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

Chapter 461 Sisters Riding the Wind and Waves
"Hey, isn't this our President Meng? Welcome to the program team to inspect our work."

Looking at Meng Bai who had just walked in, Chen Zhixi teased with a smile.

"President of the Yarn Ball, those people are just praising us for fun. Sister Xi, you should stop joining in the fun." Meng Bai waved his hand.

The so-called "Chairman Meng" naturally refers to the establishment of the "Online Drama Association" that many people have been discussing recently. It was originally just a joke among some people in the industry, but I didn't expect it to spread and become a hot topic.

After talking about it so many times, many people actually believed it to be true, and some even sent WeChat messages to Meng Bai to congratulate him.

"Well, it's not a bad thing. Doesn't this just show that President Meng is highly respected in everyone's hearts?" Chen Zhixi said with a smile.

"No, I still hope to be closer to the masses."

Meng Bai sighed, "We finally managed to get web dramas into the official mainstream awards, hoping that they could be the same as TV dramas. There is already a TV drama industry association in the industry, but these people insisted on singling out web dramas, which is purely the opposite."

As early as 2013, the film and television industry established the Television Drama Production Industry Association, which is under the supervision of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television. It is an industry group for national television drama production institutions to exercise self-discipline, protect rights, communicate, cooperate, and promote industrial development.

The association’s current organizational structure is its second term, and its president is You Xiaogang, a director who has directed many TV series including “The Secret History of Xiaozhuang”.

Meng Bai also joined the association two years ago. Like Sun Zhonghuai, Guo Jingyu, and Cao Huayi, who are the heads of film and television platforms or production companies, he is a vice president.

So strictly speaking, there is nothing wrong with calling him "President Meng".

"So what you said a while ago about doing something big was referring to this." Chen Zhixi said, "But it is indeed quite big. Speaking of which, since the award organizer has made this concession this year, we should at least give Arc Light an award as a token of our appreciation."

"Of course, otherwise why would we spend so much energy on this? Even if we don't get any credit, we've worked hard. Besides, this is the first year, and it wouldn't sound good if we didn't give him a prize."

According to the registration period set by the three major awards, all seven or eight online dramas produced and broadcast by ArcLight from last year to this year, including "The Bad Kids", "The Undocumented Crime", and "Twinkle Twinkle Star", are eligible for registration.

However, even though you register, not many people can get the nomination.

The most promising one is "The Bad Kids", which was a super hit in the summer of last year and has a lot of talented actors. Apart from the sensitive subject matter, the quality of the series and the level of performance are among the best among the TV series on Star.

So if the three major awards want to find a web drama as a benchmark, it can be said that this drama is the only one - after all, it can't be given to "The Untamed".

It’s a pity that "The Silent Truth" will not be aired until next month, which is beyond the registration deadline, otherwise this drama would also be very promising.

"Let's wait until after the awards are announced to congratulate you. I won't open the champagne for you at halftime in advance." Chen Zhixi checked the time. "The recording should be starting at this time. Let's go over and take a look."

Today is the recording of the first episode of "Sisters Riding the Wind and Waves". As one of the most important planning projects of Heng Video this year, these two top creators came together to take charge.

"Mr. Meng, Mr. Chen, you are here."

As soon as I entered the backstage of the director's team, a middle-aged woman with short hair came to greet me.

This woman is called Du Yan. She is the chief director of the show "Sisters Riding the Wind and Waves", the founder of Seven Dimensional Power, and one of the production team of the previous "Creation 101".

Du Yan first worked at Mango TV and participated in the popular "I Am a Singer". After that, she left Mango TV and produced "Produce 101" with her partner Sun Li.

After the show ended, Sun Li accepted Tencent's investment to establish Haofeng Qingyun and continued to be in charge of the "Creation" series, including "Creation Camp 2020" which just started last month. Du Yan remained independent and was invited to be in charge of "Sisters Riding the Wind and Waves".

Not only these two programs, but also the production team of the "Youth With You" series, is also the same producer from Mango TV. In essence, the three talent shows are actually from the same school.

But this is normal. As the first satellite TV station in China to develop the entertainment industry, Mango TV’s nickname “Variety Hunan Army” is not for nothing.

In the domestic entertainment variety show market, if CCTV is "Shaolin and Wudang", then the Mango TV series is the "Five Mountains Sword Sect" - it has a huge momentum, a large number of people, and likes to "fight within the family".

After greeting each other, Chen Zhixi looked at the busy staff in the room and the multi-camera screens that filled the wall: "Has the admission started yet?"

"Yes, there are already seventeen contestants on stage."

As a girl group reality show focusing on "30+ women", the biggest attraction, apart from the singing and dancing performances of the "sisters", is the "intrigues" between them off the stage.

Unlike those young and energetic trainees, most of these "sisters" have debuted for many years, with varying levels of popularity and temperament.

Some, like Ning Jing, are famous and don't care about anyone, not even the production team. Others, although not very popular, have a long career.

More importantly, compared to those young people, the "sisters" understand better what they want to get from being on the show, are more able to save face, and have more ways of doing things, which makes the show more interesting.

Although the show has not yet started, many netizens have already begun to predict what might happen between the contestants. According to their descriptions, the scene behind the stage is no less than that of "The Legend of Zhen Huan". The production team naturally knows what everyone wants to see, so the first episode of the recording did not start immediately after everyone arrived, but started recording on the road after everyone arrived one by one.

The director team was not far from the recording site, separated by a few walls. Through the camera, we could see that the "sisters" who had already arrived were chatting with each other.

Meng Bai looked at the backstage screen with great interest. These "sisters" seemed to be chatting casually and disorganized, but if you look closely, you can find that the whole show is basically centered around a few topics.

The first one is Ning Jing. As the most famous "sister" in this season's show, almost everyone wants to chat with her so that they can get some camera time.

Then the other one is Zhang Meng, the boss lady of Yaoke Film and Television. When many netizens saw her name, they laughed and said, "Others are here for the talent show, but she is here for the casting."

With so many film and television resources, many people also want to get close to her. If they can really get along well with her on the show, even if their popularity doesn't increase much in the end, it will be worth coming here.

Huang Shengyi is somewhat similar to Zhang Meng. As a shareholder of Juli, she is also a member of the capital. However, her style is just the opposite. She just stays aside and chats with Zhang Yuqi, and seems to look down on the other "colleagues".

There were also people like Shen Mengchen who greeted everyone in the audience, Yi Nengjing who sat in the middle as the "big sister", and so on.

Meng Bai also saw Jin Chen. As the youngest and least experienced contestant in the entire show, this girl sat at the side of the front row. Most of the people around her were in a similar situation, all of them were unknown but of average popularity.

Looking at the different expressions of the people at the scene, he subconsciously smiled.

This feeling of standing behind the camera and observing everyone is why he has always liked working behind the scenes.

"Isn't this pace a bit slow?" Chen Zhixi asked, "Just this entrance took more than an hour, and there are 30 individual performances later. Can we finish recording it today?"

"We can record longer at night. Anyway, everyone will be staying in the villa area, so it will be convenient without running around." Du Yan said.

Like the other two girl group auditions, according to the program team's plan, these "30+" sisters also need to live in arranged dormitories.

It's called a dormitory, but it's actually a row of lakeside villas next to it. Four people live in each house, all single rooms, and the conditions are not bad.

Of course, unlike those trainees who have not debuted, these "sisters" have their own schedules in addition to recording the show, so the program team cannot force everyone to live here.

For most of the sisters, they only stay here for two days before and after each recording.

Just as Chen Zhixi asked, the recording pace of the first episode was very slow. From noon until 1 a.m., they finally finished recording 30 individual performances.

It was obvious from the expressions of the sisters at the scene that almost all of them were extremely sleepy. But this was not the end yet, because they would be ranked according to their first stage scores, and then the first performance song would be selected, followed by individual interviews and team interviews.

The whole process was not completed until two or three in the morning.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Meng, we didn't expect the recording to take so long and keep you waiting until now."

Backstage of the director team, Du Yan wiped the cold sweat from her forehead and looked towards Meng Baidao.

Chen Zhixi left when the first stage ended. She thought Meng Bai would follow, but she didn't expect that he would stay with the entire program until the end.

"It's okay, just staying up all night. I'm used to it when I'm filming on the set."

Meng Bai stood up, stretched his body, and said nonchalantly.

Staying up late is nothing for a man like him who comes from a film crew. When he was filming Soul Ferry and Psychological Crime in the early years, he worked for more than 30 hours in a row before going to bed in order to grab time on the set.

Although I don't have to work so hard in the past two years as my status has risen, I still have a foundation, so it's okay to persevere occasionally.

"But having said that, you have to pay attention to controlling the length and rhythm of the show during the next recording. The average age of the contestants in our show is already high, and their energy and recovery are slow. Singing and dancing are physically demanding. If the show takes too long, I'm afraid they won't be able to make it to the last episode, which would be a lot of fun."

"Don't worry, Mr. Meng, we will manage the time well later." Du Yan said hurriedly, "You can go back and have a rest. You can take a look after we finish producing the opening episode."

Meng Bai didn't act pretentiously. He just said hello and got up to leave.

It should be said that, except for the long recording time, the overall effect of this first episode is still good. It can be seen that each "sister" has practiced before coming.

Especially professional contestants like Jin Chen, Meng Jia, A Duo, etc., they perform quite well on stage.

After watching all the performances, Meng Bai felt more confident. As for whether the audience would approve of it, it would depend on the actual broadcast effect.

(End of this chapter)