The Rise of Chinese Entertainment in 2008

"Thank you, Teacher Xu... Okay..."

Gu Ning received a call from Xu Bing, who asked him to take the materials to Director Tian of the Directing Department. Gu Ning thanked him repeatedly with great joy.

After hanging up the phone, Gu Ning looked at Liu Sanxi beside her and said, "It's done. Teacher Liu asked me to take the materials to Director Tian."

"Then what are we waiting for? Hurry up and send it over. I'll have someone reserve a table at the Beijing Hotel, and we'll go celebrate tonight," Liu Sanxi said.

"OK!"

Gu Ning prepared the necessary materials and left the dormitory.

Arriving at Director Tian's office, I knocked on the door and, after receiving permission, pushed it open and entered.

"Hello, Director Tian."

Gu Ning greeted them and introduced herself, "I'm Gu Ning, a photography student. Professor Xu asked me to bring over some materials."

Tian Zhuangzhuang was in his early fifties, his face was full of vicissitudes, and he had a serious and unsmiling appearance, making him look somewhat like a villain.

"Sit down!" Tian Zhuangzhuang pointed to the chair in front of the table.

"Thank you, Director Tian." Gu Ning said thank you and sat down.

"I read your short story; the concept is very ingenious."

"Thank you for the compliment, Director Tian."

"I heard you're graduating next year. Do you plan to take the postgraduate entrance exam?" Tian Zhuangzhuang asked.

Gu Ning was taken aback upon hearing this and said, "I don't have any plans in that regard for the time being."

Tian Zhuangzhuang said, "If you want to be a director, I suggest you take the entrance exam for a directing master's program. This will be of great help to you in the future."

"Thank you, Director Tian. I will consider it carefully." Gu Ning nodded.

However, he had no intention of pursuing a master's degree in directing.

Tian Zhuangzhuang is not only the head of the directing department, but also supervises graduate students.

Moreover, this person has a very wide network of connections in the film and television industry; you can get in touch with him by taking the postgraduate entrance exam.

While the reputation of Beijing Film Academy is useful, out of the many students who graduate each year, how many actually receive access to its resources?

From this perspective, it seems that taking the postgraduate entrance exam and becoming a student of Tian Zhuangzhuang is still very beneficial.

But Gu Ning didn't see it that way. She really became Tian Zhuangzhuang's student, and their relationship became too deeply intertwined.

These older generation directors, to put it nicely, are artists; to put it bluntly, they are inflexible and out of touch with tradition.

I don't plan to make any art films. Maybe later, when my directing skills improve and I make money, I'll pursue so-called fame.

But Gu Ning doesn't have that idea now.

If the bond is too deep, it will eventually become a hindrance.

Having the Beijing Film Academy background is enough for him to establish himself in the industry.

As long as he can make a name for himself, he will naturally become an outstanding alumnus, and Beijing Film Academy will help him.

This is similar to successful entrepreneurs; even if their grades in school were average, once they achieve something, the school will declare them outstanding alumni.

Schools don't look at the quality of the students they admit; they look at the students' future achievements.

After all, this is what truly represents the school's teaching level.

"Um."

Tian Zhuangzhuang nodded and asked, "Does your short film have a public screening permit?"

"Does a short film need a public screening permit?" Gu Ning was taken aback upon hearing this.

In his previous life, he had never won any domestic awards, let alone understood the procedures of foreign film festivals.

All he knew was that sending films abroad to participate in film festivals required registration.

I didn't expect that a public screening permit would be required.

A short film that isn't going to be shown in theaters, why would it need a public screening permit?

Tian Zhuangzhuang frowned and said, "If you're participating in a domestic film festival, you naturally don't need it, but if you're participating in an international one, you do need it, and the processing time is quite long. Under normal circumstances, you won't be able to make it to the Berlin Film Festival this year."

Gu Ning was completely disheartened after hearing what was said earlier, and cursed herself for not finding out the process beforehand.

However, he also knew that even if he had known from the beginning, there still wouldn't have been enough time.

When he heard the next sentence, his hope was restored.

If you can't catch up under normal circumstances, then there must be abnormal circumstances.

This is the same principle as not allowing it in principle.

No wonder he's a leader; he knows how to speak in official jargon.

"Director Tian, ​​isn't there any other way?"

Gu Ning didn't know what this principle was, so she could only try to find out.

"I'll handle this. It's such a good film; it would be a shame if it couldn't participate in the film festival," Tian Zhuangzhuang said.

It's just a short film; if you want to speed things up, you can finish it all in a day.

"I'm so sorry to trouble you like this. I'll treat you to a simple meal tonight..."

"Alright."

Tian Zhuangzhuang waved his hand and said, "You're a student at Beijing Film Academy, you don't need to do this. Think carefully about whether you want to take the postgraduate entrance exam, there's not much time left."

"Thank you, Director Tian. I will definitely prepare well when I get back."

…………

"If I don't take the exam, will Lao Tian hold a grudge against me?"

As Gu Ning left the office, she couldn't help but mutter to herself.

I doubt it, because if that were to happen, it wouldn't sound good if word got out.

Although the older generation can be stubborn at times, most of them still care about their reputation.

Back in the dormitory, Liu Sanxi had disappeared.

There are four people in their dormitory. One of them is a local from Beijing and lives not far from the school. He usually lives at home and rarely comes to the dormitory.

I spent the other summer doing an internship, and I haven't come back since the start of the new semester.

For those of them who work behind the scenes, it's actually quite easy to intern on set.

Whether the skills are up to par or not is not important; film crews always need some odd jobs.

Gu Ning also interned on a film set during her junior year of college. The pay wasn't much and meals weren't provided. In any case, she spent most of her time carrying the camera throughout the entire production.

Sometimes, it's only in less important shots that you get the chance to direct the camera.

Liu Sanxi has a house outside and doesn't come here often.

The dormitory became a single room.

Gu Ning turned on her computer and opened an encrypted folder.

The folder contained his recollections of movies that later became box office hits.

He wrote down everything he could remember about these movies.

For example, the source of the script, the director who filmed it, and the roles used.

Looking at the dense list of movie titles, Gu Ning pondered which film he should make for his first theatrical release.

As Gu Ning flipped through the pages, her gaze fell upon the title "Lost in Thailand".

"No matter what we're filming, we need to get the script done first," Gu Ning murmured.

He was very impressed with this movie.

The movie was released during the Lunar New Year season in 10, and he remembers that the cost was only seven million.

Gu Ning's first film in her previous life was a road comedy.

Because comedies don't cost much and are relatively easy to make a good film.

Therefore, he watched a lot of road trip comedies, and "Lost in Thailand" was naturally one of them. Not counting the movie theater screenings, he watched it online at least five times.

He clearly remembers that the filming of this movie began in December 2009 and took only thirty-odd days.

At this point, the script certainly hadn't been written yet.

It's unrealistic for Gu Ning to recreate the script. Even if he read it a hundred times, after so many years, he can only remember the general plot.

I can't remember any of the lines anymore.

However, Gu Ning remembered that the screenwriter of this script was Tian Yusheng, who was also the director of "Ex-Files".

"Lost in Thailand" is a film series, so naturally we can't miss it.

Gu Ning plans to write out the general outline of the script and then ask Tian Yusheng to refine it.

Even if he doesn't film it for the time being, and someone contacts Tien Yu-sheng to write a script later, he won't be able to produce the script.

……