How can you become a star without money?

Chapter 142 Idealism is prone to falling into the trap of nihilism
They travel far away, earn more money, and don't go home.

The combination of these three words is likely to provoke resistance from ordinary people.

But for actors, it's quite common.

It's normal for a film or television production to take two or three months to shoot.

The only thing that puzzled Liu Tao and Qin Hailu was why they had to go abroad for filming for so long.

There is a general consensus within the industry that Chinese actors have virtually no market opportunities abroad.

Besides the high salaries, the main reason is also the mediocre professionalism. Even among first- and second-tier artists from the same country, their professional level is not the only difference; their attitudes alone are vastly different. This is also due to the distorted domestic market, where too many opportunities have spoiled them and fostered bad habits.

In terms of treatment and status, Chinese artists are definitely among the highest.

Just like Liu Tao's vow to permanently retire from the entertainment industry before his marriage, but then he made a comeback to pay off his debts, the audience can accept and even understand it.

The Chinese film and television industry differs greatly from that of other regions. Domestically, fame is valued more than skills. Casting prioritizes reputation and public appeal over professional attitude. As a result, most lead actors in film and television dramas have mediocre acting skills, and supporting actors are not allowed to stand out. They must complement the lead actors' performances.

In foreign countries, skill is valued more than fame. As long as the role is suitable, even a novice can have the opportunity to get a leading role. This is especially true in Korea and Japan, where internal competition is encouraged. Supporting roles and leading roles are mutually competitive in terms of acting skills. If a supporting actor's acting is outstanding, he is likely to become a star in the next film.

To some extent, foreign countries used the imperial examination system, while China used the recommendation system.

Therefore, the Chinese film and television industry is very volatile, with both quality and actors changing every 5 to 10 years.

When Wang Yao said he would be filming abroad year-round and that the pay was high, Liu Tao couldn't help but wonder if he was trying to trick her into becoming a prostitute.
"Mr. Wang's business has already expanded to include foreign films and television?" Qin Hailu adjusted her expression and asked with a smile.

“The domestic market is too competitive, so I wanted to check out the Korean and Japanese markets. I have two series of IPs, each with about 100 episodes, mainly workplace dramas and professional dramas,” Wang Yao said with a smile.

"Professional dramas? That's a very niche genre in China." Qin Hailu said with some surprise.

Professional dramas are a mainstream genre abroad, especially in the West, featuring doctors, lawyers, athletes, and so on. However, in China, due to various reasons, they only began to emerge after 2016.

Uncle dramas had a period of popularity in the early days, but then the trend faded away.

In the current environment, besides the pressure of censorship, the audience is also small. The only one that is even remotely related to professional dramas is probably the "Country Love" series.

“Yes, that’s why we have to film abroad and then use the overseas viewership to boost the domestic market, just like how early Korean dramas boosted the romance genre.” Wang Yao smiled.

In the early years, domestic TV dramas only produced period dramas and family dramas set in rural areas. Later, the introduction of Korean dramas boosted the market for romance dramas, which has exploded in recent years. Seven out of ten dramas are romance-themed, and investors generally won't invest in a script if it doesn't have a significant amount of romance.

Later, it even developed into the bizarre phenomenon that no matter what the subject matter was, they wouldn't vote if it wasn't about being in a relationship—it was all about sex.

Because compared to other genres, romance dramas are more likely to make viewers lose their minds.

On the contrary, professional dramas/urban dramas are more difficult to create and script because the plot and characters involve too many realistic elements. Viewers can easily become rational and critical after getting into the story.

It's the kind of show that's hard work but doesn't pay off, but if it's really well-made, it can create a positive word-of-mouth IP effect, leading to long sequels or sequels.

Before retiring from the entertainment industry, Liu Tao was considered a near-top-tier actress. Although she didn't have many leading roles, she always had good resources and played many memorable supporting characters, such as A'Zhu, so she was able to stay on the verge of becoming a near-top-tier actress.

Her comeback coincided with the rise of the Chinese entertainment market, and now her salary can reach 10 yuan, second only to top stars like Sun Li and Yao Chen.

However, people in the industry generally view her as someone who can't be the main character, but rather a supporting actress. So, although her pay is not low, the work she can get is not very stable. The reason she was willing to film the web series invested by Zhang Chaoyang is because only web series dare to let her be the lead actress.

Liu Tao's real breakthrough role will come next year when she films "The Virtuous Wife." After that, she will combine her character image with hype and positioning herself as a virtuous wife and loving mother. This will not only win the approval of female viewers but also the admiration of male audiences. After all, what man wouldn't want a wife who is beautiful and willing to weather the storms and help her husband pay off his debts?
"Mazu" was her accidental masterpiece, a work that would provide her with enough to live off for a lifetime.

It can only be said that Liu Tao was lucky to have caught the boom of the "simp economy." If she had caught the era of female empowerment, her image would have collapsed.

Liu Tao was planning to film a 60-70 episode TV series this year to earn some money to pay off the interest, so when he heard that Wang Yao had a project with about 100 episodes, he was immediately interested.

"Mr. Wang, I'm also quite interested in professional dramas. I have a law degree, although I didn't study it well, but I still admire the profession of lawyer. I wonder what kind of professional dramas you watch?" Liu Tao asked, starting a conversation.

"It's tentatively set as a medical drama," Wang Yao said with a smile.

"A medical drama? Doctors are a respectable profession, and Xiao Tao's temperament is perfect for this kind of role," Qin Hailu chimed in.

"I only brought this up because I saw that Ms. Liu was a good fit. My series is a cross-border collaboration. In the early stages, it uses private hospitals in Japan and Korea as a starting point to create a stark contrast with the affordable medical costs in China. This three-way collaboration will allow viewers to learn more about the medical systems and workplace spirit of other countries," Wang Yao explained.

This inspiration came from the phenomenal Japanese medical drama "Doctor-X" and the American drama "The Good Doctor." The latter two are typical examples of wish-fulfillment stories. Zhou Cong recently signed a contract for a novel called "Genius Doctor," and Wang Yao plans to adapt this theme to perfectly suit the Korean and Japanese markets.
Three independent female doctors with distinct personalities, their stories intertwined in a top-tier, exhilarating narrative. The female protagonists from Japan and Korea are both surgeons, while the Chinese female protagonist belongs to the traditional Chinese medicine system.

As for the Chinese version, we'll have to wait until it's released in Kaohsiung and Taiwan before deciding whether to localize it or directly incorporate the concept of traditional Chinese medicine. This subject matter has very high potential value.

The Chinese version definitely won't be filmed this year. The current announcement is just to lure Liu Tao. If she's willing to sign with Xinghuo, then they can film "Ode to Joy" first.

"A Three Kingdoms crossover theme? That's really novel." Liu Tao's beautiful eyes sparkled with a strange light.

With over a hundred episodes of stable filming, there's no need to constantly figure out character traits or break character immersion, which is very comfortable.

"If Miss Liu is interested, I'll send you a copy when the script is finished," Wang Yao said with a smile.

"Okay, then thank you, Mr. Wang, for giving me this opportunity." Liu Tao raised a full glass of red wine and downed it in one gulp.

He has a really good alcohol tolerance.

"I'll keep Sister Tao company." Zhang Xinyu picked up her glass, secretly planning to make her presence known.

"Professional dramas require a huge investment. 100 episodes would probably cost tens of millions of yuan. Will it be able to break even?" Ren Quan exclaimed in surprise.

"We're in contact with some health food companies," Wang Yao said with a smile.

"How's that 'Temptation' from last time coming along?" Ren Quan asked.

"Filming has already started, don't worry, we won't let your sponsorship go to waste," Wang Yao said with a smile.

"Besides watching movies online, Mr. Wang, you have so many other film and television projects to invest in?" Qin Hailu asked with a smile.

"Yes, we've invested in movies, TV series, and variety shows this year, and three projects are already underway," Wang Yao said with a smile.

"Mr. Wang, you are truly a promising young man. I wish you great success in your show. If you have a suitable opportunity, please contact us sisters. Although I am not as famous as Fan Bingbing and the others, my acting skills are still quite good," Qin Hailu said, raising her glass.

After all, she is the youngest Best Actress winner, and she follows the path of being a powerful actress, so she speaks with confidence wherever she goes.

“Okay, but I mainly invest in commercial films that are primarily aimed at making money,” Wang Yao added.

"A good script transcends commercial and artistic boundaries," Qin Hailu replied with high emotional intelligence. Everyone chuckled knowingly at her words.

"What are you chatting about, you seem to be having a great time?" Zhang Chaoyang asked as he returned to the private room.

"It's nothing. We just need to discuss whether the script is commercial or artistic." Qin Hailu said with a smile.

"You liberal arts students are so pretentious. What art and commerce? Only things with value matter, only things that can advance human civilization matter." Zhang Chaoyang shook his head, took a sip of his drink, and looked at Wang Yao. "I just interrogated Gong Yu, and I heard that President Wang got him a... 'Guiding the Way'?"

"You two should be potential rivals, right? How come President Gong leaked the information?" Wang Yao joked.

“What opponents? They’re all brothers. Gong Yu has been with me for five or six years. Although he’s gone out on his own now, not a single one of those who left me doesn’t consider me their elder brother.” Zhang Chaoyang said with a hint of pride.

"Mr. Zhang is one of the few capitalists who still has humanity," Ren Quan joked.

“I am an entrepreneur,” Zhang Chaoyang said seriously, and then began to introduce other business projects for this year. He immediately regarded Wang Yao as a potential business partner upon their first meeting.

Wang Yao glanced at Zhang Chaoyang's mental state. He should have already emerged from the nihilism of the first round of depression, but then went to the other extreme. After returning to the company in 09, he changed his previous laziness and increased the weekly working hours to 60 hours.

This is also the origin of the joke about him falling asleep in meetings that he was later ridiculed for. He said that four hours of sleep a day is enough and that the rest of the time should be spent working, but in reality, he couldn't keep up.

Moreover, in order to combat nihilistic depression, he arranged his schedule according to Emperor Qianlong's schedule. No matter how late he went to bed, he had to get up at four o'clock in the morning and go for a run, which almost caused him to die suddenly.

However, Zhang Chaoyang is indeed a pure person who loves life and female models. He organizes female celebrities to train in the wild and prepares a mountain climbing group for models. He doesn't hide his desires and is quite different from most of the wealthy people in China.

Moreover, it must be admitted that he is indeed quite capable. Before retiring in 08, he created the terrifying cash cow game "Tian Long Ba Bu" and last year he directly spun off the game company and listed it on the stock exchange, raising billions of dollars.

This year, Zhang Chaoyang launched "Da Hua Shui Hu," a competitor to "Fantasy Westward Journey," in the gaming industry. Although the PC game version did not achieve much success, in the web game field, Zhang Chaoyang was ahead by one version, continuously providing financial support to the parent company.

Moreover, Sohu's strategy this year is to focus on video, search, games, and Web 2.0, and it is preparing to work closely with companies such as Tencent, Duowan, Shanda, and Baidu.

To this end, Sogou was spun off and brought into Alibaba to focus on competing with Baidu.

This person has excellent strategic vision and foresight, and his execution ability is also good. His only flaw is that he likes to micromanage. Every time a project is about to make progress, he wants to personally get involved and tinker with it.

Sohu Video is the same this time. Last year, taking advantage of the general direction of the "Cultural Industry Revitalization Plan", it launched an anti-piracy alliance, which was ridiculed by the industry. After the failure, it learned its lesson and began to observe and temporarily gave up heavily investing in the copyright field, and turned to start thinking about 'self-produced' web dramas.

From Youku's "Hip Hop" to this year's "Miss Puff," Zhang Chaoyang has seen another copyright model for video websites. Instead of spending hundreds of millions to buy copyrights, it's better to spend more to incubate copyrights themselves. This way, they can also indirectly compete for star ownership and artist incubation rights.

Previously, celebrities could only rise to stardom by pleasing television stations. Now, with online platforms, artists have more opportunities to showcase themselves, which increases their commercial value. When you add the two together, the costs are actually about the same.

Wang Yao thought Zhang Chaoyang's idea was good, but he was a little unsure of his own capabilities. He thought that anti-piracy was aimed at suppressing video platforms like Baidu, Youdou, KuaiP, and others, and forcing the industry to enter into fair competition.

But in reality, his real opponent is the TV station. After video platforms became legitimate, the impact of online broadcasting rights on TV rights was absolute. How could they possibly let this situation continue?

Now they're competing with TV stations for celebrity resources and pricing power.

What's the difference between this and wanting to pay wages with QQ coins?
The internet is indeed a rising star, but you can't just come in and take away their livelihood.

No wonder you're depressed; idealism easily leads to the trap of nihilism.

“President Zhang’s strategy is outstanding. It just so happens that Youku will be heavily investing in the development of online platforms this year, so perhaps we can directly leverage that,” Wang Yao agreed with a smile.

Zhang Chaoyang's face lit up with joy upon hearing this, thinking that Wang Yao was a knowledgeable person. "That's right. With them paving the way for me, I can accumulate strength and unleash my potential later. Over the years, Sohu Entertainment has produced quite a few talent shows and online streaming formats. You should have heard of 'The Greenhouse Show,' right? Each episode gets hundreds of thousands of views."
Sogou Girls' Voice has also signed several promising newcomers, one of whom, Yu Shasha, is practically a female version of Daewoo. We even created a boy group called So6 Golden Group, inspired by Korea, and a young man named Jia Nailiang from the group is doing quite well. In fact, theoretically speaking, Sogou now possesses integrated star-making capabilities.

Zhang Chaoyang shared with Wang Yao the achievements of Sohu Entertainment in recent years as if reciting a familiar story.

It must be said that they have indeed cultivated a lot of future talents.

"It seems Mr. Zhang has been planning his move into the entertainment industry for quite some time," Wang Yao complimented.

"So this collaboration with Meishe, featuring Liu Tao in the self-produced web series 'Qian Duoduo,' is an important attempt. We're not aiming too high; if the web series can achieve viewership ratings similar to second-tier satellite TV channels, then Sohu can finally escape the pressure of copyright costs and achieve an integrated internal cycle of star-making and audience acquisition." Zhang Chaoyang laughed heartily.

Furthermore, Sohu Weibo went public last week. I know Mr. Wang is a master of packaging and marketing; how about we collaborate? I also have shares in Meishe, so we're practically family.

Wang Yao nodded upon hearing this. "It would certainly be an honor to cooperate with President Zhang, but I just agreed to cooperate with President Gong, so I'm afraid it wouldn't be good to go back on my word."

“What I admire most is a person with integrity, but let’s be frank, can Baidu, a company that started by piracy, really guarantee your rights to legitimate products? To be honest, I don’t believe it.” Zhang Chaoyang suppressed his smile and shook his head.

The long-standing grudge between Zhang Chaoyang and Li Yanhong is no secret.

Both companies started in the search engine business, but Baidu eventually surpassed it. Although Sohu is still considerable in terms of size, it has been overtaken by Baidu in terms of influence. Zhang Chaoyang is a very arrogant person, and he has always looked down on Baidu's development path and model.

“But Baidu’s ability to attract advertisers is indeed undeniable. However, in terms of video platform development, I think Netflix’s membership payment model is something that domestic platforms should learn from. It seems that President Gong has this idea.” Wang Yao smiled.

"Qiandu's recruitment tactics are all scams. You'll see once you've partnered with them. As for paid memberships, they're doomed to fail. They don't even have any awareness of copyright; how can they expect people to pay? And without addressing the root cause of piracy, all of this is just wishful thinking." Zhang Chaoyang shook his head, looking somewhat disappointed.
"Right now, I don't have any other thoughts on it but to streamline my company's operations. Sohu has both money and manpower, so all I need is a navigator to guide me. My think tank has specifically studied the operating methods of Kanpianer.com, and found them quite unique."

I originally planned to invite you to meet as a shareholder after Meishe went public, but I didn't expect to run into you here today. It's truly fate. I wonder if Mr. Wang would be interested in becoming a vice president at Souhu?

Sohu is known as the "Whampoa Military Academy" of the internet industry because those who served as vice presidents under Zhang Chaoyang eventually became big shots in their respective fields, including Youku, Renren.com, Kongzhong, and now Qiyiguo.

There are countless directors at the executive level, spread across the top management of major internet companies in China.

It was precisely because he had cultivated so many powerful figures, only to end up leaving Souhu half-dead, that Zhang Chaoyang became somewhat depressed. After all, seeing his former underlings doing better than him made it difficult for someone as petty as him to accept the disparity.

Therefore, over the years, Sohu has not hired many external executives; it has mostly incubated its own talent internally.

His extending an olive branch to Wang Yao was indeed somewhat unexpected.

“Mr. Zhang, that’s not fair. You’re poaching my boss right in front of me,” Ren Quan said, trying to smooth things over.

He knew Wang Yao would definitely not agree to Zhang Chaoyang's request.

"It's not about poaching, it's about deep collaboration. In the second half of the year, I will spin off the company's entertainment division into a new company, bringing in investment from companies like Alibaba, and reintegrating industries such as social media, gaming, search, and film and television brokerage. The goal is to explore a business model that combines traffic and content."
The TV series "Qian Duoduo" essentially used money from Lancôme and Hyundai for product placement. I'm not very good at this kind of thing, so I hope a professional like Mr. Wang can be my mentor.
"As for your movie website, it'll just take time to develop by accumulating resources. It won't require too much effort. I can always invest more when we need funding." Zhang Chaoyang said with a nonchalant smile, but his gaze towards Wang Yao became more serious.

Wang Yao felt that Gong Yu probably wouldn't proactively tell Zhang Chaoyang about the 'content + e-commerce monetization' model.

However, Zhang Chaoyang's "content + commerce" model, along with the introduction of Alibaba as an investor, demonstrates that he has seen multiple channels for monetizing content traffic.

That's strategic vision.

But with that kind of vision, how did the company end up almost being delisted?

Everyone says Baidu is one step ahead of the times, so wouldn't Sohu be two steps ahead?
(End of this chapter)