1982 Started from Hong Kong

Chapter 464 Schindler's List
Zeng Zhiwei felt wronged, because it was clearly you who said, "I don't love Hong Kong girls~ I love Taiwanese girls~ Long live them!"

Seeing that this round of shoe-shining wasn't done properly,
Zeng Zhiwei turned around and glared at Huoxing, Taibao and the others who had given him the idea. Fortunately, he was thick-skinned and showed no embarrassment. He said seriously, "Of course there are talented people too. I just haven't finished speaking yet."

Zhai Yuan chuckled coldly and glanced at him: "Tell me about it."

Zeng Zhiwei slowed down his speech, racking his brains to recall the newcomers from Taiwan in the past two years, and said word by word: "Have you heard of the Little Tigers?"

Upon hearing this, Zhai Yuan became interested, his expression softened slightly, and he gestured with his eyes for him to continue.

Zeng Zhiwei quickly added, "They imitate the boy bands from Johnny & Associates, and they're very famous right now! If we sign them, along with Girls' Generation from the same company, they'll definitely be a hit with both young men and women!"

Zhai Yuan knew he was referring to "Yi Long and Liang Peng".

I don't really know much about the entertainment industry in Taiwan, but I didn't expect the Little Tigers to debut so early.

Zhai Yuan gave a noncommittal "hmm," then asked, "Are there any truly capable people?"

“Kao Chieh!” Tseng Chih-wei immediately replied, “Although he only debuted last year, he is definitely a talented actor. His first film was with Hou Hsiao-hsien, and he looks just like Al Pace-Cenrue, with a very distinctive image!”

"I have some impression that he's now working for Hou Hsiao-hsien?"

"That's right."

Zhai Yuan nodded knowingly, paused for a moment, and asked, "Could we also poach Hou Hsiao-hsien as a package deal?"

……

For a long time afterward, Zhai Yuan and Zeng Zhiwei conducted rounds of screening in the Taiwanese entertainment industry, with Chen Shilong and his group occasionally joining in the fun.

Wang Jiawei took a piece of paper and wrote down the names that Zhai Yuan was interested in one by one.

Halfway through, Ann Hui and Josephine Siao came over and, after learning about the situation, joined in.

Until dusk,

Shi Nansheng is back.

"Huh? Why is everyone so well-behaved today, like model students?"

The housekeeper changed into slippers as she entered the room. Looking at the people sitting in rows in the living room, a scene similar to a meeting room, she couldn't help but laugh and tease them.

Chen Shilong stood up, rubbing his aching back, and said to Shi Nansheng, "Quickly try to persuade your boss! He's gone mad and is planning to uproot the entire entertainment industry in Taiwan!"

"Isn't it just selecting new talent?" Shi Nansheng said dismissively, then leaned closer to ask, "What big thing happened?"

"Sister Nan is back? We can talk about other things later."

Zhai Yuan stretched and handed the list written by Wang Jiawei to Shi Nansheng, saying with a smile, "Take a look at this list of artists I'm planning to sign this time."

Shi Nansheng curiously took the manuscript paper, glanced at it briefly, and his eyes were immediately drawn in. He then fell into a long silence.

Proposed list of contracted artists:

Directing team: Hou Hsiao-hsien, Edward Yang, Chu Yen-ping, Chen Kuo-fu, Ang Lee...

Cast: Kao Chieh, Chen Yi-wen, Ma Jing-tao, Li Li-qun, Chin Shih-chieh, Ku Pao-ming...

Singer group: Emil Chau, Nicky Wu, Alec Su, Julian Chen, Fei Yu-ching...

...'

Looking at the entire list, there are about thirty names.

In fact, everyone present brainstormed and shared their most memorable Taiwanese practitioners. Originally, there were no fewer than a hundred people, but these thirty-odd names were selected through multiple rounds of screening.

Shi Nansheng hissed and looked at Zhai Yuan, muttering, "I've only been gone for a few hours, is it really necessary to go this far?"

"I never expected that, after all the calculations, Taiwan has so many talented people."

Zhai Yuancai said confidently, "Since we want to promote exchanges, let's start with entertainers. Then, according to this list, sign off on each person one by one. You don't need to worry about such a small matter, Sister Nan. Leave it to Zeng Zhiwei to handle."

The current ecosystem is quite clear: Zhai Yuan, this nouveau riche, is only responsible for spending money and giving orders; the housekeeper deals with the bosses of various film companies; and Zeng Zhiwei, Huang Baiming, Wang Jin, and others are responsible for communicating with directors and actors—a top-down system.

Those working in Taiwan on the list may not be willing to join directly, since their families are still on the mainland and most of them have not yet recovered from the white terror of martial law.

However, there's no need to rush.
Zhai Yuan instructed Zeng Zhiwei: "Shorty, infiltrate slowly. I'll give you a year to poach everyone on this list into the company."

Zeng Zhiwei explained in a hoarse voice that he understood, feeling that this matter was not difficult at all.

A year is more than enough time. As long as 91 Entertainment maintains its leading position in Hong Kong, plenty of people will be willing to cooperate.

In extraordinary times, we can even use extraordinary measures. If we encounter someone who is stubborn and refuses to cooperate, we can spend some time cutting off their resources and investments. Then we will naturally know which way to go.

This story is also recorded among the women in nightclubs who perform but do not sell their bodies.

Zhai Yuan flicked the list in his hand and thought to himself: With such a series of moves, the trip to Taiwan wasn't a complete waste.

Is it too much to undermine the foundation of half of Taiwan's entertainment industry?
Of course not, I'm doing this for everyone's benefit.

Besides, when art-house directors like Hou Hsiao-hsien, Edward Yang, and Ang Lee joined the company, they were working with directors of Wong Kar-wai's caliber. You guys in later generations wouldn't even have had the chance to learn filmmaking from them. What do you say now? Chu Yen-ping is known as the "King of Gold" of Taiwan. This time, you're getting to work with a real "King of Gold." You should be secretly thrilled!
The real Schindler's List!

After a moment's thought, Shi Nansheng asked a crucial question: "Mr. Zhai, the Film Association is already nearing saturation. I'm afraid we won't be able to handle the influx of new members."

The inability to process the output doesn't mean there's no work to do; it's just that there's a concern that too much production would dilute the sales channels.

Adding to the costs associated with increased personnel, from Shi Nansheng's perspective, the boss's approach of 'buying out' employees is far less practical than 'borrowing' them. "No."

Zhai Yuan shook his head. He was not afraid of overcapacity if he dared to recruit a large number of people.

“I’ve done the math, and the current box office is concentrated in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia. Considering the influence of actors, very few people from Japan and South Korea can break into the market.”

Zhai Yuan analyzed the current situation and continued, "However, this is only one aspect of the film industry. It does not include home theaters in these three box office markets. This time, in addition to newcomers from Taiwan, there are also veteran actors with solid acting skills such as Li Liqun and Jin Shijie. Therefore, I plan that in addition to films, Jiu Yi Entertainment will also produce TV series at the same time. This way, we can absorb the cost problem of this excess manpower."

"TV series?"

This time, not only Shi Nansheng frowned, but everyone else around him also looked surprised.

Nowadays, TV series are far less popular than movies. They often have a production cycle of dozens of episodes, and the process of creating the plot, casting actors, filming, and post-production editing all takes a long time, which directly affects the return on investment.

In terms of profitability, it mainly relies on advertising revenue, as well as rebroadcast and distribution fees after the TV broadcast.

The most critical issue is the low value of copyright and rebroadcast. Since most TV dramas are produced domestically, their distribution is limited, making it difficult to expand revenue channels like movies.

A decade or two ago, blockbuster shows like "The Bund" or "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" could reach Taiwan and Southeast Asia. Now, it's becoming increasingly difficult. Even a show as good as "The Greed of Man" created by Zhai Yuan for TVB only generated revenue in Hong Kong. Once other regions bought the rights for one or two rounds of broadcasting, they wouldn't consider buying them back.

“A TV series usually takes several months or even half a year to film, and is broadcast daily or weekly. When the production frequency and costs are accumulated, the budget can easily get out of control.”

Shi Nansheng hesitated for a moment, then reminded her, "ATV is still operating at a loss. TVB is the only TV station in Hong Kong that can make money."

Using TV series to cover human resource costs is not as effective as having these Taiwanese actors make money in film productions and earning a share of the profits, unless every series is profitable.

"Besides, once your drama series is produced and broadcast on television, you have to share the revenue with TVB, so you end up with even less."

Chen Shilong patted Zhai Yuan on the shoulder and said with a smile, "Look! I absolutely believe in your creative level, but how many episodes are in a TV series? Thirty or fifty? Are you going to create all of them? Save that time and make a few more 'Hiroshima Monster' blockbusters, and you'll be able to break into Hollywood in no time. That'll be enough for you to support this group of people!"

After Chen Shilong and Shi Nansheng finished speaking, everyone around them looked on with agreement and agreement. It was clear that no one present believed Zhai Yuan when this matter was brought up.

"It seems that everyone is pessimistic about TV series."

Zhai Yuan chuckled and shrugged, then spoke again: "But first I need to make it clear that my series won't be broadcast on television. You haven't forgotten that I also have VCDs and DVDs, have you?"

Home theaters based on VCDs and optical discs have now reached a considerable scale.

Since its market share in Japan gradually surpassed that of videotapes, its coverage in Taiwan and other parts of Southeast Asia has also grown rapidly. Shops offering CD rental services have sprung up everywhere, and Kuaibo's production base in Yuen Long is operating at full capacity.

With the issuance already underway, how could there be a surplus of manpower? We can absorb any more.

91 Entertainment once produced a film called "The World's Number One" as a trial run, which starred Stephen Chow.

The revenue from DVD purchases and rentals for "The World's Finest" has already surpassed the revenue share from its broadcast on TVB.
This gave Zhai Yuan another way out for television series.

"Secondly," Zhai Yuan said with a smile, looking around. "Who told you that a TV series has to have a six-month production cycle? The TV series I'm going to make next will shorten the production cycle as much as possible, reduce costs, and increase the content. Each series will have at least one hundred episodes, and we'll use VCD home theaters to pave the way for sales."

Everyone looked at each other,

Cutting costs while increasing content—if a series has a hundred episodes, will it even be watchable?

“I think we should be more cautious…” Shi Nansheng hesitated. “The fact that ‘The World’s Number One’ can make money from DVDs is also due to its excellent production. Although poorly made dramas are produced quickly, they can’t be sold even if they are made into DVDs.”

"It's rare for me to put my brain to work on my career, so Sister Nan, you have to have faith in me!"

Faced with repeated questions, Zhai Yuan decided to be straightforward: "Don't worry, if we can't accommodate these Taiwanese workers, I'll make up for whatever expenses they incur from the company's accounts with my own money. How about that?"

Shi Nansheng slapped his forehead, smiling helplessly, "That's not what I meant... Never mind, since you say so, boss, whatever!"

Anyway, my boss is rich and powerful, so I can only let him do what he wants.

However, Shi Nansheng still felt that Zhai Yuan's proposed "drama series plan" was very unreliable.

Zhai Yuan rarely offered further explanation.
There's no point in saying more. Let's just film something back in Hong Kong and see how it turns out in terms of revenue.

Does a poorly made TV series necessarily have no market?

of course not,

Two words,
Short drama,

Do you recognize it or not?

The setting is simple, with few characters, and the game relies entirely on dialogue to create a dense flow of exciting moments and information.

While a normal TV series is still laying the groundwork for a tragic and vengeful backstory...

My protagonist has already slapped the faces of the Ye family of Jiangcheng, the Xiao family of Longcheng, the Chu family of Haicheng, and the Lin family of Zhongzhou.

Starting with a single disc containing 100 episodes of boastful and face-slapping storylines, it's packed with content and designed to target the lower-tier market.

With the massive rental business of its distributors, Kuaibo had an inherent advantage in promotion and distribution, making up for the short drama's weakness of 'marketing first, quality second', leaving others no chance to follow suit.

At that time, we will select a few students from Chunqiu Performing Arts Academy to play the leading roles, and let veteran actors from Taiwan play supporting roles to support them. This will provide internship opportunities without paying them any fees.

Is he personally funding these Taiwanese celebrities? Does he really think Mr. Zhai is a philanthropist?
What Japanese strongholds, South Korean strongholds—

Based solely on the phrase "a large quantity of short dramas to satisfy your appetite," with a single disc packed with two or three hours of content, it's designed to prey on cheap, poor people. In just a few years, QvodPlayer will be able to distribute its discs to third-world countries, making its brand as ubiquitous as Jackie Chan's among Black people.

This is the future of the TV series market!

(End of this chapter)