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

Chapter 353: Pinduoduo Chaos

Although there are still many problems, the idea of "script killing" is quite interesting. Arclight currently has no plans for the next movie, but maybe they can try it later.

Of course, the prerequisite is that He Yihe must first come up with a qualified script.

After finishing his recent chores, Meng Bai flipped through Arc Light's recent plans.

"Soul Ferry: Huangquan" has completed its final version and started its pre-promotion. It will be launched online next month.

The post-production of "Psychological Crime: City of Lights" is almost done. If we hurry up, we can catch up with the end of the summer season. After all, if we are late, we will have to compete with "Detective Chinatown 2" during the National Day holiday.

Wang Wei is still busy with the early preparations for "Secret and Great". According to the current progress, it will take another two months to start filming.

With this calculation, the only things on hand now, apart from waiting for the Magnolia Awards nomination list to be announced at the end of the month, are the two projects "Bad Kids" and "The Crime Hunter".

"Bad Kids" is the first part of the "Zijin Chen Trilogy" in collaboration with Qiyi TV. Meng Bai had originally planned to start adapting the script before the New Year, but due to the cooperation with Netflix and the listing of Qiyi TV, it has been delayed until now.

Although there is an original novel, due to restrictions on film and television censorship, and the fact that Qiyi TV is linked together with two other works, the script inevitably requires a lot of adaptation work.

Meng Bai thought for three seconds and felt that since it had been delayed for so long, it would be no problem to just wait a few more months.

In private, the main reason is that this project is a collaboration with Qiyi TV. In comparison, "The Hunting Crime" is the "own son".

As the fifth work of the "Green Ivy Detective Universe" and the last work of the first phase, the preparations for "Hunting Crime Picture Book" have already begun.

The producer and screenwriter is naturally still Meng Bai, but now Arc Light already has a sufficient production team and screenwriting department, so he only needs to deal with some big things and no longer needs to do everything himself like before.

As for the director of this drama, the new director Dai Mo was hired.

Although he is a newcomer, he is actually quite experienced. He graduated from the Directing Department of the Central Academy of Drama in 04 and has been following Chen Sicheng ever since. He was the executive director of the two films "Detective Chinatown" and the web series.

Speaking of which, although Meng Bai and Wu Bai's Arc Light Alliance is not as famous as Ning Hao's "Bad Monkey 72 Transformations Plan", they have indeed collaborated with many new directors over the years.

Fortunately, although these new directors are not experienced, they are all very capable. In addition, Meng Bai, a "top screenwriter", controls the plot, so the quality of the finished product is very high.

"Old Dai."

Meng Bai greeted Dai Mo who had just entered the room. The two had worked together several times, so they were quite familiar with each other.

"Mr. Meng, these are the lead actors decided by our director team after the audition. Please see if there is anything inappropriate." Dai Mo said as he handed over a document.

Similar to the previous works in the "Green Ivy Series", "Hunting Crime Picture Book" still has the character relationship structure of "male detective + male second detective".

In fact, there is no way to do this. After all, there is no such profession as "detective" in the country. Non-public security, procuratorial and judicial personnel, or more accurately, non-front-line law enforcement personnel, have no investigation rights.

Therefore, if you want the protagonist to participate in a criminal case legally and reasonably, you can only arrange for him to have an identity such as "consultant" and have a criminal police officer next to him.

It can also be considered a national characteristic.

Meng Bai flipped through the actor's information in his hand and compared it with the character settings in the play.

Among the male protagonists' occupations in the first four works of the "Green Ivy Detective Universe", Qin Feng's "detective" and Guan Hongfeng's "former captain" are very common, Qin Ming's "forensic doctor" is relatively rare, and Fang Mu's "psychological profiler" is even more niche.

However, compared with the profession of "simulated portrait artist" of the male protagonist Shen Yi in "Hunting Crime Picture Book", the previous ones can be regarded as popular.

The so-called "simulated portrait artist"'s main job is to draw the complete appearance of the suspect based on the description of the witnesses.

This profession was not invented by Meng Bai. Before the "Skynet System" was perfected, the chance of taking a frontal photograph of a person's face was very small, so if one wanted to know what the suspect looked like, one mainly relied on the description of the portrait artist.

Generally speaking, people who can become simulation portrait artists are all very talented in art. Including the public security police force, they often recruit people or invite help from art academies in various places.

Therefore, the character of "Shen Yi" should have some literary and calm temperament.

Dai Mo and his director team looked at many people and finally chose Zhang Xincheng, who had previously starred in "Hello, Old Times".

As for the second male lead, "Criminal Police Captain Du Cheng", the requirements for this role are simpler, and the final candidate was also a newcomer actor Chen Xingxu.

Meng Bai thought about it and felt that he had heard this name before. He then looked down at the drama he had acted in before, the Yang Kang in the 17th version of The Legend of the Condor Heroes, which was the latest version played by Tong Rong'er, and then he realized it.

In addition to the male lead and the second male lead, there is another major character, the female lead who serves as a forensic doctor, and the actress is Zhu Yanmanzi.

Hey, wait.

Meng Bai suddenly discovered a problem. All three main actors were from the Central Academy of Drama. If Meng Bai and Dai Mo were included as the two main creators, this drama would almost become an internal drama of the Central Academy of Drama.

"Don't mention it, it's true." Dai Mo said, "I didn't pay much attention to this when I was selecting the candidates. Otherwise, should we change the candidate?"

"That's not necessary. Since they have been chosen, it means they meet the requirements of the role."

Meng Bai shook his head. He was just saying it casually. There was no need to make more trouble over such a small matter.

However, the rumor that "Arc Light likes to use people from the Central Academy of Drama" is expected to deepen in the circle.

In fact, it is not entirely a rumor. Because of Meng Bai, ArcLight and the Central Academy of Drama have always had a close relationship and have cooperated with each other.

The school recommended quite a few new actors, so naturally there were a lot of actors from the Central Academy of Drama in the arc drama.

The lead actors have been chosen, and Dai Mo has also completed the preliminary preparations. The two discussed it and decided to start filming before the end of the month.

But before that, Meng Bai had to go to Tianjin to find a consultant for the crew.

Tianjin Judicial Appraisal Center.

"Director Lin, hello, sorry to bother you again."

"No, I have nothing to do here. Please take a seat, Mr. Meng."

In a room filled with various skeleton models and drawing boards, a middle-aged man with an elegant temperament greeted Meng Bai enthusiastically.

The man's name is Lin Yuhui, a fellow Shandong native of Meng Bai. His profession is a "simulated portrait artist" that few people have heard of.

The two of them sat down, Lin Yuhui handed over a cup of tea, and then looked at Meng Bai and said, "Boss Meng said on the phone before that he wanted to make a TV series about 'simulated portraits'?"

"It's a web drama." Meng Bai said, "I've heard of you, Director Lin, for a long time. When I was a kid, I read about the 'Xintai Arson Case' in the newspaper. At that time, I felt that the profession of 'simulated portrait artist' was very magical. Now I'm mainly working on suspenseful criminal investigation themes, so I thought about bringing this profession to the screen so that everyone can understand it." In August 08, during the Olympic Games, a fire broke out in a celebration company in Xintai City, resulting in one death and two serious injuries. After investigation, the public security determined that someone had deliberately set the fire. After a visit, a suspicious person was finally found in the surveillance of a gas station.

However, due to the limitations of the surveillance technology at the time, the image clarity was very poor, and because it was dark, only some blurry features of the suspect could be seen.

However, with this "landline quality" lens, Lin Yuhui drew a clear portrait of the suspect. After getting the portrait, the police caught the arsonist in less than three hours.

Moreover, when comparing the real person afterwards, it was unexpectedly discovered that the portrait was more than 90% similar to the murderer's actual appearance.

This incident was reported and reprinted by many provincial media and appeared on many TV news reports. It was from that time that Meng Bai learned about the profession of "simulated portrait artist".

As for Lin Yuhui himself, his skills are far more than that. He can draw what he will look like 20 years later based on a photo of his childhood, and can draw a complete portrait of a person with only six facial positioning points. As for drawing portraits on bones, it is even more commonplace.

In the "Zhang Yingying case" in the United States last year, Lin Yuhui, at the invitation of Li Changyu, drew the appearance of the suspect based on three blurry videos provided by the FBI. Three days later, the suspect Christensen was arrested.

During the preparation of "Hunting Crime Picture Book", Meng Bai contacted Lin Yuhui and wanted to invite him to be the technical consultant of the show to help the crew find plot loopholes.

"That's a good thing." Lin Yuhui said with a smile: "Nowadays, surveillance is well developed, and the public security 'Skynet System' is also very complete. In many cases, simulated portraits are not needed. But in other places, simulated portraits still have many uses."

"Yes, we also hope that through such a film and television work, more audiences can know and understand the work and significance of the profession of 'simulated portraiture'."

"As a practitioner, I am very grateful to Mr. Meng." Lin Yuhui said, "I have no problem being a consultant for the crew, but I also want to ask Mr. Meng for a favor."

"You say."

"My main job now is to help the parents of abducted children draw portraits of their children when they grow up, so that they can find them more easily. I hope that if it is convenient for Mr. Meng, you can help me publicize this method so that more parents of abducted children can know that this method may help them."

"No problem." Meng Bai said without hesitation: "In fact, I have learned about some of your work before, Director Lin. In fact, in the plot of this drama, there is a unit story about the search for lost children."

"That's great." Lin Yuhui's face lit up immediately. "If that's the case, then I have to be the consultant."

Meng Bai was also satisfied with this. In this way, the authenticity of the plot of "Hunting Crime Picture Book" would definitely be improved a lot.

After agreeing on a time with Lin Yuhui, Meng Bai originally planned to go directly to the crew.

Unexpectedly, before he left, he suddenly received a call from Gu Fei.

"Boss, Mr. Huang from Pinduoduo asked me to contact him. He said he needs your help with something."

"Looking for my help?"

Meng Bai was quite surprised.

Pinduoduo is an e-commerce company, and its biggest intersection with film and television is sponsorship or advertising, but that doesn't require his help.

"Did you say what it was specifically about?"

"He didn't say much, but it should be related to the offline collective boycott of Pinduoduo by platform merchants a few days ago."

"Oh, about this matter..." Meng Bai said: "Okay, then I will contact Huang Zheng."
-
Shanghai, Pinduoduo headquarters.

"Long time no see, Mr. Meng."

Looking at Meng Bai who came in, Huang Zheng said with a smile.

"It's been a long time since we last met." Meng Bai also said with a smile.

Since Gu Fei came, she has been the one who has been in charge of the connection. Apart from checking the financial situation, Meng Bai really didn't care much about Pinduoduo.

Of course, I believe Huang Zheng also hopes that all investors can maintain his state.

The two sat down and exchanged greetings for a while, then Meng Bai took the initiative to ask about the situation.

"Alas, this matter is hard to explain in a few words." Huang Zhengzheng put away his smile and frowned, "I wonder if Mr. Meng has heard about the news about us and the merchant a few days ago?"

“I’ve seen it online, but I don’t know the details.”

Seeing this, Huang Zheng first introduced the situation to Meng Bai.

As mentioned before, compared with Taobao and JD.com, Pinduoduo's stance is much more inclined towards consumers, while the various rules and regulations on the merchants are much stricter.

For a long time, many merchants have been full of resentment about Pinduoduo's operations.

Until a few days ago, some merchants who could no longer bear it joined forces and demonstrated under the Pinduoduo company building with banners and shouted slogans to boycott Pinduoduo.

"If it were any other time, it wouldn't really matter. After all, the conflict between the platform and the merchants is not a one-day thing. If everyone talks about it slowly, they can always find a result that satisfies both parties."

Huang Zheng sighed and said, "But the problem is that we are about to go public. If public opinion erupts at this time, it is very likely to disrupt the listing plan."

Pinduoduo has only been established for three years, and is almost stuck on the standard line for listing. Although the capital market is optimistic about Pinduoduo's future potential, potential is still potential after all.

Any slight disturbance may lead to some unexpected situations.

What’s more, the public opinion is so intense.

"This……"

Meng Bai groaned for a moment. He really didn't know what to say about this matter.

From the public's perspective, the platform, as the most powerful capital, is definitely the root of all evil.

But from the perspective of an investor, Pinduoduo's current development shows that Huang Zheng's business strategy is correct.

After thinking for a while, he couldn't seem to tell who was right or wrong, so he simply stopped thinking about this issue.

"Just tell me what you need my help with." Meng Bai said, "You can't ask me to help you take a video, right?"

Huang Zheng smiled when he heard this: "You are right. We want to shoot a few videos and need you, the great screenwriter, to design the plot."

(End of this chapter)