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

Chapter 448 Apology
Thanks to the efforts of his boss Li Qin, Meng Bai was able to pay some attention to Tian Xiwei. After returning to Beijing, he asked the film and television department to find out if there were any recent projects suitable for her.

When the people in the film and television department heard that this was a newcomer signed by the "No. 1 Boss Lady", their attitude became very serious and they quickly found two suitable projects.

One is a campus drama called "So Cute We Are". The heroine "Huang Chengzi" is a quirky, cute and kind high school student, which fits Tian Xiwei's appearance very well.

The other is a costume suspense detective drama similar to "Youngsters in the Song Dynasty", named "The Little Coroner Granted by the Emperor". The heroine "Chu Chu" is the daughter of a family of coroners. She is cute, smart and thoughtful. Her biggest dream is to go to Chang'an to take the exam and become a real coroner.

Youth campus themes are evergreen in the domestic entertainment film and television industry. As long as there are audiences who miss campus youth, they will never go out of style. After "Forensic Qin Ming", "forensic doctor" has also become a popular profession in suspense themes. Adding the "ancient romance" element, it accurately captures the audience group of young girls.

Both dramas are adapted from novels, and the cooperating platforms are also the newly-established "horizontal video" platforms, which can basically be regarded as their own projects, so the choice of the female lead is just a matter of a word.

Meng Bai sent the two roles to Li Qin's studio, who directly placed the two scripts and the contract in front of Tian Xiwei.

The girl had originally prepared a set of negotiation speeches, but when she saw the two female lead scripts in front of her, she threw her prepared remarks out of her mind and signed the ten-year acting agency contract without hesitation.

Tian Xiwei was very happy. She had been worrying about what to do after graduation, but she ended up playing a small supporting role and was directly signed by a big company. The most important thing was that her direct boss was her senior sister.

Li Qin was also very happy. He had a younger sister with good talents. He was finally no longer alone.

Meng Bai also thought it was pretty good. They were just two short web dramas. It didn't matter who acted for them. He just wanted to take this opportunity to ask Teacher Li to agree to wear Kunqu opera costumes and give him a "private performance" next time.

That’s great, everyone has a bright future!

……

As the end of the year approaches, various ceremonies and evening parties are taking place one after another, such as "Weibo Night", "Starlight Awards", "Annual Ceremony", etc., all of which are competing to see who can invite more stars and who has a bigger show.

For artists, this is actually a good activity. They can walk on the red carpet, increase their popularity, receive a few awards for their own entertainment, and then post photos later, and their fans can also give them some praise.

As a platform, this is the time to showcase the value and strength of their content once a year, to show shareholders, advertisers, partners and users their achievements this year, so that they can continue to make money next year.

Meng Bai has received invitation letters half a person's height on his desk almost every day recently, but he has asked Hua Yan to decline almost all of them.

The reason why I say almost is because he accepted an invitation from one company, which is the "Strange Scream Night" hosted by Strange TV.

It’s not that he is particularly partial to it, but mainly because the head of Qiyi TV, Gong Yu, and Dai Ying, came to Meng Bai in person to invite him.

Gong Yu had no choice, as almost half of his hit dramas in recent years came from Arclight Pictures. Advertisers had great confidence in the quality of Arclight dramas, and did not even need to solicit investment, as they all took the initiative to invest.

Qiyi TV was originally quite happy, even though there was Tencent Video competing with them, but after all, they had cooperated with ArcLight early on and had a close relationship, so naturally there were more opportunities for cooperation.

Just like the movie "The Bad Kids" this summer, it directly boosted the stock price of Qiyi TV a lot.

But before they could be happy for long, they heard the news that Evergrande acquired Ruyi Pictures and entered the streaming media industry.

Admission is not a big deal, the key is that the other party has become half-family with ArcLight Pictures and has directly launched a new "Tracing Back Series".

This is a series of projects personally initiated by President Meng. It goes without saying that the three films that are about to be filmed will be hits.

Actually, this is normal. After all, Arclight Pictures is an independent production company and there is no problem in cooperating with any platform.

But Qiyi TV is in a difficult situation now, as many advertisers have implicitly asked whether the cooperation between Qiyi TV and ArcLight has been interrupted.

For domestic streaming platforms, if users are the breadwinners, then advertisers are the breadwinners. Although the proportion of user membership fees is increasing every year, the majority of revenue so far is still from advertising.

Although Qiyi TV has always stated that the cooperation has not been interrupted and has also put forward two projects, "The Undocumented Crime" and "The Silent Truth", to be broadcast later, advertisers are still skeptical.

After all, these two projects were decided last year, and who knows if there are any changes now.

Qiyi TV is also helpless. The trilogy was not completed until the second half of this year, and there have been no new cooperation projects for a while. There is really no way to explain it.

We can’t have President Meng come out and say in person, “We are still cooperating with Qiyi TV, so feel free to advertise,” right?

Don't mention it, it seems that it is not impossible. The executives of Qiyi TV studied it and felt that this solution was the most time-saving and labor-saving, and it was also intuitive and clear.

The only problem is how to convince Mr. Meng.

It would definitely not work to let him speak directly, and Qiyi TV doesn't think it has the guts to do that. However, it just so happens that they are going to hold a "Scream Night" recently, so why not invite Mr. Meng to show up on the spot, which is equivalent to indirectly expressing this idea.

The reasons for the invitation are very good. The Bad Kids is the best drama of the year for Qiyi TV this year, and the recently launched The Undocumented Crime is also very popular. As the producer and screenwriter of the two dramas, it is normal for Meng Bai to be invited to attend.

In order to avoid being rejected, Gong Yu called Dai Ying, the vice president who had been in charge of the liaison with Huguang, and the two executives came personally to invite him.

Seeing such a warm invitation, Meng Bai really didn't feel comfortable refusing, so he agreed.

Anyway, Heng Video is just getting started now and will officially begin operations next year. There has not been any celebration like this yet, so there is no need to worry about strengthening competitors for its own platform.

……

"Mr. Meng, your seat is over here."

At the "Scream Night" scene, a person in charge of Qiyi TV led Meng Bai to a round table at the front.

Meng Bai thanked him and sat down facing the stage. There were many fruits and snacks on the table. This kind of ceremony would take a long time as there were many items and various performances, so it was best to prepare some food so that anyone who was hungry could fill their stomach.

Picking up a tangerine, Meng Bai looked at the name tag of his deskmate. As soon as he glanced at it, a familiar name came into view.

"This one……"

Meng Bai took the nameplate from the seat next to him, which had the words "Li Yitong" written on it.

Seeing this, the person in charge stepped forward to explain: "The Undocumented Crime, which is starring Li Yitong, is currently being broadcast, so we invited her tonight...Mr. Meng, do you think we need to change seats?"

"Forget it, it's okay, just leave it like this." Meng Bai waved his hand and put the name tag away.

"Okay, Mr. Meng, if you have anything, please come to me."

The person in charge nodded in response, then wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and hurried out.

Meng Bai didn't arrive early, but because he didn't have to walk the red carpet, he entered the venue first.

At this time, the audience area in the back row was already full, and the scene was filled with cheers. However, the guest round table in the front row was empty. Sitting there and listening to the noisy sounds coming from the back, it felt like a quiet place in a bustling place.

Unfortunately, just as he was immersed for a while, someone came to disturb him.

"Haha, Mr. Meng, good evening."

A middle-aged man wearing glasses walked up to Meng Bai, smiled and stretched out his hand.

Meng Bai took a look at the other person and felt that he looked familiar. He searched his mind and said, "Ah... It's Mr. Tian from Canxing, right? Hello." He remembered that the man was called Tian Ming, the boss of Canxing Culture.

Many people may not know Canxing Culture, but everyone has heard the programs produced by this company. As early as 2012, Canxing bought the copyright of "The Voice of Holland" and later created the nationally sensation "The Voice of China".

It's not just this show. The subsequent "China's Got Talent" and "China's Got Talent" and a series of "national" series variety shows are all produced by Canxing.

Later, this naming method that skirted the line was stopped by the Radio and Television Administration, and Canxing turned to online variety shows, producing projects including "Masked Singer", "Dancing Forest Conference" and "This! Is Street Dance".

It also has many artists under its banner. The contestants who came out of "The Voice of China", including Zhou Shen, Jin Zhiwen, Zhang Bichen, etc., are all from the Cangxing group.

However, the most valuable thing about Canxing Culture is the huge amount of music copyrights it holds, which can be regarded as the largest copyright music library in the domestic entertainment industry.

It is precisely because of this advantage that Evergrande discussed cooperation with Canxing when preparing the project "Sisters Riding the Wind and Waves" so that the program could have sufficient music copyright use.

Meng Bai had also met Tian Ming once during a previous negotiation. Fortunately, he had a good memory, otherwise he would not have remembered it for a while.

Tian Ming was naturally invited by Qiyi TV to come here today. In addition to film and television awards, the "Scream Night" also includes music and singer awards.

While no one else had entered yet, Tian Ming sat at Meng Bai's table and started chatting.

"I heard from Mr. Zhou before that the project of Riding the Wind and Breaking the Waves has already started to select people?"

"It should be about the same. I saw quite a lot of people signed up before, so it's relatively easy to choose." Meng Bai said: "I originally thought that many actors might not accept this kind of singing and dancing talent show, but I didn't expect it to be quite popular."

"Haha, President Meng is wrong. Actresses are different from actors. If they don't make it before the age of 30, it will be difficult to make it after that. Now that there is such a new track program, many people must want to give it a try. Who knows, maybe they can save the country in a roundabout way." Tian Ming said with a smile.

"That's right. After all, those top-tier actors will definitely not come, so everyone has a chance to perform." Meng Bai said.

"Not only that, in fact, many female artists are quite interested in singing and dancing, but the domestic entertainment stage is more for newcomers around 20 years old. It's a rare opportunity, and many people want to try it."

Meng Bai nodded. This was true. An important motivation for many artists to initially get into this industry was to get the attention of fans, especially female artists.

Compared to actors who spend most of their time behind the camera, idols have a lower status but are indeed closer to their fans. However, due to the limited audience environment of domestic entertainment, there has never been a stage like this.

Until the rise of idol talent shows in recent years, the audiences who used to follow Korean and Japanese entertainment have been pulled back. Even though most of these idols still have to film in the end, at least they have room to show their talents.

In fact, many actresses in the industry like this kind of talent show very much, but they can't do it because of their age. Since Evergrande's new platform has given them an opportunity, everyone is naturally flocking to it.

"Mr. Tian, you are a veteran producer of talent shows. I'll need your guidance in the preparation of the show."

"Haha, Mr. Meng, you're too polite. Since we're working together, Lao Tian will definitely do his best. However, this kind of idol talent show is different from a singer talent show. The requirements for stage effects are higher, and the overall operation also has the standards of a girl group. We at Canxing may not be able to help with this."

"Don't worry about that, Mr. Tian. We have hired the team from our neighboring Kimchi for the stage effects. They are in the idol business and have more experience than us." Meng Bai said, "As for the operation, the program team is considering cooperating with Lehua."

"Lehua..." Tian Ming thought for a moment, "That's right, there doesn't seem to be any other company doing idol business besides them."

The well-known idol companies in the domestic entertainment industry are only Lehua, Siba, Times Fengjun, and the recently established Wajijiwa.

Siba has its own circle, Times Fengjun focuses on boy bands, Wajijiwa is tied to Tencent, and the only one left with the strength to cooperate is Lehua.

As the two were talking, they suddenly heard a loud cheer from the audience, and then a young male artist of medium height walked over from the red carpet.

“These fans have good eyesight and can recognize who is who even from such a distance.” Tian Ming laughed, “It’s a pity that I’m old now and don’t recognize these new traffic anymore.”

"It's okay. If it lasts a long time, you will naturally remember it in the future. If it doesn't last a long time, it doesn't matter if you can't remember it." Meng Bai said calmly.

"Ha, what Mr. Meng said makes a lot of sense."

The two of them didn't pay much attention to it at first, but what they didn't expect was that a woman greeted the male artist who had just entered the venue, and then the two of them walked towards them together.

"Mr. Meng, good evening."

The woman came closer and greeted with a smile on her face: "Hey, Mr. Tian is here too, what a coincidence."

"It's President Du. Sorry I didn't notice it just now." Tian Ming stood up with a hint of surprise. "It's really a coincidence. I was just talking about President Du with President Meng."

The person who came was the boss of Lehua Entertainment and a senior idol agent in the domestic entertainment industry, Du Hua.

"Really? Then it seems I came at the right time." Du Hua smiled and said, "I wonder what you are talking about me?"

"It's nothing. I just happened to be talking about the preparations for the show "Sisters Riding the Wind and Waves." Meng Bai nodded to the other party.

Du Hua's eyes sparkled: "It's such an honor. Mr. Meng has agreed to cooperate with Lehua?"

"Everyone can see Lehua's strength and experience, but I don't have the final say on the show, so Mr. Du should ask Mr. Zhou."

"Haha, Mr. Meng, you are so polite. Mr. Zhou also said that we still need your approval for the program."

Du Hua's attitude was very enthusiastic, mainly because Lehua really wanted to win this cooperation.

Lehua Entertainment has always established itself as "the largest idol company in the domestic entertainment industry." Of course, they are indeed the best in the domestic entertainment industry.

Lehua has been seeking to go public in recent years. However, for the capital market, the field of domestic entertainment idols is too small, and the pace of renewal is rapid, so the risk-return ratio of investment is average.

Du Hua also felt that it might be difficult to continue to rely on herself, so it would be better to find a capital to rely on. However, the entertainment industry is in a cold winter, and the major capitals in the circle are not short of people. In comparison, the one with the best chance is the new entrant Evergrande.

That's why she attaches great importance to this cooperation. It's not that they have any interest in this "30+ girl group". The main purpose is to take this opportunity to get access to capital backing such as Evergrande or Arc Light.

After a few simple greetings, Du Hua pulled over the male artist who had been standing behind her and said, "Let me introduce you two. This is our Lehua's most popular idol artist, Wang Yibo."

Meng Bai suddenly realized: "Ah - this is the male protagonist of The Untamed, right?"

Upon hearing this, Wang Yibo hurried forward and bowed 90 degrees, saying, "I'm sorry, Mr. Meng. I'm really sorry that you and Teacher Meng Ziyi were attacked because of my fans."

Tian Ming, who was standing by, was curious: "Why does it sound like there's an interlude?"

"It's just a misunderstanding." Meng Bai waved his hand and motioned Wang Yibo to stand up. "It's okay, you don't have to tell me. I'm not the one being scolded anyway."

Wang Yibo's heart tightened and a drop of cold sweat slid down his forehead.

Seeing this, Du Hua on the side hurriedly said, "I'm really sorry about this, President Meng. We didn't expect this to happen."

Seeing that Meng Bai didn't say anything, she didn't dare to say anything more, and the atmosphere became silent for a while.

(End of this chapter)