Who are you calling "little fresh meat"? I'm the king.

Chapter 479 Guo Jingming (13)

The forum section is called "Youth Manufacturing"...

It's basically a group of young directors sharing their experiences and, incidentally, complaining about the film market.

It was the host and director He Ping who started it: "You all switched from other industries to become directors. Recently, someone also switched, and that was for 'Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains'."

The audience immediately understood his sarcasm and burst into laughter.

But at first, no one was willing to take the bait, after all, they were in the same industry!
Director He Ping called out, "What does Director Xu Zheng think?"

Xu Zheng previously starred in "Love Transfer", and the investor for that movie was Sun Jianjun!
Back then, when discussing the marketing and promotion of "Love Transfer," he made a lot of insightful points, such as, "Even including piracy, the total number of people who saw 'Love Transfer' might be less than 200 million, but if you search for it on Baidu, there are 680 million related web pages! This means the marketing and promotional effect of the film itself surpasses the effect of typical advertising!"

"Love Transfer" is one of his representative works in the early film industry.

Logically speaking, Sun Jianjun was his mentor, so Xu Zheng's expectation was quite tactful: "Since such a large investment has already been made and a Hollywood special effects team has been hired, what I don't understand the most is why they didn't hire a Hollywood screenwriter? With a good screenwriter, things wouldn't have turned out like this!"

Shen Yan couldn't help but interject: "Even if we hire a Hollywood screenwriter... are you sure this movie will work? Does a screenwriter's word really carry weight? If screenwriters had a say, I wouldn't need to work as a producer on the side!"

Xu Zheng: "The Chinese film and television industry does not value scripts!"

"No, they value the script so much that they have to personally handle everything. How could anyone do something as important as the script and put it in the hands of a screenwriter? It's a project that costs at least several million, and sometimes tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of dollars. Would you let a screenwriter make the decisions?"

After thinking for a moment, Shen Yan gave an example: "I heard Rao Xiaozhi tell me that he has a screenwriter friend who wrote a script of 300,000 words. He came up with the original title himself, but the client wasn't very satisfied and wanted him to come up with a few more for them to choose from. After racking his brains and going through about ten different names, he sent them over. His company also studied a few, and in the end, everyone chose the best one that was satisfactory to all parties. Then the big boss thought it wasn't good enough and asked him to revise it again. Can you guess why he had to revise it the last time?"

"What is it?"

"The big boss took the script to a fortune teller, who said the title was an ominous sign, carrying a malevolent aura, and that the multi-million dollar investment would lose money..."

He Ping smiled and nodded: "Wang Hailin also mentioned the script for 'The Legend of Chu and Han'..."

Director Gao Xixi first had someone write a draft, but the lead actor Chen Daoming was not satisfied, so he asked Wang Hailin to write another one.

However, Gao Xixi couldn't bear to part with the script she had previously bought, so she mixed the two scripts together.

His approach to filming scripts wasn't to use whichever script was best, but rather whichever script was the longest. Because a longer script meant a longer storyline, more episodes, and more episodes, which meant better box office revenue…

Several directors in the room cited anecdotes and stories from the screenwriting world…

Oh, nobody's paying attention to Guo Jingming!
The latter is a newcomer from outside the industry…

Shen Yan then talked about "Switch": "I think it's not a bad thing that a movie like 'Switch' has appeared... At this stage, the factors affecting box office are primarily release date and number of screenings. Given the release date, initial number of screenings, and national box office capacity of 'Switch,' a box office of over 5 million is the normal level."

In fact, this terrible film's daily box office has been declining since its release, currently totaling 2.5 million yuan. Whether it can even surpass 3 million yuan is uncertain; its poor reputation has had a significant impact on its box office performance.

"Moreover, the poor quality of 'Switch' directly led to the slump in box office revenue nationwide during this period. Yesterday was Monday, and more than 7 screenings were scheduled across the country, but the total box office revenue was only over 2000 million yuan, with an average of less than nine people per screening. This seems to be the worst single-day performance this year, except for New Year's Eve... This proves that the audience is not a fool, and no one will buy tickets for bad movies!"

Then, He Ping glanced at him and suddenly asked, "I heard your movie was pulled from theaters for a month because of 'Switch,' is that true?" Shen Yan...smiled wryly, then said, "Well, let's talk about that privately..."

……

Director He Ping, a member of the fifth generation of Chinese filmmakers, is best known for works such as *Swordsman of Double Flag Town* and *Warriors of Heaven and Earth*.

There's also "The Firecracker and the Lantern"!
Fifth generation directors share this characteristic: their directorial achievements were primarily established through their early works.

In later film studies, the works from this period have received the most artistic recognition.

Director He Ping is the same…

Later, she gained wider recognition mainly because of Wang Jiajia's role as Song Hongyu in "Bleach".

Director He Ping publicly dated her.

Even after a six-year hiatus, he wrote and directed another romance film, "Back to Every Day I'm Loved," and cast Wang Jiajia as the female lead!
As for his movies… well, the legendary Westerns!
The visual style of Western films, such as the drifting clouds in the western sky, the changing light and shadow on the sand dunes, the strong wind blowing through the camel grass, the surging Yellow River, the dust kicked up by herds of horses, the distant snow-capped mountains, and the vast expanse of loess in the foreground, has almost disappeared from the big screen today.

Moreover, the disappearance of older generations of filmmakers will be even more rapid.

What kind of impact will these works have?
do not know.

Will the contributions of veteran filmmakers inspire new creativity?
Or perhaps it simply proves the old saying: in this world, many people are forgotten once they leave!
……

Guo Jingming is very eager to show off!
He was showing off his erudition all the time on "Actors, Please Take Your Seats"...

He was eager to prove that he had the ability and knowledge, so he focused on theoretical critiques of the actors.

The same applies now: "In recent years, films by big-name directors have repeatedly failed at the box office. One reason is that the average age of the audience is now 21. The previous generation of directors used old ideas to make movies and failed to provide the kind of films that young people want to see..."

To put it another way: Today's audiences are mostly young people, so the old tricks of big-name directors don't work anymore.

"When I made 'Tiny Times,' many people questioned why I had to emphasize material things, but that's exactly what I want to discuss on a larger level."

"Because the movie audience is constantly being updated and is getting younger and younger. Material things may not be a problem for the parents of these viewers, because they wear the same clothes, eat the same food, and their problem is how to survive. But for today's young viewers, survival is no longer a problem, and they will feel anxious in a materialistic society."

"In 2009, the average age of moviegoers was 25.7 years old. By 2013, that number had dropped to 21.7 years old, which is the age of a college student. The movie-going audience has changed from the previous generation to the next. If directors still use the ideas of the previous generation to make movies, problems will arise."

He even tried to drag Shen Yan into it: "Shen Yan's movies are very youthful..."

Shen Yan shook his head: "Don't use me as an example. I only make genre films...the kind of films that Hitchcock left behind!"

(End of this chapter)