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

Chapter 301 What is "Film Industrialization"

Meng Bai once asked Guo Fan why he did not choose the directing department but the management department when he applied for the graduate program at Beijing Film Academy.

Guo Fan’s answer at the time was that as a director, if you manage your people well, you will naturally be able to make a good movie.

As a creator who barely belongs to the "literature" branch of the eight major arts, Meng Bai had never quite understood this answer before.

It was not until he saw with his own eyes how a large production team of hundreds of people operated on the set of "The Wandering Earth" that he finally understood.

The profession of director is more of a "project manager" than an "artist".

During the first half month of filming of The Wandering Earth, the studio was almost a huge "quarrel scene".

Almost every moment, we encounter problems that were completely unimaginable during the previous preparations.

To give the simplest example, the first difficulty the crew encountered was the problem of food for the staff.

According to general crew experience, after the morning shooting is completed, there will be one to one and a half hours of lunch time.

All the main creators, actors and staff went to the production team to line up for lunch. After lunch, they were free to rest and wait until the afternoon shooting time came before they were called back to continue working.

However, after just two days of filming, I discovered that not only were they late for the afternoon work, but their work attitude had also clearly declined.

Guo Fan and his friends were puzzled at first, not knowing whether it was a problem with the diet or the shooting plan.

It was not until Meng Bai spent the whole afternoon watching the production crew the next day that he discovered that the main reason was that there were too many people in the crew.

We lined up together to get our meals, but the people in front of us had finished eating while the people behind us hadn’t gotten any yet.

After the people behind me finally had their meal, they looked at the time and realized it was time to start work again.

When Meng Bai told Guo Fan and the others about his observations, everyone in the creative team looked at each other in surprise.

There's no way. Before this, the largest crew we've ever seen was no more than a hundred people.

There are only a few dozen people in a group, so you can just take one during the meal.

No one expected that quantitative change would lead to qualitative change, and that problems would arise in such a basic matter.

It’s not just about food, but also about drinking water, electricity, sanitation, and the management of mobile personnel…

In short, there are situations of varying sizes in almost every basic link.

If this happened in traditional manufacturing or construction industries, this situation would never occur.

Group collaboration, modular operation, assembly line work... they already have a complete set of standardized processes.

But the film industry is different. Most people in this industry are still in the "handmade workshop" era.

Many times, a film crew is basically made up of a director, a photographer, and a few other main creative people, plus seven or eight production managers.

So there is no such concept at all.

Then there are the props of the crew. Because the entire movie involves too many types of items and too large a quantity, and each time shooting starts and ends, they have to rush to distribute and collect them, which puts a lot of pressure on the staff.

Half a month after the filming started, the props team collectively resigned, saying that they couldn't do this job.

Producer Gong Geer temporarily recruited two experienced and veteran prop masters from Hengdian. They worked for three days and then left.

Finally, the crew had no choice but to recruit Meng Bai, a strong man, and asked him to lead the crew's own artists and a few newly found prop masters to support the props team.

"There's really nothing we can do, brother. The crew really can't spare anyone. You're the screenwriter, and you've been involved in almost all the creation and preparation work. You know these props best."

Guo Fan patted Meng Bai's shoulder with an earnest expression on his face: "Don't worry, it will take at most ten days. Once these prop masters and artists have worked together, we won't have to bother you anymore."

"…Now that you've said that, what else can I say?"

Seeing that this old man had become much more haggard in just a few days, Meng Bai really didn't feel like refusing.

As a result, he, who had originally planned to stay on the crew for only a few days, stayed for nearly half a month.

Fortunately, Guo Fan has not been idle during this period. He has made full use of his advantages in management and started to standardize the various processes of the crew.

The personnel are divided into groups and graded management is implemented. All props are divided into S/A/B grades according to the usage scenarios, and the shooting plan is refined to a single shot...

Even the camera crew's memory cards were divided into different colors according to different scenes and shots, which was convenient for later editing. In general, it was a system of learning from industrialized production - classification, each doing its own job, simplifying the process, and unifying standards.

Seeing the shooting scene gradually becoming well-organized, Meng Bai, who had just finished his "temporary job", said with emotion: "Brother Guo, if you can come up with this management system, even if the movie is not successful, the money will not be wasted."

Judging from his years of work experience, although "The Wandering Earth" certainly does not meet Hollywood standards, it can be regarded as a pioneer in the domestic film and television industry.

He used to think that the management of the crew of Arclight's project was quite standardized. But now, in comparison, it is still basically at the level of a construction site contractor.

Alas, the same goes for real estate companies like Wanda and Sunac, and Internet companies like Alibaba and Tencent. Why are they always fussing about with special effects?

It doesn't mean that adding a few more special effects and creating more cool scenes will make the film industry what it is.

If you have the time, you can apply the construction standards of those construction units or the OA processes of large companies to the film and television industry.

But even though he complained, Meng Bai knew that this kind of thing couldn't be accomplished by just him or Guo Fan talking or shouting.

Unless "The Wandering Earth" can be successful, nothing will be convincing.

"Okay, now that we have done what we need to do, I won't stay any longer."

"Are you going back to Jingbei?" Guo Fan asked.

"Yeah, let's go back to the meeting." Meng Bai sighed.

Guo Fan looked at his expression and said, "What meeting? From your tone, it seems that you are not so happy."

"Of course it's not easy to open." Meng Bai spread his hands and said, "This year's review opinion meeting of the Radio and Television Administration."

In April of the previous year, the government announced a one-year trial for online drama filing. By April of last year, the trial ended and the filing review system was officially launched.

Now it is April again, and the new year has come to an end. The authorities are thinking about adjusting the review standards again.

Unlike previous large-scale research meetings, only several leading film and television companies in the industry and the three major video platforms received invitations this time.

According to the traditional custom of "holding big meetings for small matters and small meetings for big matters", this "opinion meeting" is expected to have significant adjustments.

At the end of April, Meng Bai returned to Beijing North from Landao.

Instead of rushing home, he went to the company first to find the project department to ask about the review status of "Day and Night Chase".

This drama is not as bloody as "Forensic Qin Ming", nor does it have the horror scenes of "The Lost Tomb", nor does it involve any "ghosts and superstitions" like "Soul Ferry".

But from a censorship perspective, the scale of "Day and Night" is larger than all of Arclight's previous projects.

The main reason is that the main storyline involves too many public security police.

The police hired relatives of fugitive suspects as consultants, criminals broke into the police station and took hostages, and there were members of criminal organizations in the senior positions of the police station...

Almost all of these plots violate censorship standards.

Fortunately, Meng Bai thought of this in advance and brought in Golden Shield Pictures, which represented the public security, when the project was established.

Compared with the cultural department, the public security department itself does not have too many doubts about these plots.

"Film and television works are definitely fictional. As long as there are no principled or realistic errors, there is no need to be so strict about other aspects."

This is the review reply given by the head of the Ministry of Public Security’s Golden Shield Film and Television Center.

With official support, Arclight will become bolder.

After the production of the entire drama was completed, it was sent directly to the relevant departments for a standard review in accordance with the TV drama process.

If it passes the review, it means that "Day and Night Chase" is a TV series that has been reviewed.

When Meng Bai arrived at the Arc Light Office Building and just walked into the lobby, he heard a long-lost and familiar voice.

"Hello, Mr. Meng!"

Looking towards the front desk, as expected, it was Yang Chaoyue who had returned to work as the "front desk girl".

(End of this chapter)