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

Chapter 453 Big Event

Before the check-in time, Meng Bai and Yang Chaoyue finally "arrived" at the airport amid their assistants' eager anticipation.

As for why these two people were obviously closer but arrived later, the assistants cleverly chose to ignore it.

After seeing off Yang Chaoyue who was reluctant to leave, Meng Bai continued to stay in Blue Island.

According to his original plan, he would stay here until the end of the year. While preparing for the filming of "The Beginning", he would also take care of the two projects "Protecting Blue Mountain West" and "Twinkle Twinkle Star".

However, plans never change as fast as they should.

On December 12th, there was only one day left until the end of 30. Just when everyone was looking forward to the upcoming New Year's Day holiday, a breaking news shocked the whole country.

Hubei issued an urgent notice, requiring all medical institutions in the province to closely track all recent new influenza patients and report case situations in a timely manner.

A single stone can cause a thousand ripples. People who had previously not taken the new flu seriously finally realized that this time it seemed to be really serious.

However, the development of the situation was much more dramatic than anyone expected.

Just after the New Year's Day holiday, the Chinese government reported a new influenza outbreak to the World Health Organization. Soon after, 87 confirmed cases were found in four provinces and 162 suspected cases were found in provinces.

On January 1, a new case of influenza was discovered in Thailand, indicating that the infection has spread beyond the country.

On January 1, patients with the new influenza were found in eight countries around the world. Officials from Europe, the United States, Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asia and other countries issued statements reminding people not to travel abroad in the near future.

Alarms were sounding abroad and there was also chaos at home.

Jiangcheng is located in the central hub of China, a thoroughfare connecting nine provinces, with convenient transportation and large flow of people, which are rare in the world. With the movement of hundreds of thousands of people, the flu has spread unstoppably in just half a month.

"Brother Meng Bai, I will be at Blue Island tomorrow!"

Listening to Zhao Jinmai's cheerful voice on the phone, Meng Bai whispered, "Sorry, Mai Mai, I'm back in Jingbei."

"Ah, that's it..."

Hearing that Meng Bai was not there, Zhao Jinmai's voice dropped significantly, but she still said sensibly: "Then Brother Meng Bai, you have to take care of yourself. I saw on the Internet that the flu is very serious recently, you have to be careful."

"Okay, thank you for the reminder." Meng Bai smiled and said, "The same goes for you. After the filming starts, try to stay in the crew and the hotel, and don't run around. The art exam will be after the Chinese New Year, so hurry up and review."

"As it is now, can we still take the art exam?"

"Don't mention it, it is very likely to be postponed... This is good, after you finish filming, you will have more time to prepare."

"Oh, I hope everything goes well for everyone."

Listening to the little girl's innocent blessing, Meng Bai smiled and hung up the phone. Then, he looked at the report in his hand, and his expression became serious again.

"Boss, Mr. Liu and the others are all in the conference room and ready. Shall we go over there?" Hua Yan poked her head out of the office door.

"Okay, let's go over there too."

Walking into the meeting room, Meng Bai was surprised to find that the room was very quiet today.

Looking around the room, he couldn't help but laugh.

"Not bad." Meng Bai sat down at the first seat and smiled at everyone present: "New year, new atmosphere. We finally look like a film and television company."

Almost everyone I saw was wearing a mask. If you didn’t look at their faces, they all looked like celebrities.

Everyone in the room looked around and started laughing when they heard this.

Liu Jun, who was sitting next to Meng Bai, pulled down his mask and said in a muffled voice, "Don't mention it. No wonder those actors and stars like to wear it. It's really hard to tell who is who when they put it on their faces. When I saw my wife at home this morning, I felt that she was much more pleasing to the eye."

"Ha ha ha ha……"

Louder laughter broke out in the room.

Meng Bai smiled and coughed lightly, then called out to everyone, "Alright, take them off now. We are so close to each other, the infection would have already occurred, and wearing a gas mask is useless."

This is indeed the truth. The reason why everyone here wears masks is just a psychological factor. According to the follow-up management measures that have been circulating online recently, anyone in this room is considered a close contact.

Seeing that everyone had returned to their normal state, Meng Bai didn't exchange any pleasantries and went straight to the point.

"Everyone knows the current situation. The situation will only get worse, and no one knows how long it will last. We must prepare for the worst possible scenario in advance."

According to the reports from various departments, Arclight Pictures and Apocalypse Entertainment have a total of four projects in preparation, including "The Beginning" and "The East Palace", two projects are currently being filmed, three projects will be completed recently and enter post-production, and another three projects are waiting to be broadcast.

"Just wait for the broadcast and the wrap-up to proceed as normal. The filming of Twinkle Twinkle Star is almost done in the next few days, so don't worry too much. Another one is to urge the crew to speed up and try to finish filming before the Spring Festival."

"As for those that are still in preparation, if the filming location involves Jiangcheng, no, if it involves Hubei, all will be changed to other places. Let the crew's production and local cultural tourism and health departments maintain communication and contact. Once the situation changes, the safety and lives of the crew members will be prioritized."

All the responsible persons present were surprised to hear the boss's serious words.

"Are you worried that the online rumors about the closure might be true?" Liu Jun asked with a frown.

"We will definitely control it, but we don't know the exact extent. We are now planning for the worst-case scenario, so that even if something unexpected happens, there is room for error."

Meng Bai sighed. In addition to the current projects in the company, there are still many things that need to be thought about in advance.

The meeting lasted a whole day, and then all the employees in the Arc Light Department received the latest regulations.

This year's annual meeting originally scheduled to be held in Sanya was cancelled and moved to the suburbs north of Beijing. The duration was also shortened from three days to one day.

Before the Spring Festival holiday, everyone finished their unfinished work and uploaded all necessary information to the company's NAS server in preparation for possible working from home after the Spring Festival.

Employees from other provinces, especially Hubei, are advised to bring their families out to celebrate the New Year this year, and they can also apply for special support subsidies from the company. Those who stay to work will receive four times the normal overtime pay...

There are more than a dozen requirements, and it cannot be said that they are perfect, but they do take into account all the aspects that can be considered at present, and the conditions and treatment offered are quite good.

It's not just Arc Light, the entire film and television industry, or all companies across the country, should be making various preparations during this period.

In comparison, the difficulties faced by Arclight Pictures are not that great. After all, it is mainly engaged in film and television dramas, and is very similar to Internet companies. The core of the headquarters does not have any physical industries, and remote work is not greatly affected. The crew is similar to an outsourced project, and each group is responsible for its own work.

If we really talk about who is most affected, it is the various physical enterprises, including film companies, cinema chains and theaters.

In this situation, people are afraid to even go out, let alone watch a movie with so many strangers. Seven movies were scheduled to be released during this year's Spring Festival, including Xu Zheng's fourth film in the "囧 series" "Lost in Russia", Guangguang's second film in the "Fengshen Animation Series" "Jiang Ziya", Chen Kexin's "Chinese Women's Volleyball Team" with Huang Bo and Gong Li, and Lin Chaoxian's new film "Emergency Rescue".

The trailers and promotions for several movies began before New Year's Day, and promotional videos can be seen on major social media and short video platforms.

However, as the Spring Festival is approaching, all publicity and promotion activities have come to a halt. The producers of several films are waiting to see whether to withdraw their films.

"Alas, the film and television winter is still here, and the market has finally started to pick up. Now, it's going to be beaten back again."

In Ruyi Pictures, or the new Hengteng Network building, Chen Zhixi looked at the news on the Internet and couldn't help but sigh.

"Yeah." Zhou Cheng, who was sitting opposite, also sighed, "We production companies are fine. The worst that can happen is that the production will be postponed. The theater chains and cinemas are the ones who are really suffering right now."

Evergrande also has two cinema chains. Although its market share is small, its speed of burning money is not slow at all.

But the key at present is not the cinema chain, but Evergrande’s main business of real estate, which is also the industry hardest hit by this flu.

Zhou Cheng had been going to the headquarters for meetings a lot recently, and his boss Xu hadn't been having a good time recently. Before he could get over the glory of the National Day, he started to worry about the company's performance this year.

However, although these have an impact on Hengten Network, the impact is not significant. As an independently listed company, they have greater autonomy within the Evergrande system.

So the problem now lies in the future development of film and television.

"The movie business will definitely be out of the question for a few months."

Meng Bai, who attended the meeting, said directly: "According to the current expansion trend, let alone the Spring Festival schedule, even our originally scheduled May Day schedule of "Famous", and the summer schedule of "Mistakenly Killed", will probably have to be postponed."

"Mr. Meng is right." Zhou Cheng said, "So our next focus should be on promoting horizontal videos."

The sudden outbreak of influenza has affected all industries, but it has had positive effects on some industries, especially the entertainment industry.

Movies are restricted by offline theaters, but online entertainment does not have this flaw.

Games, movies and TV series, streaming platforms, short videos, online novels...

Almost all forms of online entertainment will usher in a large wave of traffic.

The ones that benefited the most are games and streaming platforms. After all, in the past, due to busy work and life, we could only watch short videos and read online articles in our spare time. Now that everyone is afraid to go out, with large blocks of free time, the entertainment methods are naturally not limited by time.

For Heng Video, this is also a rare development opportunity. With the price advantage of "one yuan for membership" and the ad-free model, it is bound to attract a large wave of traffic.

After half a year of improvement, today's horizontal videos no longer have the original pirated and cheap style. The servers, bandwidth, and various screen projection adaptation functions have also been adjusted to fully meet the needs of users.

"What a shame." Zhou Cheng sighed, "Our 'Tracing Back Series' can't catch up with this node, otherwise the drainage effect would be better."

"There's nothing we can do. After all, no one can predict that something like this will happen." Chen Zhixi consoled him and turned to look at Meng Bai who was silent on the side. He couldn't help but wonder, "What's up, Mr. Meng, do you have any other ideas?"

"I was thinking, there is actually a way to catch up." Meng Bai said.

"How to say?"

"'The Beginning' and 'Want to See You' haven't been filmed yet, so we definitely won't be able to make it in time. But 'Twinkle Twinkle Star' will be finished in the next two days, so we can definitely make two episodes first, and edit and broadcast the rest."

"Editing and broadcasting at the same time?" Zhou Cheng and Chen Zhixi exclaimed in surprise.

"This...is not going to work." Chen Zhixi said, "It won't pass the review."

Meng Bai stroked his chin. "This is actually a bit of a gray area. According to the censorship standards for online dramas, only online film and television works that are heavily promoted on the homepages of mainstream platforms need to be 'reviewed before broadcasting.' The rest of the websites and projects still use the filing system."

"Hengshi Video is not a mainstream platform yet. The 'Retrospective Series' has already passed script and technical review and has a filing number. In theory, there is no problem with broadcasting it."

"Or maybe this." Meng Bai said, "Let's submit the first few episodes that we can produce for review and then broadcast them. Then we can edit one episode and submit it for review. This way, it will make sense."

Chen Zhixi frowned: "Are you sure this will work?"

"Special times call for special measures. We can also contribute to the fight against influenza. Besides, the standards for online dramas are more flexible." Meng Bai said, "I'll give Director Nie from the Radio and Television Department a heads-up. It shouldn't be a problem."

"This...if you can get the higher-ups to agree, then of course there will be no problem."

Zhou Cheng listened for a long time. He didn't know much about the film and television industry, so he didn't say much. Seeing that the two professional bosses had reached an agreement, he smiled and said, "If it can be done, then it would be great. But is there enough time? Don't delay the quality in order to rush the speed, otherwise it will not be worth it."

Meng Bai said: "It's okay, we can wait until after the Spring Festival to see the situation. If it is under control by then, then it won't be necessary. But if it is not under control, there will be more than a month left, enough time to produce four to six episodes."

After years of training, Arclight already has an excellent post-production team. Not to mention editing and broadcasting at the same time, even shooting and broadcasting like Korean dramas is no problem, it's just stuck in the review mode.

Of course, a drama is not just about the content. It also needs trailers, promotions, theme songs, soundtracks, etc.

Wang Wei thought he could finally relax after finishing the filming, but he suddenly received new requirements and had to continue working overtime.

In addition to the platform's original drama "Twinkle Twinkle Star", the rest of the planned projects have also been advanced a lot.

For example, "Sisters Who Make Waves" was originally scheduled for August, but it was brought forward to early May.

It’s not that we don’t want to move forward, it’s just that it conflicts with the other two drafts.

Qiyi TV's "Youth With You 2" will be launched in March, and Tencent Video's "Creation Camp 2020" will be launched in April. Both of them are girl groups, which just happens to intersect with each other.

However, for most of the audience fans, they are more optimistic about the other two "orthodox girl groups".

Although the "30+ Sisters Group" is a big gimmick, it always sounds weird.

……

As the Spring Festival approaches, everyone is looking forward to the New Year while keeping a close eye on the changing trends of influenza.

As expected, the situation became more serious, with new patients appearing frequently across the country and the scope of the disease spreading wider and wider.

Until the day before New Year's Eve, when everyone was packing up to prepare for the New Year, the Jiangcheng government suddenly held a press conference and announced that from 10 a.m. today, all external transportation in Jiangcheng would be suspended, public places would be closed, and the entire city would enter a closed state.

Everyone then realized belatedly that they seemed to be experiencing an unprecedented event.

(End of this chapter)