Huayu: A Commercial Director

Chapter 319 The Blood Mine of the Movie, Self
After signing two contracts, Wu Jing happily left Shou Zhe Film Studio. One was an actor contract for a role in The Wandering Earth 2, and the other was a confidentiality agreement. He took away Chen Shou Zhe's martial arts script, and if the script was leaked, they could only hold Wu Jing responsible.

After seeing Wu Jing and her husband off, Chen Shou continued revising the script.

Shen Yijie's script, well, it's a realistic subject matter, and it seems to be related to his parents' generation. He and Chen Shouzhe both come from the Northwest, and the Northwest was very poor back then, especially in their parents' generation.

Chen was doing well at home, as many of his family members were educated; his parents and even his grandparents were scholars.

Shen Yijie's family was different. They were very poor, but later a coal mine was discovered in the village, and many people in the village became wealthy.

Unfortunately, Shen Yijie's family was not wealthy; his grandfather became a miner and eventually died in the mine.

Afterwards, the family lost 10,000 yuan. Grandma didn't want to get entangled with those people anymore, so she took her father and others and fled their original home.

He had heard about this from his father since he was a child, so he wanted to make a movie out of it.

Its name is Dark Ore.

The film is very imaginative, and the story is very realistic, but it's too short. Art comes from life but transcends it.

Chen Shouzhe has been working in this industry for many years and he understands scripts very well, as well as how to create a realistic film.

A film needs conflict and a story; it can't be like Director Jia's film, where several stories are strung together to form a movie.

It looks exciting, but it's not realistic at all. In fact, the story has been artistically embellished, which is why it was taken down after it received a release permit.

To get this script over, it needs a good ending. It can't be like Ning Hao's movie "Villain Zone," where everyone is a villain and ends up being evil to the extreme.

Because the film so prominently featured the darkness of human nature, it was ultimately necessary to remake it and change the ending.

Many people say Ning Hao should win the Golden Bear, but he would risk being banned from directing, just like Jiang Wen.

Chen Shouzhe modified some of the structure of the script. For example, his grandfather was initially recruited to work in the mine, but he changed it to a darker deception, where a group of people were tricked into working in the illegal mine, with promises of money for how long they worked.

In the end, to prevent them from receiving money, the entire mine was buried, and everyone died in despair in the dark mine.

After learning the news, her grandmother did not choose to leave but instead filed a lawsuit. However, she encountered a case of collusion between officials and businessmen, who deceived her and even undermined her by having other families sign compensation agreements. In the end, Shen Yijie's grandmother did not accept the compensation agreement but chose to fight to the end. After experiencing various difficulties and with the help of conscientious people from all walks of life, she finally won the case, sending those people to prison. Those who deserved to be executed were executed, and those who deserved to be sentenced were sentenced. The movie was also renamed "Blood Mine" by him.

There was no other way; in order to pass censorship, Chen Shou had to make some changes. As for how the film turned out, he would leave it to the market. Anyway, his name would be on the script, and Shen Yijie was still his cinematographer.

After revising the script for a day, I called Shen Yijie over and asked him to look at it.

"I could only make these changes. After all, it's for the sake of passing the censorship. If the result wasn't like this, it probably wouldn't even pass the censorship process, let alone be filmed. Just look at Ning Hao's movies; they've been locked up for so many years." Chen Shou explained, afraid that Shen Yijie wouldn't be able to accept it.

After all, everyone is very proud of their own work. Just like a great poet, he is a very proud person who will never allow others to criticize him, even if you are doing it for his own good. He will never want to be criticized by you.

Even if his movies are terrible, you can only praise them, and you can't say anything bad about them.

Chen Shouzhe knew that Shen Yijie was the same kind of person. If he was unwilling to accept it, Chen Shouzhe would still invest in him and let him make the movie. At most, he would lose some money, just for the sake of their friendship. He could even bring in other investors to share the risk. However, Chen Shouzhe could not modify the script, otherwise his name would not be on it. Whether he could get other investors was unknown.

Shen Yijie watched intently. Deep down, he was quite arrogant and didn't want the script to be modified. His version seemed more realistic, but from a cinematic perspective and for certain legitimate reasons, Chen Shou was far more experienced. After all, he'd been outmaneuvering the censors for years and understood their temperaments. His script would definitely be rejected. The problem was, if it was rejected, that would be fine—he could simply cancel filming. But if it wasn't rejected, but instead, after the film was approved and filming was completed, it was blocked by the censors, that would be far worse.

The film will lose all its money unless it can sell for a certain price overseas; it will absolutely not make a single penny domestically.

"Director Chen, let me think about it," Shen Yijie said.

"Well, think about it yourself. No matter which version you choose, I'll support you," Chen Shou said.

"Thank you." Shen Yijie nodded. He knew that Chen Shouzhe's support was not just empty words, but real money. However, he didn't want Chen Shouzhe to lose money. What was the point of making the movie if it couldn't be released? Was it just a money-grabbing scheme?

He needs to go back and think about whether or not to accept the adapted script.

After leaving the company, Shen Yijie invited several close friends to dinner.

Most of them are students from the photography department of Beijing Film Academy. Among them, Shen Yijie is the most successful and is Chen Shouzhe's personal photographer. The others are the worst off and are still shooting commercials.

None of them missed Shen Yijie's invitation; after all, they had all entered the workforce and knew what was most important.

"Ah Jie, what brings you here for drinks today? Haven't you joined the film crew yet?"

"Not yet, I'll only join the crew in June. I just wanted to get together with everyone today," Shen Yijie said with a smile.

"You're doing really well, doing really well at Shouzhe Film Studio. You're already Chen Shouzhe's go-to cinematographer. You were on both Journey to the West and Operation Red Sea, right?"

"Maybe not," Shen Yijie said, taking a sip of his drink.

"Uh~~"

The other three were taken aback and all looked at Shen Yijie.

“Ah Jie, don’t do anything foolish. Shouzhe Film Industry is one of the best companies in the industry now. The salary you’re getting is definitely the highest in the industry. Once you leave Shouzhe Film Industry, look at Tao Le from the management department, he’s doing worse and worse.” Shen Yijie’s best friend said.

“I know that’s not what I meant. You’re overthinking it. I’m not leaving Shouzai Film Studio. I just have other plans,” Shen Yijie said.

"That's good. What are your plans?"

“I want to be a director, just like director Zhang Yimou, starting as a cinematographer. Many actors are becoming directors now, such as Wu Jing, Huang Bo, Deng Chao, Xu Zheng, and Wang Baobao. They have all succeeded, and I want to give it a try too,” Shen Yijie said.

"That's a good thing! What's wrong? Doesn't Director Chen agree?"

"No, Director Chen is a very nice person. He is very supportive of me and even helped me revise the script."

"That's great news! Everyone in the world knows Director Chen's scriptwriting ability." The three friends said with envy. Those were scripts that Director Chen had kept; they had never failed.

"But... I don't like the version adapted by Director Chen. Can you help me decide which version is better?"

(End of this chapter)