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

Chapter 128 The Little Actor's Lunch
As the Spring Festival approaches, the entertainment industry has become much quieter. The major events that attracted more attention throughout January were basically about love affairs.

First there was Jay Chou's wedding in a British castle, then Nicholas Tse and Liu Shih announced they had obtained their marriage certificate, and then Chi-Chi Chen, who became popular again last year due to "Running Man", announced his divorce and new girlfriend.

But for most people, these things are just for fun. No one takes them too seriously except their fans.

As for online dramas, although the explosive popularity of "Soul Ferry" has affected several other platforms to varying degrees, none of them has stepped out to suppress it or resort to trickery.

It’s not that these platforms are very upright. It’s just that the online drama market is still in the incremental stage, so there is no need to attack each other.
Secondly, now is a critical stage for the online drama industry, and the excellent quality and popularity of "Soul Ferry" have greatly improved the status of the entire online drama industry. Any disruption at this time will only cause losses to everyone.

So even though Leshi.com has been very popular recently, and even though Liu Jun is envied and hated by the heads of several other companies, the entire online drama industry is still relatively calm.

But being calm internally does not mean being calm externally. Beneath the surface, the battle between video platforms and traditional media is about to break out.

Strictly speaking, the hatred between the two sides can be traced back to the dispute last year that triggered the "online drama censorship reform", followed by the wave of complaints and reports that gradually expanded at the beginning of this year.

At the beginning of this matter, Leshi.com and Guguang Film and Television were still the core. However, as the fight began to expand, it gradually became a clash of interests and discourse power between the two industries, and no one cared about the target that initially triggered the controversy.

I thought this fight would continue until the "Online Drama Review Reform Meeting" after the new year, but I didn't expect that at this juncture, Mango TV, which had been at the center of controversy, announced that it would suspend broadcasting of "The Empress of China" for rectification.

According to staff from the TV drama department within the TV station, they received a notice from above that all scenes involving exposure and vulgarity in the drama need to be deleted.

This is really hurtful. For a TV station, a popular TV series is suddenly taken off the shelves. Not to mention that it will disrupt the original broadcast plan, the more critical thing is that the invisible popularity and audience lost during the removal period are difficult to recover.

After all, even the patience of the spectators is limited. There are so many interesting news every day, who would wait for the rebroadcast of a TV series that has been taken off the shelves?

I thought the other party would fight back after suffering a loss, but I didn't expect that instead of a "counterattack", a mountain came to me.

With more than half a month left before the Spring Festival, major video platforms such as Penguin, Ukulele, and Leshi.com, as well as well-known online drama production teams such as Arclight Films, have received notices from the General Administration.

The notice mainly talked about two things. One was that it confirmed that in early March after the new year, leaders of relevant departments, experts and industry company representatives would be invited to hold a seminar on the "online drama review system" to jointly determine what kind of review system will be adopted for online dramas in the future.

The second thing is to launch the "100-day Internet Clean Wind Operation" after the New Year, focusing on cracking down on Internet marketing accounts, water army organizations and other targets that stir up public opinion controversy.

The subtext of this notice is very clear, which is to tell both sides of the fight to stop before the final conclusion comes out, and stop doing those little tricks, so that everyone can have a good new year.

It has to be said that the power of the authorities is still very strong. As soon as the notice was issued, the two sides, which were originally on the verge of a war, suddenly fell silent, and the entire industry entered a post-event cooling-off period.

Arclight Film and Television, which had already left the center of the battlefield long ago, now had nothing to do with it at all.

Seeing that "Soul Ferry" was broadcast smoothly and the data and popularity were growing steadily, Meng Bai was relieved and returned to the crew of "The Pretender".

"Congratulations, Teacher Meng."

"Meng Bai, congratulations on your new drama being a big hit."

"Teacher Meng Bai, congratulations."

Back on the set, almost everyone who was familiar with Meng Bai congratulated him on the success of his new drama.

"I really didn't know that there are so many people in our crew who love to watch online dramas." Meng Bai said in amazement.

"It's true that it's not much, but we have a promoter in our crew." Li Xue pointed to Song Zhi who was not far away, "Did you give the girl publicity fees? She has attracted a lot of people in the crew to follow your new drama during this period."

Meng Bai looked at Song Zhi in surprise. The girl was discussing her positioning with the photography teacher and didn't notice that she was being stared at. With a faint smile, he retracted his gaze and patted Li Xue's arm, saying, "I can't help it. It's mainly because my plot is so wonderful and attractive."

"Hehe." Li Xue laughed dryly. He had witnessed with his own eyes the ambiguous scene between Meng Bai and the girl.

However, he was too lazy to care about the love-hate relationship between these young people. He just said, "Then I hope our drama will have such appeal by then."

"Don't worry, our results will only go up, not down." Meng Bai looked confident, and then asked, "By the way, which scene have you filmed?"

"In the fifteenth episode, Mingtai killed the insider and ran into Wang Manchun by chance." Li Xue said.

Meng Bai nodded. This was an earlier episode.

Before this plot, Mingtai assassinated the traitor Wang Fuqiu, but his figure was remembered by an officer. In order to silence him, he asked "Yu Manli" to use the beauty trap to seduce the officer, and then kill him to get the information. Mingtai, who was on guard outside, was encountered by Wang Manchun. Fortunately, Manli came back in time to rescue him.

This plot is the only time that the two "dangerous beauties" Yu Manli and Wang Manchun meet each other alive, and it is also the only rivalry between Wang Ou and Song Zhi.

But when it comes to this plot, Meng Bai looked around and asked Li Xue: "Hey who, that girl named Wang Yuejun hasn't joined the group yet?"

Wang Yuejun is the actor who plays Cheng Jinyun, the "official partner" of the male protagonist Mingtai in the play, and is also the person recommended by the crew and investors.

"She hasn't come yet. They said it will be a few days later." Li Xue sighed, "The investors said that she doesn't have many scenes with other actors, so we can just focus on filming when the time comes."

"Hehe, they think it's quite comfortable." Meng Bai sighed.

There's nothing we can do about it, since he's the investor's man.

……

Because it was mainly interior scenes and there were not many location changes, this scene went on very quickly and was completed before noon.

"Dinner is ready, dinner is ready, everyone go get your food." The crew's staff called on everyone to hurry up.

"Teacher Song, your meal is here."

A staff member put a box lunch on the table.

"Thank you, sorry for the trouble." Song Zhi quickly replied politely.

Although she is not a big star, she is still the leading actress. In addition, she is taken care of by "certain people", so she does not have to queue with other staff members.

When I opened the lunch box, I saw that there were still two meat dishes and two vegetable dishes as usual, which was considered to be above average among the meals provided by the crew.

Not all actors in the crew will eat the boxed lunches. Some big-name leading actors have special requirements for diet or taste, so they often place special orders, and some even bring their own chefs.

This is also why many celebrity studios prefer applicants who can cook and understand nutritional matching when recruiting assistants.

However, for Song Zhi, who was still a little-known figure, the lunch boxes provided by the crew were already very good.

(End of this chapter)