for a moment, then shook his head and explained, "No, our sugar is the same as candy, so we call it Little Sugar Man. Because the original purpose of establishing this company was to shoot the 'Zhenhua Series', so we used a more youthful name."

Meng Bai nodded. No wonder after Souhu refused to invest, he immediately turned to other websites for inquiries. It turned out that this was their "original intention".

In the next few days, in addition to checking the progress of "Soul Ferry 2" from time to time, Meng Bai spent the rest of his time reading all three novels in the "Zhenhua Series".

The three novels, "Secret Love in the South", "The Best of Us" and "Hello, Old Times", are three stories that take place on the same "Zhenhua Middle School" timeline before and after, and the protagonists of the three books are related to each other, which can be called the "Zhenhua Universe".

Sure enough, this thing called "XX Universe" is really worthless these days.

After reading the three original novels and the adapted scripts, Meng Bai had to admit that Mr. Zhu had good taste. The fun of this fresh and clean youth campus drama was actually no worse than those "bloody" youth films.

After considering for a few days, Meng Bai contacted Zhu Zhenhua and expressed that ArcLight Films was willing to participate in the investment and co-produce the drama.

However, the investment of 20 million cannot be borne entirely by Arc Light Films alone, and considering the subsequent publicity and broadcasting, a video website must be involved.

Souhu was ruled out first. As for Leshi.com, Meng Bai could rely on his own face to ask Liu Jun for it, but after thinking about it, he gave up.

From the perspective of business cooperation, Liu Jun had rejected the project before, which meant that he was not optimistic about the project. If Meng Bai relied on his face to get the investment, it would make things difficult for him, but it would also be like owing him a big favor.

If the performance is good after it goes online, that would be fine, but if the performance is just average, then I would feel a bit sorry for that brother.

From a personal perspective, it was previously said that Leshi.com relied heavily on Arclight Pictures for its self-produced web dramas, but conversely, Arclight Pictures also relied too much on Leshi.com.

Because we were just starting out, we just grabbed whatever branches we could get. But now that Arclight Films has a little foundation, we have to consider long-term development issues.

Meng Bai chose to expand into the youth-themed field with the intention of giving Arclight Films another development path. In this case, it would be meaningless to choose to cooperate with Leshi.com.

Although the cooperation with Leshi.com has been very pleasant so far, he does not want to rely on Leshi.com all the time. Otherwise, if something unexpected happens, Arclight Films will have no way out.

Therefore, Meng Bai and Zhu Zhenhua discussed and decided to place their main hopes on the three video websites of "Qiyougee".

Of course, this was decided privately, but Meng Bai still mentioned it to Liu Jun. He didn't say too much, just said that he also wanted to take advantage of the youth film trend, so he invested.

As he thought, Liu Jun thought Meng Bai was trying to persuade him to participate, and his tone became awkward. It was not until he heard that Zhu Zhenhua was going to contact other websites that he returned to normal.

However, he still reminded Meng Bai that if he really wanted to take advantage of the trend, he should invest a little and give it a try, and don't invest too much and end up failing.

Obviously, deep down, Liu Jun is still not optimistic about this project.

Meng Bai also knew that the old man had good intentions, but just had different opinions, so he thanked him sincerely, then turned around and agreed on a 40% investment amount with Zhu Zhenhua.

With a budget of 20 million, 40% investment is 8 million, which is almost the same as the funds currently in the account of Arclight Films. If Meng Bai really invests directly, he will definitely have to face Chen Jing's "Daily Question" again.

Fortunately, this is just a preliminary plan. We have to wait until we convince a video website to invest before we can officially launch the project. If we are optimistic, it will take at least half a year.

By then, the investment share of "Psychological Crime" will be returned, and the profit share of "Soul Ferry 2" should also be received. Arclight Pictures will have a lot more funds, and even if it spends million at a time, it will not be stretched.

　Sorry, everyone, the scheduled post was at the wrong time.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)